During the Pokémon craze of the '90s, there was P🎃okémon everything. Clothing, plush toys, toothbrushes, you name it. There was literally everything. It went even beyond the obvious tie-in merchandise. Pokémon fans will remember those golden cards sold at Burger King. If there was a chance to 🍃put Pokémon in something, the powers that be would make it happen.
Video games were no exception. Aside from the main series Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, there were a good amount of side games. Pokémon Stadium gave trainers a new series of challenges to fight with fully 3D Pokémon models. Pokémon Puzzle League put a Pokémon spin on competitive Tetris by including characters from the Pokémon anime. And of course, there was Pokémon Snap.
In what seemed like a risky idea for a game, Pokémon Snap featured the Pokémon, but not the battles. Instead of being trainers, players became photographers tasked with taking pictures of Pokémon for Professor Oak. They couldn't even capture the Pokémon, which had become a series standard, only capture photos of them in their natural environments. But despite containing almost none of the core ideas of Pokémon, Snap was still a massive s🎀uccess and a be𓃲loved memory for fans.
What fans may not remember, however, is that the game has rather unassuming origins. And it actually pioneered what would be several staples in future Pokémon games. And it's probably never coming back. In this list, you'll find 20 things you never knew about Pokémon Snap.
20 🌼 Gotta Catch Some Of 'Em
Despite there being 151 Pokémon in existence at the time, the game only features 63. The number seems like an odd choice, especially considering that Pokémon Snap is often criticized for being rather short. Furthermore, a look into the beta content of the game reveals some unused locations and ideas. Things like an entire desert stage are unseen in the final version, meaning some things were scrapped. One such element was the snake Pokémon Ekans, who was featured in early videos 🍎of the game. Taking Ekans into account, the planned number of Pokémon in the game could have been 64, a number that makes more sense. It very well could reference Nintendo 64, which was a thing Nintendo loved doing at the time.
19 The Mystery Of Diglett...Solved?
One of the greatest mysteries of the Pokémon world is Diglett. The mole Pokémon is constantly digging into the ground, with only its head ever peeking out. Whatever is underneath the head is underground in any form of media Diglett appears in. This has lead fans to speculate on what the bottom part of Diglett actually looks like. Answers range from silly, like a buff dude's body, to outright creepy, like some chimeric hell beast. Boundary Break takes the camera underground, finally solving this mystery. The answer? Absolutely nothing.▨ When the camera swings under Diglett, it finds a completely empty space. Clearly, the game's developers didn't expect players to be able to look down there, an🎐d so didn't bother making anything.
18 Language Barrier 🐻𒅌
Pokémon Snap released at the height of the Pokémon craze. Children all over the world were playing the games and watching the anime. The thing is, they weren't doing it at the same time. Pokémon's home country, Japan, got first dibs on every piece of Pokémon media. Because it took time to translate Japanese to English, the Western world got the anime episodes months after Japan got them. Due to this, Several Pokémon in Snap retained thღeir Japanese voices. The English voice clips in the game were♉ drawn from the anime, but not every Pokémon had appeared in the English dub at the time. As such, voice actors had not yet been chosen for them, and the original Japanese audio was used instead.
17 ♚ On Second Thought...
Pokémon Snap originally started development as a Nintendo 64DD game. The 64DD was a short-lived attachment for the Nintendo 64 that could play disks. It could also create movies and custom characters that could be uploaded online. With such features, the 64DD was ahead of its time. Unfortunately, it sold terribly. Around 15,000 units were reported as sold, with 85,000 left unsold. Only ten games were actually made for it. When Nintendo decided to bail on the 64DD, several in-development games, such as Pokémon Snap꧅ were repurposed into regular cartridge-based games for th⛄e N64.
16 ဣ 🌄 Nostalgia For A Price
Anyone remember those Blockbuster machines that let you print your Pokémon Snap photos? You took your memory card into the store and put it into the machine. The machine then let you print your in-game photos as little stickers. Those who subscribed to Nintendo Power magazine even got a little sticker book to put all their photos in. With Blockbuster a relic of the past, the photo machines 𒁏have found their way onto eBay. Turns out some people do remember the𓂃m fondly, because they've sold for as much as $1000. And people think amiibo collectors pay too much for their collection.
15 Snap With The References 💞 ಞ
Lapras has always been a rare Pokémon in the games. It's not at legendary status, but it is one of the harder ones to find. Fans have long made the connection between Lapras and the Loch Ness Monster, both for its appearance and its rarity. Pokémon Snap might be a sort of confirmation of this theory. In its first appearance, Lapras can only be seen at a distance. Any attempts at taking a photo of it will turn out blurry and too far away. This might be a referenc🅰e to the famous photo of the "actual" Loch Ness Monster. That photo is blurry to the point that only the shape of what looks like a neck can be made out. No developers have ever confirmed this, but it's fun to think about.
14 ﷽ Pokémon Snap VR
When people started to get their hands on the Oculus Rift, the possibilities seemed endless. While many waited for the next great games to come out, others started to mod older games to be compatible with virtual reality. One such game is Pokémon Snap. Several attempts have been made to mod it, and can be seen all over YouTube. One exciting version features head tracking so that the camera goes wherever the player looks. Naturally, these are not Nintendo-approved affairs, so playing them will require more than simply going to the store and buying them. Still, fans clearly want a new Snap badly enough to mod it, so I'm sure they'll be down with doing a bit of Gooꦅgle sear✅ching.
13 Humble Beginnings🦂 🏅
Originally, the game was developed as a non-Pokémon game in which the player simply took photos, withಌ🔥 no Pokémon at all. No footage or photos exist of this version of the game. The only evidence comes from a quote by Satoru Iwata, the late president of Nintendo. When interviewed about a different game, he talked about the development of Snap, saying,
12 Squirtle’s ⛦True Form
In the YouTube series Boundary Break, user hacks into old Nintendo games, giving himself free range control over the camera. In a special episode about Pokémon Snap, he takes the camera into places the developers of the game clearly didn't want players to go. This offers a unique view into the anatomy of certain Pokémon. With Squirtle, for instance, he zooms into the shell of the turtle Pokémon, exploring its insides. The result is a...rather cramped view of 🍷Squirtle. The limbs seem squished together against its lack of torso. But judging by its face, it seems content enough. I wonder how many points Professor Oak would give for a picture like this?
11 Where Are The Rapidash Going?
In the volcano level’s entrance, the player immediately encounters a group of stampeding Rapidash. The goal is to quickly snap some pictures of the majestic, flaming horses before they round a corner and disappear from sight. Players have often wondered what the place behind the corner looks like. Do the Rapidash just immediately disappear, or is there some inaccessible area they call home? Boundary Break stepped in to answer that question. By zooming the camera far above the map, the area around the bend can be seen. Turns out, it was nothing special. Because it's literally nothing. The Rapidash simply run off the map and disappear into nothingness, one by one.🌜