Hitting the Books: How Pokemon took over the world

engadget.com:

The impact of Japanese RPGs on pop and gaming culture cannot be overstated. From Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star to Chrono Trigger, NieR, and Fire Emblem — JRPGs have spanned console generations, bridged the Japanese and North American markets, spawned entire universes of IP and delivered critical commercial hits for nearly four decades. Modern gaming simply wouldn't exist as it does today if not for the influence of JRPGs. 

In his newest book, Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs, Aidan Moher takes a wondrous in-depth look at the history of Japanese role playing games, their initial rise in the East, the long road to acceptance in the West and ultimate cultural impact the world over. In the excerpt below, Moher explores how Pokemon grew from Gameboy screens to become a multi-billion dollar entertainment juggernaut.

Excerpted from Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs by Aidan Moher. Published by Running Press. Copyright © 2022 by Aidan Moher. All rights reserved.

Though it takes many cues from Japanese games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact was developed and published by Chinese developer/ publisher miHoYo. Thanks to gorgeous visuals, free-to-play accessibility, multi-platform release, and easy-to-pick-up-impossible-to-put-down gacha-based gameplay, it took the gaming world by storm after its 2020 release.

Game Boy not only provided greater access to video games thanks to its low price, but it subsequently changed the way we play games. About the size of a mass-market paperback novel, and just barely pocketable, the Game Boy leaned heavily on Nintendo franchises, including Mario and