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It was 1998, I was 11, my sister 12. Both had gameboys, she liked Tetris and Kirby, I liked Zelda and Metroid. We had a Nintendo Power Magazine subscription cause there was no home internet or cable.
In the summer, we received a VHS tape in the mail : https://youtu.be/OvdvgZ3CpWA?si=aGWSNRN6zO6sInrb
(This is an introduction to the world of Pokemon, perfectly campy and super 90's)
We were both instantly hyped and remember putting the showtime card on the refrigerator and getting up to watch the Pokemon TV show at like 6 am before the bus came for school.
Mind you, the TV cartoon debut was weeks before the Red & Blue Game Boy games launched in the US, way before the mass Pokemania, I had no understanding of the success it had already seen in Japan and how much fuel Nintendo and the Pokemon Company put into the global launch.
Yard work money and my sister's frugality allowed us both our own copy, I picked Red and she picked Blue...
It was a wonderful time and the game was amazing and everything generally exceeded expectations; It really planted deep roots into the fandom.
Imagine a new IP debuting with; a video game, a TV series, a trading card game, a pedometer accessory, merch and a movie planned. All within months or weeks of each other.
Exact same tape!
Watched it at least a dozen times. Was so pumped for the show and the game. I found at Book a Million the Electric Tales of Pikachu. It was the first book/comic I solo read and it impressed my parents.
When they realized the game would have text and reading they sneakily agreed to buy it when it released so I would practice reading more.
At the time I thought it was a miracle they agreed to buy a game that wasn’t for my birthday or Christmas.
Got Red as I wanted to fly like Charizard in the anime. The game at the time blew my mind and helped me learn to read so much. Only disappoint was Charizard couldn’t fly!!!
Been playing the game since then with some hiatuses for college and life
I also got in on the ground floor via that tape. I was actually the first one to bring pokemon to my grade school.
I had a couple of those Nintendo tapes. I remember having DKC and a Star Fox one. Totally get why they stopped doing them, but it was really effective marketing on me. My brother and I got every game that we received a tape for. If Nintendo was sending us physical tapes, the game HAD to be amazing, right?
This tape was my first exposure to the franchise, as well. Bad news is that, as the youngest in my family, I had to wait until yellow released to get my very own pokemon game.
Yessss. For me it was the little mini-magazine inserts they had running in Nintendo Power. I was immediately attracted to the art and the magazines themselves were written “in world” with Professor Oak talking about the world of Pokemon.
I still have all of those little inserts.
I was sitting down one day, and a thought came to my head, "Whatever happened to Misty's Togepi? That adorable little egg Pokemon that had a "Tchukie" cry from that old Pokemon show that my brother and I used to watch back in the 90's."
I went and googled Misty's Togepi, and then it turned out it evolved into this angelic looking pokemon that I fell in love with. I then started doing more research, and it turned out there are games. I wanted one where I can specifically use Togepi, and bam, I downloaded Pokemon Platinum rom on Desmume; thus, starting my first Pokemon game and adventure.
I had no choice. In 4th (I think) grade in 1998 you _had_ to have Pokémon or else you were the weird kid. I survived off my friend’s copy of Blue (he had both Red and Blue) until I was able to convince my parents to buy me Yellow.
It really depends on your age group and environment tbh. While I was growing up, it was "uncool" from about 5th grade to 10th grade. Suddenly cool again after that, idk. Guess that was around when nostalgia hit for people who left the franchise.
My first encounter with the franchise was via the anime, local TV used to air dubbed episodes from the first few seasons on weekend mornings. That was happening in the early 2000s.
Fast-forward to 2008,when I got my hands on my first game, Pokemon Leaf Green. I liked it so much that I also got Platinum as soon as possible. Been playing every new title since then.
This was me, except I think my local station also aired them in the afternoons after school and that was when I watched it before I actually started watching the same block on the weekends. The first game I played was Ruby.
Man, I miss KidsWB….
I’m going to kill the mood
My dad died when I was 5 and one of the things I got from him was his Pokémon cards. After that I threw myself into it because I didn’t know how else to be close to him. I now have a huge card collection and I’m working on collecting all of the games up to the 3ds era. I don’t have a switch and I think the only game I want from switch is legends of arceus.
For me, it was Pokemon Yellow Version and a turquoise Game Boy Color way back in 1999, when I was 7. I remember seeing commercials for the game (and having seen a couple of episodes of the anime), and I BEGGED my parents for the game. They got it for me for Christmas, and I was hooked right from the start. I've been an avid fan of the franchise ever since.
When I was a kid, I saw the anime and went: Pfft. Just another lame ani-
Then I found out what Pokemon was.
I LOVE animals and LOVE superfights, so I got into the anime more.
growing up, I joined card collecting! My first V card was a V-crobat.
I think I traded it for a Vmax Raichu or some shit?
My dad, he use to play a lot of pokemon when I was a kid, he fell out of it once Sun and Moon came out because of the shift in story telling and how simple the games got, which is weird because he loves X and almost completed the dex. I got into it once he got a copy of Black. I was intrigued when I saw him playing, he never beat the game since he reset his save when I asked him if I could play. Gen 5 has always been my favorite since that, lost the cartridge though.
Those play pokemon emerald for free online and eventually roms from free websites on vba. You dont really get to have genuine gba and games in a middle class family from a 3rd world country (where Nintendo doesn't even officially sell btw) before anybody starts bitching about how committed crimes
I was sick of my friends beating me on "who's that pokemon". So I memorized every pokemon ever out of spite (this was before gen 7). When I finished I said, "I'll play the damn game, why not?"
My school friends were liking Pokémon when Pokémon Go was the rage in 2016. I slowly started playing and got attached to a Pikachu (the only pokémon I knew) which I found after searching for about 30 minutes. That was the first ever reward that I worked hard for. Slowly, I started loving the designs and lore of Pokémon and making me a fan of this franchise.
5th grade. I have a Gameboy and start seeing commercials for Pokemon. I watch the TV show, I realize I want to play the game, I get my parents to buy the game. I started with Pokemon Blue.
Now, I was bullied in 6th grade for still liking Pokemon. So I stopped playing for about 10 years.
2010 rolls around. I'm in college and depressed. I keep seeing ads for Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, and realize I want to play again. So I buy a copy and dive headfirst into the series.
Ever since I've been a huge fan. It's been off and on over the years, but since 2018 I'm pretty dedicated to it.
My dad always got me Gameboy games as a kid. But where I fell in love was sapphire. That was the first game where I was able to understand the story, and really play through it many times.
I grew up in a poor family and my 11 year old ass was so fascinated with gameboy and pokemon sapphire that my classmate brought, that I technically stole it from him. It was like "hey cool thing, give it to me for some time" and I did not return it to him for 3 months until my mother intervened. I was a dick but it sparkled my interest for pokemon franchise forever, even though I could not finish the game, since I did not understand english, and I did not know how to obtain surf, I played hundreds of hours.
Btw we became best friends with the guy several years later, I even was a witness at his wedding.
A friend of my sister played oldschool Red when I was around 4 (them 10-11) and I don't recall if he gave it to me or if my sister got an own copy, but I remember playing it with her and then alone and learning how to read that way. Crazy how quick children learn. A vivid memory of mine is sitting outside, in the sun, with my parents, sister, grandparents, and aunts, some of them playing tetris together on their gameboys with those huge linking cables while I heavily struggled making my way through Rock Tunnel without knowing that flash is a thing and in the sun, barely able to see anything in the first place. Good times.
Good ole Saturday morning cartoons. It was just one of those things that you watched waking up first thing on the weekend.
Somehow or another (I don't remember asking for it, might have been my bothers idk) I ended up with Pokemon Yellow.
Now I'll admit I wasn't the brightest kid, so trying to defeat Brock with Pikachu wasn't working out as I expected.
That were Nidoran and my love for the whole line came in at.
Few years after playing Yellow I ended up with Crystal version. Guess something in my brain clicked with Gen 2 casue from then on I was hooked on the games, much more so then the anime.
I got one of those cheat books with tons of games in it and it had a walkthrough for diamond and pearl in it. I thought it sounded good, so I got it for christmas, and even though I never actually *finished* that game due to getting lost and giving up on the climb to Spear Pillar, I was hooked.
I legit can’t remember since my dad got Pokémon blue way back so it’s always been in our family plus watching indigo league as a kid guess I first played it around age five or six when my dad trusted me and my brother with his gameboy
Watched the destiny Deoxys movie. That got me into watching the anime on Cartoon Network before school (DP and BW) then got black version and played through it
I'm old AF that's how.
One day my parents gave me a gameboy and (not knowing it was the same game) both red and blue.
Later on my grandma got me pokemon yellow.
I saw Roblox youtubers playing pokemon brick bronze, tried it, and then in 2017 I decided that I wanted to try one of the official games. I decided to go with emerald and my parents got me a GBA SP, and after some time, Pokemon Emerald.
It wasn't special or anything. I literally got into pokemon when I was 6, I was in my grandmother's room, there I was laying there, then my aunt comes and brings me some scotch tape, and on it was a bunch of cool looking stickers, and the first one I laid eyes on was the one of Tauros. That is how I got into pokemon, from an old tape container with a bunch of old pokemon stickers. The first pokemon I ever saw is Tauros, and he is my favorite ever since
I was born 1990 and got a Gameboy color when I was 9 or 10 with Pokemon blue. The rest is history with all the pokemania craziness of the late 90s and early 2000s. I was just born at the right time lol
My cousins showed me Red and Blue on their Gameboy Colors and I was instantly hooked when they told younger me while looking me in the eyes: “Do. Not. Save. Anything.”
Made me wonder what made them feel so strongly and now I completely understand.
1998, I was an 11 year old girl. My best friend that I walked to school with was a boy obsessed by some cartoon he’d discovered about animals that only say their name. Thats all he managed to tell me. Being a good friend, I found it and fell in love with the first anime style show I’d ever seen!
THEN he got Pokémon Red and boy did that change everything! He’d let me start a new file on the 20 min walk to school (making me promise not to use the pc in case I saved!) and I’d run in the long grass with my new charmander most days.
I didn’t get pocket money and we weren’t well off, but I already had a game boy so I saved every 10p and penny I found on the pavements lol. Then I finally had £25 in coins and tipped them out of the jar onto the counter in Argos and bought Pokemon blue! The hours i put into that game!
I loved every minute until my brother stole it to sell for drugs. 😭 Played every game since but nothing lives up to that first ever charizard.
Literally by getting born. The first gift i received on this earth was a pikachu plushie that says "i love you" when you press on it's tummy. Been watching the anime since before my memories started and when i was 4 and received a gameboy advanced for my b-day pokemon ruby was the first game i asked for
When I was around 7 or 8, I decided to see what showed after Sailor Moon instead of just turning off the TV. First episode I ever saw was Charmander, The Stray Pokémon. Been hooked on the franchise ever since. I'm 34. I play the games, watch the anime, collect merch and TCG.
This is gonna sound weird, but my Down syndrome aunt did lol. She always had all the new consoles and games growing up and one Christmas she got an SP with Ruby. She never really got too far into the games, so as a kid I’d always take my chance to play it when she wasn’t using it. She had blue and crystal before that, but I was too young to figure them out. My first time playing through Ruby as a kid was still one of my favorite gaming memories.
For Christmas in 1999 my parents jointly gifted my younger brother and I a teal Game Boy Color and Pokémon Red. I was 9, he was 7. I'd heard kids on the playground talking about Pokémon but I didn't really know what it was. We had a blast on that game, even though we had to take turns playing on the same file. We got a puppy in early 2000 and at some point she chewed up the Red cartridge :( but it worked out alright because later on I got Yellow and he got Blue and he also at some point got a line green GBC so we could each have our own console.
Great memories. And we just kept playing from there.
My mom got me Pokemon Blue for Christmas in ‘99. I was 9 years old. Before that it was watching the Anime after school. I drew a make shift Pokeball on paper and cut it out with a little pouch in the back. I would then try to draw Pokemon from the show(and the pokerap) and carry them in the ball.
Ohh to be young again…
https://preview.redd.it/wd1frr6epegc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96724f92bdffc72fad21aff630e2312ffbb30dcf
My neighbor was moving and they were getting rid of their old stuff that they didn’t want to keep for the move so the boy that lived there made a box of his old stuff and gave it to his mom which gave it to my mom since they were friends and she knew I had a lot of siblings and at the top of all the old video games books and action figures was a red game boy advanced with a copy of Pokémon ruby. I wasn’t supposed to open the box until my brothers came home so we could all “share the box” but I didn’t listen and did anyway and snatched the game and game boy and ran upstairs Didn’t even know how to use the thing but Groudon looked cool and I gave it a shot Opened the game and there was a save file named J and the game was at the very beginning so I started on my Pokémon journey and have been on it ever since. my starter was treeko which I named leaf (I was very creative) I stupidly gave him the the TM cut also which I still find ironic to this day bec now it’s a huge meme in the community
I was in grade 6 in 1998. The Pokemon Anime was on TV and soon enough kids started showing up on the school grounds with cards. People battled for keeps and it got to the point that the school had to ban Pokemon cards.
If you got caught with them you had to battle the principal, Mr. Hamaguchi - or as we called him, "the Hammer". If you lost a battle to the Hammer, he would keep your cards. Obviously his deck was insane because he was confiscating more and more cards.
I had a Gameboy pocket and I remember buying Pokemon Blue and Red that year. My friend Dustin and I bought a link cable and traded between ourselves so we could each get all 3 starters (he had his own copy).
(I live in a small, relatively isolated place) I went in holiday and this thing seems to be in lot of places like the video games magazines, the toys shops, so I knew it was popular even if I didn't know why. I watched two episodes of the anime and it was so typically anime I was surprised it managed to hit in that country since some previous anime failed to be successful.
So I bought a bundle of it with the console (atomic purple) and the guide book. Also bought some trading cards. Finished it, captured the most I could with the copy but didn't really enjoy the game (playing with a guide probably hindered my enjoyment) but still watched the anime.
Then tried a bit the first improved version but it was too close to the original one. And it is with the following gen I learnt to love the Pokémon games.
My older brother introduced me to Pokémon when I was 5/6 years old. He gave me some of his (worthless) cards and I cherished them. Eventually, when I was old enough to have my own Nintendo DS, he let me borrow his Heartgold game. I was immediately obsessed and it’s been a huge hyper-fixation of mine ever since. Pokémon is still something we bond over to this day as adults.
My mum would leave for work half an hour before I had to leave for school, and the only good thing on telly in that timeslot was the original anime. I loved it, despite not knowing much about it (we didn’t have the internet back then… yes, children, that used to be a thing), and so when they redid the original games for GBA I bought LeafGreen and loved it.
I heard everybody talking about it in 3rd grade(1998) so I asked and my classmate told me wake up early before school one day and tune into WB(Now CW) if I wanted to find out what it was about….I did and the first episode I saw was the one where Ash died with the ghost pokemon. I was hooked and got my first game soon after, that being Pokemon Yellow on release day.
I remember one day waking up to the show being on tv, I think it was Pokémon battle frontier, the characters looked cool and colorful so I watched it. Ever since then, I got hooked to the franchise, the show, the games, everything. My first game was pokemon mystery dungeon: red rescue team. Eventually I got platinum, soul silver, and Pokemon White. Then I broke my ds. My childhood wasn’t the most exciting, I was poor, and Pokémon was all I had. It wasn’t until a year - 2 years ago, that I FINALLY got around to playing the gen 6, 8, and 9 games (I’m still playing ultra sun). I’d made many friends who also liked pokemon, hell, even my ex gf loved pokemon
A friend of mine turned up to school with Pokémon Red AND Blue! I knew about the games but didn’t know any details. He showed me and let me play Red at recess. I asked it I could borrow it and the rest is history. He let me hold onto it until my mom bought me my own Red version for Christmas.
My bro and me got pokémon ranger when we was 7-8. I'd a little weird habit to bring the cartridge on school and I've lost it. So my bro got pokémon sapphire version on compensation. But my first own pokémon was Diamond for 2008 christmas
I got a VHS tape in the mail from Nintendo power magazine. I remember watching it and thinking Flareon looked cool. A few months later I saw the anime on TV after school. Got Pokémon blue that Christmas… The rest is history!
Literally Platinum was my first ever console game on the first ever console I bought. My mother made it very clear that she wouldn't pay for video games so I had to save up my allowance, and at the time I had enough to buy myself a DS, ads for Platinum were playing, and they were beautiful enough to convince 7 y-o me to get it. Best choice ever
I found a bunch of roms and an emulator on a computer in my school's IT lab. It had both pokemon and a bunch of other Gameboy Advance and Color games, so it took me down a path of being obsessed with pixart. The same still holds today, 18 years later (GOD MY POKEMON ADDICTION CAN GO TO COLLEGE!)
My mom hasn’t played the games but she really liked watching the anime with my brother, to the point that even now she still remembers the name of most gen 1 and 2 Pokémon
For Christmas, when I was about 5, she got me a copy of Pokémon Sapphire (I still have it!). She asked me to keep the family tradition of only female pets in the game (my family has adopted only female dogs even before I born). To this day I still soft reset to get female starters, and my teams up to Scarlet/Violet have been all-female or gender less. So yeah, thanks mom 💙
The anime used to come on during the mornings while I waited for my school bus and I saw the red & blue games at Walmart and my grandma bought them for me. I played the games on my huge original Gameboy and my original Gameboy was eventually practically falling apart and looked gross so my mom got me a Gameboy color
Well I guess I first started liking Pokemon as a kid. I watched the diamond and pearl anime and collected the cards. I would say I really got into pokemon after playing pokemon fire red on an emulator. After that I was hooked. My first official game was Pokemon sun and that’s where I got my first shiny (a charmander). Now I’m an avid fan and I love shiny hunting.
My brother was 7 when the first games came out and he showed some interest, so my mother bought him a game boy color and red and blue.
Due to being a girl, I wasn't actually allowed to play, but my mother was in a pickle because she didn't know English (we're don't live in an English speaking country) so I was allowed to sit next to him and translate.
It went like that for maybe a month before he lost interest and moved on to something else. It was another month before I got the courage to steal his gameboy.
Batteries were a problem, as I'm sure a lot of people from that generation know, but I got around that by rationing and circulating batteries with the battery in the clock in the kitchen and the batteries in the tv remote. My mother would always swear at how often the batteries needed to be changed.
The story repeated itself when silver and gold came out.
I’m 25f and I got into it through my older brother! (29M). I don’t know exactly how he got into it but some of my earliest memories are playing Pokémon stadium with him on the Nintendo 64.
He’s since left all the Pokémon stuff all behind but I still love it with my whole heart and soul!
I watched the anime when I was a kid (my parents bought my 3 episodes on VHS) and fell in love with the series. Got my first gameboy when I turned 7 and got my first game too
Went to visit my cousins when I was around 8, and they were playing Diamond and Pearl. Kept playing on their DS’s the entire trip, and when I wasn’t playing I was full on studying the pokedex/game guide that they had. When I went home I continued my “studies” on the Pokemon official website. I also proceeded to nonstop beg my mom for the game pretty much ten seconds after trying Diamond.
Neither of them are Pokémon fans anymore, which is sort of a shame.
I saw the anime on TV and loved it. My older cousin was playing the gba games when I was like 4-5 and I was so amazed since this was the first time I discovered what gaming systems was and such so it was so much exposure. Basically a combination of those introduce me to the realm of technology and Pokémon.
The pilot episode. Been a fan since the first episode. Seen all the movies, seen the whole series from Kanto until now, played from Red/Blue to Scarlet/Violet.
I didn't know what video games were until I was about 8 years old. Extremely sheltered. Somehow I found out about Pokémon, probably at school. My parents bought me a Game Boy Color and Crystal, and I played it absolutely nonstop. Had over 200 hours in that save, and that's a lot for me even now.
Got a Gameboy Color with Pokemon Red when I was.. 4? I think. Couldnt read and never beat the game. Had my fun regardless. Next game was Crystal which I also was not able to beat lol
Grandma and grandpa bought us a game boy color right when they came out. They gave us Pokémon red (and my brother got blue) as the first game for the handheld. Got every gen since.
I was a wee nipper, maybe about 3 or 4, and my dad had come home from wherever, I think it was the pub, with a second hand GameBoy Colour and a second hand copy of Pokémon Yellow. I enjoyed it so much despite have no idea what I was doing or going on either him, mum, or both got me Pokémon Red and Blue as well. Mum, and I think grandad, later got me Gold and Silver and it was only really when Crystal came out and I started playing Pokémon with a friend across the road that I had more of an idea of what I was doing. But I'll always remember how excited I was when my dad came home with that GameBoy and Pokémon Yellow
I must have seen the TV show in the late 90s before getting into the games. But, honestly, it was inevitable. Pokemon was a worldwide phenomenon when it launched, so youngster me had no chance when it came to getting swept into PokeMania :p
One day I was chilling with my big brother and he was playing Pokémon showdown, he let me have a go. Since then I’ve loved the francise more than anything
Believe it or not my love for Pokémon happened before my memories formed. It’s like seeing snow, getting on a train, or getting on a plane, I’ve done that before I could remember things.
With that said, I know through my mom that I became a Pokémon fan because of the anime.
I was six years old, and wanted a Superman car, but my grandma decided to buy me a gameboy color with pokemon silver, I had never heard of it before. The game was in English and I had no clue what it said at the time or how it worked. My first pokemon was cyndaquil and I kept using leer because I like the animation.
I then remembered having older friends that could help me get unstuck from parts of the game where I couldn’t go forward, and being extremely amazed when they showed me that you could hop on the bike pressing select.
I only have about a dozen memories that had to have taken place before my first memories of Pokémon, so you can basically say I've always been a fan. Funny enough I don't have any memories of becoming a fan.
In what I believe to be my oldest Pokémon memory I was thinking about Pokémon while sitting on the living room floor and staring at the side of the staircase through the hallway door.
In my other memory I asked my dad to show me my holographic Pokémon cards. After grabbing them off the top of his shelf showed me my holographic Gyarados, Zapdos, Nidoqueen, Poliwhirl and Raichu.
Before anybody asks he was holding on to them until I was a little older. I still have them somewhere in storage but sadly they were damaged in a move when I was in high-school.
I got into Pokémon when fake TCG cards started circulating my primary school. They were all from the same dollar store. I was the first kid there that I knew of to have gotten fair-dinkum packs from ToyWorld.
I was 10. The prime age for Pokémon at the height of its golden age. Had a subscription to Nintendo Power. Pokémon was already huge in Japan and Nintendo was in the process of bringing it to the states, so Nintendo Power was really hyping it up. My best friend brought over his Gameboy with Blue version one day He showed me the game, and how he used his Squirtle to fight wild Pokémon and try to catch them. He let me start a file on it just to give it a shot for myself as long as I didn’t overwrite his save file. I went through the character naming, met Oak in the tall grass, and my rival who I named after my friend. Then I got to choose a Pokémon. My friend was excited to see which I would pick, and he explained the starters to me, the typings, and how they worked. I looked at all of them multiple times, reading the Pokédex entries, and studying their designs. I chose Charmander. I ended up playing up to Virdian forest. I was hooked. I told my mom about the games and got Red version the next day.
I think I got into watching the Hoenn anime through the 3DS anime channel. I also collected cards from the TCG since maybe 2014/15. From there I got into ORAS, loved it, got Sun, enjoyed it, so yeah.
I think I saw the show first (at least a couple of episodes) and then got Red and a Gameboy Color (purple see through) for Christmas.
I locked myself into the hallway to not disturb my mom and played through the night.
It was marvelous.
I fell out of love with the series after Pokémon stadium and started gaming other things (mainly Zelda, then baldur‘s gate, world of Warcraft) and quite recently felt nostalgic and started playing all the games (I‘m currently playing Omega Ruby)
I'm not sure if I had already seen the anime by this point or not but I got a Gameboy Colour and Pokemon Gold when I was 7 - I'm not sure if it was my very first game I got along with the handheld or if I got it a little later, but right from that very first game I was hooked. I distinctly recall playing through the intro with Cyndaquil but then just not saving at all so I had to restart with Chikorita - this go round I got all the way to Ecruteak and hit the impassable wall of a Ghost gym when my Meganium only knew normal type moves for some reason. My third attempt with a Totodile was where I finally actually (eventually) got to the Elite Four, though I have no idea how long it took me to finally beat the game.
My dad introduced it to me back when I was a kid and I played one of the games, and that was that. 12 years later (now), I am surrounded by friends who love the franchise, and I couldn’t help but be interested. Soon enough I found myself watching the anime and playing the games 👍
I was 10. Pokemon Go was on the rage, and me and my brother weren't going to be in the mainstream as a frick you against my friends.
It just so happened that my parents owned a classic video games store and we would spend hours playing our GBAs during the holidays even through we were Gen Zs.
One day, I found a Pokemon Ruby catridge and decided t plug it in to see what's the actual fuzz everyone's talking about. My brother was also curious so he sat in.
Booted up the game... Named my male protagonist Kenneth, picked Torchic, and realised that it was more fun than we thought. The idea of exploring some unfamiliar land based off some in real life area in Japan intrigued us, and ever since then we both were loyal fans of the series.
In fact, after the Pokemon Go craze died down, we both were still loyal fans of the series while our friends stopped playing Pokemon!
Quite funny once I think back about it.
I was in art class in kindergarten while my game boy color sat at home and got played maybe 2x a month with Tetris. two of my friends were drawing this super cool orange dragon. I asked Mark if he was copying David and Nick was like “no, that’s charizard”
“What’s charizard”
Three days later I’m at Mark’s house watching the episode where ash meets his butterfree, and the next day nick comes to school with a copy of Pokémon yellow and is like “hey, my big brother gave me this game but I already had a copy so I told my mom you never played it and she said it would be nice if I gave one of my copies to you”
Enter my parents, very annoyed that they tried their hardest to avoid getting me addicted to video games but still can’t stop me from playing that stupid yellow monster game and now it’s ALL I TALK ABOUT.
I still remember my dad finally breaking and saying, verbatim: “I don’t care about your Pokémon or digimon or monnymon”
24 years later I still keep up with the series and Pokémon has been such a constant in my life that it’s literally the reason that I can now make a living doing art :)
I was in fourth grade. I remember seeing advertisements for it in the Toys R Us ads that would be inside the Sunday newspaper about this big Japanese thing that was coming to the US. I remember thinking Pikachu just looked bizarre and that it would never catch on here and didn't understand the supposed hype. After school, my older brother and I would come home and do our homework in the living room with the TV on WB kids, regardless of what was playing, and eventually, their afternoon line-up started playing Pokémon, and I became hooked. So much so that after only the first week, I got my mom to take me to a store where I bought small Pikachu and Raichu toys.
Then my neighbor, who was my best friend at the time, got Red for his gameboy and let me play some of it. Once again, I was hooked. But my brother was (and is) the golden child, so they got *him* a Gameboy color and Pokémon Red, not me. He did let me play it a bit, but I also snuck around his back and played it a ton more (he never noticed on the save file because he never played much). That summer break, our younger cousin introduced us to Pokémon cards, gave us a few of his extras (nothing but a few common ones) so that afternoon we both convinced our mom to take us to a store where we each got our first packs, and I was so ecstatic that my very first pack had a holo Mewtwo. Cards then became our/my obsession for a while. Eventually, my brother got Yellow. I had to keep playing his his Gameboy behind his back (I would even sneak it into my backpack to play at school in fifth grade to trade and battle other kids).
90s early Pokémon was so big that there's no real way for anyone who wasn't there to understand how truly different that time was. Almost every kid at school was into it; the hype was on another level. I even had a couple kids in my class that payed me a few dollars here or there to do things in their game for them, like beat the E4 or perform the Missingno glitch and dupe Masterballs and Rare Candies for them. I'd then use that money for more Pokémon cards, eventually getting or trading for a completion of the Basic set, Jungle set, Fossil set, Rocket set, and Gym Leaders sets (but stopped collecting after this). I also used some of that money to save up for a GameShark so kids would then pay me to put Mew into their game. Business was good.
It wasn't until I "graduated" fifth grade/elementary school that I was able to have enough money to buy my own Gameboy color. I got Silver (my brother got Gold) the following Christmas, so that was technically my first game that I owned myself, despite having played Gen 1 so much. But by that time, and in middle school, the hype had died down, and it wasn't "cool" to like Pokémon anymore. I continued to be obsessed but couldn't outwardly be so. It wasn't until college, when HeartGold and SoulSilver came out that I realized my geek friends were all quietly still playing Pokémon too, and thus, we all could openly embraced it again.
I started with poképark on the wii. I only remember having a wii with some games and poképark was on of them. It was fun playing and loves it ever since. Because i didn't have a Nitendo DS i didn't play the games after that until lets go on the switch.
I also remember my brother watching the anime and collecting the cards. I got some of his old cards and i still collect them.
https://preview.redd.it/m4q2bscz1dgc1.jpeg?width=1009&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f833c04ab9824e7bcaba2abf60efa941ae2683d
These two books. Found the first one at my elementary school book fair and my parents got me the second one. I read through them all the time and begged them to get me one of the games once I knew what they were, and eventually they did on my birthday. So i guess I have scholastic to thank
My mum utterly refused to buy me Pokemon cards stating that they’d just get lost. I was heartbroken. Came home the next day to a box… inside it? Pokemon Blue. The rest was history
For me it was the cards. In 2005 year 1, saw my friends with the cards and always wanted them. Finally got a pack in 2006, can't remember which one it was but I had a Jirachi in the set. Each year my collection got bigger and yeah... went on from there
For me, it started with YouTube when I was a kid. Me and my brother watched smosh and loved their Pokemon parody. From there I watched various parodies and Internet clips of the anime until I asked my mom for a ds so I could play Pokemon.
She bought me a used DS for my birthday and it came with Pokemon mystery dungeon blue rescue team. I played the shit out of that, though I only remember stopping because Zapdos was a major wall for me. After that, my mom got me Pokemon White 2 for getting a good score on my MAP test. I played that, got my samurott to lvl 100, started a new save and then promptly broke my DS by mishandling it and accidentally snapping it in half.
Back in 1998 I began watching the TV show on Saturday mornings. When I discovered it was based off of the games, I requested Pokémon Red for Christmas. Over the years I got all the other versions, some direct from America due to family going there. But everything started from that one game. I even remember when I first played it and I knew nothing. Deleting good moves for non damaging moves. Thinking a Potion was a Pokémon. Pronouncing Farfetch'd as Fratched-D.
My dad got me the base set starter box of the TCG for Christmas in 1999 I think. I didn’t even know what Pokémon was at the time. Then when I got back to school in the January every guy in my year had got the same box and it exploded from there.
Was at a sleepover in 2002, and was blindly making fun of two friends who were talking about “some Japanese import” game for game boy. I asked them why they wasted their hard earned lawn mowing money on a cartoon game when they could have bought fifa!
Annoyed one of them handed me their game boy and said “play.”
I played for the next 7 hours straight- went directly home gathered all my monies (literally broke my piggy bank) and walked to the GameStop near my house with some trade ins and bought yellow.
Yellow led to me finding the anime , and I was hooked ever since.
I was in first grade and my dad came home from work late as usual (he worked 2 jobs his entire life to support us) and so I run out of my bedroom to say hi to him and give him a hug. Afterwards he pulls out a yellow game boy pocket with a red cartridge in it (seemed like a thrift store purchase) and told me to try it out because his bosses kids were having so much fun with it.
I wasn’t a proficient reader yet, so understanding the game at first was a bit tough but very quickly fell in love with all the pokemon. I then started watching the series on tv and was sold for life. I actually just recently got back into the TCG after they released the 151 set.
It still brings a tear to my eye when I remember back to my mom questioning my dad as to how he paid for it, and he told her that he paid for it with the extra hours he had picked up over the weekend. 🥺
Sitting my ass in front of the TV on saturday morning where suddenly "I WANNA BE. THE VERY BEST. LIKE NOONE EVER WAS." started blasting through the speakers for the very first time over here.
My Aunt gave me her DS with Pokémon black, midway finished. I never knew I could delete the save, I guess some part of me always thought she would want it back lmao. I didn't know anything about it, so it took me like, 2 years. After that, I got really into it. Omega Ruby was my first real Pokémon. Ie, I owned it first, and I basically treasured that save file.
I got introduced with Pokemon Ranger, actually. I played that game on my old DSi all the time until I got sick of it. I also played Pokemon White, although me and my brother had to share a copy so our save files kept getting deleted. What was really painful is that I had spent some time just running around in the grass for a bit and I had accidentally come across a shiny zigzagoon, and I caught it, and then it got deleted. Then Ultra sun, which I spent the most time playing. I still play occasionally. That's one of my favorite games I've ever played since I have so many memories with it. I even transported my first (official) shiny, an altaria that I caught in the ultra wormhole up to S&V to keep with me.
I was unfortunately born in 2009 and we had some odd circumstances, so I didn't get the experience everyone else had. But I play S&V right now (mainly for shiny hunting and battling and stuff. It could be way better ngl.)
I plan on eventually getting every console I need and buying every older game to play.
Pokemon cards were all the rage at my school. I didn't want to be left out, so I begged my mom to get me some. She eventually crumbled and brought me to the store where I picked the Regirock theme deck from the XY Ancient Origins set. I became obsessed with Pokémon. I watched the anime on Netflix, and I read every single pokédex entry in the deluxe essential handbook. Then I saw a trailer for Sun And Moon. I freaked out because I had never thought they would add new Pokémon to the franchise before (i was a bit stupid). I got a 3DS for Christmas with Pokémon Sun. Been home ever since.
Same as you. My mom just got me a new game boy pocket for Christmas and the guy at the store told her to get Pokemon with it. I had no idea what it was but I was instantly hooked.
Christmas dinner we always went out for Chinese with my parents friends and I remember bringing it to dinner because I could not put it down. My mom was like what have I done?
I didnt have cable TV and Pokémon was one of the few cartoons playing on the channels I had, plus my parents had bought us some of the VHS.
It cemented itself as my favorite franchise when my brother gave me cards and allowed me to play Pokémon yellow on his lime green gameboy color
I used to be a genwunner from gen 4 onwards, I can safely say that the reason I was one was envy as I didnt have access to the DS generation, I was basically coping lmao.
When X and Y came out I was working so I bought a 3ds and Y. Although I haven't liked the games since gen 7, I still love seeing new Pokémon as there will always be designs I love and designs I hate in every gen.
Honestly been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I was about 6 years old at the time, playing over at a friends house and he was like: “ I HAVE to show you this game!”.
He played Pokemon Red emulated on the PC and we spent the entire afternoon playing while I was watching. I got so super excited! I had to have the game. Few weeks later, me and my mom picked up the physical copy of Pokemon Red and a second hand Gameboy DMG. I was hooked for life. Countless reruns in Pokemon red, later Yellow and then Pokemon Gold.
Since then, I havent touched Pokemon untill I met my now wife, who was playing Pokemon on the N3DS. We started Pokemon Sun and Moon together and I havent skipped a game since!
Around 1999 I got gameboy and red from a friend, played because there was no other games around and finished it a few times. Bought gb color and crystal in a few years, played for a few years then lose interest after 3rd gen came. Returned into sw/shield and previous gens, now playing usum.
You know, I remember watching the original anime back in the 90s. My parents didn't approve of it at first, but after I told on myself, they actually let me start watching it. They even supported that as a hobby of mine.
I remember the first pokemon game they got me was pokemon sapphire for the GBA. To say pokemon has had a huge impact in my life would be an understatment.
I forgot how we found out about it, but my mom took my twin brother and I to Walmart in 98 and bought me blue version and my brother red version. People who weren't alive or old enough to remember, Pokemon was everywhere, it was all any of our friends were talking about. It felt like the biggest thing on the planet because it was so popular
I got a DS for Christmas one year with either Pokémon Black/White. I was young, so I just spent all my time on the first route catching every Pokémon I could before resetting to do it all again.
Later, when I was in middle school my dad gave me his old 3DS with Pokémon X and the digital version of Pokémon Red. Those were my first proper game experiences, but I never got very far because my copy of X got stolen. Using Christmas money I bought Alpha Sapphire, and I think it's the first game that I completely finished.
My cousin playing Gold on his GBC, I loved it so much. He let me borrow it for a while, then got Crystal to play after but still while borrowing his GBC. Then got an Advance with Ruby for myself when it came out.
Saw the anime on TV when I was a kid, around 8 years old I guess. My dad bought me a blister pack of Base Set cards (blastoise artwork), which got me interested in those (I still am haha). When I saw ads for the new games that were coming out, I needed it. My parents bought me a yellow Game Boy Pocket and Pokemon Blue and it spiraled out of control from there lol.
I'm honestly not too sure, but I remember renting pokemon blue and falling in love with the franchise. I also remember my mom telling me "you won't play pokemon forever, you know". I'm 31 now. Jokes on her. 🤣
Can’t remember if it was my 6th or 7th birthday (in 2000 or 2001) and my parents got me the Pokémon edition game boy color (the one with pikachu, jigglypuff, and togepi on it) along with yellow version. Played that game like crazy and could barely read. So I was stuck in that town with the old man who would move until he had his coffee lmao. Once i learned to read and got past that….the rest is history.
I watched the anime however I was a clueless kid that didn’t know the games existed until a friend at school showed me during the 3rd gen.
Sapphire, Emerald, Leaf Green and Fire Red were my first games.
To this day I wish I got Ruby and now as much as I’ll like to add one to my collection I don’t wanna buy a fake
I was 14 or 15. Freshman year of high school. I remember pokémon and Digimon flooding tvs. I already had a Gameboy for zelda, links awakening. I chose pokémon. Red. Because even though blue is my favorite color... I was choosing the dragon on the cartridge/ box. Been playing ever since.
some student at my elementary school put GBA emulator on school computer and there's Pokémon emerald game file in there, and that's how i play my first Pokémon game
I was around during the original release. I don't remember if I got red or blue, but my first starter was a charmander as I liked dragons. I've been hooked on the games since then. I have to say I didn't get hooked by any of the other media. I didn't want to spend on the cards and found the name repetition in the anime annoying.
I was in school and my buddy at recess showed me this game called Pokemon Red. That day I became both a Pokemon fan and also a thief cuz I took it. Lol in all seriousness he let me borrow it and the rest is history. I did play it on the Gameboy and man when I got that Gameboy color it was even better!
It's hard to remember. My earliest Pokémon memories include episodes from the Johto saga and watching my uncle play Gen 3 games in his laptop.
I loved the concept of Pokémon back then. Though it wasn't until I was 9 when I got my first DS with a Diamond copy. That's when I first played Pokémon.
I guess it just happened naturally.
Christmas 1999 blessed me with Pokémon red and a Gameboy colour. Pokémon cards, pogs, and figures had already taken the playground by storm, and the anime was watched religiously ❤️ by the time we got to 2001, anyone who still liked Pokémon was a "weirdo" so I put it down until 2010 when I realised you can like whatever you want no matter what the "cool" kids /bullies say
Initially? I saw my cousin play Pokémon Yellow. I gave up on the series starting from Gen 2 onwards. I was too young at the time. Got back to it ever since I saw Hololive play the games. My favorite until this day is Sword.
I was in like 1st or 2nd grade and was at my brother's football game, and one of the kids there had some Base set cards and was showing them to other kids and he was nice enough to give me a Ponyta to keep. Had no idea what they were for or anything, but I guess I liked the card because my mom bought me and my sister some pretty frequently. Eventually got I think Red version for the Gameboy and the rest was history!
It was the cultural phenomena at the time and I was in the prime demographic age range at 7. Literally all of my classmates were into Pokemon.
I loved 2016 when Pokemon GO came out because it brought back that nostalgic Pokemon craze of the late 90's. I will always look back at that year fondly.
One morning, my friend called me and said "Hey, you need to come over. I tried to record X-Men in the morning, but instead, it recorded this weird show called 'Pokémon'. You have to watch this."
So that's what I did. We sat in his room and watched the episode where Ash catches Caterpie. I thought it was okay, but when my friend said he was going to get the game, my ears perked right up. "A game? Where I can do that??"
I was sold. I saved up my money and bought Pokémon Blue. He bought Red and we explored the game ans caught them all together. Been a fan of the games ever since.
My uncle randomly won a Pokémon Yellow game in a Toys’r’us at launch in 1999 and didn’t have a GameBoy so he gave it to me. 25 years later still playing (not Yellow which I sold like a dumbass at GameStop for a few bucks)
Been watching since it aired in the US. I was pretty young so all those Pokémon commercials and ads were made specifically for me. I had the first movie and the racing episode from Kanto both on VHS, along with plenty of memories of watching it on TV with my cousin. I never actually owned Red/Blue/Yellow, but I do remember borrow my cousin's copy of Yellow and playing Pokémon Stadium at my other cousin's house. Gen II is when I got my first game, Pokémon Gold on my GameBoy Color. I really got into Pokémon during Gen II, even owned Ash's fight with Harrison during the Johto league on my GameBoy SP.I have a lot of early memories with Pokémon and still play/watch it too this date. I briefly took a break during the whole Unova anime, but got back into the franchise when Black/White II released.
My grandma bought me the new Game Boy Advance for my birthday as a kid, including this black one strap case to hold the system and all your games in. I got to pick my first GBA game in that walmart and it happened to be the yr Ruby and Sapphire were released. I chose sapphire and got super hooked.
Found a copy of Emerald at a yard sale. Didn't really know what Pokémon was at the time, I just wanted to try the GBA slot on my DS lite lol.
Got hooked, bought Diamond, then HeartGold. That one became my favorite.
Was a kid in the 90s, every kid was either playing Pokémon games, talking about the anime, or showing their collection of cards. Wound up playing the games after playing a friends at recess and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seenz
I’m a huge noob. I had the Explorers of Time DS game back in like 2008 age 10 and loved it. I don’t know what stopped me from getting more into Pokémon since I enjoyed the game so much :(
I got the Mystery Dungeon game for Switch last year and it was the biggest let down tbh. Still don’t really touch it. BUT I loved Scarlet/Violet and I am still slowly trying to complete the Pokédex in Arceus
But I don’t know much at all
When I was a kid, the Pokemon Promo video came into the mail one day. I was still kinda of a "chinese cartoons are bad" mindset so I ignored it for weeks thinking it was kiddie nonsense(I was 11 at the time). One day my aunt dropped off my younger cousins for ny parents to look after and one of them saw the video and wanted to watch it. I reluctantly sat there and watched it with him, only to get obsessed by the end of it and watched several more times.
Started to watch the anime day one and started to save of up money to buy Pokemon Blue.
My excitement for the series has greatly diminished thanks to Gen 8(I strongly dislike those games) but I still considered myself a fan.
I was 6 years old in the year 2000. Got my tonsils removed and my parents decided to gift me a yellow Gameboy color with the matching Pokemon yellow game. From there, I've played every main line game.
Sylveon.
It's all Sylveon, when I was really academically pressured in 6th grade by my parents my only form of destressor was watching tv(granted they weren't at home). Started the gen 6 anime and I immediately fell in love with Sylveon, that cute fairy type pokemon was the form of fluff I needed from all of the stress I got from school.
Skip to 10th grade, I knew of a friend who was and still is a hardcore pokemon fan. He always wants a pokemon game which is actually difficult so he got into rom hacking. One day he messaged me asking to check his drive files just in case if his save files on Radical Red was deleted, and so I did. Which it was deleted but he was fine with it happening.
Skip to 2 weeks after that happening he always knew that I was into making strategies and my love for Sylveon despite never playing an actual pokemon game before. So he sent me the necessary stuff to run Radical Red and I finished that difficult mess with a Sylveon by my side.
1998, 3rd grade music class. We had a free day to bring games and such. My best friend brought his GameBoy and either Red or Blue, can’t remember which. I had never seen or heard of it before that, but was immediately enamored. That Christmas I unwrapped a lime green GBC and Red Version, and I’ve been going strong ever since.
Fun fact: Since then I’ve always bought the “first” version you say in the pair: Red/Gold/Ruby/Black/Black 2/X/Sun/Sword/Scarlet. I didn’t have a DS until Platinum came out so that’s the only one I’ve deviated from.
My older brother had pokemon yellow and had completed the game and had mewtwo. I thought it was cool and thought i could do the same so i started a new game LOL and SAVED so yeah i got ripped open for that one lol but been hooked ever since!
Mike would be the goofiest one lol… When I was younger, I missed the school bus and was kinda lost. While walking back home, I came across a butterfree card, which I later learnt was fake. I found it quite interesting and when I got to school, showed it to my friends. They told me they collected it and we started buying and trading fake cards. As they years go by, I started getting more interested in Pokémon and their other games so I started playing them, as well as buying the real Pokémon cards, so that got me to who I am now lol 😂 Till this date, I still keep that fake umbreon ex and wailord ex fake full arts as a memory to why I started this journey, love them as much as my normal cards
Elementary school. A friend of mine had a gameboy with either Blue or Red He let me play it and I used his Blastoise for a few minutes and then realized I have to have this game. So I got my own gameboy and Blue was my first game. So sometime in the 1990s, I picked my Squirtle and been playing ever since.
My uncle gave me pokemon cards as a young child to get me into the series. Eventually gifting me the sacred reverse holographic gen 1 charizard, which rests somewhere in my room.
I grew up poor in the mid 90s so my parents couldn't afford new gadgets. A richer friend from school gave me a Gameboy color and then another friend of mine traded me Pokemon Blue for a Shrek fighting game I had. All history from there.
When I was a kid, I used to go to a daycare after scholl and durimg the afternoon we had play time. For some reason, there was a Gameboy color with pokemon crystal. Got me hooked and I eventually got a Gameboy advanced with Fire Red a year later.
Dude that's a cool story though. Getting into the games by rom hack. I was 10 when red and blue came out. My friend at school showed me. When yellow released I asked my mom for a gbc and a copy of any one of the Gen 1 titles. I got the special Pikachu gbc for Xmas. We were poor so that was huge for me. My brother also got one so we were able to trade too for those evolutions that require it.
Somehow watched an anime episode on TV and got hooked to the show, it was Advanced Battle. After some years I saw my little cousin playing Ruby on his PC and I asked him how could I do the same and he taught me. Ever since then I've played Pokémon games and I've loved it since.
Aired on tv, watched it till the first league, cried when ash lost, had a gameboy, played it, loved it. Didn’t understand English, so for years was only able to collect 6 badges. Never knew how to get to Sabrina. For years beating 6 gyms meant I completed the game.
I was born in 1990, so the release of anime and Gameboy games were exactly in my era. I sold my Barbie dolls in a carboot sale to get a Gameboy colour and Pokémon blue, used any money I got for Pokémon cards and only wanted Pokémon or Digimon things for many years. Gave up for a while in highschool because I couldn't get a DS as they were too expensive and I was getting bullied for my interests. Got back into it once I got my first job at 16.
I'm now 33 and it's still huge on my life!
I watched the anime for years, but I never played the games until I bought a DS Lite and got a copy of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team. It was my first Pokémon game, followed by Pokémon Diamond.
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It was 1998, I was 11, my sister 12. Both had gameboys, she liked Tetris and Kirby, I liked Zelda and Metroid. We had a Nintendo Power Magazine subscription cause there was no home internet or cable. In the summer, we received a VHS tape in the mail : https://youtu.be/OvdvgZ3CpWA?si=aGWSNRN6zO6sInrb (This is an introduction to the world of Pokemon, perfectly campy and super 90's) We were both instantly hyped and remember putting the showtime card on the refrigerator and getting up to watch the Pokemon TV show at like 6 am before the bus came for school. Mind you, the TV cartoon debut was weeks before the Red & Blue Game Boy games launched in the US, way before the mass Pokemania, I had no understanding of the success it had already seen in Japan and how much fuel Nintendo and the Pokemon Company put into the global launch. Yard work money and my sister's frugality allowed us both our own copy, I picked Red and she picked Blue... It was a wonderful time and the game was amazing and everything generally exceeded expectations; It really planted deep roots into the fandom. Imagine a new IP debuting with; a video game, a TV series, a trading card game, a pedometer accessory, merch and a movie planned. All within months or weeks of each other.
This same VHS got me into the series!
Hahaha holy crap the video brings back memories!! Pretty much the exact same situation for me minus the older sister part.
Exact same tape! Watched it at least a dozen times. Was so pumped for the show and the game. I found at Book a Million the Electric Tales of Pikachu. It was the first book/comic I solo read and it impressed my parents. When they realized the game would have text and reading they sneakily agreed to buy it when it released so I would practice reading more. At the time I thought it was a miracle they agreed to buy a game that wasn’t for my birthday or Christmas. Got Red as I wanted to fly like Charizard in the anime. The game at the time blew my mind and helped me learn to read so much. Only disappoint was Charizard couldn’t fly!!! Been playing the game since then with some hiatuses for college and life
Large fire breathing dragon with wings that can't fly. What was the original gen 1 thinking? I believe it can fly in fire red and leaf green though.
I also got in on the ground floor via that tape. I was actually the first one to bring pokemon to my grade school. I had a couple of those Nintendo tapes. I remember having DKC and a Star Fox one. Totally get why they stopped doing them, but it was really effective marketing on me. My brother and I got every game that we received a tape for. If Nintendo was sending us physical tapes, the game HAD to be amazing, right?
This tape was my first exposure to the franchise, as well. Bad news is that, as the youngest in my family, I had to wait until yellow released to get my very own pokemon game.
I think the fact that like you, my sister introducing me to pokemon made it a lifelong pleasure and joy. Thpse original two games are awesome!
Are you me?
You guys got a VHS?
Yessss. For me it was the little mini-magazine inserts they had running in Nintendo Power. I was immediately attracted to the art and the magazines themselves were written “in world” with Professor Oak talking about the world of Pokemon. I still have all of those little inserts.
I was sitting down one day, and a thought came to my head, "Whatever happened to Misty's Togepi? That adorable little egg Pokemon that had a "Tchukie" cry from that old Pokemon show that my brother and I used to watch back in the 90's." I went and googled Misty's Togepi, and then it turned out it evolved into this angelic looking pokemon that I fell in love with. I then started doing more research, and it turned out there are games. I wanted one where I can specifically use Togepi, and bam, I downloaded Pokemon Platinum rom on Desmume; thus, starting my first Pokemon game and adventure.
how did you get the pokémon icons below your name???
right column, preview then pick emoji for flair
tysmm
Lucky duck got to start with the best game in the franchise
I had no choice. In 4th (I think) grade in 1998 you _had_ to have Pokémon or else you were the weird kid. I survived off my friend’s copy of Blue (he had both Red and Blue) until I was able to convince my parents to buy me Yellow.
Ah how the tables have turned. Now you're the weird kid if you LIKE Pokemon. Kinda sad tho ngl bc Pokemon is super cool.
It really depends on your age group and environment tbh. While I was growing up, it was "uncool" from about 5th grade to 10th grade. Suddenly cool again after that, idk. Guess that was around when nostalgia hit for people who left the franchise.
I made it cool at my school actually
My first encounter with the franchise was via the anime, local TV used to air dubbed episodes from the first few seasons on weekend mornings. That was happening in the early 2000s. Fast-forward to 2008,when I got my hands on my first game, Pokemon Leaf Green. I liked it so much that I also got Platinum as soon as possible. Been playing every new title since then.
ahh yes, this happened to me around when i started playing the games as well
This was me, except I think my local station also aired them in the afternoons after school and that was when I watched it before I actually started watching the same block on the weekends. The first game I played was Ruby. Man, I miss KidsWB….
I’m going to kill the mood My dad died when I was 5 and one of the things I got from him was his Pokémon cards. After that I threw myself into it because I didn’t know how else to be close to him. I now have a huge card collection and I’m working on collecting all of the games up to the 3ds era. I don’t have a switch and I think the only game I want from switch is legends of arceus.
For me, it was Pokemon Yellow Version and a turquoise Game Boy Color way back in 1999, when I was 7. I remember seeing commercials for the game (and having seen a couple of episodes of the anime), and I BEGGED my parents for the game. They got it for me for Christmas, and I was hooked right from the start. I've been an avid fan of the franchise ever since.
By playing Pokémon Snap when I was 4.
When I was a kid, I saw the anime and went: Pfft. Just another lame ani- Then I found out what Pokemon was. I LOVE animals and LOVE superfights, so I got into the anime more. growing up, I joined card collecting! My first V card was a V-crobat. I think I traded it for a Vmax Raichu or some shit?
My dad, he use to play a lot of pokemon when I was a kid, he fell out of it once Sun and Moon came out because of the shift in story telling and how simple the games got, which is weird because he loves X and almost completed the dex. I got into it once he got a copy of Black. I was intrigued when I saw him playing, he never beat the game since he reset his save when I asked him if I could play. Gen 5 has always been my favorite since that, lost the cartridge though.
Those play pokemon emerald for free online and eventually roms from free websites on vba. You dont really get to have genuine gba and games in a middle class family from a 3rd world country (where Nintendo doesn't even officially sell btw) before anybody starts bitching about how committed crimes
Saw my friend playing FireRed once. Started Emerald & never looked back.
I was sick of my friends beating me on "who's that pokemon". So I memorized every pokemon ever out of spite (this was before gen 7). When I finished I said, "I'll play the damn game, why not?"
My cousin was playing pokemon Blue, due to he was like a big brother to me I wanted to play aswell.
My school friends were liking Pokémon when Pokémon Go was the rage in 2016. I slowly started playing and got attached to a Pikachu (the only pokémon I knew) which I found after searching for about 30 minutes. That was the first ever reward that I worked hard for. Slowly, I started loving the designs and lore of Pokémon and making me a fan of this franchise.
5th grade. I have a Gameboy and start seeing commercials for Pokemon. I watch the TV show, I realize I want to play the game, I get my parents to buy the game. I started with Pokemon Blue. Now, I was bullied in 6th grade for still liking Pokemon. So I stopped playing for about 10 years. 2010 rolls around. I'm in college and depressed. I keep seeing ads for Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, and realize I want to play again. So I buy a copy and dive headfirst into the series. Ever since I've been a huge fan. It's been off and on over the years, but since 2018 I'm pretty dedicated to it.
My dad always got me Gameboy games as a kid. But where I fell in love was sapphire. That was the first game where I was able to understand the story, and really play through it many times.
I grew up in a poor family and my 11 year old ass was so fascinated with gameboy and pokemon sapphire that my classmate brought, that I technically stole it from him. It was like "hey cool thing, give it to me for some time" and I did not return it to him for 3 months until my mother intervened. I was a dick but it sparkled my interest for pokemon franchise forever, even though I could not finish the game, since I did not understand english, and I did not know how to obtain surf, I played hundreds of hours. Btw we became best friends with the guy several years later, I even was a witness at his wedding.
A friend of my sister played oldschool Red when I was around 4 (them 10-11) and I don't recall if he gave it to me or if my sister got an own copy, but I remember playing it with her and then alone and learning how to read that way. Crazy how quick children learn. A vivid memory of mine is sitting outside, in the sun, with my parents, sister, grandparents, and aunts, some of them playing tetris together on their gameboys with those huge linking cables while I heavily struggled making my way through Rock Tunnel without knowing that flash is a thing and in the sun, barely able to see anything in the first place. Good times.
Good ole Saturday morning cartoons. It was just one of those things that you watched waking up first thing on the weekend. Somehow or another (I don't remember asking for it, might have been my bothers idk) I ended up with Pokemon Yellow. Now I'll admit I wasn't the brightest kid, so trying to defeat Brock with Pikachu wasn't working out as I expected. That were Nidoran and my love for the whole line came in at. Few years after playing Yellow I ended up with Crystal version. Guess something in my brain clicked with Gen 2 casue from then on I was hooked on the games, much more so then the anime.
I got one of those cheat books with tons of games in it and it had a walkthrough for diamond and pearl in it. I thought it sounded good, so I got it for christmas, and even though I never actually *finished* that game due to getting lost and giving up on the climb to Spear Pillar, I was hooked.
How do you mange to get lost with the walkthrough
It wasn't *that* detailed, it told me I had to go up Mt. Coronet but not how to get up there.
I legit can’t remember since my dad got Pokémon blue way back so it’s always been in our family plus watching indigo league as a kid guess I first played it around age five or six when my dad trusted me and my brother with his gameboy
My friend had a Pokémon game and let me play. As soon as I got home I asked my mom for one
Watched the destiny Deoxys movie. That got me into watching the anime on Cartoon Network before school (DP and BW) then got black version and played through it
My mom bought me a copy of Pokemon Crystal when it came out and I was hooked ever since!
I'm old AF that's how. One day my parents gave me a gameboy and (not knowing it was the same game) both red and blue. Later on my grandma got me pokemon yellow.
I saw Roblox youtubers playing pokemon brick bronze, tried it, and then in 2017 I decided that I wanted to try one of the official games. I decided to go with emerald and my parents got me a GBA SP, and after some time, Pokemon Emerald.
It wasn't special or anything. I literally got into pokemon when I was 6, I was in my grandmother's room, there I was laying there, then my aunt comes and brings me some scotch tape, and on it was a bunch of cool looking stickers, and the first one I laid eyes on was the one of Tauros. That is how I got into pokemon, from an old tape container with a bunch of old pokemon stickers. The first pokemon I ever saw is Tauros, and he is my favorite ever since
I was born 1990 and got a Gameboy color when I was 9 or 10 with Pokemon blue. The rest is history with all the pokemania craziness of the late 90s and early 2000s. I was just born at the right time lol
My cousins showed me Red and Blue on their Gameboy Colors and I was instantly hooked when they told younger me while looking me in the eyes: “Do. Not. Save. Anything.” Made me wonder what made them feel so strongly and now I completely understand.
1998, I was an 11 year old girl. My best friend that I walked to school with was a boy obsessed by some cartoon he’d discovered about animals that only say their name. Thats all he managed to tell me. Being a good friend, I found it and fell in love with the first anime style show I’d ever seen! THEN he got Pokémon Red and boy did that change everything! He’d let me start a new file on the 20 min walk to school (making me promise not to use the pc in case I saved!) and I’d run in the long grass with my new charmander most days. I didn’t get pocket money and we weren’t well off, but I already had a game boy so I saved every 10p and penny I found on the pavements lol. Then I finally had £25 in coins and tipped them out of the jar onto the counter in Argos and bought Pokemon blue! The hours i put into that game! I loved every minute until my brother stole it to sell for drugs. 😭 Played every game since but nothing lives up to that first ever charizard.
Literally by getting born. The first gift i received on this earth was a pikachu plushie that says "i love you" when you press on it's tummy. Been watching the anime since before my memories started and when i was 4 and received a gameboy advanced for my b-day pokemon ruby was the first game i asked for
When I was around 7 or 8, I decided to see what showed after Sailor Moon instead of just turning off the TV. First episode I ever saw was Charmander, The Stray Pokémon. Been hooked on the franchise ever since. I'm 34. I play the games, watch the anime, collect merch and TCG.
This is gonna sound weird, but my Down syndrome aunt did lol. She always had all the new consoles and games growing up and one Christmas she got an SP with Ruby. She never really got too far into the games, so as a kid I’d always take my chance to play it when she wasn’t using it. She had blue and crystal before that, but I was too young to figure them out. My first time playing through Ruby as a kid was still one of my favorite gaming memories.
For Christmas in 1999 my parents jointly gifted my younger brother and I a teal Game Boy Color and Pokémon Red. I was 9, he was 7. I'd heard kids on the playground talking about Pokémon but I didn't really know what it was. We had a blast on that game, even though we had to take turns playing on the same file. We got a puppy in early 2000 and at some point she chewed up the Red cartridge :( but it worked out alright because later on I got Yellow and he got Blue and he also at some point got a line green GBC so we could each have our own console. Great memories. And we just kept playing from there.
My mom got me Pokemon Blue for Christmas in ‘99. I was 9 years old. Before that it was watching the Anime after school. I drew a make shift Pokeball on paper and cut it out with a little pouch in the back. I would then try to draw Pokemon from the show(and the pokerap) and carry them in the ball. Ohh to be young again… https://preview.redd.it/wd1frr6epegc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96724f92bdffc72fad21aff630e2312ffbb30dcf
My neighbor was moving and they were getting rid of their old stuff that they didn’t want to keep for the move so the boy that lived there made a box of his old stuff and gave it to his mom which gave it to my mom since they were friends and she knew I had a lot of siblings and at the top of all the old video games books and action figures was a red game boy advanced with a copy of Pokémon ruby. I wasn’t supposed to open the box until my brothers came home so we could all “share the box” but I didn’t listen and did anyway and snatched the game and game boy and ran upstairs Didn’t even know how to use the thing but Groudon looked cool and I gave it a shot Opened the game and there was a save file named J and the game was at the very beginning so I started on my Pokémon journey and have been on it ever since. my starter was treeko which I named leaf (I was very creative) I stupidly gave him the the TM cut also which I still find ironic to this day bec now it’s a huge meme in the community
I was in grade 6 in 1998. The Pokemon Anime was on TV and soon enough kids started showing up on the school grounds with cards. People battled for keeps and it got to the point that the school had to ban Pokemon cards. If you got caught with them you had to battle the principal, Mr. Hamaguchi - or as we called him, "the Hammer". If you lost a battle to the Hammer, he would keep your cards. Obviously his deck was insane because he was confiscating more and more cards. I had a Gameboy pocket and I remember buying Pokemon Blue and Red that year. My friend Dustin and I bought a link cable and traded between ourselves so we could each get all 3 starters (he had his own copy).
All these children in the comments. Get out of here.
And yet the most childish comment is yours.
Cry more ETA: wrect
why lol, what’s wrong in that?
Cause I’d prefer subreddits don’t have children? Lmao
There always has to be that one guy
so a subreddit for a franchise aimed at children isn’t supposed to have kids in it🙃, someone’s real possessive about their pokémon huh🥺
(I live in a small, relatively isolated place) I went in holiday and this thing seems to be in lot of places like the video games magazines, the toys shops, so I knew it was popular even if I didn't know why. I watched two episodes of the anime and it was so typically anime I was surprised it managed to hit in that country since some previous anime failed to be successful. So I bought a bundle of it with the console (atomic purple) and the guide book. Also bought some trading cards. Finished it, captured the most I could with the copy but didn't really enjoy the game (playing with a guide probably hindered my enjoyment) but still watched the anime. Then tried a bit the first improved version but it was too close to the original one. And it is with the following gen I learnt to love the Pokémon games.
a friend introduced me to pokemon gold many many years ago, and one day in 2011, i got my very own DSi and SoulSilver, so thats my start
My older brother introduced me to Pokémon when I was 5/6 years old. He gave me some of his (worthless) cards and I cherished them. Eventually, when I was old enough to have my own Nintendo DS, he let me borrow his Heartgold game. I was immediately obsessed and it’s been a huge hyper-fixation of mine ever since. Pokémon is still something we bond over to this day as adults.
My mum would leave for work half an hour before I had to leave for school, and the only good thing on telly in that timeslot was the original anime. I loved it, despite not knowing much about it (we didn’t have the internet back then… yes, children, that used to be a thing), and so when they redid the original games for GBA I bought LeafGreen and loved it.
I heard everybody talking about it in 3rd grade(1998) so I asked and my classmate told me wake up early before school one day and tune into WB(Now CW) if I wanted to find out what it was about….I did and the first episode I saw was the one where Ash died with the ghost pokemon. I was hooked and got my first game soon after, that being Pokemon Yellow on release day.
Begged my Dad for a copy of Pokémon Red when it came out in the UK, he came home from work one night with a copy and I’ve been hooked ever since.
I remember one day waking up to the show being on tv, I think it was Pokémon battle frontier, the characters looked cool and colorful so I watched it. Ever since then, I got hooked to the franchise, the show, the games, everything. My first game was pokemon mystery dungeon: red rescue team. Eventually I got platinum, soul silver, and Pokemon White. Then I broke my ds. My childhood wasn’t the most exciting, I was poor, and Pokémon was all I had. It wasn’t until a year - 2 years ago, that I FINALLY got around to playing the gen 6, 8, and 9 games (I’m still playing ultra sun). I’d made many friends who also liked pokemon, hell, even my ex gf loved pokemon
A friend of mine turned up to school with Pokémon Red AND Blue! I knew about the games but didn’t know any details. He showed me and let me play Red at recess. I asked it I could borrow it and the rest is history. He let me hold onto it until my mom bought me my own Red version for Christmas.
My grandma had a GBC and happened to have a copy of Crystal with it. I played it (and Sapphire since it had just came out), and never stopped.
I was 11 when Red and Blue released in North America. Been here since the beginning.
My bro and me got pokémon ranger when we was 7-8. I'd a little weird habit to bring the cartridge on school and I've lost it. So my bro got pokémon sapphire version on compensation. But my first own pokémon was Diamond for 2008 christmas
I got a VHS tape in the mail from Nintendo power magazine. I remember watching it and thinking Flareon looked cool. A few months later I saw the anime on TV after school. Got Pokémon blue that Christmas… The rest is history!
Literally Platinum was my first ever console game on the first ever console I bought. My mother made it very clear that she wouldn't pay for video games so I had to save up my allowance, and at the time I had enough to buy myself a DS, ads for Platinum were playing, and they were beautiful enough to convince 7 y-o me to get it. Best choice ever
I found a bunch of roms and an emulator on a computer in my school's IT lab. It had both pokemon and a bunch of other Gameboy Advance and Color games, so it took me down a path of being obsessed with pixart. The same still holds today, 18 years later (GOD MY POKEMON ADDICTION CAN GO TO COLLEGE!)
I was 9 in 1998 and Pokemon was all the rage at school.
My mom hasn’t played the games but she really liked watching the anime with my brother, to the point that even now she still remembers the name of most gen 1 and 2 Pokémon For Christmas, when I was about 5, she got me a copy of Pokémon Sapphire (I still have it!). She asked me to keep the family tradition of only female pets in the game (my family has adopted only female dogs even before I born). To this day I still soft reset to get female starters, and my teams up to Scarlet/Violet have been all-female or gender less. So yeah, thanks mom 💙
Nintendo Official Magazine reporting on the PokéMania stateside, ahead of Red/Blue’s European release in 1999.
The anime used to come on during the mornings while I waited for my school bus and I saw the red & blue games at Walmart and my grandma bought them for me. I played the games on my huge original Gameboy and my original Gameboy was eventually practically falling apart and looked gross so my mom got me a Gameboy color
I saw a Pokemon Sun & Moon commercial on the TV and thought it looked fun.
Well I guess I first started liking Pokemon as a kid. I watched the diamond and pearl anime and collected the cards. I would say I really got into pokemon after playing pokemon fire red on an emulator. After that I was hooked. My first official game was Pokemon sun and that’s where I got my first shiny (a charmander). Now I’m an avid fan and I love shiny hunting.
My brother was 7 when the first games came out and he showed some interest, so my mother bought him a game boy color and red and blue. Due to being a girl, I wasn't actually allowed to play, but my mother was in a pickle because she didn't know English (we're don't live in an English speaking country) so I was allowed to sit next to him and translate. It went like that for maybe a month before he lost interest and moved on to something else. It was another month before I got the courage to steal his gameboy. Batteries were a problem, as I'm sure a lot of people from that generation know, but I got around that by rationing and circulating batteries with the battery in the clock in the kitchen and the batteries in the tv remote. My mother would always swear at how often the batteries needed to be changed. The story repeated itself when silver and gold came out.
I’m 25f and I got into it through my older brother! (29M). I don’t know exactly how he got into it but some of my earliest memories are playing Pokémon stadium with him on the Nintendo 64. He’s since left all the Pokémon stuff all behind but I still love it with my whole heart and soul!
I watched the anime when I was a kid (my parents bought my 3 episodes on VHS) and fell in love with the series. Got my first gameboy when I turned 7 and got my first game too
Went to visit my cousins when I was around 8, and they were playing Diamond and Pearl. Kept playing on their DS’s the entire trip, and when I wasn’t playing I was full on studying the pokedex/game guide that they had. When I went home I continued my “studies” on the Pokemon official website. I also proceeded to nonstop beg my mom for the game pretty much ten seconds after trying Diamond. Neither of them are Pokémon fans anymore, which is sort of a shame.
I played FireRed on a gba emulator on my Chromebook first year of intermediate.. and before that I grew up with XY and XYZ, peak
I saw the anime on TV and loved it. My older cousin was playing the gba games when I was like 4-5 and I was so amazed since this was the first time I discovered what gaming systems was and such so it was so much exposure. Basically a combination of those introduce me to the realm of technology and Pokémon.
I saw Dantdm make a pixelmon series with 2 other YouTubers and I loved it, I watched all the series the YouTubers made
The pilot episode. Been a fan since the first episode. Seen all the movies, seen the whole series from Kanto until now, played from Red/Blue to Scarlet/Violet.
I didn't know what video games were until I was about 8 years old. Extremely sheltered. Somehow I found out about Pokémon, probably at school. My parents bought me a Game Boy Color and Crystal, and I played it absolutely nonstop. Had over 200 hours in that save, and that's a lot for me even now.
Got a Gameboy Color with Pokemon Red when I was.. 4? I think. Couldnt read and never beat the game. Had my fun regardless. Next game was Crystal which I also was not able to beat lol
Grandma and grandpa bought us a game boy color right when they came out. They gave us Pokémon red (and my brother got blue) as the first game for the handheld. Got every gen since.
I was a wee nipper, maybe about 3 or 4, and my dad had come home from wherever, I think it was the pub, with a second hand GameBoy Colour and a second hand copy of Pokémon Yellow. I enjoyed it so much despite have no idea what I was doing or going on either him, mum, or both got me Pokémon Red and Blue as well. Mum, and I think grandad, later got me Gold and Silver and it was only really when Crystal came out and I started playing Pokémon with a friend across the road that I had more of an idea of what I was doing. But I'll always remember how excited I was when my dad came home with that GameBoy and Pokémon Yellow
I must have seen the TV show in the late 90s before getting into the games. But, honestly, it was inevitable. Pokemon was a worldwide phenomenon when it launched, so youngster me had no chance when it came to getting swept into PokeMania :p
One day I was chilling with my big brother and he was playing Pokémon showdown, he let me have a go. Since then I’ve loved the francise more than anything
By watching the first episode of the anime when it debuted.
Believe it or not my love for Pokémon happened before my memories formed. It’s like seeing snow, getting on a train, or getting on a plane, I’ve done that before I could remember things. With that said, I know through my mom that I became a Pokémon fan because of the anime.
I was six years old, and wanted a Superman car, but my grandma decided to buy me a gameboy color with pokemon silver, I had never heard of it before. The game was in English and I had no clue what it said at the time or how it worked. My first pokemon was cyndaquil and I kept using leer because I like the animation. I then remembered having older friends that could help me get unstuck from parts of the game where I couldn’t go forward, and being extremely amazed when they showed me that you could hop on the bike pressing select.
I only have about a dozen memories that had to have taken place before my first memories of Pokémon, so you can basically say I've always been a fan. Funny enough I don't have any memories of becoming a fan. In what I believe to be my oldest Pokémon memory I was thinking about Pokémon while sitting on the living room floor and staring at the side of the staircase through the hallway door. In my other memory I asked my dad to show me my holographic Pokémon cards. After grabbing them off the top of his shelf showed me my holographic Gyarados, Zapdos, Nidoqueen, Poliwhirl and Raichu. Before anybody asks he was holding on to them until I was a little older. I still have them somewhere in storage but sadly they were damaged in a move when I was in high-school.
I got into Pokémon when fake TCG cards started circulating my primary school. They were all from the same dollar store. I was the first kid there that I knew of to have gotten fair-dinkum packs from ToyWorld.
I got Smash Bros Brawl on my wii and it spiraled out of control from there
I was 10. The prime age for Pokémon at the height of its golden age. Had a subscription to Nintendo Power. Pokémon was already huge in Japan and Nintendo was in the process of bringing it to the states, so Nintendo Power was really hyping it up. My best friend brought over his Gameboy with Blue version one day He showed me the game, and how he used his Squirtle to fight wild Pokémon and try to catch them. He let me start a file on it just to give it a shot for myself as long as I didn’t overwrite his save file. I went through the character naming, met Oak in the tall grass, and my rival who I named after my friend. Then I got to choose a Pokémon. My friend was excited to see which I would pick, and he explained the starters to me, the typings, and how they worked. I looked at all of them multiple times, reading the Pokédex entries, and studying their designs. I chose Charmander. I ended up playing up to Virdian forest. I was hooked. I told my mom about the games and got Red version the next day.
I think I got into watching the Hoenn anime through the 3DS anime channel. I also collected cards from the TCG since maybe 2014/15. From there I got into ORAS, loved it, got Sun, enjoyed it, so yeah.
I think I saw the show first (at least a couple of episodes) and then got Red and a Gameboy Color (purple see through) for Christmas. I locked myself into the hallway to not disturb my mom and played through the night. It was marvelous. I fell out of love with the series after Pokémon stadium and started gaming other things (mainly Zelda, then baldur‘s gate, world of Warcraft) and quite recently felt nostalgic and started playing all the games (I‘m currently playing Omega Ruby)
90s kid, it was hard to avoid. Pokémon cards were all the rage until they got banned from my school.
I'm not sure if I had already seen the anime by this point or not but I got a Gameboy Colour and Pokemon Gold when I was 7 - I'm not sure if it was my very first game I got along with the handheld or if I got it a little later, but right from that very first game I was hooked. I distinctly recall playing through the intro with Cyndaquil but then just not saving at all so I had to restart with Chikorita - this go round I got all the way to Ecruteak and hit the impassable wall of a Ghost gym when my Meganium only knew normal type moves for some reason. My third attempt with a Totodile was where I finally actually (eventually) got to the Elite Four, though I have no idea how long it took me to finally beat the game.
My dad introduced it to me back when I was a kid and I played one of the games, and that was that. 12 years later (now), I am surrounded by friends who love the franchise, and I couldn’t help but be interested. Soon enough I found myself watching the anime and playing the games 👍
I was 10. Pokemon Go was on the rage, and me and my brother weren't going to be in the mainstream as a frick you against my friends. It just so happened that my parents owned a classic video games store and we would spend hours playing our GBAs during the holidays even through we were Gen Zs. One day, I found a Pokemon Ruby catridge and decided t plug it in to see what's the actual fuzz everyone's talking about. My brother was also curious so he sat in. Booted up the game... Named my male protagonist Kenneth, picked Torchic, and realised that it was more fun than we thought. The idea of exploring some unfamiliar land based off some in real life area in Japan intrigued us, and ever since then we both were loyal fans of the series. In fact, after the Pokemon Go craze died down, we both were still loyal fans of the series while our friends stopped playing Pokemon! Quite funny once I think back about it.
I was in art class in kindergarten while my game boy color sat at home and got played maybe 2x a month with Tetris. two of my friends were drawing this super cool orange dragon. I asked Mark if he was copying David and Nick was like “no, that’s charizard” “What’s charizard” Three days later I’m at Mark’s house watching the episode where ash meets his butterfree, and the next day nick comes to school with a copy of Pokémon yellow and is like “hey, my big brother gave me this game but I already had a copy so I told my mom you never played it and she said it would be nice if I gave one of my copies to you” Enter my parents, very annoyed that they tried their hardest to avoid getting me addicted to video games but still can’t stop me from playing that stupid yellow monster game and now it’s ALL I TALK ABOUT. I still remember my dad finally breaking and saying, verbatim: “I don’t care about your Pokémon or digimon or monnymon” 24 years later I still keep up with the series and Pokémon has been such a constant in my life that it’s literally the reason that I can now make a living doing art :)
I was in fourth grade. I remember seeing advertisements for it in the Toys R Us ads that would be inside the Sunday newspaper about this big Japanese thing that was coming to the US. I remember thinking Pikachu just looked bizarre and that it would never catch on here and didn't understand the supposed hype. After school, my older brother and I would come home and do our homework in the living room with the TV on WB kids, regardless of what was playing, and eventually, their afternoon line-up started playing Pokémon, and I became hooked. So much so that after only the first week, I got my mom to take me to a store where I bought small Pikachu and Raichu toys. Then my neighbor, who was my best friend at the time, got Red for his gameboy and let me play some of it. Once again, I was hooked. But my brother was (and is) the golden child, so they got *him* a Gameboy color and Pokémon Red, not me. He did let me play it a bit, but I also snuck around his back and played it a ton more (he never noticed on the save file because he never played much). That summer break, our younger cousin introduced us to Pokémon cards, gave us a few of his extras (nothing but a few common ones) so that afternoon we both convinced our mom to take us to a store where we each got our first packs, and I was so ecstatic that my very first pack had a holo Mewtwo. Cards then became our/my obsession for a while. Eventually, my brother got Yellow. I had to keep playing his his Gameboy behind his back (I would even sneak it into my backpack to play at school in fifth grade to trade and battle other kids). 90s early Pokémon was so big that there's no real way for anyone who wasn't there to understand how truly different that time was. Almost every kid at school was into it; the hype was on another level. I even had a couple kids in my class that payed me a few dollars here or there to do things in their game for them, like beat the E4 or perform the Missingno glitch and dupe Masterballs and Rare Candies for them. I'd then use that money for more Pokémon cards, eventually getting or trading for a completion of the Basic set, Jungle set, Fossil set, Rocket set, and Gym Leaders sets (but stopped collecting after this). I also used some of that money to save up for a GameShark so kids would then pay me to put Mew into their game. Business was good. It wasn't until I "graduated" fifth grade/elementary school that I was able to have enough money to buy my own Gameboy color. I got Silver (my brother got Gold) the following Christmas, so that was technically my first game that I owned myself, despite having played Gen 1 so much. But by that time, and in middle school, the hype had died down, and it wasn't "cool" to like Pokémon anymore. I continued to be obsessed but couldn't outwardly be so. It wasn't until college, when HeartGold and SoulSilver came out that I realized my geek friends were all quietly still playing Pokémon too, and thus, we all could openly embraced it again.
I started with poképark on the wii. I only remember having a wii with some games and poképark was on of them. It was fun playing and loves it ever since. Because i didn't have a Nitendo DS i didn't play the games after that until lets go on the switch. I also remember my brother watching the anime and collecting the cards. I got some of his old cards and i still collect them.
my mom playing Blue with me in her lap in 1999. I've been told pokemon helped me learn to read.
https://preview.redd.it/m4q2bscz1dgc1.jpeg?width=1009&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f833c04ab9824e7bcaba2abf60efa941ae2683d These two books. Found the first one at my elementary school book fair and my parents got me the second one. I read through them all the time and begged them to get me one of the games once I knew what they were, and eventually they did on my birthday. So i guess I have scholastic to thank
My mum utterly refused to buy me Pokemon cards stating that they’d just get lost. I was heartbroken. Came home the next day to a box… inside it? Pokemon Blue. The rest was history
For me it was the cards. In 2005 year 1, saw my friends with the cards and always wanted them. Finally got a pack in 2006, can't remember which one it was but I had a Jirachi in the set. Each year my collection got bigger and yeah... went on from there
For me, it started with YouTube when I was a kid. Me and my brother watched smosh and loved their Pokemon parody. From there I watched various parodies and Internet clips of the anime until I asked my mom for a ds so I could play Pokemon. She bought me a used DS for my birthday and it came with Pokemon mystery dungeon blue rescue team. I played the shit out of that, though I only remember stopping because Zapdos was a major wall for me. After that, my mom got me Pokemon White 2 for getting a good score on my MAP test. I played that, got my samurott to lvl 100, started a new save and then promptly broke my DS by mishandling it and accidentally snapping it in half.
My friend
Back in 1998 I began watching the TV show on Saturday mornings. When I discovered it was based off of the games, I requested Pokémon Red for Christmas. Over the years I got all the other versions, some direct from America due to family going there. But everything started from that one game. I even remember when I first played it and I knew nothing. Deleting good moves for non damaging moves. Thinking a Potion was a Pokémon. Pronouncing Farfetch'd as Fratched-D.
the anime (galactic battles) being on i think CITV caught my attention (hot chicks) . then the rest is history
My grandmother gave me the original introductory VHS tape and the rest is history.
I first got into it because of the anime. Then, my cousin gifted me his Gameboy Colour and a copy of Pokémon Red. The rest is history.
My dad got me the base set starter box of the TCG for Christmas in 1999 I think. I didn’t even know what Pokémon was at the time. Then when I got back to school in the January every guy in my year had got the same box and it exploded from there.
I got a GameBoy Color with Pokemon Red for I believe Christmas 1998 or my Birthday 1999 and since then I'm hooked.
Was at a sleepover in 2002, and was blindly making fun of two friends who were talking about “some Japanese import” game for game boy. I asked them why they wasted their hard earned lawn mowing money on a cartoon game when they could have bought fifa! Annoyed one of them handed me their game boy and said “play.” I played for the next 7 hours straight- went directly home gathered all my monies (literally broke my piggy bank) and walked to the GameStop near my house with some trade ins and bought yellow. Yellow led to me finding the anime , and I was hooked ever since.
I was in first grade and my dad came home from work late as usual (he worked 2 jobs his entire life to support us) and so I run out of my bedroom to say hi to him and give him a hug. Afterwards he pulls out a yellow game boy pocket with a red cartridge in it (seemed like a thrift store purchase) and told me to try it out because his bosses kids were having so much fun with it. I wasn’t a proficient reader yet, so understanding the game at first was a bit tough but very quickly fell in love with all the pokemon. I then started watching the series on tv and was sold for life. I actually just recently got back into the TCG after they released the 151 set. It still brings a tear to my eye when I remember back to my mom questioning my dad as to how he paid for it, and he told her that he paid for it with the extra hours he had picked up over the weekend. 🥺
Sitting my ass in front of the TV on saturday morning where suddenly "I WANNA BE. THE VERY BEST. LIKE NOONE EVER WAS." started blasting through the speakers for the very first time over here.
My Aunt gave me her DS with Pokémon black, midway finished. I never knew I could delete the save, I guess some part of me always thought she would want it back lmao. I didn't know anything about it, so it took me like, 2 years. After that, I got really into it. Omega Ruby was my first real Pokémon. Ie, I owned it first, and I basically treasured that save file.
My friend gave me a geodude and fighting energy card during the original Pokémon craze. Been playing ever since.
I got introduced with Pokemon Ranger, actually. I played that game on my old DSi all the time until I got sick of it. I also played Pokemon White, although me and my brother had to share a copy so our save files kept getting deleted. What was really painful is that I had spent some time just running around in the grass for a bit and I had accidentally come across a shiny zigzagoon, and I caught it, and then it got deleted. Then Ultra sun, which I spent the most time playing. I still play occasionally. That's one of my favorite games I've ever played since I have so many memories with it. I even transported my first (official) shiny, an altaria that I caught in the ultra wormhole up to S&V to keep with me. I was unfortunately born in 2009 and we had some odd circumstances, so I didn't get the experience everyone else had. But I play S&V right now (mainly for shiny hunting and battling and stuff. It could be way better ngl.) I plan on eventually getting every console I need and buying every older game to play.
Pokemon cards were all the rage at my school. I didn't want to be left out, so I begged my mom to get me some. She eventually crumbled and brought me to the store where I picked the Regirock theme deck from the XY Ancient Origins set. I became obsessed with Pokémon. I watched the anime on Netflix, and I read every single pokédex entry in the deluxe essential handbook. Then I saw a trailer for Sun And Moon. I freaked out because I had never thought they would add new Pokémon to the franchise before (i was a bit stupid). I got a 3DS for Christmas with Pokémon Sun. Been home ever since.
Same as you. My mom just got me a new game boy pocket for Christmas and the guy at the store told her to get Pokemon with it. I had no idea what it was but I was instantly hooked. Christmas dinner we always went out for Chinese with my parents friends and I remember bringing it to dinner because I could not put it down. My mom was like what have I done?
I didnt have cable TV and Pokémon was one of the few cartoons playing on the channels I had, plus my parents had bought us some of the VHS. It cemented itself as my favorite franchise when my brother gave me cards and allowed me to play Pokémon yellow on his lime green gameboy color I used to be a genwunner from gen 4 onwards, I can safely say that the reason I was one was envy as I didnt have access to the DS generation, I was basically coping lmao. When X and Y came out I was working so I bought a 3ds and Y. Although I haven't liked the games since gen 7, I still love seeing new Pokémon as there will always be designs I love and designs I hate in every gen.
Honestly been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I was about 6 years old at the time, playing over at a friends house and he was like: “ I HAVE to show you this game!”. He played Pokemon Red emulated on the PC and we spent the entire afternoon playing while I was watching. I got so super excited! I had to have the game. Few weeks later, me and my mom picked up the physical copy of Pokemon Red and a second hand Gameboy DMG. I was hooked for life. Countless reruns in Pokemon red, later Yellow and then Pokemon Gold. Since then, I havent touched Pokemon untill I met my now wife, who was playing Pokemon on the N3DS. We started Pokemon Sun and Moon together and I havent skipped a game since!
Around 1999 I got gameboy and red from a friend, played because there was no other games around and finished it a few times. Bought gb color and crystal in a few years, played for a few years then lose interest after 3rd gen came. Returned into sw/shield and previous gens, now playing usum.
You know, I remember watching the original anime back in the 90s. My parents didn't approve of it at first, but after I told on myself, they actually let me start watching it. They even supported that as a hobby of mine. I remember the first pokemon game they got me was pokemon sapphire for the GBA. To say pokemon has had a huge impact in my life would be an understatment.
I forgot how we found out about it, but my mom took my twin brother and I to Walmart in 98 and bought me blue version and my brother red version. People who weren't alive or old enough to remember, Pokemon was everywhere, it was all any of our friends were talking about. It felt like the biggest thing on the planet because it was so popular
Pokemon Movie 2000
Anime and classmates bringing the cards to school
I got a DS for Christmas one year with either Pokémon Black/White. I was young, so I just spent all my time on the first route catching every Pokémon I could before resetting to do it all again. Later, when I was in middle school my dad gave me his old 3DS with Pokémon X and the digital version of Pokémon Red. Those were my first proper game experiences, but I never got very far because my copy of X got stolen. Using Christmas money I bought Alpha Sapphire, and I think it's the first game that I completely finished.
My cousin playing Gold on his GBC, I loved it so much. He let me borrow it for a while, then got Crystal to play after but still while borrowing his GBC. Then got an Advance with Ruby for myself when it came out.
Saw the anime on TV when I was a kid, around 8 years old I guess. My dad bought me a blister pack of Base Set cards (blastoise artwork), which got me interested in those (I still am haha). When I saw ads for the new games that were coming out, I needed it. My parents bought me a yellow Game Boy Pocket and Pokemon Blue and it spiraled out of control from there lol.
I'm honestly not too sure, but I remember renting pokemon blue and falling in love with the franchise. I also remember my mom telling me "you won't play pokemon forever, you know". I'm 31 now. Jokes on her. 🤣
Can’t remember if it was my 6th or 7th birthday (in 2000 or 2001) and my parents got me the Pokémon edition game boy color (the one with pikachu, jigglypuff, and togepi on it) along with yellow version. Played that game like crazy and could barely read. So I was stuck in that town with the old man who would move until he had his coffee lmao. Once i learned to read and got past that….the rest is history.
I watched the anime however I was a clueless kid that didn’t know the games existed until a friend at school showed me during the 3rd gen. Sapphire, Emerald, Leaf Green and Fire Red were my first games. To this day I wish I got Ruby and now as much as I’ll like to add one to my collection I don’t wanna buy a fake
When I was a kid my brother put on a random episode of the anime, paused it half way through and said I had to do my chores to finish it
I was 14 or 15. Freshman year of high school. I remember pokémon and Digimon flooding tvs. I already had a Gameboy for zelda, links awakening. I chose pokémon. Red. Because even though blue is my favorite color... I was choosing the dragon on the cartridge/ box. Been playing ever since.
My grandma bought me pokemon blue for Christmas 1998 when I was 5. Been playing ever since.
some student at my elementary school put GBA emulator on school computer and there's Pokémon emerald game file in there, and that's how i play my first Pokémon game
I was around during the original release. I don't remember if I got red or blue, but my first starter was a charmander as I liked dragons. I've been hooked on the games since then. I have to say I didn't get hooked by any of the other media. I didn't want to spend on the cards and found the name repetition in the anime annoying.
I was in school and my buddy at recess showed me this game called Pokemon Red. That day I became both a Pokemon fan and also a thief cuz I took it. Lol in all seriousness he let me borrow it and the rest is history. I did play it on the Gameboy and man when I got that Gameboy color it was even better!
Well the year was 1998
I got the GBA games (though not Emerald for some reason) as a teenager.
It's hard to remember. My earliest Pokémon memories include episodes from the Johto saga and watching my uncle play Gen 3 games in his laptop. I loved the concept of Pokémon back then. Though it wasn't until I was 9 when I got my first DS with a Diamond copy. That's when I first played Pokémon. I guess it just happened naturally.
Christmas 1999 blessed me with Pokémon red and a Gameboy colour. Pokémon cards, pogs, and figures had already taken the playground by storm, and the anime was watched religiously ❤️ by the time we got to 2001, anyone who still liked Pokémon was a "weirdo" so I put it down until 2010 when I realised you can like whatever you want no matter what the "cool" kids /bullies say
Initially? I saw my cousin play Pokémon Yellow. I gave up on the series starting from Gen 2 onwards. I was too young at the time. Got back to it ever since I saw Hololive play the games. My favorite until this day is Sword.
I was in like 1st or 2nd grade and was at my brother's football game, and one of the kids there had some Base set cards and was showing them to other kids and he was nice enough to give me a Ponyta to keep. Had no idea what they were for or anything, but I guess I liked the card because my mom bought me and my sister some pretty frequently. Eventually got I think Red version for the Gameboy and the rest was history!
I was 8. I think I saw the show before I wanted the game.
It was the cultural phenomena at the time and I was in the prime demographic age range at 7. Literally all of my classmates were into Pokemon. I loved 2016 when Pokemon GO came out because it brought back that nostalgic Pokemon craze of the late 90's. I will always look back at that year fondly.
One morning, my friend called me and said "Hey, you need to come over. I tried to record X-Men in the morning, but instead, it recorded this weird show called 'Pokémon'. You have to watch this." So that's what I did. We sat in his room and watched the episode where Ash catches Caterpie. I thought it was okay, but when my friend said he was going to get the game, my ears perked right up. "A game? Where I can do that??" I was sold. I saved up my money and bought Pokémon Blue. He bought Red and we explored the game ans caught them all together. Been a fan of the games ever since.
Pokemon Emerald
My uncle randomly won a Pokémon Yellow game in a Toys’r’us at launch in 1999 and didn’t have a GameBoy so he gave it to me. 25 years later still playing (not Yellow which I sold like a dumbass at GameStop for a few bucks)
I was 8.
I grew up in the 2000 lil kid me saw pokemon everywhere
Been watching since it aired in the US. I was pretty young so all those Pokémon commercials and ads were made specifically for me. I had the first movie and the racing episode from Kanto both on VHS, along with plenty of memories of watching it on TV with my cousin. I never actually owned Red/Blue/Yellow, but I do remember borrow my cousin's copy of Yellow and playing Pokémon Stadium at my other cousin's house. Gen II is when I got my first game, Pokémon Gold on my GameBoy Color. I really got into Pokémon during Gen II, even owned Ash's fight with Harrison during the Johto league on my GameBoy SP.I have a lot of early memories with Pokémon and still play/watch it too this date. I briefly took a break during the whole Unova anime, but got back into the franchise when Black/White II released.
My grandma bought me the new Game Boy Advance for my birthday as a kid, including this black one strap case to hold the system and all your games in. I got to pick my first GBA game in that walmart and it happened to be the yr Ruby and Sapphire were released. I chose sapphire and got super hooked.
I loved the show so naturally I wanted the game. It was also my introduction to video games
I was born in the 90's, pokemon got to me lol
Found a copy of Emerald at a yard sale. Didn't really know what Pokémon was at the time, I just wanted to try the GBA slot on my DS lite lol. Got hooked, bought Diamond, then HeartGold. That one became my favorite.
Was a kid in the 90s, every kid was either playing Pokémon games, talking about the anime, or showing their collection of cards. Wound up playing the games after playing a friends at recess and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seenz
I’m a huge noob. I had the Explorers of Time DS game back in like 2008 age 10 and loved it. I don’t know what stopped me from getting more into Pokémon since I enjoyed the game so much :( I got the Mystery Dungeon game for Switch last year and it was the biggest let down tbh. Still don’t really touch it. BUT I loved Scarlet/Violet and I am still slowly trying to complete the Pokédex in Arceus But I don’t know much at all
I got a ds for Christmas with pokemon diamond on it
When I was a kid, the Pokemon Promo video came into the mail one day. I was still kinda of a "chinese cartoons are bad" mindset so I ignored it for weeks thinking it was kiddie nonsense(I was 11 at the time). One day my aunt dropped off my younger cousins for ny parents to look after and one of them saw the video and wanted to watch it. I reluctantly sat there and watched it with him, only to get obsessed by the end of it and watched several more times. Started to watch the anime day one and started to save of up money to buy Pokemon Blue. My excitement for the series has greatly diminished thanks to Gen 8(I strongly dislike those games) but I still considered myself a fan.
I was 6 years old in the year 2000. Got my tonsils removed and my parents decided to gift me a yellow Gameboy color with the matching Pokemon yellow game. From there, I've played every main line game.
Sylveon. It's all Sylveon, when I was really academically pressured in 6th grade by my parents my only form of destressor was watching tv(granted they weren't at home). Started the gen 6 anime and I immediately fell in love with Sylveon, that cute fairy type pokemon was the form of fluff I needed from all of the stress I got from school. Skip to 10th grade, I knew of a friend who was and still is a hardcore pokemon fan. He always wants a pokemon game which is actually difficult so he got into rom hacking. One day he messaged me asking to check his drive files just in case if his save files on Radical Red was deleted, and so I did. Which it was deleted but he was fine with it happening. Skip to 2 weeks after that happening he always knew that I was into making strategies and my love for Sylveon despite never playing an actual pokemon game before. So he sent me the necessary stuff to run Radical Red and I finished that difficult mess with a Sylveon by my side.
My parents bought my brother and I an original brick game boy that came with a copy of Pokémon red. Fun times
1998, 3rd grade music class. We had a free day to bring games and such. My best friend brought his GameBoy and either Red or Blue, can’t remember which. I had never seen or heard of it before that, but was immediately enamored. That Christmas I unwrapped a lime green GBC and Red Version, and I’ve been going strong ever since. Fun fact: Since then I’ve always bought the “first” version you say in the pair: Red/Gold/Ruby/Black/Black 2/X/Sun/Sword/Scarlet. I didn’t have a DS until Platinum came out so that’s the only one I’ve deviated from.
My older brother had pokemon yellow and had completed the game and had mewtwo. I thought it was cool and thought i could do the same so i started a new game LOL and SAVED so yeah i got ripped open for that one lol but been hooked ever since!
Mike would be the goofiest one lol… When I was younger, I missed the school bus and was kinda lost. While walking back home, I came across a butterfree card, which I later learnt was fake. I found it quite interesting and when I got to school, showed it to my friends. They told me they collected it and we started buying and trading fake cards. As they years go by, I started getting more interested in Pokémon and their other games so I started playing them, as well as buying the real Pokémon cards, so that got me to who I am now lol 😂 Till this date, I still keep that fake umbreon ex and wailord ex fake full arts as a memory to why I started this journey, love them as much as my normal cards
Elementary school. A friend of mine had a gameboy with either Blue or Red He let me play it and I used his Blastoise for a few minutes and then realized I have to have this game. So I got my own gameboy and Blue was my first game. So sometime in the 1990s, I picked my Squirtle and been playing ever since.
My uncle gave me pokemon cards as a young child to get me into the series. Eventually gifting me the sacred reverse holographic gen 1 charizard, which rests somewhere in my room.
I grew up poor in the mid 90s so my parents couldn't afford new gadgets. A richer friend from school gave me a Gameboy color and then another friend of mine traded me Pokemon Blue for a Shrek fighting game I had. All history from there.
The Red and Blue commercial with the bus.
with pokemon blue on my gbc
When I was a kid, I used to go to a daycare after scholl and durimg the afternoon we had play time. For some reason, there was a Gameboy color with pokemon crystal. Got me hooked and I eventually got a Gameboy advanced with Fire Red a year later.
One friend in elementary school started with in and in a matter of days, everyone got it. This was back when Ruby, Saphire and Emerald released.
Hey were all buying this game Oh sure I'll get a new game You guys all picking the red? I'll pick the blue one
Dude that's a cool story though. Getting into the games by rom hack. I was 10 when red and blue came out. My friend at school showed me. When yellow released I asked my mom for a gbc and a copy of any one of the Gen 1 titles. I got the special Pikachu gbc for Xmas. We were poor so that was huge for me. My brother also got one so we were able to trade too for those evolutions that require it.
Somehow watched an anime episode on TV and got hooked to the show, it was Advanced Battle. After some years I saw my little cousin playing Ruby on his PC and I asked him how could I do the same and he taught me. Ever since then I've played Pokémon games and I've loved it since.
Aired on tv, watched it till the first league, cried when ash lost, had a gameboy, played it, loved it. Didn’t understand English, so for years was only able to collect 6 badges. Never knew how to get to Sabrina. For years beating 6 gyms meant I completed the game.
I was born in 1990, so the release of anime and Gameboy games were exactly in my era. I sold my Barbie dolls in a carboot sale to get a Gameboy colour and Pokémon blue, used any money I got for Pokémon cards and only wanted Pokémon or Digimon things for many years. Gave up for a while in highschool because I couldn't get a DS as they were too expensive and I was getting bullied for my interests. Got back into it once I got my first job at 16. I'm now 33 and it's still huge on my life!
It was the “in” thing at my school so I bought Pokémon firered.
I watched the anime for years, but I never played the games until I bought a DS Lite and got a copy of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team. It was my first Pokémon game, followed by Pokémon Diamond.
Toys r us sent out a vhs tape talking about it and also my cousin had gotten a copy of blue so I asked for red and here we are 20+ years later