Share a memory!

[moon]

Share a pokémon related memory or story from when you were younger :3

I foggily remember getting my very first pokémon card. The TGC was the first I ever saw of the pokémon world. Then came the anime. And some years later the Pokémon Yellow game. I'm not incredibly old, I just decided to buy Yellow for Pikachu even though Gold and Silver and probably Crystal too were already out.

In my school, EVERYONE was exchanging and trading pokémon cards. We who hadn't bought any were warily walking around, peeking at the thick decks of the "cool" kids. Eventually, one guy in the year below me took pity and gave me a card. A psychic energy card. That was my very first! I quickly realized I couldn't really do anything with it though xD After that, I think I got a few dull pokémon like Jigglypuffs and Oddishes from my friends (everyone had duplicates of those) and traded my way up to shinies even. I bought a Misty Gym Leader water pack and learned to play the game. Awesome. Those were glory days for me and pokémon, haha. Looong time ago.

 

[Pokemon Trainer Jackey]

Heh, my first card was an Eevee from Jungle set, also from a friend. I got it after getting into the game, though. My first pre-constructed deck was the one with Vaporeon, and the first holo I pulled from a pack was Pidgeot. I got into trying to have at least one of each card, and it took me forever to get Magikarp and Gyrados from base set. I just wasn't pulling them from packs, so I bought their deck. I always thought it was bizarre that I never got Magikarp from a pack considering that it's supposed to be an uncommon, not a rare. I also collected promos and misprints, some Japanese cards, and I've got the set of parody cards that I think it was Mad Magazine came out with. I got a little burnt out when the gym sets came out though, and stopped trying to make sure I got at least one of each card and just worried about casually getting some new ones now and then, and just worried about tracking down the cards I want for decks.

I remember that the initial commercial for the Pokemon video game was just weird and didn't make the game seem interesting to me. Later on, a couple of friends got into it, and one of them played it on my Super Game Boy and I watched for a while. That's how I got hooked. XD I got a Player's Guide and the figure set that had Meowth in it (I also remember Metapod being one of my earlier figures) and read through at least part of the guide before getting the game. I forget why I got the guide first; either I wanted to research so I'd be prepared or the store was sold out of the game at the moment.

The first episode of the anime I saw was the one where Ash faces Koga. I forget if my friend showed me the episode just before or just after showing me the game.

Starter? A Charmander named Blaze. ^_^ "Blaze" is basically always my default name for a Charmander. "Charmer" is my default name for a Cubone.

I remember when everyone thought Marril was going to be "Pikablu." XD

 

[Timbjerr]

My very first exposure to Pokémon was an ad I saw in Nintendo Power when I was 10 advertising the release of Red/Blue. In recent years I've never been able to find a scan of it, but it depicted an assortment of pokémon underneath a giant bug-catching net with the caption, "Got ya!"

Funny thing is, at that age, any gaming ad I saw in magazines would give me the completely wrong impression on what the game was actually like...and this Pokémon ad was no exception. Due to the composition of the picture, it appeared as if the geodude in the picture was clasping one edge of the net, and was therefore the one capturing the rest. When I eventually did get the game, I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't some kind of platformer where you play as a rock creature capturing other animals. XD

[EDIT]
I finally found a scan of it! After all my years of searching! ^_^

Spoiler:

 

[DeekBoy]

I remember when I pulled my first Charizard from Base Set. I grew up fairly poor and we had recently had our electricity shut off because my mom couldn't pay the bill. I came home to a nice little surprise though. My mom had gone out and bought me a single booster pack since I got good grades on my progress report. I opened it near a candle so I could see what I would get. The moment I saw the beautiful Charizard I nearly cried. One of the greatest days as a kid.

 

[Atomic Pirate]

I was around 8 and I was playing Fire Red. I had just unlocked connectivity with RSE and was walking around Route 1 to catch Pokemon to trade so I could transfer my Sapphire team over. I was walking around in the grass looking for Rattatas and Pidgeys to chuck PokeBalls at, and suddenly... BOOM! Wild Entei Appears! Wild SHINY Entei! I get real psyched, go into my bag, and use my Master Ball.

Shake.

Shake.

Sha- G*(#_Y^%(&*#YUIDFHGP%)_#*+)_^U_(&*YU(*T%RD$#SDGFR$%#%RD$E^$#%

The screen turned from the battle screen to a mess of multicolored pixels. I utter several obscenities and throw my Game Boy down in disgust.

 

[Nordk]

A few years ago, I was playing the TCG with some friends. One of them had an Arceus out, which fainted my Raichu, and I was forced to send out the only Pokemon I had on my bench, a Dark type Natu (Delta species). The Arceus had been out for a while and had absorbed alot of damage, so I used Natu's only attack, a whopping 10 DP Flop, and fainted the Arceus.

 

[The Ash-Ketchum]

A few years ago me and my friends used to play a imaginary game of pokemon.Where you choose your pokemons from a pokemon gba game we used to play and all its stats and moves and write it on a paper and battled.Like go charizard and to make a move miss or hit and cause a stat problem we used to toss a coin.So it wass quite a fun.Because in that school you could`nt bring any pokemon tcg cards.So the thing I want to tell you is one of my friend uses cheat codes to teach his pokemon a move which is not compatible with it so we used to argue with him but what could`nt do some thing about it.because its in his game and we could clearly see it that a sceptile has learned fire blast,surf,guillotine and sheer cold.But for some wierd reason he misses 80%-90%.That was very funny when he loses every time.From the start he just one once (though we let him win)with my other friends lv5 ratata.That was some good times.

 

[Sheep]

I'll share an embarrassing memory from my lil kiddy days. I don't even want to think about it.

When I was around 8-10 I was so obsessed with Pokemon that I took my black cat, placed her on the bed, and pretended I was a Bulbasaur using tackle on her. Of course that didn't make her happy at all and my mom thought I'd been going crazy. :'( I will always look back on it and laugh!

ohohoh
on of my best friends as a kid had a lot of Pokemon merch that I wanted. I went to her house once and tried to steal her cutie Pokemon-shaped erasers, especially the Raichu because boy did I want that. Buuut she checked my backpack right before I left just incase and found 'em, boo. Luckily for me she wasn't mad at all! But I never got what I wanted.

 

[Aello]

In elementary school my friends and I used to walk down the hallways singing the pokerap, to see who could remember the most. :3

 

[Puddle]

When I was a kid I used to divide up cards by type. My best card was an Arcanine Ex, so fire was my best type. I'd then make these cards have an all out battle. Arcanine always won. But I was a weird little kid with a big imagination.

 

[moon]

When I was a kid I used to divide up cards by type. My best card was an Arcanine Ex, so fire was my best type. I'd then make these cards have an all out battle. Arcanine always won. But I was a weird little kid with a big imagination.

Don't worry, you weren't alone. Me and my friend used to put pokemon cards all around her house and then play that dolls were pokemon trainers who encountered wild pokemon and battled. Ah, so much fun! Nowadays I RP instead, so it's not really like I've grown up ;)

 

[Brendino]

I can still remember exactly where I opened up my very first Pokemon TCG booster pack- in my dad's old car in a side parking lot next to a grocery store. And since I just so happen to work near said store, I could even tell you exactly which parking space we were in when I opened it. I even remember that the first card that I pulled out of the pack was a Dewgong, and Blastoise was on the packaging. I don't know why I remember the details of it so vividly, especially since that was 15 years ago now.

 

[Drayton]

I remember when I first purchase pokemon cards and played with my sister, and I keep buying'em XD. also when I was a little boy, I really want GB and Silver/Gold was my first game, also got GBA SP for my birthday gift and FR was my advanced generation game yet.
Also pre-gen5 that day I got my DS lite before damaged (because circuit problem DX)
Boy, that toddler tantrum on my days makes my dad rush and finding options.

 

[Timbjerr]

When I was a kid I used to divide up cards by type. My best card was an Arcanine Ex, so fire was my best type. I'd then make these cards have an all out battle. Arcanine always won. But I was a weird little kid with a big imagination.

I remember doing something similar. In fact, that was how I constructed my decks before I realized the amount of strategy that went into deck-building.

I would line up all the fully-evolved pokémon cards that I had the capability to use (ie, I owned all the requisite unevolved pokémon and energy) and carry out a standard T-bracket tournament and the best of the best would go into my deck and I would repeat until I had 60 cards in the deck. XD

 

[Aether★]

I remember collecting these:

Spoiler:

Oh God, numbers of Cheetos and Lays packs that were bought and eaten. How rare some Pokemon were, how hard was to get Pikachu or Dratini hahaha.

 

[Pikelodeon]

My first and best memory of pokemon was when I got pokemon Emerald from my cousin. When I popped it into my Nintendo gameboy, the "amazing" graphics (To my 6 year old mind!) immediately got me interested. It felt like a new world, a whole new adventure... I got butterflies when I had to choose my starter, and I was amazed by all the different pokemon! The mechanics were a bit confusing at the time, but I eventually got it. I replayed that game dozens of times, and I recently replayed it again, all the memories flooding back to me... Long story short, when I got pokemon emerald. :P

 

[TwilightBlade]

.

Yehhh! Board games! The good part of having a twin to play with! I collected the same things Sajmon shows. I had quite a bit of mostly Kanto/Johto Pokemon merchandise, from the little figurines to the marbles to the Scholastic Book Fair books to the Burger king golden cards to the... pajamas! Some posters, stickers, pencils, binders, first three collections of the trading cards, videos of various episode arcs, and of course, the video games: Red, Blue, Yellow, Stadium 1 and 2, Puzzle League, Gold, Silver, Crystal, even Hey You Pikachu, pah! My parents said they had to pull out the credit cards, which they rarely use nowadays. ////ouch

I used to take some of the Pokemon figurines to school, where I was in 3rd grade. I was playing with them in class and my teacher took them from me. ;o;;;; I had to get mom & dad up at the school to get my Pokemon toys back. Oh, don't get me wrong, this teacher loved me to death and genuinely said she wish all her students were as sweet as I am.

Though, most of my fondest memories would within the video games. My twin brother and I would trade and battle so friggin' much. We'd even trade in the car, at school, in a lobby or wherever mom would be forcing us to tag along with as she ran her errands. One time during a battle, we kept pulling in and out the link cable to see what would happen, haha. I think we accidentally cloned a Pokemon once that way, too! /trade mod in the making

I remember getting stuck in my first play of Blue version. I couldn't get HM Strength in the Safari. I legitimately trained my team up to 70; keep in mind that Koga's Pokemon aren't even at level 40. Eventually, my older neighbor offered to help so I lent my game and got it back the next day with the HM, hurrah. My childhood friend later challenged me to a battle and whipped me using a Mew, hah! I'm sad he moved away!

 

[Crunch Punch]

My furthest memory of Pokemon as far as I can remember has to be when I was like 4, and I was at my cousin's house across town way back in 2001. I used to live in a poor country then so tech was always outdated unless imported, so I was extremely confused yet also fascinated when my older cousin brought out his Gameboy and showed me Pokemon Green. Yup, Green. The Japanese-exclusive version. To this day I don't know how the hell he got that game lol

Fair to say I had no idea what they were saying at all (in fact I couldn't even read English back then anyway so no version would of made sense) but the animations and excitement was just unbelievable. That's when my love for Pokemon began and a week later my mum bought me a Pokemon anime comic book, which had the anime episodes 1-3 in comic form, and things just went on from there.

 

[Mana1]

I remember the Pokémon Cards being banned from my primary school due to a blow up as two kids traded cards (Ninetails and Dewgong I think??) but then one changed their mind.

Oh the chaos.

 

[Olli]

Hmm, there's a lot of memories to go around, so it's hard to pick out some that I'm especially fond of or find to be memorable. I actually have two regarding a friend of mine which I wouldn't say I'm fond of, but I find it funny how we managed to become such good friends despite that.

The first memory was actually when I first got to know him I think. Anyways, the TCG had gotten really big at our school, and I was kinda late to join the party. Though I managed to convince my mom to buy a pack of cards for me, so that I could join them all. I don't think anyone actually played the games, or knew how to for that matter, we just wanted to collect the cards. But yeah, I got my cards, and I had no idea whether they were good or rare, but I thought they were cool. The guy, however, convinced me that the cards weren't worth much, and offered to trade some of his so called better cards for mine. I chose to believe him, since he knew more about the entire TCG thing than me, and I was happy that he was being so generous... but I later learned that he had totally scammed me, and that some of the cards I gave him were much more valuable than what I got. Doubt there was actually much difference in value between them, but I believed that and obviously got mad, though I don't remember if I ever did anything about it haha.

We eventually became friends somehow, and I think our entire friendship was actually built around Pokemon. He was also one of the friends whom I later could talk about Pokemon with, after people started losing interest in it without being afraid he thought it was too childish. But yeah. A few years later we decided we wanted to start up our own little TCG league, eveb though none of us knew how to actually play it (ya, that was still the case). We got into a fight on who should be the leader though, and it got to a point where we stopped talking to each other. Which went on for an entire year. I don't remember how we became friends again, though I honestly think I just asked him about it.

And while it may not have much to do with Pokemon, it's more the fact that we both got to know each other through Pokemon, our friendship was built up around Pokemon (even though it did become more than that), and Pokemon caused a lot of dispute between us. He's definitely one of the better friends I've had (even though it might not sound like it haha), and I'm honestly thankful for that. And I feel like I'm not the only one who experienced something like that, especially not considering how the franchise has generally been promoting socialization over the years.

Of course there are all the generic game memories and stuff, but this is what stands out to me the most :)