#It's been a roller coaster and I can't /not/ be aware of Pokemon or yeet the knowledge I've picked up over the years

[timbrrwolfe]

I guess since I reblogged that DS menu post and waxed nostalgic in the tags I can do a little ramble about something related

My weird history with Pokemon. Well, it's not /that/ weird. But. Maybe inconsistent is a better word.

I'm old enough to have started with Gen 1 back in the day. I got Pokemon Blue, my sister got Red (I have to wonder how much of a ripple effect it would be if it had been the other way around. I clung to Blastoise as a favorite Pokemon forever. If I'd had Charizard instead, with how much I already liked dragons...a lot could've changed. Probably most of it inconsequential. But.) I think I did manage to get to the Elite 4 but I'm pretty sure I never beat them as a kid. Honestly even reaching them is kind of impressive in hindsight considering how little I understood the game. I went back and did a solo run with Blastoise to beat the game properly as an adult.

Gen 2 gave me Gold, I think sharing Crystal with my sister? It might've just been mine, I forget. Cyndaquil was probably my first starter though Feraligatr ended up narrowly beating it out for my fave starter of that gen. I know I got to Kanto but I'm not sure how far I got beyond that. Doubt I even made it to Red, let alone beat him.

Gen 3 I had Ruby, then Emerald. I don't think I ever beat the Elite 4 in this one either. Though I played (and restarted) the game enough to contribute to my getting tired of my starter of choice, Blaziken. Gun to my head I'd probably say Sceptile's my favorite Gen 3 starter but I'm not especially connected to any of them.

The first three generations were probably my absolute peak of interest in Pokemon. I was into the games, the anime, /and/ the merchandise. Even a little of the card game though I doubt I understood it well back then. Looking back I can pretty easily remember feeling very intensely positive about the whole thing.

And then Gen 4 happened. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I'm sure my age played a part, given that I was ~14 when Diamond and Pearl dropped. Though it's not like I gave up Pokemon or video games or anything as "too childish". But I stopped watching the anime, and I wasn't engaging in much outside of the games. And then there were the games. Pokemon Diamond absolutely refused to work with my fat DS. I dunno why. I dunno if that was a common problem at the time. It was before I was using the internet regularly (in that way). Eventually I got a DS Lite (the one I mentioned in the tags of that other post). And lo and behold, it could run Pokemon Diamond. Too bad it was SO SLOW that I got SO BORED playing with it I couldn't even make it to the third gym. It probably didn't help that I pretty quickly hooked up the Action Replay, but even if I hadn't I don't think I would've lasted long in that game. No fire types except Ponyta and the starter? In the whole region? Ridiculous. And I cannot overstate how slow the game was. Even just doing the first few games I couldn't keep it up, but I've seen plenty of people discuss it retrospectively as well as a genuine problem. Anyway, I eventually dropped it without finishing it and kind of just moved away from Pokemon entirely.

And then Gen 5 happened. There was a weird celestial alignment situation happening with it. I was pretty well established in a nerdy online community, so I was more aware of games than I maybe ever was before in my life. And I was in general more active online. So when the game started leaking and getting streamed (on the primitive streaming sites of the day), and I hopped into a stream and as much time was spent watching other streams get bopped as playing the game, it was a wild time. Then I got my hands on the game itself. And it was FRESH. I was enjoying myself. I got as far as the third gym before it got stolen out of my DS. My /DS/ didn't get stolen. Just the game. To this day there's basically one (there's two, but the chances of it being the second person are basically 0, so there's one) person who could've and would've done it. But I didn't do anything about it. I just accepted my lot and sulked about it for a while. I /still/ haven't sat down and played through Gen 5 proper. I'm planning to when I do succeed at picking up a 3DS/DSi, but in the meantime, and in all the time that's passed since, I never have. From getting bored of the game to being excited to play and losing the ability to, I was in a bit of a funk when it came to Pokemon. I was pretty well out of it.

And then Gen 6 happened. Brand new console. 3D on the 3DS. An "upgrade" from sprites to models (I think they should've stuck with sprites but that could be a whole post on its own). I loved this game. I did so much with this game. I'm sure the fact that there were a ton of callbacks to Gen 1 was a factor, but I also just enjoyed the game as a whole. Mega Evolution was an interesting mechanic (especially as someone who had enjoyed DIgimon plenty as well). It was the first Pokemon game I beat on my first playthrough, as unimpressive as that sounds. But I was not a child who beat video games. And now I was an adult who did. Sometimes. And this was one of those times. AND I got into competitive battling! In a casual way, just for fun. But I was breeding, and raising and training Pokemon to be used together in a competitive format. Like my team of honestly kind of mediocre Pokemon easily handled a random person challenging me with 6 legendaries. It was a whole new game. I enjoyed the O-Powers, I enjoyed the restaurants for farming money and experience. The TRAINER CUSTOMIZATION? It STILL hasn't ever been as good as when it was introduced in X and Y. And the GLUT of battle formats. Double battles, sure. Triple Battles? Weird, but ok. Multi-battles? Where you brought 3 Pokemon and you had a teammate who brought 3 Pokemon and you played together against 2 other people teaming up? Incredible! Rotation Battles! X and Y were peak in so many ways (and bad in other ways, but I was way too busy enjoying what they were doing right to focus on what was mediocre). I was getting active on twitch as a viewer and chatter, and I ended up battling a lot of Pokemon streamers pretty regularly, testing out my goody little teams against other people who were raising competitive Pokemon. If the first ~3 gens were the peak of my enjoyment of Pokemon as a whole, Gen 6 was a much more narrow but maybe more intense period of enjoyment. I had so many friends and acquaintances who were enjoying the game together and I was digging into it more deeply than I ever had.

But then after X, Y, and especially after ORAS, it all kind of fell apart. Virtually all the streamers I watched and battled with or against just kinda...stopped, after ORAS, if not during it. Sun and Moon came out, and I played them, and I enjoyed them, for the most part. But the magic was gone. And I was becoming more aware of the cracks in Game Freaks' development of the games. And if I was seeing cracks in Gen 7, Gen 8 with Sword and Shield just put it on full display. Despite being part of a group of people actually making content (podcast episodes and youtube videos) and being hype for Sword and Shield....once it was out? It just wasn't good. At one point in the story there's a big explosion and you get told to go to the next town to continue your League Challenge and let the adults handle it. Like ?????? We used to take down entire crime syndicates as a 10 year old! What is this "let the adults handle it" nonsense?" So Sword and Shield blew it wide open for me.

I ended up not picking up Legends: Arceus, not because it seemed bad (the opposite, really), but I just didn't have the spare money. Maybe I'll play it someday. Maybe I'll rent it from my library. Regardless, I skipped it. And if I skipped a reasonably good game, you /know/ I skipped what turned out to be a buggy, empty mess of a game in Scarlet and Violet. I very nearly rented it from my library but canceled my request for it. I might get to it someday but at this point I'm very content to just let it be and not get any more Pokemon games unless it's proven that they're good, and that Game Freak is doing something right with them. I'm not paying Game Freak to put out subpar garbage. Plenty of people are, but I'm not one of them.

#Timbrr plays Pokemon #Timbrr rambles #Timbrr rants #kind of a weak ending I know #but like. So's the mainline series at this point so #Honestly I didn't even get into spin-offs and all that. This was long enough as it was #But yeah from the unbridled enjoyment of a kid #to being so bored I don't even want to finish it #to being excited and having it snatched away #to being back IN FORCE. And having that fade away shortly after #and then realizing how bad things have gotten with the series and vowing not to get the new ones until something changes #It's been a roller coaster and I can't /not/ be aware of Pokemon or yeet the knowledge I've picked up over the years #but I am putting it down for the time being until it gets better