As the 6th Generation of Pokémon Games finally releases this weekend, I felt the need to share some thoughts about the Pokémon franchise as it shaped my interests in gaming and of course, Anime. (Image Source)
Back in the day, I didn’t know much about Pokémon when the games first came out in the late 90s. Eventually, my sister and I got a copy of Pokémon Red and Blue for the Game Boy respectively around when I was in fourth grade, probably during the summer of 1999. Back then, there was only 150 known Pokémon compared to over 600 we have now. The story was simple with the main character going on an adventure, collecting all 8 badges, catching new Pokémon, beating Team Rocket and of course defeating the Elite Four. This eventually got me into gaming a bit more because not only I played other Pokémon games like Pokémon Snap and Pokemon Stadium, but also got a copy of Super Smash Bros, which is a fighting game that features characters from other Nintendo franchises.
When the second generation games came out a few years later, I felt that Game Freak improved a lot from the originals until the fourth generation as it had 16 Gym Leaders to beat, introduced genders, breeding among other mechanics. In comparison, the third generation felt like a let down as it removed a good amount of those features. Not only that, you couldn’t transfer any Pokémon from the first two games, which was a bigger letdown. At the same time, it introduced natures, double battles, abilities, effort values and overhauled individual values. It’s not until Generation 4 came out that I started taking competitive battling more seriously and spent a lot more time playing Pokémon since online play is finally implemented.
To me, Generations IV and V was a vast improvement since you can now battle and trade from other people all over the world while being easier to train/breed the right Pokémon. When I was in high school, I used to spend a lot of time breeding and training Pokémon for online battling and it was fun. Although I didn’t do much battling during the fifth generation since I was focused on Anime blogging and college work, except for the one time when I battled Yumeka, the author of Anime Yume, I spent most of my time at the Battle Subway and eventually the Pokémon World Tournament for my offline battling needs. Also during that time, I named some Pokémon after Anime characters as seen in my previous posts.
As Pokémon X and Y finally releases, looking back at my experiences with Pokémon, the main games have gone a long way from being 2D to finally being fully 3D and being released on the same day in all countries. While Pokémon Anime can be considered as a gateway drug to Anime, it eventually sparks interest in other Anime back when I began my undergraduate degree. Without the games, this wouldn’t be possible.
With that, what are your thoughts about the Pokémon franchise? Feel free to share your favorite Pokémon.
(Please delete the above comment. It cut off half of my post and won’t let me edit it.)
I remember piling into a tiny room with a TV in the corner with 15 other kids during after school care just to watch Pokemon, though for me it will always be a cartoon rather than an anime. I was probably obsessed with Pokemon for a good portion of my childhood. I once made a kid cry after assuring him he would never be a Pokemon master because that was my calling.
I played and finished all of the games up to Black and White, including some of the spinoffs like Pokemon Colliseum and XD (which I wish they’d made more of). After that though I couldn’t really get into the new Pokemon enough to enjoy the game. While Pokemon Gold and Silver were probably the best games because of the amount of content they included my preference for the generations of Pokemon is more like 1>3>4>2.
Favorite Pokemon…I would have to say Blaziken.
It seems that the editing comments thing is broken for some reason, so I’ll check that out later.
Aside from that, while I didn’t mention it in this post, I also remembered watching Pokemon on Saturday mornings back when I was in a child. Of course, I got to see other Anime as well, but in a limited fashion.
But I have to agree, the new Pokemon since Generation 5 didn’t really interest me that much, especially for the fact that Pokemon Black and White only have access to new Pokemon, leaving out some of my favorites such as Eevee and its evolutions. There was a few I liked, but not that many. Thankfully, Black 2 did fix that by adding some old Pokemon back to the mix. But still, while I lagged on the coverage of the new games, it looks exciting and apparently, I don’t need to buy another Japanese 3DS to play Pokemon X and Y in Japanese as they include multiple languages. Since I believe that there will be furigana support and that I know more Japanese compared to when I played Black 2, I will probably play it in Japanese this time around.
Since you read my blog I’m sure I don’t have to go over my history with Pokemon 😉 (I actually wrote a post similar to this one back before Black and White came out). Unlike many other players, there wasn’t a particular generation of Pokemon I thought was lacking more than any other – to me, they all had their good points and some bad points. For example, while I didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t transfer your pokemon from gen 2 games to gen 3, gen 3 had a lot of my favorite pokemon, like Salamence, Tropius, and Metagross. I’m surprised you haven’t battled anyone else besides me considering you’ve been into competitive training for a while now. In addition to battling online acquaintances and friends occasionally, I also spent a lot of time at the Battle Subway and especially the PWT in BW2. I love battling on the PWT – I actually downloaded the Championship teams they had available and managed to beat them =D
Anyway, I look forward to battling you again on XY!
I apparently got sidetracked with other games and the lack of time that I don’t have much time doing wifi battles. But aside from that, while each generation has it’s strengths and weaknesses, I agree that there are some favorite Pokemon I like…
But aside from that, I do plan on transferring some Pokemon over once Pokebank goes online… But aside from that, hopefully it will be fun.
Red and Blue, those were the good old days. I remember back in elementary school when my class went on a field trip, and a couple of friends and I had a small little battle tournament on the bus. Had to swap link cables since only two us out of ten brought them along, lol. I also played the card game back then, too. My local Toys r us had its card and video game weekend on Saturday for Pokemon and gave out some nice replica badges from the Kanto region, providing we had enough points against other players and managed to beat one of the game masters. Haven’t played competitively at all since then.
Out of the all the games I played I can’t say I have a favorite, but did like some of the pokemon that Gen III introduced if nothing else (Claydol, Breloom). I am looking forward to getting X or Y (it will be for Christmas) and sort of kicking myself that I sold my Black and Black 2 games a few months back. Had a really nice lineup from the Sinnoh region, too.
I admit that I only battled very few people when I was in elementary school. I usually battling with my little sister. But yes, I used to collect Pokemon cards before I stopped doing so.
I hope you enjoy X and Y when you get it. I have played a lot of it yesterday and it’s a sizable improvement over the fifth generation, which I had some mixed feelings about. While I won’t get to transfer any of my Pokemon until December, in terms of effort value training, it’s a lot easier and it shows how much each Pokemon has earned.