Knight Pokémon University
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Knight Pokémon University was a Role Playing Game on the Bulbagarden Forums that was active from December of 2009 to February 2012.
Where trainers and scholarly pursuits meet, there is the Knight Pokemon University. Trainers and Pokemon come to hone their skills under the tutelage of professionals and expand their horizons in an atmosphere of culture and understanding.
… is probably what was intended. Maybe. But in actuality KPU is filled to brim with students that come from disturbed, depressing, and downright weird backgrounds. And the professors are hardly any better. Clones, robots, aliens, secret order leaders, inventors, former thieves, heartbroken maids, singers, and the occasional normal person all call this place a kind of home. Somehow, they manage to find some sort of common understanding amongst their fellow traumatized students as they all try to work out their various flaws and psychosis in everyday life. Or dramatically clash in a soup of drama and angst. (It’s like, you know, 50/50.)
And learning of some sort happens occasionally. We presume.
But it appears that the University is more than simply a place for learning and unofficial therapy. Dark forces are at work behind the scenes and will (probably) draw the mentally unsuited students into their machinations. (Because, I mean… come on.)
Knight Pokémon University was abruptly removed from the Bulbagarden Forums (allegedly for some manner of maintenance or reformatting) in late 2009, but it never returned. In 2012 the forum administration decided not to restore the game archives or start a new game.
- Academy of Adventure
- Adults Are Useless: The teachers generally didn't do much apart from teaching and refereeing friendly battles, despite generally being leagues ahead of the students in skill. While the teachers sat around and deliberated, it was left to the students to deal with most crises that arose.
- Including a teacher (who was from a Crossover from another Pokemon Roleplay), being kidnapped and having to be rescued by a team of under-prepared students. Although whether or not he actually was kidnapped, or if something altogether more sinister was going on is still in doubt.
- It didn't help that the head Tactics Professor (who had the most powerful Pokemon at the entire school) didn't seem to care all that much about what happened, aided by the fact that he didn't find out about crises until they were announced publicly over the loudspeakers (and once they were, he was typically too tired or hung over to do much of anything about them).
- Berserk Button: Naturally, several characters had their own.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall / Medium Awareness: Several characters acknowledged the fact that this was a Role Playing Game, and were known to argue with their "narrators" from time to time.
- Changing of the Guard: This has happened multiple times with the leadership of the entire RP itself. The first leader and the founder of the RP, AiedailEclipsed, took a long break from the site as a whole, handing the RP over to his chosen successor, Hide in Plain Sight. However, said chosen successor simply didn't have time for the RP when he took over as the head of Bulbagarden's entire RP section. So he handed the RP off once more to the last leader, Glitchipedia, who has since shut down the game due to player inactivity.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Roleplayers came and went, so their characters simply faded away unless they returned to the game.
- Corporal Punishment: The resident android professor, ALISA, electrocuted anyone who was tardy to her class.
- Crossover: With Star Trek, of all things; one of the students was a Vulcan.
- As well as an NPC teacher from another Pokemon Roleplay.
- Colin's stepfather was set to appear in another Bulbagarden RPG, Evolution to Destiny. Said RPG died before it even got started.
- Dark and Troubled Past: With the students having severe anger problems, typical android problems, coming from Orre, being an orphan and losing all faith in being good, parent and self esteem problems, KPU should probably have invested in a psychiatrist.
- Dysfunction Junction: Speaking of which (though they never completely fell apart).
- Fainting:
- Ciel, type Emotional
- Colin, type Anemic
- The Film of the Book: See Recycled: the Series below.
- Foreshadowing: There have been hints that the University wasn't all it seemed to be.
- Given the results of three students attempting to rescue a teacher that may or may not actually have been there, the University seemed to have a rather abnormal ghost infestation in the basements. Where this was going is anyone's guess.
- Global Currency Exception: The traditional Pokémon dollars seemed to work fine for buying lunch, but if you wanted the necessary equipment for capturing and training Pokémon, the local campus shop only accepted campus credits. Fridge Logic ensued when you had to use campus credits to buy an apartment off-campus.
- Greek Chorus: Joanie, Collie, Annie and Bella. In the YouTube version, they are set to be joined by, of all people, Bennie and the Jets.
- Grey and Gray Morality: Lampshaded word-for-word.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: The use of ghosts to kidnap and remove a character from the story is especially funny given that ghosts appeared to be behind (or at least a major player in) the kidnapping of a teacher in the story proper.
- Jukebox Musical: Courtesy of the Greek Chorus.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Over 100 characters were registered. By the time the game was closed, less than 25 were active.
- Mary Sue Hunter: Characters were virtually killed for treading into Mary Sue terrirory, a majority of them by not-quite NPC Pit Beaker.
- Put on a Bus: Roleplayers who break the rules excessively were usually punished by having their characters disappear without much explanation.
- Recycled: the Series: An animated YouTube adaptation is underway.
- Ridiculously-Human Robots: Two of them. The better example was one of the teachers, while the other was a student who was getting used to the "human" part.
- Shout-Out: Joanie's talking, singing Bellsprout, Audrey II.
- This being an internet game, that was merely the most present one. In game shoutouts ranged from CSI: Miami to Castlevania.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Alexia Ravenwood, originally banned from the game due to a combined negative response to her strange powers and her creator's lip, is set to become a regular in the YouTube adaptation.
- Summon Backup Dancers: Collie, Annie and Bella often showed up out of thin air for musical numbers.
- Webcomic Time: Went for a few years and some change, and about five and a half days went by. Given that it was a forum-based RP, this is standard fare.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Lampshaded. Technicolor hair actually tended to draw comments on its peculiarity.