Admittedly, I’m writing this post two days after my official Day One, so I’ll have to do my best to cover my bases and it probably won't be as thorough as I want to make future posts.
A quick note on the game itself. I actually have my original Gameboy Advance from all the way back in 2004 or so. It’s pink and a little banged up (I think the back has been taped about fifty times), but it works and I could have played this game on that if I wanted. But alas, the light that was once attached to it—you know, back when these things didn’t have automatic backlights and purchasing what was basically a small flashlight to play on them at night was a thing—broke, I didn’t feel like sitting under a lamp in order to see what the heck I was doing. I’ve also seemed to have misplaced the Gameboy. Oops.
But getting back to the game: I’m going to be very open here and say that my first day I spent SIX HOURS playing. It didn’t feel like six hours, but I'm sure that’s what everyone says. I started out my game with my little character, whom I have named JOSIE, and I’m sure she looks like every other generic “female Pokémon trainer,” but I have decided that her little pink hat and brown hair is good enough representation for me, so it works. She is awesome. I named my “rival” person—who I’m assuming would have been female if I chose to play as a male—“Kene” because it sounded dweeby and I like my competition to be chill and not so serious. Besides that, why in the world this game thinks it’s necessary to HAVE a rival in the first place, I don’t know. This will be hard enough without him popping up every now and then. The first time I faced him, he knocked my Pokémon out in like, two moves and I had be sent to the Pokémon Center like a terrible, neglectful Pokémon Trainer.
It straight-up took me ten minutes to figure out how to get out of Pallet Town. I didn’t realize that the slightly smaller leaf-tree-bush-things were things you could walk though, since solid objects generally don’t possess that quality and this game is old enough that perspective plays very little role here. So I spent ten or fifteen minutes talking to every soul and looking at every last piece of furniture in this town of like, two houses and a laboratory until I decided to try the trees. Lo and behold, Prof. Oak stops me and I go to pick my Pokémon.
It wasn’t until after the fact that my friend said I could keep picking or, if I wasn’t satisfied with the other two, go back to my original option. I thought it was one of those “pick your poison” kind of things and whichever you picked, you were stuck with. I had no idea what Pokémon were in the Pokéballs, so I snagged the one on the far right that had Charmander and said Yes, I want him. Mainly because he was cute. My friend remarked that I could have gone back and picked another one if I didn’t want the Charmander, and he figured me more of a Squirtle person. But I didn’t, so I now I have my Charmander with a hasty nature who I named Damian.
Aaaaand my friend made a joke about how I should name him that before I told him, “Uh, actually…”
It suits a Charmander. I named him that mainly because I had a copy of Robin Rises Alpha sitting on my bed where I spent the duration of my game play and it was the first thing that came to mind. According to my friend, since I picked Charmander, I needed to get a certain set of Pokémon: A Pikachu, a Mankey, a Caterpie, and a Pidgey. I ended up with all of them, after searching for eternity for the stupid Mankey, and here are my thoughts on each of my new children:
Damian is my oldest and the one in charge, not because of age. He’s hot headed but loyal and wants to protect all of his younger siblings. I mean, he can breathe fire, so it shouldn’t be an issue. By the end of day one, he was at level 17 and had evolved into a Charmeleon, which isn’t as cute as the Charmander, but he KICKS ASS in terms of the trainers and wild Pokémon I fight, so it works.
My Pikachu I decided to name Wally ‘cause…you know…Wally West is fast and has a bolt of lightning on his chest…and…I…have a problem. BUT. Wally is gentle in nature. He’s not the kind to want to take charge, but he wants to fight well and puts his best effort into it. He’s currently at level 14, and learned Thundershock which works great against all of the dang leaf Pokémon.
Then there’s my Pidgey which I named Hamlet because…I’m an English major and it seemed to fit at that moment. He has an adamant nature, and he’s the awkward middle child who likes to prove himself but doesn’t always succeed. He’s at level 12 and I’m kind of waiting to see what happens if/when he evolves.
Lola is my second youngest and a level 12 Butterfree with a sassy nature. She’s not the best fighter (let’s be real, here—when she was a Metapod it was like carrying dead weight; they do nothing), she’s got a good move or two and knows it. She likes to show off but has a good heart underneath all that sass.
My youngest is the Mankey with a rash nature, which sounds vaguely sexual, and she’s level 13. I’m going to be honest here and say that this thing is ugly. I’m not a monkey person (read: I hate monkeys) and this poor thing looks like a monkey mashed with a pig and maybe some oatmeal. My friend told me later on that since Damian ended up learning Metal Claw, I didn’t need the Mankey after all. I feel bad not caring much about this thing, but seriously. Monkeys are awful. Regardless, I see her as wanting to fight a lot and not getting along well with her other siblings. She would be my “problem child.” It’s okay, I will love her anyway.
So after I collected all of my little family here, I went back and creamed my rival and his stupid Pokémon that aren't as cool as mine. Then I spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around Viridian Forest getting half of my Pokémon poisoned by those damn Weedles and rushing back and forth to the Pokémon Center. But this is where I leveled up my Pokémon pretty well and got some of them to learn new moves so that I could face Brock, the first gym's leader.As per the advice of my friend, I didn't use my Pikachu in this gym because something about Electricity not faring well against Rock. I can't remember who I used to fight what, but from my slightly garbled and passionate texts, I gather that my Charmander's Ember wasn't working well on a Geodude or the Onix and it took me a few minutes to beat this guy and his trainee, which is pretty good considering my knowledge of how any of this works is still somewhere between Completely Ignorant and Slightly Knowledgeable. Anyway, I was proud of myself when I beat him and got my first badge.
Then I got what I can only say is the single greatest treat thus far in the game--running shoes. One of the things that annoyed me whenever I attempted to play GBA games like this (ex: my Zelda game play lasted about four minutes) was the fact that they moved SO SLOW. I mean, I am a fast walker in real life because I have to be when my legs are so short, but this little character moves at a frustratingly slow pace. So the shoes were a glorious asset. Also, this exchange took place between me and my friend:
By the end of the day, I had started out in Mt. Moon. I'll discuss that more tomorrow, since I didn't get through the area (Freaking. Zuuuubats), but my gang looked like this:
My general thoughts on the game? Holy crap, is this thing addicting. I haven't done something for six straight hours since...I don't know, I binge-watched the first season of Arrow? It's so fun to go back and play something that has such low graphics quality considering the beasts that have become video games since then. I love how simplistic everything is. I'm also surprised at how attached you become to your Pokémon . I felt similar with my Neopets as a kid, even though I know logically that they're just pieces of data strung into a cute image on a screen. But I can see why so many people took the premise of the game and ran with it.
It's also way more complicated than I thought. There's so much more to the game than what's on the surface. There are basic stats that are all affected based on what Pokémon it is and the nature of your particular Pokémon, the different elements that determine how well a move will work on an opponent, and the sheer number of Pokémon is mind-boggling.
I am thoroughly impressed.
Although I fear that this will end up being like my induction into comics: a long, arduous, and research-heavy process that makes me wonder why I'm even bothering until I find myself engrossed in the world and suddenly don't care that it took me three months to get where I'm at.
Anyway, it was fun. I can't afford to playing for six hours in the coming days, but we'll see where I end up tomorrow.
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