YouTuber Re-Imagines Grand Theft Auto as a Pokemon Game
By Alexander Pan 26 February 2016
Taking inspiration from Pokemon‘s distinct RPG style and combat system, a YouTuber has re-imagined the Grand Theft Auto series as an old-school isometric RPG game.
With the recent announcement of Pokemon Sun and Moon, and Grand Theft Auto Online still holding the attention of many gamers with a recent Valentine’s Day event, it’s fair to say that both Pokemon and GTA have had a decent amount of the spotlight in recent weeks. But all those announcements pale in comparison to a brilliant new video that a YouTuber has made in tribute to those two massively-popular franchises.
Drawing on their love of the GTA series, and some inspiration from Pokemon Red and Blue‘s distinct RPG style, YouTuber Hat-Loving Gamer has created a video that combines the gameplay and characters of GTA with the classic isometric RPG look and combat system of Pokemon.
The video is just under eight minutes long, and features almost all the main characters and settings from Grand Theft Auto III onwards, with the exception of all the handheld GTA games. Watching everyone’s favourite GTA characters get up to a variety of criminal shenanigans across Liberty City, Vice City, and Los Santos, while set to the music and sounds of Pokemon, is definitely quite the entertaining experience. And while there was no option to throw Pokeballs at random strangers during combat, the video did accurately capture the annoying qualities – to hilarious effect – of one Roman Bellic.
For those wanting to see Grand Theft Auto III‘s Claude beat up a passerby in the style of Pokemon, or witness Vice City‘s Tommy Vercetti “recover health” from a prostitute to the classic Pokemon center healing jingle, watch it all right here:
This loving GTA/Pokemon tribute is far from the first video game video that Hat-Loving Gamer has made. This YouTube user’s channel is predominantly focused on entertaining video game mash-ups, and just a couple of weeks ago, they put out an entertainingly chaotic video of Super Mario Kart featuring 101 players. These videos from Hat-Loving Gamer have been quite timely, as they seem to focus on games that are making the headlines.
Despite being released over two years ago, gamers are still flocking to the ever-popular Grand Theft Auto Online. As for the rest of the gaming world, everyone is hyping up for the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Moon by celebrating Pokemon‘s 20th anniversary, and watching a massive Pokemon marathon on Twitch.
While 2016 may be shaping up to be the year of Pokemon, the Grand Theft Auto series definitely isn’t going away any time soon.
Source: YouTube
