I have recently acquired a Nintendo Switch. When I say recently I mean last year before the holidays. It was my Christmas gift from my beloved. With the Nintendo Switch I got Pokemon Sword and I thought it would be fun to reminisce about how I got into Pokemon.
My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Red. The way I got that one was probably different than most kids at the time. It came out in the fall of 1998, in the summer of the same year my family immigrated to the USA. The reason that part is important is because the US had at the time incredible programs to help immigrant families get on their feet and start being productive members of society. That is not to say we don’t have these programs now, I don’t know, I haven’t used those in almost 20 years. And so part of those programs was that American families would adopt an immigrant family and give them gifts for Christmas. That was such an incredible thing for a young me. Where I came from, it was your family against the world and if your Mom and Dad couldn’t get you something, that was that. But here these incredible kind hearted people would take their money and their time to go and purchase things for these strangers so that they may have a happy holiday season. Amazing. Just thinking about it right now, it’s making me tear up.
So about a year into us living in the US for the holidays I received Pokemon Red with the original Nintendo strategy guide from one of those kind hearted families. Pokemon Red was made for the Gameboy handheld console. I did not own one, but I was still so excited about the game I read the strategy guide, several times over. I imagined myself on this grand adventure, capturing Pokemon training them, battling other trainers. But it wasn’t until about half a year later, I made a friend at school who had a Gameboy Color and trusted me enough to let me borrow it. I remember I spent days and days playing that game, following the strategy guide to the letter.
One funny story about me starting the game, is that I had no idea what doors looked like in that game. I remember I spent at least an hour running around the house of the main character, until I figured out that the black rectangle at the bottom wall on the first floor was a welcome rug of sorts and that was how you got out. It got to a point where I thought my game was defective. I was incredibly frustrated and scared that this dream adventure of mine ended before it even started.
Once I got out of the house my adventure began and it did not disappoint. The story was very similar to the anime series, so I knew somewhat what was going to happen and prepared accordingly. I also had the strategy guide that I used to navigate the game. Eventually I beat the game and caught Mewtwo and it was awesome.
That was the very first game that I played from beginning to end. That experience taught me a valuable lesson, get a strategy guide, life is much easier with one.
The next pokemon game that came out was Pokemon Yellow, this one followed the same exact story Red, but changed your starter pokemon to a Pikachu. Which was a much closer representation of the anime story. The other cool feature was that Pikachu follows you around on the screen. I played that one very shortly never completed it, felt like the same story again and wasn’t super interested in doing that again.
The next game in the series, Pokemon Silver, came out a couple years later. That game is probably my favorite pokemon game to date. It added new pokemon as well as night and time cycle. What the night/day cycle meant is that if you played at night in the real world it was night in the game and certain pokemon could only be caught at night. I think that aspect of a game corresponding with the real world is what really made it so cool to me as a kid. I really enjoyed going through the place at night and day to catch different pokemon. When this one came out I bought both versions the Silver and Gold, however I only play Silver and then somehow managed to lose my the Gold one so never played that one.
Eventually I finished Silver and then took a long break from pokemon. It was right at the time when I grew up and had real life responsibilities and playing pokemon was for little kids…
Then I grew up even more and realized that if I enjoy playing a game no matter who the intended demographic is I should just play it.
So the next pokemon game I played was Pokemon Y. This was the very first one that was a full 3d world. The game was great. It took me a little while to beat it, I used to come to work about an hour earlier to get some time to play it. Nothing super remarkable with this one other than the 3d world, beautiful scenery. I finished this one and then waited until the next one to come out.
The next one that came out was Moon and Sun, I didn’t buy them right away, I waited until the improved versions came out the Ultra Moon and Ultra Sun. I bought the Ultra Moon game, this is probably my least favorite entry in the series, granted I didn’t play a quite a few of them. I didn’t like it to a point that I tried several times to beat it and just couldn’t get through it. Just a really unpleasant experience.
There a few reasons I didn’t enjoy the game some of the main ones are:
- Ultra Moon locks you into night mode during the day… such a weird thing to do. I wasn’t aware of that fact when I bought it.
- There were not proper gym battles instead there were these weird challenges that you needed to complete.
- The location of the game is on a bunch of islands… for some odd reason made me feel extremely claustrophobic, I hated the feeling.
So I delayed beating the game for so long that eventually I just got a Switch with Pokemon Sword.
In part 2 we will get into Pokemon Sword and some other alternatives to Pokemon. See you then!
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