Where did you Start?

the tcg was my introduction to the series as a whole, but for games, yellow was technically my first. the first main series game i actually got and played completely was sapphire, though. my gen I and II were mostly pokemon snap and the stadium games. i lost my copy of yellow before beating brock so rip.

Pokémon Red in the summer of 1999. Pokémon was all the rage, and a lot of my classmates received Red or Blue and a GBC for Christmas 1998, but I wasn't into the games at that point (despite having owned a Game Boy Pocket for a couple of years). I attended a really lousy day camp that summer, and I was having trouble making friends because everyone kept talking about Pokémon and I knew nothing about it (and we never seemed to do any of the activities we were supposed to do at camp, so there was nothing else to do or talk about). So my mom bought me the TCG starter set so that I could join in the conversation about Pokémon cards.

I started watching the tv show over vacation that summer, and I decided to get one of the games. Everyone I knew owned Red, so I decided to get that as well (trading wasn't really a thing in my peer group at that point). It's one of the few games I bought with my own money (I usually tried to wait until my birthday or Christmas). I already liked Blastoise, so I went with Squirtle as my starter, and I set off on my journey. And while that summer was terrible (I bailed on the camp after three weeks, and spent a lot of time sitting in the back of cars my parents were test driving in awful heat), I'm grateful for the introduction to a franchise that has played such a huge role in my life over the last twenty years.

Ash said:

Eighth Birthday. My parents got me a Gameboy Colour and both Gold and Silver and the moment I saw that they had gotten me I Was a rude little child and asked where the batteries were. After cake and celebrations and such I was allowed to go up to my room and actually start playing in which I chose silver instead of gold because I thought Lugia looked cooler. Me, being a ten year old kid, didn't even set the clock right and just dived right into playing the game so it was like. eight hours behind. named myself Max (I forget why), choosing totodile. When I got to my rival I took the ??? literally and when the policeman asked me what my rival's name was I put in ???.

played the game mostly using totodile with a pidgey that managed to stay on the team for the most part but that was the beginning of my eternal love for the pokemon games.

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Max was one of the default name choices in Silver, so that would go along with the diving into the game thing. Maybe you liked it best of the default options?

I'm always surprised by how many people named their rival ??? in GSC, but I suppose it is technically what the game told you his name was.

NikolaP said:

I mostly had my dad translate it for me until I learned enough English to go about myself.

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Wow, must be great memories :D

There are so many people who started with Kanto, aww superb!

Coming to my tale, it's your fellow Sinnohan here! It was with Pokemon Pearl. I got an R4DS and a DS Lite (my first ever contact with gaming) when my father visited San Francisco. I started with Mario Kart, then tried Pokemon. All I knew was that it was a TV show, but now I know that it is because of the wonderful game that I'm in a wonderful fan community :)
Fun thing, I spent 100 hours in the sea to the north of Sunnyshore, before the waterfall that leads to Victory road, because I had no clue what to do. I had seen an episode, so I was brainwashed into thinking that there were Invisible judges in the area, who would guide me to that "palace" I saw through the telescope if I impress them with how efficiently I defeat the wild Pokemon. I kept on switching teams, used 100 power moves, fully evolved Pokemon to "show off" to those invisible judges. I pressed 'A' while facing the waterfall one day, and I was dumbstruck to find out that I was being dumb, but excited as well. Ultra Facepalm.

I started with Pokemon Red and Blue on the day of release because in Europe they came out on my 9th birthday. Played every generation since.

It all started with these two bad boys :



I don't remember if I got Blue first or if it was Red but I got the other version at the end of the year.

Sapphire in 2003, I remember not having time to play straight away because I had to go to a school disco. Bet my 7 year old self was glad the next day was a weekend 😁

Red and Blue which were given to me by my neighbor when he found them will moving.

Imperator161 said:

Max was one of the default name choices in Silver, so that would go along with the diving into the game thing. Maybe you liked it best of the default options?

I'm always surprised by how many people named their rival ??? in GSC, but I suppose it is technically what the game told you his name was.

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oh probably then. especially if it was like the top option or something besides gold. which was fine, in any case, since in HGSS i named myself Maxine as a callback and honestly Maxine is a cute name i ought to use again sometime haha.

Like many others, pokemans red version on a sweet clear purple GBC! Charmander was my first starter, and I didnt understand why my screen would flicker every now and then even when I restarted the game so I assumed it was the batteries and changed them. Uh, no, little me, your pokemon was just poisoned

I'm a beginner compared to everyone else, but I started with Pokemon Black

For me, my first games are some of the earlier Pokémon games, like Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Gold/Crystal. I get to play them because I borrowed my cousin's Gameboy Color once or twice when I was a kid.

Yellow was my first

I got Blue for Christmas, but I remember being a little disappointed because I really wanted Yellow, which was already out by that time. Lol

Blue was still fun, and I did Yellow later on. Good times.

Blue version here. Oh do I remember wanting that game, and being excited when my parents finally picked up a copy. I may have kept calling the store a few more times than I should have just in case they suddenly got more copies in, oops.

I started with platinum and all that i can remember is that is was ridiculously hard for me as a young kid haha.
I wish i could play it again hahaha

My very first pokemon game was Diamond. I still remember, that when I was a kid, I saw other children playing their pokemon games on their gameboy color, but all I could do was watch them playing. My parents and grandparents didn't allow me to get one for myself, all I was allowed to play were harmless games for little girls. Pokemon was way too brutally in their eyes. Oddly enough my parents didn't have anything against me watching the anime, but until I came home from school and finished my homework (first work, then play) in most cases the anime was already over for the day, so I seldomly had the chance to watch it.
Well, by the time I got older, my parents (and grandparents) grew less strict with me and when I was around 12 years old, my parents took me with them shopping to finally buy me my very own pokemon game. At that time I still didn't knew much about the different editions and already existing generations, I just wanted a pokemon game. And the only ones avaible in the shop were Diamond and Pearl. Since I didn't knew anything at all about the new games, I chose my copy merely based on appearances.
I still know how it felt, when I encountered entirely new pokemon in the wild and how exited I was, when my pokemon evolved, since I still didn't knew how their evolutions would look like.
Until this day, these are very special memories to me.

My first game was Pokemon Ruby! My sister and I had a friend in elementary school that we met on the bus (it was like 3rd grade) and they were cool and gave us their Ruby Version cartridge. I can still remember going through that game with Blaziken and it really just seemed all too magical. I ended up getting Pokemon Leaf Green later on, and that was a fun endeavor. I soon found out about Diamond and Pearl, but I had to skip that generation since I didn't own a DS yet. I ended up buying Pokemon Black in middle school when those games were announced, along with my first DS console. The rest is history B)

Sapphire for me! It's my birthstone, so it had a special meaning to me when I picked it.

I started with Blue but it was actually 2006 when that happened lol. Within a few months, Diamond & Pearl came out and a close friend bought it for me. I was a freshman in high school and couldn't afford it. The reason I waited so long to finally play Pokemon is because my parents forbid Pokemon and Dragonball Z in the household. They were led astray by brainwashed people who told them it was evil. They're cool now but it was frustrating then.

Anyways, Diamond was the one that really stuck with me and I became obsessed with the series. Fast forward to now and I've played all the Gens.