Figured if I was gonna bother to do this I'd go ahead and grab the videos off the shelf that is literally two inches offscreen(also reposting with picture because I want to be on a fresh page with default settings fuck every)...
Stuff that isn't pictured because I lost it: Pokemon Red and Blue(!), though it's kind of trippy to see the instruction manual again after all these years, Eon Ticket that goes with e-Reader
Stuff that isn't pictured because I probably sold it: Pokemon Puzzle Challenge for N64, Pokemon TCG and Pinball for GBC.
Also contrary to what those cheat devices might imply we weren't a site of cheaters pre-RNG I swear.
Isn't it ridiculous Pokemon actually lasted this long and seems to have quite a few more years left in it?
I remember when I went to the Journey Across America tournament in 2006 with my group of high school friends, part of the logic of going down was that none of us had ever gotten to go to a real life Pokemon tournament(unless you count the leagues Toys R Us did, lol) when we were kids and if we didn't go then we figured we'd probably never have a chance. Kind of funny in retrospect since I went to 4 tournaments in the calendar year of 2011... but I mean Hell, even four years before that toward the end of GSC I remember when I first started using Pokemon IRC everyone was pretty sure Pokemon was dying. Weird to think that not only is it still alive a decade later, but while I imagine game and merchandise sales are still way down, the internet community is actually growing at a much faster rate than it was growing at during its peak because of the addition of Wi-Fi last generation bringing so many more people than before.
I think I'd probably have been a little alarmed if you told me I was going to still be playing Pokemon when I started 16 years ago -- maybe a little before that since I picked up the Japanese ROM after I saw the news story about those kids have seizures from watching the anime episode with Porygon -- but I'm glad I still am. Both because a lot of my longest standing friendships are through Pokemon -- I've known people like alex for literally a decade now and have a lot of other really long-standing close friends from the olde Smogon days like Carl, skarm, TTS, and Huy, as well -- and because I think for a children's game it probably taught me a lot of good stuff. Going into marketing now, I imagine I could learn a lot looking back at Pokemon's marketing campaign, and I'm sure I learned plenty about economics and trying to sell something by all the trading of the Pokemon and their cards I did as a kid(even dealing with scalpers was pretty useful experience...), and the prediction in the competitive game probably did a lot more for me mentally than basically every other game I've played since. I play the games a little differently now than I did before, obviously -- I haven't completed the Pokedex since Blue version and now I barely play in-game beyond battling in tournaments and on Wi-Fi at all, but it's funny how they've stuck with me.
It's been a hell of a ride, hasn't it?
Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2 and Monster Rancher 2/GBA/GBA 2 are still better than any of the Pokemon games. I'm just saying.
Stuff that isn't pictured because I lost it: Pokemon Red and Blue(!), though it's kind of trippy to see the instruction manual again after all these years, Eon Ticket that goes with e-Reader
Stuff that isn't pictured because I probably sold it: Pokemon Puzzle Challenge for N64, Pokemon TCG and Pinball for GBC.
Also contrary to what those cheat devices might imply we weren't a site of cheaters pre-RNG I swear.
Isn't it ridiculous Pokemon actually lasted this long and seems to have quite a few more years left in it?
I remember when I went to the Journey Across America tournament in 2006 with my group of high school friends, part of the logic of going down was that none of us had ever gotten to go to a real life Pokemon tournament(unless you count the leagues Toys R Us did, lol) when we were kids and if we didn't go then we figured we'd probably never have a chance. Kind of funny in retrospect since I went to 4 tournaments in the calendar year of 2011... but I mean Hell, even four years before that toward the end of GSC I remember when I first started using Pokemon IRC everyone was pretty sure Pokemon was dying. Weird to think that not only is it still alive a decade later, but while I imagine game and merchandise sales are still way down, the internet community is actually growing at a much faster rate than it was growing at during its peak because of the addition of Wi-Fi last generation bringing so many more people than before.
I think I'd probably have been a little alarmed if you told me I was going to still be playing Pokemon when I started 16 years ago -- maybe a little before that since I picked up the Japanese ROM after I saw the news story about those kids have seizures from watching the anime episode with Porygon -- but I'm glad I still am. Both because a lot of my longest standing friendships are through Pokemon -- I've known people like alex for literally a decade now and have a lot of other really long-standing close friends from the olde Smogon days like Carl, skarm, TTS, and Huy, as well -- and because I think for a children's game it probably taught me a lot of good stuff. Going into marketing now, I imagine I could learn a lot looking back at Pokemon's marketing campaign, and I'm sure I learned plenty about economics and trying to sell something by all the trading of the Pokemon and their cards I did as a kid(even dealing with scalpers was pretty useful experience...), and the prediction in the competitive game probably did a lot more for me mentally than basically every other game I've played since. I play the games a little differently now than I did before, obviously -- I haven't completed the Pokedex since Blue version and now I barely play in-game beyond battling in tournaments and on Wi-Fi at all, but it's funny how they've stuck with me.
It's been a hell of a ride, hasn't it?
Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2 and Monster Rancher 2/GBA/GBA 2 are still better than any of the Pokemon games. I'm just saying.
