Pokémon has been a franchise for adults and kids alike, the ESRB ratings for their games have always been E - meaning everyone go ahead and enjoy it, no matter what age. Today, I stumbled upon a post that says something otherwise. It seems that the data mining for Pokemon Sun and Moon is still ongoing and has found some pretty disturbing content for the Pokedex. Disturbing enough to not your young ones read it.
A report posted at Kotaku says that data mining still continues for Pokemon Sun and Moon and for today's mine haul, the Pokemon descriptions - most probably content for Pokedex, have been uncovered. What's surprising is that the content you will be reading later on will make you say that it is not suitable for children. Also stated on the report, even though previous titles have mild perverted entries in them, the current ones in Sun and Moon seem to be more unwelcome than it ever was. So I went ahead and checked out the article and to me, they are pretty dark for kids to absorb. Then minutes later, this article was born.
What is ESRB?
ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board. They approve ratings for video games and apps so that parents and guardians will be well informed about the game titles they buy for their children. The ratings, similar to movies, will suggest what age a gamer should be at when playing a particular title. In our article's case, Pokemon is rated E - which is for everyone. Personally, games rated M (for Mature) are very enjoyable regardless of the title and reviews.
What makes Pokemon Sun and Moon dark?
The report I stumbled upon earlier pointed me to this text file (the one that has .txt as suffix). It's pretty long so if you have the whole day for yourself you may enjoy reading through it. Anyways, the file contains some, if not all, Pokedex entries for Pokemon Sun and Moon - provided that the developers will not change them at launch, of course. Fortunately, Kotaku saved me time and went on to post some highlights so I'm just going to borrow some of them.
Primeape - For those of you who don't know, Primeape is a Pokemon with anger management issues. As posted on Bulbapedia, this creature is easily angered even with the slightest eye contact. In lighter terms, it uses its anger for its advantage as anger makes its muscles stronger; downside is Primeape loses some intelligence. Now, if we comb through the said text file, you'll find this: "It has been known to become so angry that it dies as a result. Its face looks peaceful in death, however." Based on this, it clearly is not suitable for the little ones. Why the heck would you show that to kids?
Psyduck - Everyone knows that this Pokemon gets headaches all the time. This is where it gets its powers, which makes a good lore for kids. For Sun and Moon, however, the lore leveled up to teen level,"As a result of headaches so fierce they cause it to cry, it sometimes uses psychokinesis without meaning to." This statement implies to focus more on pain rather than masking it with 'hey, it has powers due to headaches!'
I could go on the whole day but with the couple of samples I spotted above, I think that would be enough to point out that some of those content aren't appropriate for children.
