handheld video game: Nintendo DS Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

"Gotta catch ����_�em all!" First issued by Nintendo in 1996, this challenge sparked a Pok�댩mon craze that led to a successful television series, trading card game, and full-length movie. Since its initial release, Pok�댩mon has become the second best selling video game franchise worldwide, and the best selling role-playing video game (RPG) of all time.

Nintendo released the first Pok�댩mon games for the Game Boy in Japan as "Pocket Monsters: Red & Green." After proving successful, the games came to North America in 1998 as "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Pok�댩mon Blue." The games provide a simple premise: A single player travels and catches Pok�댩mon while fighting other trainers and their teams of monsters. The player����_��s ultimate goal involves winning Pok�댩mon battles against eight Gym Leaders and entering the Pok�댩mon League to battle the Elite Four, while simultaneously completing one����_��s Pok�댩dex, which contains a record of all known Pok�댩mon. Although it is a single-player game, players have the opportunity to trade or battle Pok�댩mon with other Game Boys via a Game Link Cable.

Even though Peter Bartholow, a Gamespot critic, described the graphics and audio of the original Pok�댩mon games as "somewhat primitive," other critics praised the games for their innovativeness, as well their promotion of imagination and creativity among the children playing them. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pok�댩mon, modeled the monsters after the insects that he collected as a child. He did this to provide a new generation of children with the opportunity to collect insects and creatures while stimulating their sense of exploration and ingenuity.

After "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Blue" proved successful in the United States, Nintendo continued to release new and updated versions of the game. Most of these were RPGs similar to the original games, but Nintendo also released several spin-offs. The company released two such spin-offs in 2006: "Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team" for the GameBoy Advance, and "Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team" for the Nintendo DS. These games revolved around a human transformed into a Pok�댩mon. Players must battle and complete tasks in different dungeons, or levels, in order to gain points to win the game. Reviewers criticized the game for its graphics, but also claimed that it was highly addictive. Nintendo released the sequels "Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time" in 2007 and "Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness" in 2008.

These two sequels possess similar plots, and both retain many of the same elements of the original games. The two new games include Pok�댩mon from Generation IV, as well as more touch screen options and improved WiFi. The two games sold a combined 4.12 million copies and received mostly positive reviews. In 2009, Nintendo released an enhanced version of the games, entitled "Pok�댩mon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky." This game expanded on the plot of "Darkness" and "Sky," and changed the types of Pok�댩mon that were available. Like its predecessors, reviewers praised some aspects of the game while criticizing others. For example, Josh Laddin, a reviewer for Game Revolution, enjoyed the story, but found the graphics outdated and the game play repetitive.

In 1999, Pok�댩mon appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in a story titled "Beware of the Pok�댩mania." The so-called "Pok�댩mania" was sweeping the nation via trading cards, a television series, toys, websites, and the original Game Boy games. By 1998, "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Pok�댩mon Blue" sold a combined 9.85 million copies in the United States and spawned many sequels. It is evident that even decades later, the "Pok�댩mon flu" that struck America����_��s children with the release of the first games has still not subsided.