A fan-made version of Pokemon called Pokemon Uranium went up recently and then was taken down recently. The game was downloaded millions of times before it was pulled, and sadly you won't be able to get it from the original website anymore.
Gamespot is reporting that the website which previously hosted _Pokemon Uranium _has set up a notice explaining that, after receiving some takedown notices from Nintendo of America's lawyers, they decided to remove the download links from the site.
The team behind the game posted the letter to the community, part of which states the following:
After receiving more than 1,500,000 downloads of our game, we have been notified of multiple takedown notices from lawyers representing Nintendo of America. While we have not personally been contacted, it's clear what their wishes are, and we respect those wishes deeply. Therefore, we will no longer provide official download links for the game through our website.
Having 1.5 million downloads for a game with no advertising is extremely impressive. The fan-made project saw the team taking the basic concept of the Pokemon games and then expanding them to the next level. For instance, Pokemon Uranium contained 150 Pokemon but also introduced the new Nuclear type, hence the name "Uranium". It also took place in a whole new region called Tandor.
A trailer covers some of the all new content that they included in the unofficial Pokemon game and you can check it out below.
The combat system, Pokemon and traveling all look reminiscent to Game Freak's Pokemon titles for the Nintendo platforms.
Graphically, the game looks pretty good to be fan-made, and seems to draw a lot of inspiration for its designs from HQX2 SNES sprites.
There's a lot of different layered features to the game, including item management, trade shops, even multiplayer online battles. Strangely the game does use Nintendo's friend ID to find and add people, but it's a free game so convenience was likely top priority for the team.
They spent a lot of time working on all new Pokemon, all new moves and all new abilities. It's a shame Nintendo didn't try to incorporate their work into the official Pokemon series, instead they had the lawyers get involved and things didn't end too well for those who wanted to play the game.
However, there are already seeds spreading across various sites and peer-to-peer programs where gamers are beginning to share the game as an underground entity, much in the same way that Another Metroid 2 Remake also had to head underground after Nintendo had the original site DMCA'd.
It was a real shame because in Metroid's case it was a game released in celebration of the 30th anniversary for the series, something that Nintendo didn't seem to pay much attention to.
The team who worked on Pokemon Uranium have warned visitors that following the takedown of the game, there may be versions of the game floating around that could contain malware, so if you're getting the unofficial Pokemon game from unofficial sources, be wary of its content.
