What has Pokémon meant to you over the past 20 Years?

[Denielsmyname]

Hey there guys. My name is Danny and I am a writer for my college publication, Substance magazine. I have been a Pokémon fan since I was ten years old and played Red Version for the first time. Recently with the celebration of Pokémon turning 20 years old, I got to thinking about what Pokémon has meant to me personally. Pokémon has been a part of my life for more than two thirds of it. I grew up with it and it has continued to entertain me ever since then.

With that in mind, I want to write a story about what Pokémon has meant to different people and what their favorite Pokémon memories were. I figured what better place to come for stories than the PokéCommunity itself. It would be awesome if you guys would be willing to share your favorite Pokemon memories here and what it has meant to you over the past 20 years. If you were okay with it, I would like to share it in my story. If not, then that's okay too. You can still post what it has meant to you and what your favorite memory is, just put in your post that you would not like to be included in the story.

Thank you in advance to anyone who shares. I will go ahead and start to share what it has meant to me:

When I was 10, I had just moved to a new house and went to a new school. I had no friends and was really shy. I didn't know how to talk to the other students. But one day, I got tired of playing and eating lunch by myself. So I worked up the nerve to say hi to some kids on the playground who were playing Gameboy. I introduced myself and said hi. They said hi too. I asked them what they were playing and they said Pokémon. They asked me if I played. I said, "No. What's Pokémon?" They laughed at me and walked away.

That same afternoon, I ran home and asked my mom if she could buy me Pokémon. She asked, "what's that?" I shrugged and said, "I dunno???" I had to beg her to take me to the mall to buy something I didn't even know what was. I told her it was super important and she finally agreed. We get to the mall and they point us in the direction of the local best buy. We get there and I stand in front what I now see as one of the most important decisions of my life. Before me was two boxes. One had a gnarly looking fire dragon on it. The other had beastly looking turtle with cannons coming out of its shell. That was hard decision, but in the end I went with box labeled Red Version and never looked back. I went home and played the game literally the whole afternoon straight. I was hooked and didn't even care if the kids thought I was cool or not, just as long as I had my friend Charizard by my side.


The kids at school became friends with me after that day and everything was gravy at that school for the remainder of my time there. That was my favorite memory of Pokemon, and it meant a lot to me because it gave me a way in from being the new kid who no one wanted to play with, to just another one of the guys. I will forever love Pokémon and look forward to hearing everyone's Pokémon story and what it has meant to them.

 

[Sheep]

Pokémon has had a similar effect on me. I got into it around when I had just moved to America from Russia... Could hardly speak a lick of English and soon discovered the TV show to get me started. Loved the story and the monsters so I watched any episode I stumbled upon, and with the help of the anime and people in my class was able to learn speakable English very fast. Without this TV series it would have been more awkward for a longer while.

Throughout my time in primary school I had a lot of other good, and somewhat bad, memories. I remember GSC being the newly-released hip thing and getting stuck in the Ice Cave so I had to lend my copy of Silver to my crush and have him get through it for me, then return the game the next day. I think that was when I realized I liked him?? Kiddish crushes, ah the good times.

Our fourth grade teacher also sat us at three large tables, and at the end of each class he would tell us all to take our seats and stay quiet, from there he'd pick the table he thought was listening the best. And as a reward the kids at that table would look through a giant box of toys/cards he brought in every day to take one thing they want. When it was our turn I found this awesome baby in there! ....Except someone from my class stole it when I was at lunch. I was bummed out about it but felt passionate enough about the card to actually try to get it back, and although I never got it returned in the end I guess you could say it helped boost confidence in myself. =p

So yeah, every one of these small things shaped who I am in a way, as cheesy as that sounds. Pokémon was a huge part of my childhood.

 

[pkmin3033]

My thoughts and feelings towards the Pokemon franchise as a whole has changed quite a bit over the last two decades. I think, in the beginning, Pokemon was for me what it was for a lot of kids my age: a craze. It was what everyone was into; it was the cool thing, and of course every kid wants to be cool. Or at least, I did, and it was something else I could share with my friends. We all loved it.

Pokemon has also been a huge thing for me socially since then, though - the fourth gen in particular, when online battling and trading became a thing, opened up new avenues for me, and I made a lot of online friends through trading during that time; it wasn't a Pokemon forum I was on, but it might as well have been at that point. I guess Pokemon also led me to this forum, which I seem to still be on, and I do seem to talk to people here, and whilst I'd probably just be somewhere else if I wasn't still interested in the franchise, it's still a thing worth mentioning. It's not like I'm becoming attached to anyone here or anything

I've had two "drought" periods - the third gen and the fifth gen - where I've not been as interested in the franchise as previous, and times when I've thought I was done with it, although I've always gone back to it. Pokemon is one of the very few things in this world that can make me recall the better parts of my childhood with astounding clarity: booting up a new mainstream title for the first time (even ones I've not cared for, like Black and Alpha Sapphire) it's like I'm nine years old again. I've had bad experiences, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

Whilst it hasn't been my favourite franchise for a long, LONG time, Pokemon has been something I can keep coming back to for a consistently enjoyable (albeit sometimes disappointing in certain aspects) gaming experience, and something that has opened up so many doors to me in terms of gaming in general. I doubt without Pokemon I would be quite so interested in JRPGs, and I probably wouldn't even bother with Nintendo consoles, because my original Gameboy wouldn't have been as huge of a hit with me as it was without Pokemon Red. I don't know what I would be playing now - if I played games at all - if I hadn't of had the Pokemon titles defining gaming for my childhood.

Anime, too! Much as I loved Sailor Moon, I grew up watching Pokemon religiously on SMTV Live (any other Brits remember that?) and I doubt that if Pokemon hadn't of been so popular I would have seen things like Digimon, Monster Rancher, Cardcaptors, etc. I didn't have Sky, so Dragonball Z wasn't a thing for me, and in any case I think that started airing slightly later. I wonder if I'd be watching anime now if I hadn't of been so into the Pokemon anime and inspired in later life, once I found out what anime actually was, to watch more.

tl;dr I think Pokemon has indirectly shaped a lot of my hobbies and interests throughout my life and, whilst my interest in it has come and gone, it's still been there, which is more than can be said for most of my other hobbies and interests from that length of time. It hasn't been twenty years for me - more like 17, since Red was released in 1999 here - but there isn't much else I've had more than a passing interest in for 17 years; over half my life. So, yeah.

 

[Fannie]

I remember GSC being the newly-released hip thing and getting stuck in the Ice Cave so I had to lend my copy of Silver to my crush and have him get through it for me, then return the game the next day. I think that was when I realized I liked him?? Kiddish crushes, ah the good times.

Pokemon wins the girls xD What happened after that? I'm picturing a super cute kid love story.

____________________


Like most, I initially started playing because there wasn't a single person in my year at school who wasn't. I wanted to fit in and have fun with everyone else. It became much more than that - it became an obsession. I would play all of the games for hours on end to the point where Pokemon was no longer a social tool for me, but something to take my mind off the fact that I had no social life.

I had a terrible time at secondary school and at home. At one point Pokemon really was the only thing I looked forward to. Now that I'm a much happier person sometimes I feel that I should part from Pokemon - that I've 'grown out' of it, but I always come back. No other franchise holds that power over me.

 

[Sirenita55]

Pokémon began for me at the age of nine, with Red being the ultimate Christmas present. Since then, Pokémon has become a huge part of my life for many reasons.

As a kid, I was especially shy, anxious and often bullied. Pokémon provided escapism to a world not dissimilar from our own, but special because of the wonderful creatures that inhabit it. I wasn't particularly good at expressing myself, but I found comfort in raising before school and knowing that they would be there for me when another awful day was over.

As I got older, my problems evolved: bullying was eventually replaced by my parents' very destructive divorce. Before all this, and after, I battled (still ongoing) depression and struggled with addiction to my sleeping pills and antidepressants. However, whilst my problems evolved from Grimers to Muks, Pokémon remained an Everstone in my life: a comfort blanket that has accompanied me from childhood all the way through to college and university, and remains with me now during my time in Spain.

As a result, Pokémon has been so much more than a game to me. My Pokémon represent friends who I can rely on to always be there no matter what, whilst my journeys with them help me to escape my darkest realities. For these reasons and many more (which I have neglected to mention for the sake of brevity), I will always be grateful to this franchise. :)

 

[OuterTsuchinoko]

The first pokemon game I bought was Red Version at Toys R Us, in fact I believe it was the first real thing I bought for myself. I was around 7 years old at the time.

It's always been important as a whole for me because it's always been there as a constant. Other things I have been into they fade out or just don't have as strong a passion for it, but pokemon has been an obsession of mine since I played the first game. I was a pretty sickly kid and throughout my childhood was hospitalized many times. Often for a couple of weeks at a time. Pokemon games were always in my Gameboys as a child taking my mind off of being in the hospital. Maybe that's also where my love for it comes from because frequent hospital admissions are something no kid growing up should have to deal with. It was always another world I could dive into and do what ever I pleased with a clear goal and so many different tasks that made it hard to get bored or not have something to do.

 

[Sheep]

Pokemon wins the girls xD What happened after that? I'm picturing a super cute kid love story.

Hehe, I never told him I liked him, but I desperately hoped he'd notice me in my dress in our fifth grade prom. Needless to say nothing came out of it and we went our separate ways after graduating from primary school. > <'

I had a terrible time at secondary school and at home. At one point Pokemon really was the only thing I looked forward to. Now that I'm a much happier person sometimes I feel that I should part from Pokemon - that I've 'grown out' of it, but I always come back. No other franchise holds that power over me.

Agreed definitely. I've never had a moment where I wanted to quit Pokémon personally, it's not the type of franchise I can ever see myself parting from, especially with how long I've been into it.

 

[Denielsmyname]

Wow these stories are super touching. Thank you so much for sharing guys. I appreciate it! It pretty awesome to see im not the only one who has a special place in their heart for pokémon :)

 

[Shadow-Lucario]

For me Pokemon got me through some very dark times in my life and I do mean dark, no matter what happened I could just turn on my TV or Gameboy and melt away into a world that was fun.

 

[JJ Styles]

For the past 20 years, what i cared for Pokemon the most was that feeling of bonding with some fictional creatures of various shapes and sizes. Weirdly enough, after i played a lot of the games as a kid, I became much more caring and civil towards wildlife in general, where i started to actually care about our world's Flora and Fauna. If I hadn't played a Pokemon game as a kid, I wouldn't be the same animal loving (but still a meat eating omnivore) person that i am today. I'm dead fragging serious.

 

[Jetfire]

Pokemon was my very first video game. It was also what kept me away from trouble too. Being apart of the Gen1 and seeing it grow into what it is today means a lot to me.

 

[Lunar]

I don't have the same touching stories like some of the users on here and it's really nice to hear how Pokemon has helped people get through some tough times. But for me this series brings back so many memories, Pokemon dominated my childhood and still does today. It's weird to think that I've spent pretty much half my life playing these games and growing up with all these fictional creatures, so really Pokemon represents all the best times I've had throughout my life, from playing with my friends as a child, to relaxing on a beach on holiday, Pokemon has always been there with me and I don't think anything else will ever be able to replicate that.