How did you become interested in Pokémon?

[Lork]

i was 7 or 8 and me and my sister got gameboys and pokemon red/blue respectively. i fell in love with the whole shabang and i haven't looked back since. got yellow, then silver when she got gold, the TCG gameboy game which was totally awesome, as well as spending far far too much of my pocket money on cards. i hope i dont ever grow out of it either.

 

[king chespin]

I was at my cousin's house, he was training his venusaur against a pidgey, then he went to sleep, I helped him and got a dodrio and fearow, but didn't get the game.
Then my mom bought me a DS and diamond. I liked it more tan LG and it became my favorite game.

 

[Cresselia~~]

I was in 7th grade at that time, so I know how you feel (old as f**k). My sister introduced me to the anime one morning while we waited for the school bus (it was the episode with the giant Tentcruel; Tentacool vs. Tentacruel I believe was its title). I didn't even know there was a video game at the time. Anywho, shortly after that I was in class talking about Charmander and another kid overheard me and claimed that he was the worst to start with. I had no idea what he meant so he explained to me that there was a gameboy Pokemon game. That Christmas I got Red Version, and my little brother got Blue Version. Incidentally the same person who told me about the games used the pictured magazine (not sure if it was that specific issue) to help me get through Team Rocket's headquarters in Celadon City (damn warp tiles). Up to that point I had only really played platformer games (Mario, Donkey Kong Country, etc.) so the whole RPG thing was confusing to me.

Pokemon definitely gave me a renewed interest in videogames, although I stopped playing after Gold/Silver. I bought Ruby when it came out, as well as Fire Red when it was released, but both sat in a drawer, shrink-wrapped, for years before I played them. Then one night I was bored so I opened Fire Red because I remembered really liking the Pallet Town theme and wanted to hear the remix. I kept playing for a few days and became curious as to whether Mew was catchable so I searched Google and came across Serebii.net. While on that site I stumbled onto the "game mechanics" section and learned about EV's and IV's for the first time. This blew my mind as I never expected that there was so much going on behind the scenes, so to speak. The game I was playing previous to starting Fire Red was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and I loved how in that game you could manipulate the stats of your characters by having them level-up in certain job classes. Needless to say, that I could manipulate the stats of Pokemon had me very excited. That began my resurgent interest in Pokemon. I had never really battled them outside the game before and was purely interested in the collecting aspect up to that point. But researching the game mechanics eventually led me to Smogon and the competitive battling scene. Now Pokemon is really the only game I play.

Oh don't worry, I'm about the same

 

[MahouRedZ]

The first time I played was when my brother gave me a GB color with Pokemon yellow. I absolutely loved it and haven't missed a single generation.

My all time favorite is emerald but X and Y make strong candidates now.

 

[Shiruba]

My all time favorite is emerald but X and Y make strong candidates now.

Hide

 

[Shadowhand]

I was one of those kids in kindergarten when red/blue and the anime came out. I always watched the show, but my family didn't have the money for a while, so I could not get a gameboy. I still watched the show with my friends and watched them play the games, but I could never have any of my own. Then the christmas of second grade there were only 2 presents under the tree for me. One of them was a lime green gameboy color, the other was silver version. I was so excited that I ground my totodile to level 12 at cherrygrove. I had to find a geodude on route 45 and scratch it because everything else fainted in one hit.

 

[Majestic Electric]

I was 9 years old and watching T.V out of boredom. There was nothing good on on that day, so I was just surfing the channels. Pokemon Battle Frontier came up on my television and I decided to watch it, since like I said earlier, everything else was crappy. I had no idea I had found a new hobby. I remember collecting cards with my friends and receiving my first game, Pokemon Ruby, on my birthday that year. *sigh* Good times. :)

 

[Soul Fly]

[YOUTUBE]48dh5kufu3s[/YOUTUBE]

'nuff said.

That and the fact that in my place we didn't have any idea that it was based off a game, we used to get the TGC decks and shit to play around with. So when we came to know that there were actually games based on the series (vice-versa actually).. we lost our shit.

 

[LumaSoul]

The anime :D

I was there from the start, but I forgot about my past, so one boring Saturday morning, I decided to watch television, and after watching my back-then favourite show (Sonic X), Pokemon: Advanced Battle was on. I lurved it. It was kinda different to me, and after that, my friend let me play his copy of Ruby, and on my 9th birthday I bought a DS Lite and a copy of Pokemon Diamond.

 

[khaozz13]

I wasn't aware of Pokemon's existence when it first came out. I don't remember my exact age when I first saw the anime (9 or 10), but the anime was how I first loved Pokemon. One day, I walked in my local gaming store and saw an image of an epic winged beast on a silver cartridge. When I saw that it said Pokemon, I knew I had to buy it. To this day, I still own my Silver cartridge as well as all of the gen 3 games, most of the gen 4 games, and White 2. Strangely enough, I never owned any Gen 1 games.

 

[dinodino56]

Well it started when i was 3 years old.My mom bought me a pokemon game called pokemon yellow version.I didn't know what to do or anything ,but that is what started me off.I started watching the show 1st gen ,and i loved it; i would watch it every chance i could get.I watched all of the episodes until we came to 4th gen.I really didn't like the show anymore ,but i played diamond and i loved the pokes.One day though i found out a new pokemon game came out called Pokemon Black.I never got the game ,but my little sis did.She let me make a file ,so i did and i loved the game.A few weaks later i discovered smogon and pokemon online.It was pretty interesting though i never went on smogon that much.On pokemon online i picked alot of random pokemon.Though i tried this one poke named keldeo.I looked on smogon for a analysis and it said No strategy found ,so i picked my own set which would be the Calm Mind set right now.I probably didn't create it or anything ,but it was awesome.Then finally pokemon showdown was created.Now i created a smogon account and that is how i became interested in pokemon.

 

[KnivesInAToaster]

It's actually kind of funny the way I discovered it. I was like... I want to say three years old (I'm currently 14, yadda yadda yadda, cue the "GET OFF THE INTERNET"s) when my cousins were getting Ruby and Sapphire. I happened to be with them and nabbed a copy of Ruby... Not that I knew what I was doing at all. It snowballed from there, I picked up D/P/Pt on their launch days (I even got those styluses!), and eventually I landed here in competitive battling.

...funnily enough the same Ruby cartridge was where I encountered my first Shiny. ...It did not go well.

 

[UnvrstySmogPkmn]

When I was 7 because of the Anime. I remember that I got excited to watch the first Pokemon Episode at Cartoon Network. ^^

 

[GenXXZ]

My sisters were probably 8 or 9 when the whole Pokemon thing took off in the late 90s and I was only around 1 or 2 at the time. Once both of my sisters grew out of it, they gave me all of their Pokemon games, including Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, AND Silver, all of their 1st edition Pokemon cards, and then later I promptly bought Ruby and Emerald.

I was kind of a lucky child.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

I was about 10 or so when red and blue came out and I instantly fell in love. Kept on playing religiously up through Crystal and then just lost interest for awhile as I was starting to get in to Counter Strike and playing other games competitively in tournaments and stuff. Came back around Platinum and played all the games I missed and every game since.

 

[Redjar]

People started bringing the cards to school when I was in 1st grade or so. My first card was Charmander from the first set. That christmas I got Pokemon Yellow and been a pokemon fanatic ever since.


Though hearing some other user's stories makes me feel old, haha.

 

[Ericcc]

Idk I was five at the time and all the cool kids were doing it

 

[Coronis]

When I was 3, the inaugural season of the pokemon TV show had begun(Back when it was good)

Had to laugh at that....

Anyways, I got Silver for my birthday one year, June 02 or 03, age 8 or 9. Soon became known as the Pokemon expert in my school, and haven't looked back or missed a game since.

 

[Gloom]

My dad got me Yellow when I was 6 years old, and I was a fan of the show haha. Most kids around me had Red or Blue so I felt pretty special too lol.

 

[Mulan15262]

I had a friend who was interested in Pokemon. Him constantly convincing me to try playing Pokemon, plus my parents buying me Pokemon Battle Revolution, eventually got me interested, and I bought Pokemon White December 2011.

Now, that friend has moved on to other things, while I am still interested, and another friend of mine started playing.

 

[blitzlefan]

A friend was staying at my house for a while, and he had a Game Boy Advance SP and was playing Leaf Green. He told me to grind on wild Pokemon while they went off to some camp, and I got hooked on the game. Afterwards, I managed to acquire several games (Leaf Green, Ruby, Sapphire, etc.) and I've been hooked ever since. :)

 

[ShinyShaymin]

When I was younger, I loved the Digimon Tamers TV show and expressed little interest in Pokemon. My parents purchased a Pokemon Emerald believing that Digimon and Pokemon were the same. I didn't know much about Pokemon at the time so I decided to give the game a try. I loved Pokemon Emerald from the very start. The concept of training my own monsters for battle was overwhelming, I put 200+ hours into Pokemon Emerald. I started watching the anime and read a lot of the translated manga. Now, I have played almost all the pokemon games ever released including non-main stream games such as Mystery Dungeon and Pokemon Ranger. Pokemon and Digimon have both majorly impacted my childhood.

 

[Daenym]

Back when Pokemon came out I was in 4th or 5th grade. I actually saw the show first (Island of the Giant Pokemon was my first episode). I enjoyed it, started watching the show pretty regularly, and eventually learned there was a game that went along with it. So I promptly got my mom to take me to the store and buy both games (which finally game my Gameboy Pocket a use).