What's your Pokemon History?

[InsaneNutter]

I'm always really curious how people got in to Pokemon and what people enjoy about the games. This post ended up a lot longer than I expected, however I hope you enjoy the read and i'd be interested in knowing you got in to Pokemon.

I remember back in 1999 I had two friends who's granddad / grandma lived at the bottom of my street, they used to usually stop there for a night each weekend. Usually they would come up to see me and my brother or we would go down to their grandparents to see them. Anyway one weekend one of them had a new GameBoy game, this been Pokemon Red, after he told me how you could collect 150 Pokemon, trade, battle and evolve them, I was amazed. A few months later I had enough money saved to buy the game ,so I did. I got Red and my Brother got Blue.

I remember all 4 of us used to play the games loads, eventually between us finishing the Pokedex. I eventually got an action replay to we could all get Mew, we had heard all the rumours about him been under a truck and so on, however no one really knew if they were true or not. You have to remember this is back in 1999. Internet access wasn't exactly everywhere then. Our family had dialup internet which myself and my brother were allowed to use for 1 hour each on a weekend, as it was quite expensive back then. I think thats how i found out you could use 0115D8CF (the only gameshark code i can remember) on a gameshark / action replay to turn all wild Pokemon in to Mew. With that in mind i got a gameshark, no one believed I had Mew, when i proved it they all wanted one, so I ended up trading a lot of Mews to people back then!

Through the limited internet access we had back then my friend who got me in to Pokemon told me he knew someone who had this new Pokemon game that was out in Japan called Pokemon Gold and could play it on his PC with something called an Emulator. None of us really had any idea what was back then, however we managed to find a Geocities website with a download of NO$GMB and a partially translated JPN Pokemon Gold Rom. This was like wow, mind blown. Their was so many new Pokemon, the game was in colour and two of us could play at the same time using the NO$GMB emulator and trade Pokemon. Needless to say beyond the first couple of towns / cities the game only had the menus translated, however we still pretty much got the first 8 gym badges, not really understanding much of the story, but just been amazed by all these new Pokemon no one really knew anything about.

I remember we copied the emulator and partially translated Pokemon Gold on to a floppy disk so my friends could play it at their granddads and at home too, as they didn't have internet access at the time.

This was around a year and a half before the game was officially released in Europe. Shortly after the game was released in the US, an independent shop in our town must have imported lots of copies from the US and started selling them. They sold out however reserved us some copies for when they next got a shipment in, I think this would have been around Christmas in 2000 ish. Needless to say we had the game months before it came out in Europe.

Still to this day i have my save game and need around 9 Pokemon to complete the Pokedex, I really should try and do that sometime!

After Pokemon Gold / Silver i think we all kind of lost interest in Pokemon, partially due to not been able to trade up Pokemon to Ruby / Sapphire from previous games and with School / College taking up a lot more time than it used to.

I still purchased Pokemon Ruby in 2003 when it was released in the UK, however no one I knew was really interested in Pokemon by then, I lost interest myself never actually finished Ruby until years later.

In 2007 after having various jobs i decided to Uni, which is when i got in to Pokemon again. I was on a Computing related course where my coursemates also loved the Pokemon games when they were younger. I think we ended up talking about Pokemon one day, realised we all had an Nintendo DS so we went out and purchased Pokemon Diamond / Pearl.

By this time Pokemon had the one thing we all agreed we wanted as kids, online trading! In free time between lectures we used to go have some food and play Pokemon together, after finishing Diamond and Pearl we went back and finished Ruby / Sapphire and the Leaf Green / Fire Red remakes. This kept us all interested in Pokemon until 2010 when Heart Gold / Soul Silver were released, we all agreed these would be the best Pokemon games ever, as we all thought Gold / Silver we're the best game when we were younger.

Sadly they came out at such an awful time for us, it was our final few weeks at Uni before exams started, so i think we played it for one weekend solid, got to around the Pokemon League with the first 8 gym badges. After that Uni was basically over, we graduated and after summer everyone went home, 100's of miles apart.

I purchased Pokemon White when that was released in 2011, however all i did was get 1 gym badge and download the Victini WiFi event. I'd literally just started a new job a few weeks before so Pokemon wasn't really on my mind back then.

In 2013 i got a 3DS XL for Christmas, along with a copy of Pokemon Y. I played that quite a bit at Christmas but never really got hooked on Pokemon again. I then got Pokemon Omega Ruby a year later and really enjoyed that, I wouldn't say i got totally hooked on Pokemon but i did finish it. It was Christmas 2015, I happened to be at a family gathering with some cousins who were playing it, one of my cousins was working on a living Pokedex and I just thought i've always wanted to do that in Pokemon why have i never bothered? At this point I was not really interested in the Xbox 360 / Xbox One i'd mainly been gaming on for many years now.

So I ended up going home and finishing up some loose ends on Omega Ruby, Pokemon Y, then going back and finishing Pokemon White, Black 2 and Heart Gold slowly though 2016, collecting all the in game legendaries from past games i knew i'd need for my living Pokedex. My goal was to try and do the Pokedex with myself as the OT for all Pokemon where possible.

A friend from Uni and someone i'd known since School all got back in to Pokemon on the 3DS, so we setup a WhatsApp group chat and have randomly been trading online and collecting the Pokemon 20th Anniversary events between us this year.

I had various event Pokemon in past games, however i re-visited GEN 3 this year i got talking to HaxAras, we started to project to collect Pokemon GEN 3 Pokemon still in GEN 3 as this seemed to be the only generation where it wasn't possible to get all the event Pokemon. GEN 1 and 2 had so few events, and most events for the WiFi games onward had been pretty well preserved on Project Pokemon.

So fast forward to today im still hooked on Pokemon, playing through Pokemon Moon when time allows, i've currently just got to the start of the 4th island. Once i've finished that im going to keep working on my living Pokedex in GEN 6, which after importing from previous games I think I have around 600 of 721, or 600 of 820 when we can finally import in to Sun / Moon.

A future long term goal is to do a living dex in GEN 3 as i'm still very much interested in that, especially in obtaining all the event Pokemon. Which is why i think the release of the 10ANNIV Distribution Cartridge by Deoxyz the other day is pretty awesome.

I think for me I keep coming back to Pokemon as i love the collecting aspect of the game, plus the fact you can trade Pokemon up from all previous games in to the current generation of games, allowing you to still use all the Pokemon you put so much time in to going back many years.

I personally can't wait to be able to import Pokemon from GEN 1 to GEN 7 as i have my saves from my childhood Red and Yellow on my 3DS waiting. I'm really hoping Nintendo release Gold / Silver and Crystal on the 3DS next year, so we finally have a way of importing Pokemon from all previous games in to the current generation, even if you do need to do a bit of hacking to get your old saves on the 3DS.

Needless to say i'm pretty much hooked and can't see that changing any time soon now, especially with playing Pokemon Go with friends and family.

So how did you get in to Pokemon? what do you like about Pokemon? and what's kept you interested in Pokemon over the years?

Edited December 27, 2016 by InsaneNutter

[Guest]

Pff, you think that's a long post? ;p Took me 3 hours to write this.

I don't really remember the details of the earlier days, but I remember that my brother got a GBA for Christmas when I was in third grade or so, back in Christmas 2002 I believe. Not with a Pokémon game, but we got a hold of Pokemon Blue eventually so I got to play that.

Really not sure if we got to play Gen. II at the time, but I remember that later on, we went to flea market to get myself something, I picked a see-through purple GBC and I wanted to get a Pokémon game. I was looking at the ones they had and I spotted Pokémon Gold, but as I was about to move towards it, somebody else took it, and they didn't have more of it (I didn't even really think to check if they had Silver or Crystal, lol.) So I was like, eh, and I checked again. I saw Pokémon Yellow, and I remembered that guy in school who had Pokémon Yellow and I liked watching it, so I picked that one. Probably a good thing that I didn't skip to Gen. II and started with Gen. I, all things considered (even though I had already played Blue.)

Now I'm not entirely sure when we got access to Gen. II at the time, I really don't remember. I know that I did know things about Gen. II as if I had already played it, but I feel as if we never had Gold nor Silver. Maybe we did have Silver for a time, actually. But my brother had a friend who had Gold and Crystal, and one day he came to our house and I traded him a Spongebob GBA game we had for Crystal. I was really excited for it because you could play as a girl. I don't think I still have that cartridge of Crystal anymore, but it doesn't really matter because I got another Crystal at some point, though I don't really remember where I got it from. ;p

We eventually got Red from the flea market and were pretty amazed at it, just because we always had Blue and never had Red, even though the two games are really the same. ;p but kids are easily impressed. We went back and forth selling and buying games at the flea market all the time. Those years feel like they went on forever honestly, because I remember that I went through so many games, and yet it had only been like two years at most.

At some point, my brother got Ruby, so I got to play that a bit too (I was a good sibling and I never deleted his save files to make my own unless he told me I could. :3) I -think- we had access to a Gameshark at the time, but it must have been someone else's that lent it to us, because I didn't get mine until Christmas 2005 I believe, but I remember sitting at home with Ruby back when we didn't have FR/LG (think they weren't even out yet either?), and using cheats to get Charmander in Ruby.

Then for Christmas in 2004, I got a GBA SP (which I still have, I still have the GBA that my brother got way back then too), without any games yet, but I had it. It was nice to play Crystal on it with the lit-up screen. My mom took me to the store to get a GBA game for it a few weeks later, and so I got LeafGreen. I liked it a lot at the time, although if you asked me about it now, it's probably one of my least favourite ;p but back then, I thought it was awesome to have remakes of the first Gen., and the Sevii Islands at the end were awesome to me. I eventually completed the Kanto Pokédex (My brother got FireRed at some point, and we traded), but eventually, I got a Gamestop gift card, and I figured that I would rather have FireRed after all, so we went to Gamestop and I traded in LeafGreen to get FireRed. I still have that very cartridge to this day and I didn't really regret anything. I didn't have anything to do anymore in LG with my completed save file so I didn't really care to lose it (this isn't something I would ever consider doing nowadays, but I didn't care at the time and I never regretted it.)

Later on, Emerald was coming out, May 1st 2005, and I asked my parents about it in advance, but the day came and I asked again, but they didn't want to. I was disappointed, but a month later on the 31st, they took me to buy it, so I got it then. I played that one quite a bit, and during that time, my brother got Sapphire. I remember he was going through the game and ran into a shiny Zigzagoon on Route 110 under the cycling road. He levelled it up a little bit, but traded it to me before it evolved into Linoone. I absolutely loved it, I evolved it and I trained it all the way to Lv. 100 and used it for everything. Several months later, I get up in the morning before school, I'm messing around on Emerald, and I ran into a shiny Oddish. I evolved it to Bellossom, but I don't remember if I had levelled it up to 100.

Either way, it was then that I got my Gameshark for Christmas. Like I said earlier I'm pretty sure it was Christmas 2005. This is the one I got. As far as I'm aware, it's a rebranded Codebreaker, sometimes known as Gameshark SP. I could only find pictures of the black one online, so I had to take my own photo, but eh that works. It wasn't very convenient to have, because most of the interesting codes were Gameshark codes, which were of the XXXXXXXX YYYYYYYY format that aren't compatible with mine that used XXXXXXXX YYYY format codes.

Anyway, the very first thing I did with it was to get those cheats that teleport you to Faraway Island/Navel Rock/Birth Island, so I could finally get Deoxys & co. There weren't any cheats online for teleporting to the islands for FR/LG for a while, so I didn't get to do it in LeafGreen, but the ones for Emerald were there. I started cheating, a lot. Used a lot of cheats to just get whatever I want. I found the cheat that made wild Pokémon shiny, but it only worked with wild encounters (it didn't work with gift pokemon, eggs or stationary Pokémon.) I think there was a wild Pokémon modifier code, but that one couldn't be used at the same time as the shiny code, so I could only get shinies of Pokémon that were naturally occuring in the wild. That is, until someone came up with a wild Pokémon modifier code that was compatible with the shiny code, but that didn't really pop up until way later.

I did a stupid at some point, and I entered the Elite Four then teleported outside of it using a teleport cheat. I saved the game, without realizing that this permanently bugged my Elite four, because whenever you'd try to enter, you'd come up the stairs, but the wall was already closed and you were stuck in it. There was no walk through walls cheat at the time, only for the actual Gameshark which was not the one I had. One popped up online much later on, but at the time there was nothing I could do short of restarting my game. I still had my brother's shiny Linoone and my shiny Bellossom on that save file, but I didn't bother trading them over before restarting. I figured that if I wanted shinies I could just use the cheats for it, so I didn't really think it mattered whether I lost them or not, which is something that I regretted doing later.

At some point, I started a save file with the intention of using shiny cheat + wild pokemon modifier to make myself a team of 6 Pokémon I liked in their shiny forms, so I could play through the game with that team. So I started encountering them, first was a Vulpix. I activated the cheats (or so I thought) and went in the tall grass in-game, found shiny Vulpix, caught it, saved the game, then restarted to change it to a different Pokémon. Got in-game, went in the tall grass, caught the second one, but then I checked my party and I realized that it had a different nature than the Vulpix. See, the thing with the shiny Pokémon cheat in Gen. 3 is that it always gave you identical RNG clones every time. They would always have the same nature and the same stats no matter what. Meaning that when I went to get Vulpix, I accidentally didn't enable the shiny cheat, and instead I legitimately encountered a shiny one in the wild, although it was with the Vulpix encounter code enabled. I was really annoyed at that, enough that it made me stop playing with so many cheats all the time like this and I went back to playing legit.

Then on Christmas 2006, I got a DS Lite with Pokémon Ranger. It was great, and then a few months later in March or so (I think?), they made that Manaphy Egg mission code public, so I saw that and got the Manaphy Egg in Ranger and it said I could send it over to Diamond/Pearl later. I was pretty excited about that.

I joined this shiny hunters forum, this was back before Gen. IV came out. It was a French forum and like 99.9% of them were all from France, so they had to wait for European releases before getting games, although a fair bit of them imported the Japanese versions. I live in Canada and I got to show off a bit saying I was going to get Diamond before they could ;p

I told my parents about it on my birthday, that the game was coming out late April a month later, I asked if I could get some other DS game in the meantime, until the games came out. They said yes, so I picked out SM64DS at the store, but then once D/P came out, and I asked again, they told me I already got a game not long ago and refused >.> so I ended up only being able to get Diamond later during the summer (I think around June), but that didn't make me enjoy it any less! I couldn't pick up my Manaphy Egg until later because you needed two DSes, but eh. Once I got it and hatched it, I levelled it up to 50 but I didn't get it any further.

A bit later on, a bunch of people at school had DSes with Diamond/Pearl, and we hung out together playing it during breaks. I met this guy who traded me a Palkia, it was already Lv. 66. I levelled it up to 100 and I could beat the whole E4 using just that Palkia, I had a lot of fun with that. He gave me a Turtwig and Chimchar egg too, since I started with Piplup. I got access to Wi-Fi later on and that was a lot of fun. I got my first event Pokémon, being Wishmaker Jirachi and some kind of Mew, through the GTS. I was really excited because I had never been able to get any kind of event Pokémon before. I stupidly traded away my Dialga and regretted it, enough that I eventually restarted my game and didn't bother keeping my Manaphy, for some reason. I heard a bit later on, on that shiny hunters forum, that Japan was having a Milotic event IRL at the time (so that was around December 2007), and as it turned out, that particular event doesn't have a Classic Ribbon, so it could be traded on the GTS! I went there and I looked for Milotic, and it turns out the first Milotic I got was one of those. I think it was around Lv. 61 already when I received it, and the date on it was wrong and people were telling me it meant it was hacked, lol. I didn't really believe that, and I absolutely loved that Milotic. I levelled it all the way up to 100 the same night. It was part of a set of 5 events that were being progressively released, there had already been Electivire and Magmortar that I missed because I didn't know about them, then Milotic which I got, and then they released a Dragonite in January and a Salamence in February. When those two were released, I got one of each from the GTS, but I had to get Electivire and Magmortar off Wi-Fi trades because they weren't really being put up on the GTS anymore. I loved those 5, I found perfect training spots for them and I levelled them all up to 100.

It turned out the same guy from school had an Action Replay DS, and I knew that you could get to Darkrai and Shaymin if you used Walk Through Walls cheat, so I brought the code on a piece of paper and we all did that. Later on I found out about the codes that give you Manaphy Egg/Member Card/Oak's Letter/Azure Flute directly, from the man in green at the Pokémart, and I was pretty amazed. I wrote those down on paper too and brought them to school, but since we had captured Darkrai and Shaymin with walkthrough walls, the events bugged out and didn't work, so I had to restart my save file again. But I was able to get another Manaphy back, which was pretty cool, although it couldn't really replace the one I got from Ranger since this was my first. Hard to replace memories like that. I got Shadows of Almia later on, for Christmas 2008. I freaking love that one. I was pretty excited when they released events for Manaphy Egg mission, Riolu and Darkrai over Wi-Fi, so I could send those over to my diamond.

Then Platinum was about to come out. It was coming out just a few days before my birthday, so I asked my dad if I could get it as a birthday present, even if it was a few days ahead of time. It turned out he couldn't get me it on the 22nd but we went to get it on the 23rd. I was really hyped for Platinum before it came out and man, it was really amazing once I played it. D/P are my favourites and Platinum is literally the same thing, except everything that was annoying in Diamond/Pearl got fixed and improved, with better visuals across the board. There are just two things that really bother me with Platinum though... the bicycle animation looks stupid, and there's some unnecessary delay when scanning in the Underground that just wasn't there in D/P, but other than that, Platinum rocks everything out the water.

It was around that time that I realized you could generate codes for Action Replay DS that gave you the actual Wondercards for events, and you could pick them up at the Pokémart. Up until that point, I had been trading people online on forums to get event Pokémon like the ones from Toys'R'Us, because those events were never here. I was really excited to be able to -really- get my own, with the Wondercard, and be able to pick them up from the Pokémart, as if I had went to the event myself. My friend lent me his Action Replay, but he didn't have the USB cable nor the software for it. Thing is though, the Wondercard codes were loooooooooooooong! and I had to enter them in the AR digit by digit, and if I accidentally made a mistake I had to re-enter the whole code over again. I lived through it and manually entered the codes for a bunch of events. I got my own Action Replay for Christmas later on, but this time I could use the PC software to copy/paste, so that was a lot better. I loaded it with codes for a bunch of events and went to my friend's house. He didn't have a computer nor internet there and I was going to use my AR with codes I loaded at home, but I somehow corrupted my AR cheat list? and then it became unusable until I'd plug it into the computer at home and reset the cheats list. That really annoyed me, i wanted to use the codes on his game so he could get the events.

So later on, a few months after Platinum came out, I went to a friend's house and he told me about how Gen. II remakes had been announced for the DS, so I was pretty excited for that. At the time, we knew about R4s and stuff and we thought, we could get one of those and we would be able to play HG/SS in Japanese before it comes out here. So I looked online, we didn't end up getting R4, I got a CycloDS (amazing flashcard), and I got my parents to buy him AceKard 2 for his birthday, and we got EZ-Flash 3in1. It was really awesome playing HG/SS in Japanese months before you could get it in English ;p but it turned out his rom was corrupted somehow because every time we tried to connect wirelessly to trade or something, it kept erroring out. It was fixed when we redownloaded the rom so I just assumed it got corrupted somehow.

I found ProjectPokemon during that time, I thought it was awesome we had all those Wondercards here and I used them with Pokésav to make Wondercard AR codes (The ones I used before were pre-made and just listed on sites like Supercheats.) I knew about Ciro's Pokémon Maker for Gen. III, but I thought it only worked for actual Gameshark. I realized later on though, that I could set the code output to Codebreaker, and it would generate codes that actually worked with the Gameshark I had! So I made myself 10 ANIV Celebi and stuff (obviously hacked, with wrong PID and stuff), but I didn't really care at the time because it was better than anything else I could get.

When I got my DS flashcard later on, I found out about the homebrew that lets you backup and restore save files for GBA and DS games, so I didn't need my AR at all anymore, nor my Gameshark for GBA. I found out about save files on GameFaqs that I converted to .sav and imported into my GBA games, some of those save files had events like 10 ANIV Celebi, MYSTRY Mew, so I was pretty excited about actually getting those events onto a Gen. III game (The ones I could get with Pokémon Maker weren't the same since they were bad hacks :c) I also found a save file that had a Japanese Pokémon on it, and I traded that over to my game. It felt really cool to have a Japanese Pokémon on my game.

Later on, I was able to get HG on NA release day. I loved the Pokéwalker. I brought it to school and showed it to my friend when we went outside to walk. He didn't have the game at the time, but he got SS later on. He didn't care what people thought and just messed with his Pokéwalker publicly where everyone could see him but I could only keep mine in my pockets and only took them out when we'd go walk outside.

Then a bit later, I think around April or May, I saw on Play-Asia that Japanese version of LeafGreen was -really- cheap, like I could get it brand new for around $30 (I think shipping was relatively cheap too, if not free.) I figured out I could sell some stuff I didn't really need anymore, and I asked my mom if she could buy it online for me and I'd give her the money, which she accepted. I was super excited when I got it because I had never actually owned a Japanese version before. I asked if she could do the same thing with a Japanese copy of SoulSilver as well, I gave her the money and she ordered it online. I thought it was super awesome I owned those games in Japanese, and now I had two Pokéwalkers that I brought with me every day ;p I eventually got a pre-owned Japanese copy of Yellow as well, that came with the box and everything, but I ended up selling it to a friend.

After that, when Black/White came out, I got the Japanese rom of Black and played through the whole thing, before getting a legit copy of White once that came out in NA. I did the same thing with B2/W2. The 3DS came out and I eventually got one. Think I got mine on Christmas 2011, must have been 2011 because I was able to get Four Swords Anniversary Edition which was available from Sept. 2011 to Feb. 2012. Man, Black 2/White 2 came out really late...

At this point, I was interested in getting Japanese copies of every Gen. I owned an English copy of the first of each pair (Red/Gold/Ruby/FireRed/HeartGold, except Gen. V where I had White/White2), and since I had Japanese copies of LeafGreen and SoulSilver, I wanted to get the others! I found a Japanese copy of Green on eBay for like $10 tops, I asked my stepfather if he could buy it for me and I'd give him the money. It took like a month or two to arrive lol, because we picked free shipping and it came all the way from Japan, but I got it and I was pretty happy about having Green. I only ever got as far as the fourth gym, though, because I restarted the game then and never really played it again. I finished that Japanese copy of Yellow when I had it, though.

Later on, likely late 2012, I found a pre-owned Japanese copy of Sapphire on eBay that was advertised as having had its internal battery freshly changed, it was around $30, and I also found a boxed copy of Japanese Blue, with both the manual and the Kanto map in it. I asked my mom for those for Christmas. I got Sapphire, but Blue took a bit longer to arrive. It wasn't until around late 2015 that I got around to picking up a Japanese copy of Silver and Pearl off eBay to complete my collection. I went with a non-boxed copy of Silver, since I didn't have the box for Gold either, but I made sure to get a copy of Pearl that came with both the box and the manual.

Anyway, X/Y were getting closer and closer and I was pretty hyped for it. I got Y on release day and I played it a lot. Every day and night on the bus to and from college, and at home, though all I really did after beating the game was fight Serena and beat the E4 to evolve Pokémon, heh. Looking back at it, honestly I think X/Y were really underwhelming. The games themselves were fine, but there was -nothing- to do once you beat the Elite Four. Sure you could get Zygarde, roaming legendary bird and Mewtwo, but after that, if you weren't interested in competitive battling, you were out of luck.

OR/AS came out later, and I was pretty excited for that one too. I got OR to continue the trend of picking the remake of the original I have, but then stuff happened in my life and I just really didn't have the motivation to play it anymore, and abruptly stopped after getting the 7th badge. A few months later, I figured I'd start it over from a clean slate and try to play through it, but I just wasn't feeling it and I kept stopping early on and restarting over and over. I got better somewhat but I still haven't fully recovered, I want to go back through the games and get completed save files going, complete my Pokédex in each game and transfer everything forward until I have a full living Dex in OR, but every time I start trying, I always end up losing interest and not having the motivation for it... I still want to do it at some point though. I did manage to complete OR so I have that, at least. Maybe I should try and get a Gen. VI native living dex instead, rather than going through the old games completing them and transferring stuff forward.

Sun/Moon were coming out and I honestly wasn't so hyped for them, mainly because of what happened and me somewhat losing interest, but a few weeks before their release, when realizing they were gonna be out pretty soon, I was looking forward to it a bit more. I got Sun on release day, and I reached the third island, but man, honestly, I really don't feel like playing it. The visuals are great and everything, but I really don't like the direction they've been taking the series. I wasn't the biggest fan of mega-evolution in Gen. VI, but I liked it still to some extent and it doesn't bother me all that much. Even though X/Y were a bit lackluster and needed more post-game content, the games were pretty good in their own right, and OR/AS were honestly amazing. I won't really go into details about what I don't like here since I don't want to turn this into a Pokémon Series rant, but yeah. I don't think I'll really bother with any future games (unless they release D/P remakes on 3DS, I'm definitely getting that if they do, but that would be the only exception.)

Kind of a let down, but I can still play the older Gens. I'm not that big of a fan of Gen. III compared to Gen. IV+ to be honest, so I'll probably just keep those in storage and not really play them, but I'll definitely be playing the Gen IV and V games at some point, along with Gen. VI since I do want to eventually get a living dex going. I love Lycanroc from Gen. VII and that's probably the one thing I wish I could have in Gen. VI, heh. Maybe I'll get around to finishing Sun at some point just for the sake of finishing it. s:

 

Edit: Also I just realized that I forgot to talk about what I enjoy about the games. I'm really not a fan of traditional RPGs because they just feel slow, and you often end up having to do some level grinding to get past certain parts of the game. That just makes the games a chore to me.

I like platformers, since those are the kind of game you can generally pick up and just play while still being a lot of fun, you don't get stuck because your character is too weak to progress, you get stuck because you suck and you just gotta practice to get past the parts you get stuck at. I also like Action RPGs for the same reason. Even though in ARPGs you have exp and levels, you can actually learn enemies' attack patterns, and you can just get good at the game. I don't strictly -need- to sit there grinding for exp and levels, I can just try over and over again, getting better every time, and even though I take more damage and I don't deal as much damage, I can -avoid- the damage if I'm good enough, and beat the game through skill alone. I -can- grind for levels if I want to make it easier on me if I wanted to but it's not required. I like that.

For example I played through Ys Seven on normal difficulty, it wasn't horribly difficult, but I always Game Over'd on bosses at least 2-3 times before I got it down and beat the boss. Then I tried it on Nightmare difficulty, and holy shit it's hard, but man it's so much fun. The bosses don't just deal more damage, they got whole new mechanics altogether, and yet, I didn't need to mindlessly grind on weak overworld enemies to beat the boss, I just went at it over and over until I got good enough and finally beat the boss. I only got up to the first boss on Nightmare difficulty, but man despite the difficulty, it's really fun, and you feel great once you finally manage it. I like that I can just try fighting enemies and bosses over and over and just get better at it, and beat it through skill, rather than having to go back and grind through easy to kill monsters for hours.

Then there's puzzle games that I find to be a lot of fun. They can be difficult, but again, just like ARPGs and Platformers in a way, if you get stuck on a puzzle you can sit in front of it and have at it until you work it out, you don't need to go back and complete easy puzzles to give yourself the ability to complete this harder puzzle (and if you really get stuck, you can just look up the solution online. ;p)

So what is it that I like so much about Pokémon, when I don't like that kind of RPG? Well, I happen to like collecting things, and Pokémon is perfect for that. I used to not mind it and I just played Pokémon all day normally, but nowadays that's a bit harder for me. But thanks to save editors and emulators, I can skip the parts I don't like and focus on the parts I do like. Playing through a Pokémon game to get to the end, I just give my team 252 Attack or Sp. Attack EVs depending on the Pokémon, and 252 Speed EVs, which already makes the games a bit easier, but if I still get stuck due to being underleveled I can just give myself a few levels and I don't need to bother with grinding. (But then again, I prefer to play with the game on Set battle style because I think Shift is stupid and too easy ;p I don't really make sense.)

Then once I've beaten the game, I can focus on the collecting aspect which is what I like. I love event Pokémon and shinies. Even though I just download the Wondercards or relevant event files on here, it's still satisfying to get the event Pokémon and to collect them. Maybe it's not a big feat compared to getting them legit, or getting them all through trading, but still, I like it. But what interests me most is shinies, and completing the Pokédex in general. I really like how the game has 721 different Pokémon and I can collect them all. It's something that no other RPG really does (well, some others do, but not as well as Pokémon does.)

It kinda bums me out that they just keep adding methods of -really- easily getting shinies, I mean, people are getting like a shiny or two every other day which honestly just cheapens the experience and defeats the purpose of shinies to me. But eh, they can do what they want, I'll just stay away from those methods myself.

Anyway, remember that Linoone and Bellossom I mentioned earlier? I actually managed to randomly run into another random shiny Oddish in Diamond back in 2008, one day before my birthday actually. I've tried to replace that Linoone, I used PokéRadar in Diamond at the time to get a shiny Zigzagoon, but it just wasn't the same. I tried trading for someone's berry glitch event Zigzagoon but that just wasn't the same either. The one I had at the time was female, Lonely nature, so if I wanted one to replace it it would have to also be female and Lonely nature. But thanks to HaxAras taking the time to fill up an entire save file with Zigzagoon, I looked through the save file and found that there was -one- which was female and Lonely nature. I think that makes a pretty good replacement for the Linoone I foolishly lost all those years ago and I'm happy with it.

 

Anyway, here, I took a picture of my collection, because I like taking everything out, laying it down and looking at it:

Spoiler

The sticker on my FireRed got really messed up and I hate it :c I don't know why bubbles formed in it. My Emerald is just worn out and I don't mind that, but FireRed is just a mess. Maybe I should buy a new one... I can have this one hold a MYSTRY Mew save file or something ;p

I own a Gameboy Pocket, a original GBA, a GBA SP, an original DS, a DS Lite, an original 3DS, and a 3DS XL. I'm thinking of getting a Gameboy Color again just so I have one (I sold the one I had at the time.) I also have an original Gameboy but it's not in a very good state so I don't really count it tbh. I don't really care about it that much anyway since the Gameboy Pocket is pretty much the same thing.

[HaxAras]

I have a pretty good memory of my entire Pokemon history but a lot of it isn't connected. It's more of just a random collection of barely connected stories and occurrences.

 

For example. I once found a shiny Weepinbel in my Japanese Soul Silver. I used an Action Replay code that makes people shiny on it and it became un-shiny. Later down the line, similar to Ammako: I was breeding my Weepinbel with my Ditto and using AR codes to breed Belsprout and make it shiny. One time, I saved the game and kept re-hatching the same eggs to see if I'd get different natures. Eventually I stopped using the AR code because my L and R buttons were broken so the code was super hard to use. One of them kept hatching shiny and I embarrassingly took longer than I should have to find out it was a real shiny. 

Spoiler

For some reason I always used to keep my Pokemon untouched. Part of it is just because I enjoy raising Pokemon to 100 but it's always sad watching them inch closer and closer to 100 and you can no longer enjoy raising them. 

 

On 12/27/2016 at 10:37 AM, Ammako said:

Looking back at it, honestly I think X/Y were really underwhelming. The games themselves were fine, but there was -nothing- to do once you beat the Elite Four. Sure you could get Zygarde, roaming legendary bird and Mewtwo, but after that, if you weren't interested in competitive battling, you were out of luck.

Sun/Moon were coming out and I honestly wasn't so hyped for them, The visuals are great and everything, but I really don't like the direction they've been taking the series. I wasn't the biggest fan of mega-evolution in Gen. VI, but I liked it still to some extent and it doesn't bother me all that much. Even though X/Y were a bit lackluster and needed more post-game content, the games were pretty good in their own right,

I had to trim it down a bit but I couldn't agree with those words more. 

I'm going to spend the next day or two trying to write down all of my Pokemon memories and how I got into the series. Everything that I can remember and I'll try to string it together as best as I can. Prepare for a pretty long post. I'm very good at rambling.

 

As for what I like about the games? Wow, as soon as I was about to answer that. There's a dozen things I would say. I'm a collector at heart. I'm a videogame collector in general. I collect promo displays and strategy guides, figures, etc. So collecting Pokemon fits right in. I've always been a competitionist. I've been trying to get 3/4/5* trainer cards in all of the games. I've currently hit a brick wall in Fire Red. I beat the Elite 4 200 times, hatched 300 eggs but I can't connect 3 GBA's at once and play jumping minigames or eat berries in Dodrio berry picking. (I can't find out if you these points you need have to be in one sitting or across several games)

I've made somewhere around 7 living dexes. I have several in the works and it depends if you consider every Pokemon in Red Rescue Team being recruited is a living dex, etc.   

I enjoy collecting event Pokemon, shiny hunting and ribbon collecting. Right now, I've been playing Platinum and working on SteamRoller, my future Ribbon Master Suicune. 
Ribbons have always been something I was interested in. Ever since Platinum. I wanted to get into that resort and my Swellow was my PG ribbon collector. Several months ago, I was talking on Serebii and somehow ribbon collecting came up and I was linked to an amazing guide by a fellow named Mockturne. I've been pretty much hooked on it since. 

Spoiler

My OG. For some reason I never went and got the resort ribbons or the days of the week ones. It may be too late to get Swellow all the ribbons but I can still get all/most from here on out. 

My shiny Suicune and my English Colosseum E-reader Scizor. I have the English E-reader Mareep, Togepi, a Wish Bagon and Rocks Metang. I thought it would be fun to use Pokemon with stories or unique Pokemon. 

I'll try to write out the rest of the stories I can remember and organize them later. I just really wanted to post now for some reason. I like Ammako's picture so I'll share one of my own as well. 

Spoiler

I have more, but it would take forever to take pics. GameCube, N64, Wii and Wii/3DS VC games, etc. Like I said before. Collector at heart. 

 

[Guest]

I have Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky but I didn't really include it in there because I wanted to keep it to main series. I don't have any of my Ranger games anymore either, nor Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue, and Explorers of Time. I sold Red to get Blue at some point after I got a DS, and I gave Blue to a friend later along with EoT. I tried Conquest once but it's not really my kind of game, so not something I'd really buy unless I was a die-hard collector of everything Pokémon.

The Ranger games I just sold because I didn't really need nor want them anymore lol, and could use the money for other things. Or did I give them to said friend? I don't remember. I never got Guardian Signs, when it came out I just downloaded the rom and never ended up actually getting it. I'd consider it to be about on par with Shadows of Almia, it was pretty good too. I loved the extra depth they added in SoA compared to the first game which was pretty basic.

Anyway I'm more about main series, I'd never sell any of those for any reason. But it sounds like you went a lot further than I do lol, with your several duplicates of the same game, some in different languages and some in the same language even. I'm good with just one ;p

(Dang Firefox keeps crashing whenever I try to make a ;p emoticon but using a : instead of ; , thats annoying)

Anyway, since Gen. V I kinda stopped bothering with getting the Japanese counterpart version to the one I have in English, with the region locking I'm just meh about it. Sure I could play Black/Black 2 on my DS Lite but then I can't play it on my 3DS, and Gen. VI I could have a regular English copy set to Japanese but then it isn't really a Japanese copy so there's no point. Although now that I think about it, I can probably keep a second, region-changed emunand on my 3DS to use just for playing these, heh. Kind of too bad I don't feel like I can allow myself to buy so many games right now.

I've been feeling like I want to buy a DSi though. I don't like playing regular DS games on a 3DS because the screen is weird however you play it, but on the DS Lite, honestly I really don't like the buttons. Heard the DSi had clicky buttons just like the 3DS, and like my SP did, which would be amazing.

[HaxAras]

I just grabbed all of my DS games. I have so many memories with the Ranger games. I remember the original was so much harder than Almia. I only played it twice but it remains one of my favorite games. I got my wisdom teeth removed the day I got the game so I didn't remember half the game the first time I played it. Sadly I missed out on the event because my mother didn't wanna alter the internet security. Which I found out later, wasn't needed. I eventually grew to hate the Alamos Darkrai because I was so pissed off that I missed out on it. 

Red Rescue Team remains one of my top favorite games of all time. I played the demo back in 2007. I actually didn't like it at first. I went back later when I got money. I don't remember where or how but I'll always be grateful I bough that game. I've been playing RRT off and on ever since. I spent my entire summer in 2007 playing RRT. I managed to get my hands on the strat guide and that made it a lot easier to recruit Pokemon and unlock post-game dungeons. I started work on getting every legendary in 2010 and in 2013, work on getting all the adventure log entries. I never found that blasted Munchlax but other than that, I need to make every Pokemon leader. I'm saving it for last. I have every single Pokemon recruited. I want to do the adventure log in explorers of T/D/Sky but I haven't played them since 2012. I always enjoyed them but not as much as RRT. 

I'm not ever going to sell my games again. You always end up with no money and no games and I always regret it. I'm going to get a Japanese 3DS and buy the missing games from my collection. I'm buying all of the games in every language. I like having multiple carts, including dupes. I always make new saves but sometimes I like to make 100% save and with gen 4 onwards, I like the date feature and I like keeping my oldest/original saves. 

[Guest]

I've only sold spin-offs that I don't care as much about. I mean I guess not counting the countless times we went to the flea market as kids and kept buying/selling Gen. I and II. They had way better prices than Gamestop lol, they bought back games for $5 less than what they sold them at which is pretty nice. Could buy a game, play through it, when you're done you sold it back to them and you only spent $5 really.

Really too bad our flea market is gone, they replaced the whole place with some kind of apartment complex. Really rather go there than to have to use eBay, and most importantly you got to try everything before you'd buy it. Though that didn't stop us from buying a copy of Silver that had a dead battery without realizing it, heh. We went back right away and they replaced it with a working one. I remember one time, we went and we were looking at what they had to find something I wanted, and it suddenly started raining really hard without a warning (the flea market was outdoors), they kept everything in wooden boxes with a metal grid covering it, so we had to help them cover everything up and we were completely soaked afterwards, that was fun.

The date feature actually really annoys me honestly. I like it in theory, for memories, you can look back years down the line at Pokémon you caught all this time ago, and it recorded the actual date at which you caught it which is pretty cool. For me though, until recently I always restarted my save files from time to time, just trading over events and shinies so I wouldn't lose them, just for the fun of playing through the game again. So all my original save files from 2007, 2009, 2010, they're long gone. I get very obsessed about the dates and it just demotivates me from playing through the games again, because then all my save files will be from the current year and it just won't feel as good than if I still had my original saves from back then. Right now with OR, I deleted my original save file a long time ago and I restarted so many times until I finally actually beat the game, I went back in PKHeX and edited the dates on my save file and most of my Pokémon to pretend like it was my original save from Nov. 2014, and I could probably do that with the Gen. IV/V games too (or just have the date on my DS changed while I play through it), but I mean, at the same time, if I do that, it's like I'm just lying to myself because those save files aren't actually my original saves, they don't have the memories that come with it, they're just brand new saves that have been tampered with to pretend like they were old saves. I don't have that problem with Gen. III, for obvious reasons.

Nowadays all the original met dates on my shinies are gone because they got reset to March 10 2011 when I transferred them to Gen. V. At least the transfer to Gen. VI preserves the Gen. V met dates, but you don't even see them in-game so what's the point. For everyone else who had Pokémon from 2007 from D/P's original release, or that they caught in R/S and transferred in 2007, unless they kept them in Gen. IV the whole time, the met dates all got overwritten when they transferred to Gen. V and on so it feels like the date is meaningless.

[wejhvabewjty]

It was a bit hard for me to get into Pokémon games since my parents were against of portable video games at the time (I already had a PS2) but I really wanted to play the games given that my friends at school talked a lot about them and I really liked the anime, cards, figures, etc. Luckily my mom bought a DS Lite for my dad as a Christmas present (December 2006) and after a tough battle I got my mother to buy me Emerald (Summer 2007) and that is where all started (at the age of 10).

One story comes to my mind too. Does anyone remember here when videos talking about strange procedures with Pokémart questionnaires to get a shiny were a thing? As a noob that I was at the time I decided to try it and you know what, the first encounter after all that was a shiny Marill. I took me some time to realize that the procedure was fake and the fact that the shiny Marill appeared was completely random. I still can't believe it happened.

[Guest]

Also speaking of which, I remembered earlier a glitch I discovered several years ago (well, if somebody else ran into that glitch before I did, then nobody ever said anything about it online...)

I have absolutely no idea how the glitch worked or how it happened, but I was playing through Emerald and going through Route 113. I ran into a Spinda, and I caught it, except when I got to the Pokédex screen, that shows the Pokédex entry when you register a new Pokémon, Spinda's sprite was shiny.

I got really confused, and then I thought I had caught a shiny Spinda and I just somehow hadn't noticed it on the battle screen. But then when I checked its Summary, it wasn't shiny, so I was even more confused.

Then my Pokédex just permanently had a shiny Spinda sprite showing in the list, which is definitely not supposed to happen.

It's really a shame that I had the habit of constantly restarting my save files for fun back then, because sure enough I started over that save file, and all traces of the glitch are gone. I wish I could have dumped that save file and uploaded it here so people to look at it. \: maybe someone could have figured something out.

As far as I'm aware it just happened randomly, not something I'd know how to replicate. I know the Pokédex registers the spot placement of the first Spinda you ever run into, maybe there's a specific spots combo that causes some kind of glitch and makes the game register a shiny sprite?

I just went and tried using cheats to make it so the very first Spinda I encounter was shiny, but the sprite in the Pokédex showed up as regular Spinda so that can't be it, I don't think s:

[CorniFan]

I have a whole post about how i got into Pokemon and stuff on my Korrina fan page...I would link to the page its on, but, i'm scared to a bit 'cuz my age is mentioned on my site. And I still worry about people misjudging and bullying me for my age due to my crush on Korrina (even though i believe that liking a fictional character IS harmless and well....doesn't mean the awful stuff people can think it means at all >_<;;; but some people are pretty stupid.....and i'm still kinda sensitive to being picked on and stuff too sadly :< trying to get past it, mind you, but......well, i don't wanna get into the details. either way, being judged doesn't feel good. i'm sure we can all agree on that!!).

 

But I will say some stuff from my page in this post best from my memory as I can.

 

I didn't 'start out' liking Pokemon; I was first a Pokemon hater. Yep, its true. I couldn't stand Pokemon during the craze....the whole thing just seemed.......scary to me. And I prefered watching Digimon. I may of tried to dislike Pokemon to 'please' my parents (or so i thought), but I think if that was fully true, I woulda showed I 'liked' it more than I did. I tried to dislike Digimon too. But that never worked. I think I REALLY didn't get the whole 'pokemon craze thing'. Or many other crazes, really.....it just seemed like people got all freaky during these things O_O;;; yah know?! No point in being 'cool' if someone gets hurt...yeah......and i know my mom has told me she's had scary encounters during the craze, too. I wasn't just being delirious.

 

I ponder time to time how I really ended up a Pokemon fan overall. I wonder: Is it a desire to face my fears, to face the unknown? POSSIBLY.

 

I seemed pretty into the whole idea of Pokemon AT VERY FIRST WATCH, too....it seemed so cute and interesting to me. It was the craze and its, well, crazyness that turned me away. I didn't like scary things as a kid. I was a timid, girly, sensitive person. Who couldn't even stand wearing pants for like a second of my entire childhood. I'm dead serious...(even now, at the age I am, I still have a pretty much real distaste to the idea of wearing pants overall and STILL don't tend to wear them, like, ever. yep...).

Anyways, I did dream about Pokemon a lot as a kid, from what I remember. I would say, considering the feelings I felt towards the entire craze, those dreams were 'nightmares' to me back then. Even if i'd be thrilled to bits to have dreams like that again now. I don't seem to ever dream about Pokemon stuff anymore....and I crave pokemon stuff like you wouldn't believe nowadays. Yeah....

Anyways, 'cuteness' was what drawn me into the series. Afterall, i've always been, well, sensitive and girly (and pants hating).

I disided to give Pokemon a shot again when I saw my brother get Pokemon cards one time when I was, uhhh, well around 12 or so? Yeah.

I saw his seel card and found it too adorable to really feel...threatened by, I guess. o.o

I started playing Pokemon games the following years. I loved it. I only used cute Pokemon at first; But now i'll train nearly anything.

 

The pokemon craze, that once scared me?...Still scares me quite a bit! But it also fasanates me. One of my most favorite pokemon now is the terrifying MissingNo., and I ended up with a love of catching him on my brother's pokemon blue game after awhile....

 

I guess...Pokemon appeals to me. Cuz I wanna be braver! And less sensitive!!! ^___^

 

I get it now. And Korrina? She's into battling (fights in general, outside pokemon, can be quite scary to me a lot of the time...unless its in something cute like pretty cure....), she roller skates (i was always afraid of asking my mom if i could skate as a kid.....true story!), she kinda has that 'preppy' style to her (preps scare the heck out of me). She, like Pokemon, represents my desire to face my fears. And get stronger.

 

This post....is inspiring me so much.....wow, just. Wow....

 

[PokePrincess]

My parent were the outdated kind.I was told that pokemon was DEAD.The pokemon were pixels in the games.(They must have been talking about the old ones)I just watched the anime.At any rate,I had watched almost every pokemon episode.I tried getting a pokemon X.I was impatient and never played till post-game.I was told about once you beat the champion.You'ld have to restart.I was like,Whatever.Waste of time.One of my friends told me about this site a few years later.By then,I was no longer interested in Pokemon.Then came pokemon GO.There was no pixels or restarting.I was pleased.Then, I was banned for NO reason.Then I got back to X and  finished up.I suddenly remembered about this site , joined and set up an account.I also joined Ultra Moon and used citra as I found the game prices high.When I was playing Ultra Moon,my X got stolen.I downloaded save files and play X on PC.I found many X glitches so I am back to ultra moon now.Short history.

[PokePrincess]

As for Korrina,I find her the brave kind like for me,I do not skate as I'm too scared.Anyway, I like her design.I won't say that I like her for people say I am childish when I say so but actually, in truth, I like her alot.As for wearing pants,I had a brother and my family wasn't rich so I had no choice but to wear them.I had a younger sister afterwards and my parents bought her new skirts and dresses.I secretly made her like pokemon so that she would ask my parents to get us pokemon games but they said no,pokemon was out-to-date and lame.Yes, they said that.

[Sliter]

mine is complex... but I gonna try to tell it short  forget it, it's long XD

Pokemon here in Brazil was nothing more than a translation from american version (as you know, pokemon is created in japan, localized in USA with some names and other change sto the series, then went to the western world using this a sbase, some also changed name,s others keep as the english, like here)
 I don't remind the year but i scholl everybody was talking about it, I wanted to give a look and liked it! all was about the Tv show, everybody wanted a gameboy and game but wasn't accessible XD

Me and a friend from (almost) the same street played on his emulator, I got one at home too but my dad was too against game son the computer so I never really played much by myself, but kinda played  a bit... went  a lot at this friend so we played " together", also was the first time I saw a pokemon game, I played some pokemon stadium but not being able to advance in some gyms there without a GB game where frustrating lol
A bit of time, my parent's gave me a game boy color with a fake copy of pokemon Cystal (that i still have, but not the GBC) for my birthday, that friend got almost the same time, with the same-kind of fake crystal, and other yet with original Silver( the richy-guy XD) but he got stuck for not knowing English and trate it for a donkey kong  :v another fried had a fake gold that was fan translation or something, crazy stuff XD 
well,l time passed and not so close to these friend anymore , watching pokemon advanced on Tv wasn't that nice anymore and I lost the interest for the serie sin general...I don't really wanted to emulate RS because the problem sharing the PC with my father and I wanted the real thing (that time I got a GBA, with only my crystal and mario kart lol)
Later more, some friends got Ds and I wasn't really interested on it because money issues, they wanted me to get one to play with them but meh XD I wanted one only I heard about the R4 :v
Until I wanted to plays smash bros on my n64 (Wii was new that time, maybe not that new, was +/- 2008? and I was +/-17)" and looking for prices, I found a japanese one with 1/3 of the US version price, "it's just fighting game, no need to understand, right?"[spoilers : it was 90% english :v] 
>the cart arrived
>my n64 controller was borrowed
>a friend got me a very in bad state one
>we crazily run to the console
>placed the game and ... WHY IT DON'T FIT?
this was how I got aware of region lock, happily I had an adapter here (idk why I had it LOL)
>we played it 
The pokemon dubs where different that what I was used, and I liked then even small samples,,, but then, new challenger approaching! (or something like that, was in japanese anyway) it's PURIN 
It hit me in a strange way ... like this name? this dub, so cute and kawaidesu (lol) as kids he had problems with the name Jigglypuff because no one could read it, nor say it correctly (the anime dub don't helped, each character talked in a different way) and it was to be really THAT simple? and sounding cutier?
I noticed others diferences like itens names: monster ball, not pokéball, the city was " Yamabuki" , I was like " why they hid that for me? if it's stuff from japan why it isn't like in japan ?"
This was how I got aware about regional diferences for "the same thing"
[kinda side history, not really about pokemon]
I got a bit obsessed with localization in general, even more because I saw it was mostly hiding religious references or strong language to make something " safer" from kids, but really stupid stuff if you consider stuff made in USA for the same public had the content they needed to censor there, was really hard to accept any of it, now I understand some reasons, even not agreeing with that at all, even that it was made for the US public and I had to take it ere, not in US lolol
That time I was like " hey don't let me fit the cart to don't see the changed content!" :v 
[back with the pokemon part]
This was when my curiosity about pokketomonsuta started to grown on me again, and in a anime subs torrent site (they still exist?) just showed me " Pocket monsters diamond and pearl" I was all curious about it , got and it was like 24 episodes in the best way possible: original names and therms on the subs, not using the localized terms/names on the subs or adding colorful letter to move names, but was just that (and like 2~3 movies) the fansub died without finishing it, the other we had was like this with localized therms/names and colorful  things ....
Anyway, I got in love with the series again, just like when I was a kid, but this time I just wanted the Japanese stuff but not knowing Japanese, because the " japanese" pokemon seemed better, some stuff like "real and series worlds was a way I enjoyed very more than the " just a generic fictional word" of the localized western version .
On that time platinum was getting out, was when I got myself a DS and japanese platinum copy, later I got a soulsilver also Japanese, even not understanding the language (well, I played crystal not knowing English more than Yes and NO), also wanted to show people off about the miraculous world of not localized pokemon but wasn't everyone really interested XD even more who had it on their native languages or was too used to care, was a bit of a failure xD
I still like pokemon bu tI still not in that mood to play in english, I tried sun when it launched but haven't went far, I want to translate at least one game(ok all of then but hey, tons of text! and lack of will power) to my language in the way I think it should be here , but I only ave artistic skills and some good ideas, too bad at hacking and nobody on the fando/hacking community really careto help in the translation aspects.
I'm kinda far from it today but still something I love, in a different way from mostly of the fans, with a different view of the series, but 3DS games are kinda of killing it...
The only thing I really regret is not being too efforted to show " the way Iove" it , being the translation ideas or something else, and not really enjoying it in a way easy to share with the rest of the public... and to haven't really learned japanese to be able to at least enjoy in my way by myself 

and I failed about being short XD
 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Sliter

[theSLAYER]

Gen 1: The Origins of an unnamed fan
My first Pokemon Game was Pokemon Yellow, being the gateway drug that lead me into the Pokemon franchise and anime.
Together with a GameBoy Color, it was given to me as a birthday present.
One of my more memorable (rookie) moments with it:
1. Not figuring out that Butterfree's Confusion would have been good against Brock. (I only had Pikachu and other noob Pokemon at that time)
2. Harden Metapod VS Defense Curl Geodude. That drained my batteries.
3. Not saving before Moltres. At some point I ran out of balls. I ran away (to get more balls), thinking that a Static encounter would still be there. I was wrong.
(In my defense, I didn't know that speaking with Moltres would trigger a battle. Something that looked like a bird was just, standing there, and didn't react to me running around it.
How was I supposed to know it was a Legendary Bird? Tho me saving after that, totally my fault.)
4. Believing there was a Mew under the Truck. Or under the S.S. Anne. (It'll take me ~10 years to find out about the Trainer Fly Glitch)

Eventually, in order to be able to trade game exclusives, I ended up buying Red (a friend bought Blue, tho I'll eventually own a copy of that too),
and that was when I truly got sucked in.

Pokemon Red & Blue had the benefit of giving users access to many (potentially game-breaking) glitches,
such as Item-Duplication, Catch Safari Zone Pokemon on Cinnabar Island, Finding Wild Pokemon on Cinnabar Strip.
I was so excited to see a >Lv 100 Wild Squirtle on the strip! This way, I just needed to start the game with either Bulbasaur or Charmander!
My friend had a >Lv 100 Mewtwo on his strip. (It'll take me around ~10 years to find out it's related to the in-game chosen at the start of the game).

Additionally, apparently the appeal of having a hidden Pokemon in the game, meant there's more stuff to discover!
Pokemon was truly a game I spent countless hours on.

So the main way I had fun with the series, seems to have stemmed from this very generation, which are:
1. Playing the main game and completing the Dex
2. Exploring the glitches
3. Hunting for hidden Pokemon (including glitched Pokemon)

It seems like through these years, the way I enjoyed the games hasn't really changed.
Well, there's one exception: collecting event Pokemon.
But I'm pretty sure that's an extension/derivation of point 3 above.

I could write more, if anyone is interested.

[theFlash899]

when i first got into Pokemon games was when i was a young person like 10 years old and i thought to myself let me try it and i heard really good rumors that Pokemon games was really good and really fun . so i played my first ever Pokemon and that was Pokemon Platinum and i played it on the PC, ds and now the 3ds. my experiences on Pokemon Platinum was really good i liked the story and that i wanted to carry on playing Pokemon games so i waited until the next Pokemon came out and that was really good. it was Pokemon Heart gold Soul silver it and me tell you it was amazing. i love the legionaries  that was in the game and i even completed the pokedex on that game because it was really fun and good to play and then i played it again and let me tell something amazing i got a shiny Pokemon for my starter i was like what is this why is it in a different color so then i googled it and found the answer (since i was still a beginner at the game) it was a shiny. 

then i moved on to a different game and that was Pokemon black and white. the graphics on that game was amazing and there was so much to do in that game as well. so i started to play the story mode of that game and it was fun and enjoyable to play i liked it. then after i played the story mode i decided to finish any other things that i have not finished in the game so i did that. and then i got to finish the whole pokedex again which took me by the way 8 months to complete (A VERY LONG TIME) then after that i decided to take a break from it and i missed Pokemon black 2 and white 2 and moved on to Pokemon X and Pokemon Y on the 3ds then after that i decided to play pokemon games and i have played every single pokemon game there was. EVERY game. so i played it and that is how i got into pokemon

[Kirzi]

This turned out to be really long, so here's a super short version. Long version below.

1. Started with Pokemon cards, then got really into Pokemon Silver. And other games, including spinoffs.
2. Ditched Pokemon games before gen 4 because I hated the DS. Sold stuff, replayed on emulators instead. Still liked Pokemon.
3. Got Soulsilver, a remake of my favorite game. Liked it a lot. Got back into Pokemon.
4. Got XY. Got obsessed with trading and breeding.
5. Got obsessed with legit/uncloned event collecting.
6. Got obsessed with moderating /r/pokemontrades.
7. Helped PP collect missing wondercards using my collection and other event collectors, since we need PP's wondercards for Porybox legality.
8. Present day: still event collecting, still moderating /r/pokemontrades. Also using the wondercard server and wcparse to share unreleased info of upcoming events.

 

Spoiler

Chapter 1: Beginnings

It started with 4 Pokemon cards. I don't remember which ones, aside from original fat Pikachu. I think two were trainers. A friend of mine showed them to me, and I guess I thought they were cool because I started collecting cards.

I later managed to get a Game Boy Color and Silver. That game had a lot of memories. Soloing the game with Typhlosion, trying to clone my Lugia but watching it get deleted instead, and getting so lost in Dark Cave (because I tried to walk around without Flash) that I had to start my game over.

I played the originals as well, and grabbed Sapphire, Emerald, and Firered later on. I also got most of the N64 games and Gamecube games (XD/Colo), and spinoff GB/GBA games. Pokemon Puzzle Challenge was by far my favorite. Pinball and TCG were fun too. I still liked cards too. My friend had moved away, but I was long hooked. I even took my Firered to the Nintendo Rocks America event distributing the Deoxys ticket.

Chapter 2: The replay era

I hated the Nintendo DS. I thought the idea of a system with two screens was the dumbest thing ever. So, I didn't get one, and didn't pick up Diamond/Pearl/Platinum.

I still liked Pokemon, though. I replayed my old games loads of times. I discovered emulators, and played the games that way. I played ROM hacks. I tried to make a shitty ROM hack. I played challenge runs, like Nuzlockes, and a solo Magikarp run. I played the spinoffs. I played the normal games so many times I got tired of picking Charmander for the zillionth time.

Emulators were good enough for me so I started selling my physical games, and a lot of my cards too. Needed money. This is why I no longer have my Birth Island Deoxys. Some kid somewhere has a legit untouched Deoxys sitting on my Pokemon Box memory card.

HGSS came out. Black/White came out. I was vaguely aware of these, but intentionally tried to avoid news of these games. I didn't want a DS, so there was no point. I even remember avoiding ROM hacks where people hacked gen 4 Pokemon into gen 3 games.

Chapter 3: Revival

HGSS was tempting, though. I loved Silver. I couldn't avoid it forever. Emulators didn't really like it, though. So I gave up, and tried again at least a few months later. It still didn't work. Well, okay. Eventually I got so frustrated that I got the game. Just the game - I didn't get a DS. I just borrowed my sister's. 

At least, that was the plan. I was hooked again. I got my own DS Lite. I completed Soulsilver's pokedex (aside from mythicals). I bred a couple Pokemon for IVs to try to beat the battle thingy. I picked up Platinum and White eventually. And I got Black 2 the day it came out. I started paying attention to events again, and grabbed most of the wifi/Gamestop ones during the BW2 era. I was never able to trade due to internet issues, though, so I was on my own.

Chapter 4: Trading and breeding

I was extremely hyped for XY. I got a 3DS with the game. I beat the game in a couple weeks, taking my time. Part of that was a pitstop at the breeding center, because I wanted to get some Eeveelutions for my team. I came back to this after I beat the game. I'd learned about egg moves, and the destiny knot, and really liked the idea of having perfect competitive versions of my favorites. So I started breeding.

Eevees were first, of course. And I knew I needed them to have Wish and Yawn as egg moves. But these egg moves were a bit annoying to get, and I was still new to breeding, so I figured it'd be easier to trade.

I thought I was just going to get what I needed and go, but turns out, breeding and trading is addictive. Once I got what I wanted, I wanted more. And more. Collecting competitive versions of my favorites turned into collecting competitive Pokemon of every Pokemon I liked, turned into collecting every single Pokemon with HA and 4 egg moves. I was addicted to breeding, and addicted to trading in online communities (Reddit's /r/pokemontrades, and 4chan's /wfg/). I made friends and had a great time. And logged thousands of hours in playtime. I was truly obsessed all over again.

Chapter 5: The elusive events

I had a stockpile of breedables and items - but there were some things I couldn't get. Events. I wanted that pokeball Vivillon from Paris. I wanted to try to get my friend a German VGC Mamoswine. I wanted a Sylveon event. But these weren't wifi events or Gamestop events. These were rare, and very, very, far out of reach.

Well, to get events, you mostly need other events. So I started grabbing extra events when we got events. I dug up my extra events from BW2. I convinced my friends who didn't care about events to trade me theirs. And I just traded those for more and better events. Eventually, after loads of trades and some lucky breaks, I finally managed to convince someone to trade me the Mamoswine. Problem is, I worked so hard to get it that I wanted to keep it myself. Sorry, friend. I got a Paris Vivillon in another lucky deal too.

After collecting all the breedables I wanted, I really didn't have much else to collect. I wanted to keep trading. Events were the only way up. There were still events I wanted, and they were fun to trade and collect, so I kept collecting. Most trades were just smart deals as opposed to trading only for what I wanted. I figured, the bigger and more diverse collection I had, the better chance I had of being able to secure a good deal when something I wanted came along. It was really hard, though. "Trading up" requires someone else who's willing to trade down, and at a certain point, a lot of people weren't willing to. Boxes of Bank Celebis, Fancy Vivillons, and Charizards everyone was sick of only got you so far.

One series of trades in particular stands out. One day, I got lucky enough to find someone who wanted to trade a shiny Tanabata Jirachi with my chosen nature for 150 breedables with 4EM, HA, and in pokeballs - my specialty. She agreed to trade me the Jirachi once I was about halfway through. Coincidentally, around that time, an older trader appeared out of nowhere whose life goal was to get a shiny Jirachi - and he had something really cool: an RNG'd Ray's Metagross that the entire subreddit was clamoring over. He decided to trade with me, and now I had something super cool. I didn't care for it myself, though, so I turned around and flipped it for several high tier events.

With those, I was able to really start building my collection. I picked up some cool stuff for myself along the way, like a Korean Sylveon event. I kept trading and trading. At some point, I also started using /r/pokemonexchange to buy and sell events - I'd sell some of my events to buy other events, always aiming to break even, roughly. That kicked it up another notch. Eventually, I found my old RNG'd Ray's Metagross up for sale for pretty cheap, and I had some spare money from selling other events, so I grabbed it back, just because now it meant something to me. I still have it to this day. Same with the German Mamoswine.

But as much as I had, it wasn't enough - see, I wanted all Eeveelution events. I had a lot, but not all. I kept trading. Kept building a large, diverse collection. Eventually I had so much stuff that I decided, fuck it, might as well try to collect one of every gen 6 (and later, gen 7) event too. So that kept me occupied. I never expected to accomplish it - it just gave me something to do.

Chapter 6: Moderating /r/pokemontrades

One thing about collecting events is, you need the community. You can't collect events in Japan without trading with people in Japan, or people who traded with people in Japan. So as I collected, I got to know other event traders, and quickly became friends with others in the /r/pokemontrades community. And the more invested you are with the community and its members, the more you start to want to make a bigger difference.

Mod apps for /r/pokemontrades went up. I applied. I got in. A totally new adventure began. I didn't know it at the time, but when I joined the mod team, I joined a family. 

The other mods threw documentation of internal policies and procedures at me. I made a Zygarde core sprite for another mod. I asked questions. I learned stuff. I was already good at investigating suspicious traders - collecting legit/uncloned events is ultimately down to trust, after all. I learned more and more about Pokemon legality. Learned tricks to catch scammers in lies. Got obsessed with trying to catch every scammer, every rulebreaker. Learned how to chill out. Taught myself to RNG, and how to use RNG reporter to catch illegal gen 4 shinies. Taught myself CSS to build a better subreddit design. And later, git and some Javascript/Node.js to try to help with the tech side of moderation, like Porybox development. And so on and so forth.

Chapter 7: /r/pokemontrades + Project Pokemon

In the process of "helping" with (read: getting in the way of) Porybox development, I got to talking with Sabresite. He wanted to help build legality features into Porybox. To do that, we'd need wondercards. Project Pokemon had a lot, but not all. But they were in luck: thanks to my obsessive event collecting, I had legitimate Pokemon PP had no data for, and even some missing wondercards. I didn't have everything - but I did know a lot of other event collectors. Between all of us working together, we were able to fill in a lot of gaps. We were also able to stay on top of new local/infrared gen 7 events.

Chapter 8: Present day

These days, I'm still event collecting, and moderating /r/pokemontrades. Collecting wondercards isn't as necessary anymore since most come straight from the server, and the rest come from volunteers on PP. So instead, I use wcparse and scrape the servers for upcoming events and share the news. Also, I counted my events earlier today, and I have about 540 different events.

The end. 

 

 

[Cecillia]

Playing Pokémon DP on an R4, I loved it as a young child. Then I bought HG with one of my siblings. Then I started learning English, started watching the anime. My parents bought Black. I did something good for a while, so I received Y. Then I got AS for something too IIRC. I bought Sun as a pre-order, got SMD as a birthday gift, and pre-ordered UM. I really loved the announcements and site of HG. I started getting into spinoffs, and ended up buying some cards.

[CorniFan]

17 hours ago, PokePrincess said:

As for Korrina,I find her the brave kind like for me,I do not skate as I'm too scared.Anyway, I like her design.I won't say that I like her for people say I am childish when I say so but actually, in truth, I like her alot.As for wearing pants,I had a brother and my family wasn't rich so I had no choice but to wear them.I had a younger sister afterwards and my parents bought her new skirts and dresses.I secretly made her like pokemon so that she would ask my parents to get us pokemon games but they said no,pokemon was out-to-date and lame.Yes, they said that.

I was not rich either ^_^;; Actually, me and my family were always pretty poor, and we never were able to afford cable till I was like a teenager.

 

I owned a lot of dresses as a kid because dress making was something my grandma used to do; and she was very skilled at it too :3

 

EDIT: I think she only did it as a hobby after I was born, though. But she still had a job at making a little money now and then off of her paintings Cuz my grandma painted too. Yeah, she was a pretty amazing person, I guess...

 

Also I have a brother too. Probably, if I didn't have a brother, I may of never ended up into gaming as I got older......but i really really don't like thinking of stuff like that :x I have my good reasons.

Edited May 25, 2018 by CorniFan