my history with pokemon
for basically as long as i can remember, ive always loved pokemon. as a wee lad, i saw my cousins watching the anime, and it was all downhill from there. ive been interested in pokemon for about 15 years and hyperfixated on it consistently for 7. oh god.i think this guy might be autistic. pokemon is what my autism decided to latch onto, for some reason- part of why its so important to me is that its a huge part of how my autism manifests itself. i was literally only diagnosed with autism because the doctor asked me to write about something i ilke to test my vocabulary, only to go "hmm... this is not normal for an 18 year old" and looked into it further. boom. diagnosis at 18.
i dont play the actual games as much as one may expect. im not actually good at pokemon. i just say "fuck it we ball" and it gets me through the main story. competitive pokemon has never particularly interested me beyond running a 6 shaymin-sky air slash team on natdex AG. (it works well, by the way. try it sometime.) im more interested in the lore behind the pokemon themselves, the trainers, the stories that pokemon tells. i mostly draw and think about the trainers- even if they have nothing to them beyond a cool design. shoutouts to aaron of the sinnoh elite four, one of my favorite characters ever for completely unknown reasons.
the world of pokemon invests me more than the actual games, if that makes sense. the stories that pokemon could choose to tell drive me insane, and its why i spend most of my free time theorizing what those stories could be. i have a johto sequel, a fan region, tons of ocs that serve to interact with characters i like, and much more under my belt.
specific shrines
my favorite pokemon games
GENERATION 2/4:
HEARTGOLD AND SOULSILVER
heartgold and soulsilver, while not flawless, are 100% the coziest games in the series to me. while the locations might not be the most interesting looking or memorable, theyre all so damn cozy to me. i can sit in ecruteak for hours listening to the music. the characters and plot, while nothing to write home about, interest me more than any other cast in the series. i love the gym leaders, i love the rocket executives, i LOVE the elite four (shoutouts to will,) i love everyone in this game!
the returning cast from kanto are also great. i love whatever blue has going on in this game, and the red fight on mount silver is one of the most iconic moments in all of pokemon. i know that red is overrated and all, but the idea of a protagonist returning, not to help the player, but to sit menacingly on a snowy mountain summit all alone in complete silence, not even saying a word to his replacement, is so badass to me. i do wish we got to learn more about what led him to that decision, though...
ultimately, i just wish johto was expanded on more as its own region. not kanto 2.0, not the other half of kanto, just johto. still love these games to death, though. johto re-remakes when
favorite gen 2/4 pokemon
GENERATION 5:
BLACK 2 AND WHITE 2
black 2 and white 2 are so, so much fun. while the story may not be as riveting as the original black and white, i still find it really fun with likeable characters. i love seeing what previous characters are up to- thats a huge part of why i love hgss so much. we dont get a lot of direct sequels in pokemon, so i need to treasure the ones that we do get. i love seeing what cheren and bianca are up to, i love, of all characters, zinzolin showing up again, as deranged as ever. listen, when i said i like the most random human characters in pokemon, i meant it. shoutouts to my boy zinzolin.
in terms of gameplay, theyre significantly less grindy and a lot more fun than the original bw. not to mention, the expanded dex is great. im not opposed to a unova-only dex, but it feels stifling with it only having 156 pokemon. yes, thats bigger than the original gen 1 dex size, but by this point, we'd all grown accustomed to the luxury of a larger pokedex, so to take it away felt more like a punishment than a change of pace.
these games are just plain fun. thats all there is to it, really.
favorite gen 5 pokemon
GENERATION 9:
SCARLET AND VIOLET
scarlet and violet are... not without flaws. for one, performance is awful. the game is ridden with glitches- ive never actually crashed in a pokemon game until i played scarlet and violet. i nearly got softlocked in a rock once. movement feels okay at best and janky at worst, which is not something you want in an open world game. the open world isnt that interesting, either- there are very few locations that are extremely memorable.
but my god, these games almost made me cry. the dex comprises about 50% of my top 10 favorite pokemon. when the games miss, they crash and burn, but the highs are so high i can almost ignore the lows. it tells one of the most interesting stories in main series pokemon. people like to pretend pokemon hasnt been dark before when discussing SV, but i will say that the story is absolutely not something i expected out of pokemon. other games dealt with loss before, not dancing around the word death in PLA, but an important character being straight up DEAD from a gruesome pokemon attack before the story even starts was not something i was expecting. and the way that plotline is executed, the way that character still interacts and affects the story from beyond the grave is phenomenal.
by the time this goes up, the indigo disk will probably be a few days old at most, so im not going to say any spoilers. but i will say this: holy shit. i love these games.
favorite gen 9 pokemon
GENERATION 7:
ULTRA SUN AND ULTRA MOON
ultra sun and ultra moon were the first games i was truly there for the hype cycle of. and my god, it was insane. during the original sun and moon's leak season, i wasnt very interested in pokemon- i didnt even know most of the actually revealed information. i chose litten without a clue what it would evolve into during my initial sun playthrough, despite incineroar having been officially revealed.
but i had gotten back into pokemon a few months before USUM's reveal. and i was back with a vengeance. i remember absolutely losing my SHIT when i saw the rainbow rocket trailer. why is cyrus here? WHY THE FUCK IS CYRUS HERE? 7 years later and im still obsessed with the concept of rainbow rocket. giovanni was cooking with that one (he really wasnt.) rainbow rocket and ultra necrozma are why im listing USUM instead of base SM- despite me enjoying the story of SM much more. it has more gladion and lillie content, so naturally i like it more. but, man, these games are still great, even if they put the story through completely uneeded changes that im not a huge fan of.
theyre hard without being full VGC competitive "EV train or face the wrath of god" hard like many fangames (and the indigo disk) are. thats the sweet spot of difficulty for me- i can use effectively any pokemon i want, but it wont be a cakewalk, either. that is peak pokemon to me.
favorite gen 7 pokemon
