I Still Love You – A Pokemon Fan In The Dark

I’ve been a Pokemon fan since elementary school. It’s been a long journey for me and it’s always changing.

In the past, I found myself excited to transfer my legendary party over to the next game and trade with friends. That was when things were easy.

When the way those things were done changed, I fell back instead of forward.

Once I wanted to transfer my legendary party from Platinum to White, it became a nuisance to complete the transfer process. The lab in Unova kept getting me to play this mini game where I had to throw balls at my Pokemon in order to successfully transfer them. If I missed any of them, they would remain in the machine until I succeeded in “catching” them again and the mechanic for catching them in the machine wasn’t very good.

It was more memorable for me to re-catch any transferred Pokemon with the usage of the Pal Park where I would just run around in the grass or surf the water until they appeared for me to catch. Sometimes it took some time, hell the first time I transferred my Groudon from Ruby to Pearl, I ran around in the tall grass for ten minutes before it appeared!

Now, transferring Pokemon has become a cash grab. When I got X, I had to actually buy the Pokemon Bank app in order to store and transfer them from older games. I believe it also requested an annual fee in order to keep using it or expand storage, and you know me, I don’t pay for subscriptions unless I deem them essential to my career or health. (well actually, I have debated whether to upgrade my blog if I start to run out of space. I did not like the concept as a long-time player and that it should have been a freebie.

Not only that, after playing Pearl and Platinum, there were on and off periods of full enjoyment I got out of the games. In SoulSilver, I got a taste of what it was like to play one of the older games remastered and I loved how we could have the Pokemon at the front of our party follow behind us outside its ball, no matter its size. But, by the time I had defeated everyone, I quickly ran out of things to do, except for the Battle Frontier. Even though there were two regions for me to go back and forth between, the cities just didn’t feel as pretty as I imagined.

Then, come to Unova and I played White and Black 2, White’s story I enjoyed more but I recall binge playing the latter because I wanted to keep ranking up my Join Avenue to increase my chances of winning the grand prize at its lottery (which I think is easier than the traditional Pokemon lottery where you have to trade with other players to get different ID numbers). I actually have a slight desire to play the first one again so I can recall N’s story and how terrible of a father Ghetsis was.

When X and Y were releases, I loved a lot of the new features, but once again there wasn’t much to do in the Kalos region after beating the game. I could have gone to catch Zygarde or Mewtwo, or hunt for more Mega Evolution Stones but I wasn’t looking forward to the grind.

Speaking of which, am I the only one here who likes this exclusive form of Zygarde that you can only get if you have got all those shard thingies and it goes to at least 50% HP in battle? I wish that was its default form.

A trip down memory lane with Palkia

Then I fed my nostalgia with Omega Ruby and I chose to skip Sword and Shield. But, these remakes makes me face a potential dilemma. First, I’m flattered that a lot of people enjoyed my article about my ode to the 3DS, but, what if GameFreak decides they want to remaster Diamond/Pearl/Platinum next but only on the Switch? That will be a problem for me and fellow DS gamers who like the features from the original; unless it gets changed completely to not support it? I’ve said before that I don’t need to buy a Switch, but I don’t want to feel forced into getting one if gen. IV is redone because that’s my favourite generation of Pokemon.

Gen. III comes really close though since I still found that there was plenty to do post-game and not just the battle facilities.

Now, because of certain changes Nintendo and GameFreak have implemented, as well as the harsh reality of console gaming, I am a Pokemon fan in the dark under a rock who no longer moves forward with the changes. I just started a new game of my Omega Ruby after keeping it in my drawer for over a year because that game holds a special place in my heart since I grew up playing the original, even if its remake has made things in the game significantly easier.

Then again, maybe the DS/3DS generation of Pokemon gamers is not truly dead in the market, I connected to the Internet while playing one night to discover lots of players still online. Therefore, there is still hope.

I’m just one of those Pokemon fans now who just turns to the games now at my own pace, and if Nintendo wants to charge me for something as simple as transferring my Pokemon, or bar me from playing the latest remastered generation unless I buy their new console, then perhaps it’s time to just stick to my guns and they can fuck off. It’s all a cash grab to me as a gamer who’s primarily PC.

No matter, I will always love Pokemon in general, even if I stay behind.

What about you? You in the same boat or do you continue to follow the trend?

👽Emily