A Complete Comparison of Online Pokemon Websites

The Pokémon franchise is one of the biggest animé franchises in the entire world. It’s usually one of the main reasons why you choose Nintendo over Sony and Microsoft. Every time a Pokémon game comes out on store shelves, there’s usually a strategy guide you can buy to help you progress through the game. The guide is available separately for an additional $19.99 USD, but do you really need it? To be honest, no you don’t.

The reason is because there’s already a multitude of Pokémon websites currently on the internet that offer free walkthroughs and guides on Pokémon games. These same sites even explain some of the hidden features of the Pokémon games that are not mentioned in the strategy guides.

As of right now, there are less than 10 major English Pokémon websites on the internet. This is obviously the case because of the amount of time it takes to construct such a large database of information on all things Pokémon-related. However, with that being said, there are new Pokémon websites sprouting up every day – some of them stand a better chance at surviving longer than others.

In this article, I’m going to talk about some of major online Pokémon websites currently on the internet as of 2009, as well as some up-and-coming Pokémon websites that look like they’ll be a sure-fire hit in the future. I’m also going to post my opinions and personal experiences on these websites.

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One of the newer Pokémon website communities is the Pokémon BlastBurners Gaming Community. It originally started up in 2005 just as a Pokémon clan, but later in 2008 transformed into a full-fledged community website with actual Pokémon information. In February 2008, they started up their own weekly “Pokémon of the Week” segment, where they explain the best attacks and items to give to a particular Pokémon. It’s quite useful for players thinking about entering an official Pokémon video game tournament.

The community itself always welcomes new members with open arms. Now it’s important to note that the website isn’t yet fully completed and doesn’t have nearly as much information as some of the other Pokémon websites that have been around for a longer amount of time, but they do offer some unique features that other communities don’t have.

First of all, their site has free downloads of Pokémon games, so if you don’t want to pay $34.99 USD for a copy of the latest Pokémon game, you can download it and play it on your computer for free.

The second unique feature they offer is a new concept known as “Club BlastBurners.” It started up very recently in February 2009. Basically, members can compete in various free competitions and earn points that can be redeemed for actual video game software and hardware as prizes. They say that prizes will be made available as early as July 2010, so if you want a free copy of Pokémon Platinum for example, then this is the site to visit. The administrator of the program says he’ll even ship the prizes to his members free of charge, so they won’t even have to pay 1 cent to get their prize.

It’s quite a unique program and right now, no other free Pokémon website on the internet offers it. Believe it or not, it seems 100% legitimate, and so do the terms and conditions associated with the program.

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Psypoke is a website that definitely has a ton of Pokémon information. It has a complete website Pokédex and lots of game walkthroughs. However, the site has undergone several changes throughout the years, most of which have been on the negative side. I was a member for almost two years but I had more bad experiences than good ones with the administration and moderation team.

The site is hosted by IGN and the Gamespy network, so you’ll see a bunch of advertisements on the site’s pages promoting sometimes offensive content (violence, sexual themes, etc.). Also, pretty much all of the original administration team has quit working on the site. It’s now being run by the previous moderators of the site, one of whom goes by the username of Jigglypuff. He has an attitude problem and doesn’t like anyone who disagrees with his opinions, so it’s unfortunate that he was the one left in charge of the whole site.

News updates on the home page are rarely made – perhaps once every two or three weeks at best. Essentially, the site has been going downhill ever since the original administrators stopped working on it. And with a grumpy administrator calling the shots, I honestly don’t think it’ll last much longer.

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Serebii.net is the second-biggest Pokémon website currently in existence. The site offers a weekly “Pokémon of the Week” segment similar to the Pokémon BlastBurners Gaming Community. Like Bulbapedia, the site has a massive Pokémon database covering every single game, animé episode and movie in the franchise.

One of the biggest problems with the site is with regards to the fact that it seems as though the owner rushes to get a section completed, then never fixes it up again in the future. For example, their Red/Blue/Yellow section is very outdated and even has inaccurate information in it. There are still people who play the older Pokémon games, and if you’re one of them, I do not recommend that you use Serebii.net to find information on them.

Their newer Pokémon game sections are more accurate. As far as news goes, they’re one of the first sites to reveal upcoming Pokémon games and events to the public.

It’s interesting to note, however, that many people I’ve talked with do not like the Serebii.net forum community for two reasons. The first reason was because they have 39 forum ranks, and assuming that you increased in rank once per month, it would take over 3 years to reach the highest rank. The second reason was because the members seem to dislike new players in the Pokémon franchise, calling them “n00bs” because they’re inexperienced.

Bulbapedia

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Bulbapedia is the “community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia,” meaning that updates to its site pages are made by regular members. It definitely contains the largest database of Pokémon information currently on the internet, beating even Serebii.net. However, with that comes large website expenses. As such, it has the most advertisements of any online Pokémon website, including annoying content links that display pop-up advertisements when your mouse hovers over certain text on the page.

Also, because the website’s pages can be freely edited by members in a similar fashion to Wikipedia, the information you find may not be 100% accurate. For example, one Pokémon’s list of Egg Moves did not list Ancientpower, even though it was a learnable Egg Move. I even tried it myself in my Pokémon Diamond game cartridge, and sure enough, I did breed that Pokémon with Ancientpower, despite the move not being listed on Bulbapedia’s corresponding page.

The community also has very strict guidelines regarding being a member. If you so much as even break 1 of the rules accidentally, you’ll be banned from the website entirely. Of course, there are many ways to get around the ban, such as by using a proxy, but all of this requires much more effort than is actually worth on your part.

Concluding Remarks

Here’s my overall opinion. If you’re looking for the website that has the most information on Pokémon, I would definitely recommend Bulbapedia and Serebii.net.

However, if you’re looking for a Pokémon community that’s very friendly and accepting of new members, and has a prize program that lets its members obtain free Pokémon video games, I suggest checking out Pokémon BlastBurners.

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