Fangasm: Attack on Silph Co

Attack on Silph Co
Pokemon Short Story
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Franzo
Year of Release: 2016
Attack on Silph Co

I am a huge fan of these kinds of games. Short little snippets that allow the creator to showcase a small section of the world of Pokemon. Unlike the standard games that follow a pretty strict formula you can explore all kinds of unique settings and ideas. In this instance, four years after they're brought down Team Rocket tries to attack Silph Co again. It's up to you, a low level Silph employee to fight your way through the building and save your coworkers.

You play as Grey, a man who is fairly unsatisfied with life, he has always wanted more than to just be another desk jockey. I'm not sure why he never tried his hand at being a Pokemon trainer, but alas that wasn't in the cards for him. After getting out of bed he finds a note from his girlfriend saying she had to leave on a business trip in a hurry. Clearly there is trouble in paradise. From here he needs to go to work, but you can explore the city of Saffron beforehand. There are some extra items to find, but mostly it's just people talking about their mundane, but peaceful, lives.

During lunch at work while talking about how unfulfilling his life is suddenly the building is under siege. Everyone gets gathered up and hidden away in a secret room in the back. Luckily they left a box of Pokemon nearby, and despite having no experience Grey pick up an Eevee and manages to beat the grunt guarding them. After rescuing his coworkers he decides to work his way through the building to save anyone else trapped up there, and to force Team Rocket out. Finally, a long dwindling fire inside of him is reignited.

From here the game is a simple dungeon crawl. Work your way through the building, beat up some grunts, in a few areas there are wild Pokemon to fight too, eventually you'll confront two admins as well as the boss at the end. It's pretty much just a standard Pokemon dungeon. The layout of Silph Co is similar to the official games, but there are some liberties taken. As you wander around, and after defeating certain opponents, you will find items from potions, to TM's to necessary keys to get past the myriad of barricades that have been put in place.

The execution is simple, but honestly it gets a little grating after a while. I found the best way through the game was just powering through and letting yourself black out to quickly warp back to the pokecenter to heal before climbing back up to where you were. It felt like a meat grinder more than anything else, though the journey is so short it doesn't matter. Thankfully the non-battle content is decent to good, although a lot of characters are "original content" they still fit the universe and the writing is solid.

Two major fixes could be made to really improve the experience though. First, if a nurse could be incorporated into the building itself that would be so helpful. Near the top their is a healing machine, but the dying and having to climb back up just got exhausting and really brought the experience down. If the nurse could go up floors as you cleared them and you woke up from there instead it would have been better. While some might say that'd make it too easy, really it's the same experience, just shaving travel time down. The other change is really minor: DON'T HAVE AN NPC STANDING BETWEEN THE DOOR AND THE NURSE IN THE POKECENTER! What the hell man? It's such a minor annoyance, but with how often I wound up blacking out it became a major problem having to pay attention as I entered and exited the pokecenter. It's petty, but anyone who has played a game with a niggling problem knows how quickly annoyance can build.

Overall, this was a pleasant little experience. It's nothing mind blowing, but as I mentioned, I love these short stories that explore aspects of the world of Pokemon we normally wouldn't see. If you have an hour or two to kill this is well worth checking out. A while ago I wrote about The Secret of Cinnabar Mansion as well, which is the same kind of concept. I hope this takes off and we wind up with lots of these mini-episodes that allow us to see new perspectives to this world that, personally, I love and cannot get enough of. Here's hoping we see more content like this, and more games made by Franzo. Good show!