Mania

I started playing Pokemon when I was 5 and yes, it's good

it was gay anon
really fucking gay
my mom who is super religious wouldn't let us even touch a pogey card cuz she thought wed go to hell

>>30591998
It was glorious, and yes anhero but stream it

It was like go, except it bled over to other areas of the franchise. The cards were a big thing and the show too.

It was pretty neat to have that many people on board something at once.

there was a point in time where everything was pokemon. there were even fucking pokemon office supplies. i was around 4 years old when pokemon got popular and i attended about 6 birthday parties (mine included) that were pokemon themed. pokemania was fun. i miss it.

>>30591998
There has been nothing like it since.
It was a magic time. Truly, we were the blessed children.

POKEMON EVERYTHING

Probably, I remember when the cards came out and they had actual value at school. I remember trading a few cards and those holographic things you got from chips for a beyblade

>>30591998
Even when I was kid I always wondered how Poliwhirl got front and center of this magazine.

Fuck yeah it was.
>talk about yesterday's episode in the morning
>play cards at school
>play games after school
>go home and watch the anime
>repeat
First grade was pretty based looking back at it.

>>30592036
bet your parents didn't let you read Harry Potter either. Or watch DBZ. I'm sorry for you anon. It was truly a great time to be a child.

>>30591998
>There are people on 4chan that are to young to have lived through Pokemania
I have honestly never felt so old in my life.

i miss playing pokemon during recess with my friends and then doing it in class.

>>30591998
It's crazy that it's come back to life.

What will the 30 year resurgence be like?

>>30592101
Time's editor was clearly a man of excellent taste.

>>30592101
Because Poliwhirl is Satoshi Tajiri's (creator of Pokémon) favorite Pokémon.

talk about it with your friends at lunchtime and trade cards a bit, go home and kill everything with your masterball zapdos after school.

at the weekend you watch the cartoon in the morning and your dad buys you a couple of packs of cards.

grandma cuts out pokemon newspaper clippings for you and even though she doesn't get it she stills likes poliwag the most.

I kind of lived through it but was too poor to buy a Gameboy.

But the anime and the cards and all that shit was pretty hype as a kid.

>>30592137
Its not even close.

>>30592154
Your grandma sounds really cool, Anon.

>>30592101
Poliwhirl was a heavily merchandised pokemon back then, weirdly enough. If there were at least 5-6 pokemon on something, it was usually one of them.

>>30592179
You're lacking in information. The most played app game worldwide that still has over 2 million daily active users is a Pokemon game. The latest game broke all records for pokemon vidya being sold. People walk in the streets casting pokeballs.

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>watching episodes mom had taped on vhs
>re-reading the official guidebook in bed
>"pikablu is totally real guys"
>learning how to activate the rare mons in pokemon snap
>getting btfo in pokemon stadium by the kid that was better than you
>minigames in pokemon stadium while mom makes bagel bites
>super smash bros comes out and jigglypuff is a secret character
>the cloning glitch is real and you can do it yourself
>"mom we have to go to burger king"

it was the comfiest of times

>>30592048
It was nothing like Go. Pokemania lasted at least a full year and included absolutely everything from airplanes to canned pasta.

Spent so much time staring at my Pokemon sticker album that I literally forced myself to learn how to read.

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Hell yeah it was

Latin americ was religious as fuck at the time so a lot of the kids in my school had to secretly play pokemon and yugi oh because of shit like this people really believed pokemon were satanic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IErgDO2n1s0

then years later it around highschool it kinda came back to my school during gen 4 everone played during the free time

of course by that time everyone was more chill about it

and well nowdays we have stuff like this remix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0Sujc_nR4

I remember being really hyped about pokemon 2000 after all i started playing during gen 2

>>30591998
No. GO happened and it was very similar.

>>30591998
It was pretty fucking fun. But maybe that's my nostalgia talking.

I actually miss the merchandise.

>>30592036
>Protestants

>>30592150
>>30592101
Tajiri's favorite mon, it was also in a lot of the other early merchandise, like on the Kraft Macaroni.

>>30592260
It was really popular for a month (July, some of August), but the devs Nintendo hired fuck up
>Didn't keep releasing content
>Fucked up with the step counter and when online radars came out, they fucked over the people that used them

>>30592367
Not even close to the same magnitude.

>>30592331
this

gofags are fucking stupid

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It was awesome, i rmemeber the first time i saw pokemon red and was amazed at the idea of traveling through forests with my bike or flying on a dragon, capturing a vast number of unknown creatures. And everything was recorded in a pocket console i could carry everywhere.

>>30592101
Satoshi Tajiri's favorite pokemon. Around the time i remember reading that in a magazine explaining the choice of mascot of the different pokemon centers in japan.

>>30592358
Goddamn Yrion.
That fucker made me laugh like a maniac.
>POKYMAN IS EVIL! THIS ONE HAS FINGERS! YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAS FINGERS?! SATAN! [Holding Yu-gi-oh! card]

>hours and Hours talking about the new Pokémon from Gold and Silver
>Playing TCG all day at the school
>read in magazines all about the rare mons and rare cards

those good times will always be with me

>>30592265
>go to grandma's house
>play Yellow while watching VHS of Pokemon episodes
>cocoa wheats for breakfast
>with a side of bacon and toast
>as much offbrand grape soda as you can drink
>hella ice cream treats
>also playing solitaire on those old handheld games

Do they still make Cocoa Wheats? Or Malt-o-meal? Because I'd totally buy that shit still.

>>30592358
same here

It was pretty crazy. I remember there even being Pokemon cereal and pop tarts.

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I remember going into a magazine stand, seeing this poster on the wall and absolutely losing my shit HOW COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE A HUNDRED MORE POKEMON TO CATCH

>>30592537
I had a similar one, but with all the base stat and evolution level/condition of all 252

it was fucking rad, shame that I lost it

>>30592537
I had a Pokémon special from a Nintendo-related magazine which basically acted like a player's guide for gen I but on the last pages it had some first screens about G/S. That was hype as fuck. A shame I can't find that magazine anywhere anymore.

>>30592036
>dad was a really fucking cool guy
>he never felt for the religion meme
>he was the one who buyed me my first 151 pokemon poster

Feels good man

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When I attempt to play competitive battling, I can sympathize with Kantofriends on why they prefer the original 151.

There is way too many Pokemon to choose, and trying to filter them out gets you Smogonmons instead, which is very bad for a Karenist like myself.

Teambuilding nowadays has become too hard and I feel envy to these older players who had an easier time constructing teams of their favorites with decent synergy together while bound by the limits of less Pokemon to choose from.

Its one of the series where "less is more" is very much true.

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>>30592367
>GO happened and it was very similar
how you detect an actual underage claiming to know it experienced pokemania

>>30592722
I have a 1st gen pokedex book SOMEWHERE in my parents' house. I found the second gen one. 2nd gen came with cards in it. Also, who remembers the smell of opening up a pack of cards and having a holo in it? Or did I just have a stroke every time I got a holo?

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>>30591998
There's never been another time like it. There may never be a time like it ever again. For a kid that liked pokemon it was one of the best things ever.

>tfw I still remember the time I made my dad pester the people at Burger King for a Nidoking toy

>>30592797
>I'm not out of touch, the kids must be wrong.

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>>30591998
>TFW my first Pokémon game was Sapphire.
It hurts.

>>30592901
Hey, at least your first game isn't BW.

>>30592883
>actually admitting being a kid
>actually thinking someone born after the mania can accurately compare the two phenomena

>>30592881
I remember roping my parents into taking me to watch the first movie on opening day.

Dad cried and won't admit it to this day.

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>tfw born in 98

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>>30592883
inb4 it's that anon claiming to be an internal promoting agent again saying pokemon GO is still as strong as launch

>>30592919
But I went to a mom and pop shop I got myself a copy of Red, Silver and Snap.
Those were comfy times I can't believe that was nearly 14 years ago.

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>>30591998
It was fucking amazing, best thing besides the games were the trading cards, stickers and toys.
This friday I'm gonna buy some first edition trading cards to open them for christmas.

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>>30591998
>Was it as amazing everyone says it was?
Fucking no.

>Be a Kid in the middle of Pokemon Mania
>Very quickly, high level cliques take the stance that pokemon is for gayassfaggots since it's important as fuck to be contrarian
>Have no real money supply to buy any pokemon merchandise of any nature
>Have to save up months by doing odd jobs around the neighborhood just to pre-order Pokemon Silver
>Never got a N64 and Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 because, even though I had the money saved up, because according to my parents, game consoles are the work of the devil, but you can still have a handheld console because we have no fucking clue how to be consistent.
>Gen 3 comes out at the tail end of Pokemon mania
>Can't transfer pokes from Silver to Sapphire
>Decide to just stop at this point
It was not amazing for poor fags, it was essentially 'here's all the shit you can't have' and completely wrecked any social standings I had at the time.

>I caught all 150 Pokemon!

Holy shit what a simple and easy time it was. There are 802 of the fuckers now. Eight hundred and two.

>>30592948
Lucky you, my parents never cared for the pokemon craze. Fortunately they never fell for the "pokemon is the work of the devil" crap even though we were a Christian household, so me and my brother always got the games, the cards, and VHS tapes of the show.

>>30593115
Even if you manage to catch 'em all today it feels like so much less of an achievement.

>>30592036
I could do pokemanz and Yugioh but couldn't read Harry Potter.

Which is weird as fuck.

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>>30591998
>Was it as amazing everyone says it was?
It was. In the gloaming days of the internet you couldn't be sure what was real and what was myth. It made Red and Blue feel so much larger than they were, especially since missingno WAS real, which to many was confirmation of PokeGods, Mew under the truck, what have you.

For those of us who lived through Pokemania, Mega Evolution was basically the most amazing thing ever. It's so bizarre to see kids who started with the sinnoh games hating on the concept as "un pokemon like" when we'd been dreaming of this shit since day 1.

>>30592791
It isn't. The meta for gen1, which people run on simulators, would've worked exactly the same.

The only way to play how you want is to be ignorant about things.

>>30593162
That's mostly because you can't be finished as long as there will be more pokemon in the future. The day that pokemon finally ends is the day you can catch them all.

>>30592791
Gen 1 is the most monobuild meta ever. Unless your precious """karen""" tells you to pick Mewtwo, Alakazam and Tauros in that order you're shit out of luck, friendo. Oddish wasn't any better in gen 1 than it is now.

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>People are talking about the 90s like it's an ancient bygone era
>for all intents and purposes it is
>kids who were 6 in 2004 are now 18
Who /old/ here?

>>30593196
All those PokeMyths end up becoming true in some roundabout way in modern Pokemon. Even dummied out stuff like the Professor fight became true.

>>30592390
>Pokemon mac and cheese
Now that I remember. For some reason, the Poliwhirl shapes were very pleasing to the tongue

It was a fun time. I only caught the tail end of pokemania but it was magical having kids from blocks away walk over because they heard rumors some one had a holographic Gangar and wanted to trade. And all the crazy merc they had, I have a fucking pokemon ruber stamp set

>>30593297
Feels fucking weird man, but not really bad.
>tfw you got to play stadium at your friends house because parents didn't wanna buy a n64

>>30591998
the late 90's were a good fucking time man. The ecstasy you felt as a 6-7 year old opening a booster pack and seeing that reflective shininess in the middle of the pack. Then going from that directly to your GBC and loading up your pokemon blue save.

Ecstasy.

At my elemenyary school, the card game ended up bigger than the games, we would trade at recess.
Nobody actually knew how to play the TCG though

>>30593429
The smell of the inside of a pokemon pack was amazing.

>>30593424
I was too poor to buy N64 games, but Pokemon Stadium was so popular it would never be available in the rental place, until the day I got home and there it was, my brother camped out on the rental store to get it for me and my parents let me skip school the next day to play it. Fuck, man.

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>>30593319
It's a pretty amazing time to be a Pokemon fan. When the Kukui battle started with a remix of the main theme I just about came.

I have mixed feelings because my mother was a huge cunt about me being into Pokemon. Didn't get me the first gen game, never got me cards and shit, I asked her to hook me up with merch once and she got a gay as fuck pencil box and other crap like that. I had to pretend to like it. She even shamed me at the cash register when I was renting out the movie.

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>>30591998
>>30591998
>>30591998

>there are now people posting on /vp/ that never experienced what made Pokemon, well, Pokemon and weren't even alive at the time to experience it

Aging is both horrific and wonderful, but right now I'm leaning more towards the horrible side.

>>30592367
But GO fever lasted barely 2 months before people jumping into another trend.
This was different, people didn't switch between trends so easily, Pokemania was basically 2000's Minecraft fad, lasting about 2 years.
I miss collecting those tazos.

I have an older sibling who was (and still is) obsessed with pokemon, so I loved it even at 3 years old. Of course, then I wasn't old enough to play the games, so I just watched the show and LOVED collecting the cards. It really was great. I was lucky enough to grow up in a nieghborhood full of kids, so we could battle each other and explore the neighborhood pretending to be trainers. A lot of my happiest childhood memories center around pokemon.

>>30592101
To use Hypnosis.

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>>30593539
>GO fever lasted barely 2 months before people jumping into another trend
I loved how niantic labs utterly fucked up this opportunity by making the app an early beta test. I know a ton of folks who gave up because their potato-servers and the fact that the battle system was alien to a few of them, who were expecting classic pokemon battles rather than the gym tap the screen as fast as you can shit.

>>30593297
why did you use that picture of MIlo an deeogee?

do you want to bring bad luck to this thread

>>30593610
It was never gonna stick around much longer regardless of quality, they put in the bare minimum effort necessary and made off with everything they could while it lasted.

>>30592153
>>30592227
>>30592390
>>30592402
>ywn live in an alternate reality where based Poli became the mascot of the franchise instead of Pikashit
Feels bad man

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>>30593196
this desu, well said anon

>>30593429
>>30593472
i still have my pokemon cards from when I was a kid, the first set cards, tonnes of holos, i still have jungle and team rocket booster packs and they still have that amazing smell - I've kept them safe in this shoe box i painted when i was young and pokemon was all the craze. I get them out every Christmas (a nostalgic time for me for many reasons) and I marvel at them, and yeah, the smell is incredible nostalgia. There are certain cards that bring me right back to the time, shiny gyarados, poliwrath, and charmander - especially charmander.

This Christmas I'm going to purchase pokemon blue on my 2ds and enjoy a play through... It's been so long.

It was Christmas 98 or something when I got my first pokemon game, I got blue, my sister got red, my sister didn't want red so I ended up having both - and man oh man, it was incredible.

>>30593662
>Ash with Poliwhirl
I actually can see this work.

>>30593736
He has it in the manga.

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It was amazing and I'll always be thankful I was the prime age to experience it.

>so many Pokemon toys
>backpack and school supplies all Pokemon
>no clue how to play the TCG but got the cards anyway because I liked to look at them
>eating every licensed food
>saw both movies in theaters
>read that Official Pokemon Handbook cover to cover so many times
>trading Burger King toys at school
>made some lifelong friends through mutual love of Pokemon, been playing SuMo together recently

There were these tiny Pokemon figures that came in groups of 5 or so in red blind-bags you could get at Walgreens or whatever, I loved those things and I'm trying to find out what they were called.

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>>30593662
It's for the best. Pikachu is better in every way. If they went with Poliwhirl it's no stretch to say the franchise would be much less popular.

>there are MORE than 150 pokemon?

The introduction of a new gen blew my 6-year-old mind.

>>30593789
(You)

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>no one around me was into the pokemania

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I know it's probably a stretch, but any Brazilian here remembers this madness?

>>30593821
>There really is a Mew ONE?!

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I was the weird kid who's parents got him a stamp set because why not

>>30593855
Rumors say it's under a truck or something!

>>30593851
I did, I still have that Hoot Hoot somewhere.

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>>30593832
>hipster-kun can't refute the point

>>30593882
>still remember having heated debates about this in elementary
Stop being gay, Alex, that's not true.

>>30593859
CUTE

>>30593917
>I have a friend who has a friend who showed him it!

>>30593941
>Show me your Mew
>My gameboy got stolen!

every time.

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I'm gonna be an elitist fag and just point to the elephant in the room, you don't really "get" pokemon if you haven't been there since Red & Blue simply because there hasn't been an event/craze like it again and probably never will. The games have gotten better but the experience of playing them is so diluted at this point that it isn't even comparable.

Except maybe in a few centuries after humanity nearly collapses on itself and from the ashes of the new decrepit world that has no world wide web or another form of constant stream of information available to the public, a new craze sweeps everybody of every age, creed and colour.

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>>30591998
Yes it was, sorry OP. 1998-2001 was the golden age. Imagine the Pokémon GO hype but 10x as big. Basically everyone under 10 either played the games (if your parents could afford them), watched the show, collected cards, or some combination of the three. If you didn't live through it IDK what to tell you but this franchise in its current state pales in comparison to the ecstasy of its early years. It just felt boundless. Everyone thought the fad would be over in months, but it managed to survive 3 years at a blistering tempo.

I didn't get into it right away, but in early 1999 for my 6th birthday I got some cards and Blue version with a lime green GBC (my little brother got Red and a Blue GBC later on, which I was able to borrow for self-trades). It wasn't my first video game, as I'd played SMB3 on my dad's NES before that, and my parents had already bought us an N64 at my older sister's bidding. But Blue version was certainly the first video game I beat in its entirety. That year I heard about the Cinnibar Island glitch, which me and my friends used to get even more enjoyment out of the game. Nobody knew about the Mew glitch yet, but rumors abounded about its secret location.

I got Yellow later that same year, but sort of temporarily lost interest in the games. In 2000 I was mostly playing other games on N64, mostly Donkey Kong, OoT, and Turok (IK, some of these are shit looking back...). I kept avidly collecting the cards, and still have my Base set Charizard from back then, promos from the movies (all of which I saw in theatres), and many more.

In 2001 I got Crystal version and to this day it's the most fun I've had with any Pokémon game, despite gen 2's many flaws. I got Stadium 2 as well and got damn close to filling my Pokédex trading with friends.

Then 2002 rolled around and suddenly I felt like the last of a dying breed. I was 9 years old and nobody in my class was talking about it. I saw Pokémon 4Ever that year and the theatre was empty.

>>30592265
I hated Burger King but I needed those Pokémon toys.

>>30593763
But that's red.
They should've made the manga the anime.

>>30593297
>kids who were 6 in 2004 are now 18
Fuck

If this thread is alive when I get home I'll post some of my old pokemania stuff...

>>30594062
The manga is edgy fanfic, though. That's not an improvement.

>>30594030

Reached character limit.

My neighborhood friend and I remained the only diehards we knew who still talked about Pokémon. By 2003 I too had dropped it completely. I watched my little brother play Ruby but I just wasn't interested . I only came back in 2004 to play Leafgreen (drawn in by nostalgia) and played Colosseum. I've been with it basically ever since, but Hoenn is still just a region I feel no attachment to or nostalgia for.

>>30593789
If you look at really early Japanese ads from before Pikachu's popularity picked up, you see Nidoking of all things often used to represent the franchise.

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>>30593297
>tfw 23

I feel ancient. We've reached that age where god stops giving us things and starts taking them away. I'm sure anyone visiting from /vr/ would have a good laugh at us.

>>30594141
>Boys love giant angry dinosaur covered in spikes BUT if we push something cuter he can get girls' money too
The logic is sound.

>>30594141
Nidoking's a great representiation of the "cool" side of the franchise. He's not a starter so any player can pick him up, and he's not a "secret" mon like Mewtwo or the birds. He's a solid choice for the "cool mon" appeal who was ultimately eclipsed by Charizard and Mewtwo.

It's really hard to imagine how huge it was if you weren't there.

Pretty much all of my earliest memories are of Pokemon - the show, the cards, the games, the things I did/spoke with my friends, my first fanfiction, back in 2nd grade - all Pokemon.

It was on tv, on food, on clothing, on every single item you can imagine. It was part of the zeitgeist, really.

I remember walking around Manhattan with my parents when we took a trip out from our home in Brooklyn and seeing the billboard in Times Square for the first movie. As a child, it was amazing - there, above everything in such a crowded place, was Pokemon

Honestly, there was a lot going for you if you were a kid between 98 and I want to say 04. You had Pokemon of course, but I remember being into Tamagochi pets way before that and that kinda got me into the whole monster collecting phrase going on at the time, I remember in elementary the biggest things were pokemon, yu-gi-oh, and beyblade and that's not mentioning any other things going on at the time. All I know is after Silver and Gold came out, things took a dip and I'm still unsure why.

ahh it was crazy back then, I do remember some people saying it was satanic which was completely retarded. How is it going to be satanic if the japanese arent even christian? Let alone dont you think people would have figured it out?

typical soccer mom bullshit.

>>30593196
Exactly this. I remember people whispering about the mysterious Pokeblu on the school bus (which I later figured out was just Marill). Literally everyone I knew was into it and had cards, it wasn't just nerdy kids, it was also the kids bullying the nerdy kids.

This was after Pokemania itself, but I remember going to the video store and picking Pokemon movies and specials on VHS. I'm not even old and I feel old. Media just changes so fast.

>>30593999
There's lots of really cool video game shit that will never happen again due to the Internet.

Swordquest were competitions in video game form where you used trial and error gameplay to uncover clues to a complicated riddle that would give you a chance to win prizes worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Tower of Druaga was an arcade game built around the idea that people would stumble over the solutions to its no-clues-offered puzzles and then spread the solution through the local community via word of mouth.

Shit like this just can't be done again in an age where you can just look stuff up online.

>>30594305
*Pikablu, sorry. Everyone thought it had some kind of tie to Pikachu.

It was great while it lasted, but it didn't last long, and was definitely not worth the hype I put into it.

>Grade 4: Pokemon cards become popular and everyone in my school has them.
>Grade 5: A few people still play with theirs but no one is playing or trading them in the halls and playground anymore.
>Grade 6: Kids my age are saying "Pokemon's gay". Younger kids already had the Digimon fad come and go, and are now into Yu-Gi-Oh. Pokemon keeps printing new sets and the power creep is so transparent even kids can see through it.

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>>30593999
THIS. Objectively, there is no doubt the current games are leagues ahead of RBY. Only someone truly deluded or trying to troll would argue otherwise. But the human brain doesn't work that way. Nothing we consume comes in a vacuum. The experience of seeing literally everyone you know united in their excitement for this franchise, then getting to experience it for yourself, was sheer bliss.

Millenials who got in on the ground floor in gen 1 had a generation defining experience that it's impossible for the other games in the series to ever match. Gen 2 was riding on the coattails of gen 1 and therefore can be lumped in with it, and SM came close with the Pokémon GO hype, but both of them were just weak echoes of the initial experience. Ask anyone 22-26 years old today and ask them what they were doing 15-18 years ago: they were all playing Pokémon or wanted to be playing Pokémon. That has a very powerful affect on how you perceive and enjoy things.

>>30594248
I think it waned like all crazes eventually will but the console switch didn't help. A lot of kids who started with Red and Blue got the games with a GBC, so Gen 2 is the natural progression and suddenly there's a whole other barrier for entry.

>>30591998
I was an infant at the time but caught the end of it by the time I could speak.
At least I was able to experience Mewtwo Strikes Back, it's honestly one of my earliest memories.

>>30594406
Ah that makes sense.

>>30594345
I was 12 when Pokemon debuted here. Reading stuff like this is so bizarre when Pokemania was everywhere in my school too, to the point where 15 year olds who had grown out of Saturday morning cartoons long ago would start waking up early in the weekends again to catch the anime.

>>30592791
I get what your trying to say. But even the gen one meta was limited, only aroud 7 diffent mons are used. There are a lot of mirror matches

>As a kid in the 90s Poliwhirl was the first pokemon I ever saw
>maybe this magazine was responsible
>looked at my cousin's card collection sometimes
>learned about evolution by how there was a Poliwag and a Poliwhirl card
>Didn't know about 3-stage evolutions yet
>had a dream that night that Poliwhirl had a further evolution
>Gameboy evolution screen
>Poliwhirl is evolving!
>It turned into basically a muscular angry version of Poliwhirl
>It's name echoed in my head
>"PoliWHEIR"
>Always nickname my Poliwags "PoliWHEIR" to this day

Could you imagine if Poliwhirl really DID have a 3rd stage evolution that basically looked exactly like it and had a similar name? Imagination of kids is wild man. I'd at least hope it would get a more sensible name.

>>30592791
Gen 1 competitive was literally just "who can kill the other's level 100 Mewtwo first"

>>30594248
It was also the tail end of the Disney rennaissance. Some of the first movies I remember seeing in theatres were Tarzan and Pokémon: The First Movie. The Cold War was over, and consumer electronics was driving one of the greatest periods of economic growth in U.S. history from 1993-2001. The dot com bust that came after was brief and not too severe, but jobs were plentiful and everyone had money in their pockets.

Gas and housing were cheap, and people were still having relatively large families due to the "echo boom", meaning schools were full and society as a whole was trying to cater to growing families (as opposed to today's post-replacement fertility world). The hubris-laden catchphrase of the time was "The End of History".

It was just a good time to be a kid. Let all of us who lived through it rejoice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D7t92e02oA&list=PLtOWiS7mYRFhO2XVU_ZVTEkW8-LqpOhX0

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It really was.

What you have to understand is that it is completely without compare to any game-related thing that came out afterwards. Xbox Live was big, Call of Duty Modern Warfare was big, sure. But Pokemania? It wasn't just about the game anymore. Everyone knew about pokemon. Everyone had the cards, the games, the cereal, the Pikachu light up shoes. The shows were pokemon, the movies were pokemon, the food was pokemon. You go to school, all your friends are talking about pokemon, trading pokemon, sharing each others Burgerking Pokemon cards, showing off your Pokemon Pokedex book you bought from Schoolastic. For 2 straight years it was like an autistic paradise of nothing but pokemon. It was so big you could say that RBY had practically come to life, and it really felt like it had.

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>You'll never read Pokemon game guides that you took as the Highest Word and never realize the Author never bothered to actually play the game.

>>30594728
the author probably just asked his kids about the latest playground rumors and wrote it down.

I was around back then now knowing about anything other than the Pokemon "cartoon" and thought it was complete garbage. Took me until a few years ago to revisit the classic games on emulators and catch up.

>>30594636
Didn't it need a Water Stone???

>>30594728
>>30594751
Most of those are shops.

>>30593851
Yes. Still got a handful of them in some drawer.

Having Pokemon be such a big thing as a kid was amazing. I wish my mom didn't give all my vintage Pokemon merchandise to the Goodwill and my rare cards didn't get stolen
>tfw you have almost nothing left that was from your childhood

>>30592175
This. Literally my experience with it.
I had literally everything but the games.

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It's kind of sad how far we've come since then. Pokemon was a microcosm of the 90's, it is like the ultimate epitome of post-cold war consumerism culture. I don't think theres a word to describe the idea I'm going for. Zeitgeist maybe? No, pokemon went beyond Zeitgeist. It's like how every kid growing up can quote every spongebob episode by heart. It basically became part of us. Every Millenial can probably name the first 150 off the top of their heads. Pokemon was and still is part of who we are.

>>30594903
Same, I had to go to blockbuster and rent stadium just to rent Blue version so I could play it.

>>30594903

Luckily I knew some older kids who gave me No$GB on a floppy disk because I didnt have a game boy. But I never got to trade, battle, or catch em all

>>30591998
It was great. Its probably the reason I'm still playing to this day.

>Everyone at school had cards and the games
>Trading at school was a regular thing

>Literally no other game I have played has ever come close to this and likely never will

You missed out man.

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>>30593851
Gotta wonder what the elderly thought of all this licensed crap back then. Imagine you're some 75 year old WW2 veteran circa Y2K. You draw Social Security and Medicaid, you saw buddies die in Okinawa. Mighta worked as an insurance salesman after the war, but you've been retired these past 10 years with a sizeable pension. You scoot over to your local supermarket on your motorized shopping cart as usual to get your waffles.

Then you see this shit.

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>>30594030
Chilean here.
Pretty much the same here, but the fever took started somewhere in 1999 here, mostly due the anime. Getting an original Game Boy and a game cartridge was really hard those days. That's why most people here still think of Pokemon more as a cartoon than a videogame series.

2000 and 2001 were the golden years indeed. My 10 year old self was overjoyed with the newly arrived Johto merchandise.

2002 came and people returned to Dragon Ball. Pokemon was still a pop culture icon, while around 2006 appeared some "urban tribe" who called themselves the "Pokemon", because some lame pun. It was fun how journalists tried to unsuccessfully make the mental connections between Emo+Reggaeton and Pokemon.

Pokemon X/Y revived the Pokemania here in some extent. Many of my friends bought a 3DS to experience Pokemon again. Then GO revived it again. You could see any kind of people with their smartphones try to catch Pokemon in the streets.

It was always alive in the niche though. Latin Americans -at least Mexicans, Colombians, Peruvians, Argentinians and Chileans- have some kind of predisposition for this kind of things, specially Dragon Ball and Pokemon.

Pic related - Chilefags will remember.

>>30591998
The pokemon craze was one of the best things about my early life. That said there are benefits to not being in it. Genwunners have completely spoiled the good memories of the old days so the joys of the pokemon craze are best forgotten by all except the non genwunners like me who grew up with pokemon at its debut. Your life is fine Anon and rather than end it you should merely stop bitching about it and love Pokemon. Your good memories of pokemon are as good as anyone elses including those of us who did grow up with pokemon at its earliest time.

>tfw I was only allowed to play with cards and watch the show during Pokemania because my house had a no video games rule until around when Ruby and Sapphire came out

Always sucks not being able to talk with my friends about experiences playing Red and Blue as little kid, but I did eventually get to rent Gold from Blockbuster and buy Crystal and Yellow used.

>>30595020
>>30595076
When I moved in 03, my new neighbor gave me his old Gameboy for the summer with Yellow and Silver, which were the first games I'd ever played after being into Pokemon since the first episode of the anime when I was fucking 4.

It felt so fucking good to finally play the games I'd been obsessed with for 5 years or so.

>>30591998
It was just as fucking amazing as everyone says, OP.
>Never missing an episode of the anime on Saturday mornings
>Seeing all your favorite Pokemon pop up as cameos in the show.
>That fucking anime theme song.
>Your mom taking you to the shitty TCG shop in the mall where you could buy individual cards.
>Always sweet talking your parents into getting you at least one booster pack wherever you went.
>Opening boosters to see all of those sweet, sweet cards.
>Building your own deck from scratch and curbstomping your brother/neighborhood kids.
>The release of the Jungle TCG set was extra hype
>Loving the TCG for the actual game/strategy and for the amazing art + collecting aspect
>Opening up Pokemon Blue on Christmas Eve and playing it all night long and never stopping
>That Champion battle music
>That moment that you catch Mewtwo
>Owning every version of the game in a glorious 8-bit rainbow
>Road trips with the original Gameboy + Gameboy Color and playing RBY/GSC non-stop.
>Trading with your little brother and teaching him the ins-and-outs of Pokemon battles
>Gen II rumors and new Pokemon hype in those shitty magazines
>Not knowing a single goddamn spoiler about GS until you boot up the game
>Steel and Dark type hype
>Collecting every Pokemon and item in the games and participating in all of the day/night/time/day of week events/activities
>Owning those beautiful, thick fucking Pokedex textbooks with all the stats, moves, locations, etc. with all that Sugimori art
>Seeing the original Pokemon movie at release and getting that ancient Mew card
>Playing your Pokemon games on the TV with the SNES Super Gameboy
>Fucking Pokemon Snap
>Uploading your goddamn Pokemon to the N64 to use in Stadium 1 & 2 to continue the battling adventures when the games got a bit stale
>Gen III hype + the renewed sense of adventure just around the corner...

It was truly a bitching time to be a little kid. I love my parents for indulging me and letting me get so into it.

>>30595132
I'm always shocked at how different and just distorted the Pokémania must have been in the third world. It's a different story in every country I hear about. I'm Canadian and our experience was the same as the United States' down to a tee, including the film releases. But Latin America in particular is almost cargo cult-like in the strange way it handeld the craze.

>>30592036
I feel bad for you, anon, and I want you to know I will never be this type of parent to my kids.

>>30591998
It was fun, but nothing life changing don't worry. You're only gonna live 80-90 average years anyway you'll miss tons of cool shit

i remember getting the pokemon magazine when gold and silver were about to come out and it had all the new pokemon with their japanese names, and talking about the new breeding system, it was fucking cash i laminated it myself. i've still got it.

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Pretty dope.

I recently discovered this pile. I have more of caps, stickers and shitload of chips somewhere.

I remember at some point a local newspaper had and interview with my teacher where she expressed how pissed she was about Pokemon "under every desk"

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>'99
>6th grade
>get my first TCG pack
>HOLY FUCK CHARIZARD FIRST FUCKING BOOSTER PACK
>Take it to school next day to show friends
>English teacher sees it before class starts
>Takes it, rips it into pieces in front of me, throws it into her trash can
>mfw

>>30592110
I was 5 in '98 and man Pokemon Red/Blue were the shit in those first few years of elementary school. Too bad the cards and Gameboys eventually were banned.

>>30595191
>Always sweet talking your parents into getting you at least one booster pack wherever you went.
Oh god this. They were everywhere. Gas stations, supermarkets, cinemas, all would have a booster box on a counter somewhere to lure us in. My mother must have hated me, but she'd always give in eventually. It was kinda the same for the early years of Yu-Gi-Oh. Until 2004 they were just as ubiquitous as Pokémon TCG packs had been, if not moreso.

It totally was. It is just happy memories in my head, for a fan it was truly the pinnacle of my pokemon experience and it had everything to do about atmosphere and almost nothing about the games.

>>30592901
>getting your first pokemon game towards the end of pokemania
I share your sentiment anon

>>30595386
This seems like it's coming back a little. I see booster boxes near the candy at some pharmacies and stuff. Not to the same degree, but it was nostalgic seeing an 8 year old kid fawning over them the other day.

Pokemania was a weird time. My homelife was pretty terrible; Dad had to raise his daughter by himself while Mom was off banging some ex-convict. We were broke, but he still went out of his way to buy me Pokemon crap because he wanted me to be happy during all of the bad shit.

I still remember the time he bought a trash bag full of Team Rocket boosters for me. I remember opening packs and he'd complain about how much they cost, yet he'd get excited when I pulled something good like a Mewtwo, or Venusaur.

There was a time where his girlfriend's sons were bullying me and I punched one of them in the face and broke his nose. Dad yelled at me and escorted me out of the house...and then he bought me ice cream and went to Walmart to pick up an N64 packaged with Stadium. Then he'd sit there and watch me play, and even tried to play a bit before the graphics made him motion sick.

I will never experience this again, and it makes me sad as fuck.

>>30595349
>Teacher destroying property
The fuck, why didn't she confiscate it and gave it to your parents?

Yes, it was fun. I was 11-12 at the time already, but I liked this more than girly pre-teen things.

>>30593067
Then why are you here?

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>>30592901
>tfw my first pokemon game was LeafGreen
Pokemania might've passed me by, but you don't need a full multimedia blast on all fronts to enjoy this stuff

>>30593637
It might have sticked a little better if they made it a little bit neater. Not to say it would last for say a year but maybe half. Gen 2 is coming out this month so maybe that will attract some more people.

>>30595439
>raise his daughter
>daughter

Just because you "feel" like a girl born in the wrong body doesn't make you one faggot.

In all seriousness my life at that time in middle school was shit too. 1999-1st half of 2000 was the worst time of my life. Constant bullying and suspensions for fights I didn't start in school before I took up boxing. My family had always been poor growing up, but my mom always did her best to never let us feel it. I remember getting my first gameboy and pokemon blue as an early christmas present that year and played the shit out of it non-stop.

A lot of people in this thread are making me feel old as fuck.

I was about 12 when Red and Blue hit, so it was an awkward point where a lot of my friends thought it was cool but more 'mature' kids used to give us shit for playing video games - because video games were for kids.

It was still good times though, despite the amount of salty bitches getting mad because you beat them in a battle (by abusing some of gen 1's coding problems)

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>>30595525
Because I posted my time during Pokemon mania, not when I picked it back up two years ago.

>>30595439
We weren't poor, but my parents went through a nasty divorce in 1999. My bitch of a mother tried (and failed) to get full custody of me and my siblings. Pokémon helped me cope, to the point I barely remember how sad my life was then. I just remember Pokémon, the Star Wars episode I craze, watching Disney VHS tapes, Jurassic Park toys and Nickelodeon (Doug and Hey Arnold). All in all I'm happy with my childhood.

>>30593851
Sure! It was a blast.

>>30595476
Hell if I know. The woman always hated me for some reason. She tried to get me expelled when a group of feral niglets claimed I rubbed my dick against the back on one of the nigger buck's neck when I slid past to go to the pencil sharpener. I was suspended for two weeks for sexual harassment with no one even trying to contest it or defend me. See >>30595608

Can anyone give a comparison of pokemania to pokemon go? I know it was a lot better but was just curios on what scale. I barely missed the time period where everyone was playing it. My aunt told me about how they would give out pokemon cards at the doctors too.

>grandfather somehow aquired a Jap copy of pokemon gold on a floppy for me
>before anyone even knew about gen 2 being a thing
>can't read moonrunes so get stuck everywhere
>lost my absolute goddamn shit when I eventually saw Steelix

Those where the best times

>>30593851
I had a huge collection, but my mom threw them away

>>30591998
It was pretty damn fun.
Also had parents freaking out about evil Japanese cartoons, which was hilarious.

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>>30594636
you mean poliwrath anon?

>>30595767
>Can anyone give a comparison of pokemania to pokemon go?
On a 0 to 10 scare, Pokemon right before go was a 1,
During Pokemon go it was a 4,
and during pokemon mania, it was about an 8.
That being said, it should be noted that its back to about a 2, meaning that the pokemon go fad was a brief upswing.

>>30593859
i can still smell the smell of them

>>30595767
Pokémon Go was big, don't get me wrong. Probably the most the franchise has been part of the zeigeist since 2001. But it wasn't a scratch on the earlier stages of Pokémania. Maybe late gen 2, when people were starting to get tired of the "fad" but a lot of kids were still coming on board is a good analogue to Pokémon GO's hype levels.

i wasn't around during pokemania but my little group of friends was absolutely obsessed with it during 3rd gen
>everyone playing rse and frlg
>going over to each other's houses to trade pokemon and do multi battles and contests
>seeing our pokemon in glorious 3d in colosseum and xd
>having pizza for dinner while watching the movies
>4th gen rolls around and we repeat with dp and battle revolution
>everyone and their mother had hg/ss
it was a fun time
but then 5th gen came along and everyone just simultaneously stopped, except for me and one friend who got alpha sapphire
;_;

>>30594903
>>30592175
I know that feel

>Grow up during Poke-mania
>Poor-ish, so no vidya
>Finally get a GBA when we're more stable
>Dad finds Gold in the street in front of my house
>My first Pokemon game is a free copy of Gold some kid lost
>2ish years later Sapphire came out and I kept going from there.

I've always been a bit upset that I lived through Poke-mania, and enjoyed every non-game aspect of it, but I can never truthfully claim to have started from the beginning with RB

>>30595863
This is my friends with HGSS. I was alone and suddenly there were five of us all playing. Two of them dropped off with BW but the rest are still playing SM right now.

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>>30592052
>4 years old
nigga you weren't old enough to appreciate it.
I was 8 when Red and Blue came out. I had pic related. I STUDIED that shit, then used the fruits of my labors to impress my friends.

>tfw being called the Pokemon Master on the playground
shit was so cash

>>30595857
yeah i thought it was pretty big. That must have been awesome. Still remember hunting with friends during the pokemon go fad. Still play it but casually, not really running around to get stuff but opening it every once in a while to catch things. Might attract more crowds because of the gen 2 addition and the starbucks and sprint partnership.

>>30595767
Pokemon back then was intertwined with daily life just how the internet is now it wasn't an insane crazy bubble like pokemon go.

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when i was in elementary, pokemon pretty much came out of fucking nowhere and when it hit, it hit hard.
The biggest thing for us was the sticker album oddly enough.
whenever you saw a kid of a similiar age, no matter who it was, if you knew them or not, you could be almost CERTAIN that they were down to trade some stickers.
literally every kid in my school did it. literally.
anime was also fucking huge for us.
games where more of a side thing, which is kinda weird looking back.

>>30595767
Go was over in a month, that's the main difference.
This is just how the world has accelerated in the last decade.

>tfw too poor to get a nintendo so i pretended to be friends with another kid purely so i could go to their house and play pokemon stadium

>>30596063
Is that the damn SALO album?

I don't remember much before Pokemon: Saturday morning fox box and power rangers, Beavis and Butt-Head. I was poor as fuck and only had a handful of cards until I got Crystal for my 10th birthday. Oh, I remember 1998 and 1999 when it blew up, but I didn't get a Gameboy until I was 10. I wanted yellow, got Crystal and never looked back. After a few months working lawns I got Red, Yellow, Silver, Gold, but never Blue for some reason. I never beat Gen 1, and I remember having to restart Crystal at the Elite Four because I only ever trained my Typhlosion but never could beat Lance's fucking Dragonites; I discovered the joy of experience share and the trade Onix, Rocky. I eventually evolved him into Steelix...
No matter how I play, I can never recapture that first experience. I hack, and I emulate, but the magic is long gone.
GO was the laziest bullshit I've ever seen. No real battles? Just walking and tapping? It was fucking retarded and people actually played it. If you think GO is at all representative of the initial gen 1-2 wave, you are either underage or stupid. The magic is gone, and all we really have are .gb, .gbc, and .gba files because the cartridges are dead.
I will remember you... Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by and weep not for the memories...

>>30596063
Games really weren't the big deal, shows how big pokemon truly was.
It was tazos and the anime for me, I knew 0 people who owned a game but not a single person in my school didn't have some sort of tradeable pokemon item.
I also come from a country the game was never localized in and it was still as huge as everywhere else.

>Games
>Anime
>Movie
>Clothing
>Books
>Trading Card Game
>A fucking breakfast cereal and poptarts, chef boyardee pasta and kraft mac n cheese

You tell me. This was still only the tip.

During Pokemania, you could walk up to any random kid your age and start a conversation about Pokemon. It was a big deal.

>>30596175
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJm9ZW9IzM

>>30592154
>tfw this except replace newspaper clippings with those smuckers jars

>>30591998
why was poliwhirl they go-to mascot in the beginning?

>>30596445
It's the big man's favourite mon.

>>30596445
It is Satoshi Tajiri's, aka the creator of pokemon, favorite pokemon.

>>30594642
lel pretty mutch this,
that is, until i found out about the missingo glitch

>>30596063
This sticker book is the reason I thought Farfetch'd evolved into Doduo. Also, I remember constantly getting Machamp stickers. Every other pack I bought had a Machamp in it.

>>30591998
>>you will never live through pokemania as a kid
Speak for yourself. I was 8 when Pokemon exploded in the US and it was fucking awesome.

>TV show on every weekday and new episodes on Saturday
>nearly every kid you knew/bumped into was down to trade/battle/bullshit together. Going shopping with mom wasn't a nightmare if you had your gameboy
>Pikachu everywhere
>pokemon everywhere
what a time to have been alive

Anime airing daily on over the air TV with the game out halfway through the first season

>>30592414
Yes, they're in the far end of the cereal aisles.

>>30591998
Yes. Everything was about Pokemon back then. Every kid watched the show, played the games and/or collected the cards.

It really felt like a massive adventure together with all kids around the world. Nobody knew exactly what Pokemon was, since there was so much to discover from the games and the show and Internet wasn't really a big thing back then. You could start a conversation with any random kid on the streets and he'd be into Pokemon, and he'd know some urban legend about Mew, Pikablu, Charcolt or Pokegods.

Looking back, alot of the rumors originated from discrepancies between the games and the anime, and from 'exotic' Japanese information about the incoming new pokemon trickling through to the west.

All in all, it was a hell of a fucking time to be a kid.

>>30596717
The first two months were new episodes daily then WB bought them

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Any third world fags remember getting one of these inside Bimbo bags? These were the shit.

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>>30597266
I'm surprised I didn't fatten up considering how many bags of chips I'd buy to get on of these.

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My parents and big brother always tell me that when I was 5, I knew the names of all pokemon and their respective number. They would quiz me saying random numbers from 1 to 151 and id reply with the name of the pokemon and viceversa.

>>30597266
I remember similar figures, though they weren't Pokemon. It was a collectible trading figure game where you built pirate ships and battled others via some dice throwing-based rules, with different stats for the different ships. Anyone?

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>>30595865
>>30592175
>>30594903
my niggas. But first game was Silver instead of gold.

>>30595118

Pretty sure a 75 year old WW2 veteran wouldn't even know that Pokemon was Japanese to begin with unless someone told him. He'd just think they were more cartoons.

>>30595865
>Dad finds Gold in the street in front of my house

Anon

Your dad stole that

From a store, or from some kid.

My father was a teacher and he had a student who had Down Syndrome who worked at burger king. He managed to get me all of the toys and cards. My childhood was hype.

Back when having a good set of Pokemon Cards made you the cool kid in school. Yea those were the days.

>>30596220
Well, to be fair not ALL the cartridges are dead. My 1998 blue cartridge is still kicking with a live save battery somehow, even though they are only supposed to last 15 years.

My Crystal battery on the other hand died sometime between the last time I played it (maybe 2002 or 2003) and the next time I booted it up around 2011. The internal clock for the gen 2 games was a battery hog. Luckily I have some old mon on my Stadium 2 cartridge PC which uses flash memory as far as I can tell.

>>30594728
>Hyper Beam is Dragon-type
>151 new Pokemon planned for Gold and Silver, including Pikablu
>A new evolution for Raichu called Pichu
>Suggest using the Masterball on a Fearow or a Tentacruel
>Rockets Grunts can steal your Pokemon
>The Land of Indigo
Those things are so hilarious

>>30595942
I remember having that shit, it was full of mistakes

>>30596063
I still have it and never had the shiny gengar sticker. It's the only one I don't have, and I'll probably never find it anymore.

Also, Pokemon cards were banned in french schools because it caused too much problems.

>tfw nothing will ever be as amazing as seeing Donphan for the first time in theatres and not knowing what Pokemon you were even looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbuv8MPiVeg

>>30597640
Gen 1 games should be alive unless you played the absolute hell out of them. They're only from the late 90s, most NES carts from the mid 80s still have working batteries.

Gen 2 games died because the battery was constantly running due to the clock.

>>30595772
I know that feel bro. My dad got me a GB emulator with R/B/Y and a shitton of other roms. After months of playing Blue I discovered a Gold rom with some half-assed Engrish/Chinese translation, and it was the best thing ever despite it being indecipherable.

It felt good to be the schoolyard king when the English version was released a year later and everyone came to me for help because I already knew fucking everything about G/S.

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>>30597791
>tfw Gold cart still works, despite never having had the battery changed

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>>30597791
>lost my Gold when I was like 15
>my Typhlosion bro is probably gone now

>>30592114
My friend wasn't allowed to watch DBZ because of the violence, but Pokemon was perfectly acceptable for some reason.

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>>30597872
>silver, my first pokemon game, died right before i was able to back my save up
>my yellow still works completely fine, even today

>>30595942
>including mew and togepi
>togepi
>guide to gen 1 games
How?

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>>30591998
>Was it as amazing everyone says it was?

It was cool, but I don't think it was cool in a way that's special to just us.
I think the first time anyone discovers Pokemon as a child, it's equally magically.
The only difference between someone 16 and someone 26 is the fact that before I discovered Pokemon, it didn't exist.

The religious nonsense was kinda silly too, had a few people tell me that Pokemon stood for "pocket demons" and that all the Pokemon were named after pagan gods.
I mean who could forget the powerful gods "Mr. Mime" and "Diglet"

And one last thing about Pokemania... Fuck our gameboys that needed batteries and our fucking transfer cables.
The 3DS is infinitely better than anything we had in every way.

>>30591998
Just play R/B/Y or sort Evolution cards and listen to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK_LN3XEcnw

You'll get a close enough experience

Get on a school bus at 6:30 in the morning for max authentisity

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>>30597872
>mfw all my buddys are gone forever

is poliwhirl still tajiri's favorite pokemon?

>>30598198
Tajiri doesn't talk much, who knows if he contributes to anything pokemon anymore even. He just exists as a god to give his pointless approval and rake in all the cash.

>>30591998

You should off yourself for not being a 90s kid

>>30592414
oh man every single roadtrip we would put the on the first Pokemon movie in the car on VHS. I love those purple and green lines that went across the screen while the tape was being read before it started.

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>>30598462
>90s kid
YOUR SHITPOST HAS SUMMONED ME!

>>30598421
There was an interview with I think Masuda a couple years ago where he confirms that Tajiri has to personally approve of literally everything and vetoes lots of stuff he doesn't like. So he's still very much in charge.

>>30598198
The way they treat the Water type I'd say it's safe to assume so

>>30594372
>>30593999
but I never interacted with any people either way, so

I still don't

>>30595349
one time a pregnant teacher confiscated this blonde kids pokemon book in second grade (forget which exact book it was) and he fucking kicked her right in the baby and apparently it died. The death part might've been a playground rumor, but I don't know because the teacher left and never came back after that day.

>>30598778
The baby probably just fainted.

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>>30597872
>silver cart is fucking dead

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>>30598778
>the teacher left and never came back after that day

>>30598049
>gen 1
The only generations back then were "Pokemon" and "new Pokemon".

>>30598831
hahaha upvoted :D

>>30598049
Are you fucking retarded?

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>>30598831
>She didn't EV train her baby's defense

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>>30594190
32 here.

> Becoming 30: OH GOD OH GOD IM 30 AND LIKE CHILDISH THINGS, ALSO MY LIFE IS SHIT ;_;
> Becoming 31: Fuck it, I'm old now. Who gives a cock anyway. Fuck yeah more Dragonball, fuck yeah more Pokemans

It gets better Anon. You'll stop giving a shit at one point. Listen to this grandpa here, it's not as bad as it all seems. At a certain point you will unlock your Hidden Ability, and it's fucking broken. It's called: Not giving a shit. You'll get there.

You WILL need to clear the trial of "OH NO I AM OLD, SHIT" first. But after that it gets better

> mfw breedan pokemon in my Christmas decorated house, lying on the couch with some hot tea, listening to Christmas songs.

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>born in '96
>Pokemon was still huge despite waning overall
>mom was poor but knew I loved Pokmon, would get all my Pokemon stuff second hand
>mom comes back from a thrift store with a huge bag of used Pokemon merch, shit like a Poliwhirl tape measurer and a Bulbasaur pencil sharpener where you would put the pencil in the bulb
>I'd go absolutely ballistic over it
>she came across a Yu-gi-oh bedspread and got it because it was 'close enough'
>later got me a GBC and a used Yellow version, I was playing it while Gen 3 was just coming out
>cards were huge at my after school care, didn't have a lot but trading them was a big pastime
>remember feeling giddy about having a Dunsparce card, was showing it off when an older kid came up and flashed me his holographic Electabuzz
>mom couldn't always afford new ones but she would sit with me and we'd draw made up cards together
I missed Pokemania but my mom really made up for it, she still gets me Pokemon stuff that she comes across in thrift stores even after I moved out.
Thank you mom.
;_; I'm gonna call her now.

>>30598915
>no reliable recovery

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>>30598915
>EV training before the egg hatches
That's not how it works anon.

>>30598962
yeah but you don't get to battle with it like she did

>>30594903
yeah I watched the anime and collected cards, but my parents couldn't afford to buy us games until the GBA so I didn't play until firered

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Genuinely curious - Anybody else here hate Pokemon Snap? It seems like everyone looks back on it fondly, but I found it to be the most rage inducing game ever (I probably just sucked at it).

One of the main reasons that I liked the main series is that they are comfy as fuck. Snap was not comfy my friends...

>>30599102
I just ignored it completely. Never caught my interest.

>>30595439
One day, I will be a bro tier dad like this.

>>30599102
I played it at a friend's house once but I didn't really care for it since there seemed to be no actual catching or battling evolved.

>>30591998
Oh yes. I was there from the start. Every kid I knew played it. Getting up every morning to watch a new episode, I was always excited about possible evolution in episodes.
I remember everyone being exited for the first movie (though I had to watch a pirate version of it since I couldn't watch it in theatres for reasons I can't remember)

>>30598054
You basically have the same shit nowadays. "The internet" for most kids is twitter and snapchat, so they wouldn't have much knowledge of stuff either and would easily be able to believe anything the internet says anyways. Not so different from back in the day when kids went to cheatcode sites to hear about dumbshit rumours such as "pokegods" that also would then be talked about on the playground. Really isn't that different.
Just swap "christian nonsense" with "SJW nonsense"

>>30599102
No, I liked it. Since I like taking pictures.
Though after completing it, I got this weird lonely feeling. Probably because you can't really do anything afterwards other than get better photos.
I also remember making an old friend really happy when I showed them how to find Dragonite.

>>30598939
>mom couldn't always afford new ones but she would sit with me and we'd draw made up cards together

That's really really sweet, actually

>>30599102
I rented it when it came out and completed the entire thing that weekend. Felt I had played it as much as I'd ever want. Hi score games were never my thing.

>>30598778
252 Atk Life Orb Blonde Kid Low Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Unborn Baby: 278-329 (102.5 - 121.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

the story checks out, assuming that the baby hasn't had any investment in Def.

>>30599278
>was at camp the weekend Song of Jigglypuff and The Prehistoric Pokemon aired
>had seen the episode guides on pokemon.com, they seemed okay enough but not too interesting
>like two fucking months later some kid mentioned Ash had a Charizard, and it wasn't until I based him about it I realized I had missed a pretty fucking major episode
I had my parents tape every episode I'd otherwise miss after that.

>>30599564
*until I asked him

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>>30598917
As a fellow 32, this post is basically perfect.

Looking back I feel like I was a bit too old for Pokemania, but I still participated because it was legit fun. I made a lot of friends who were a year or two younger than me, and one who was 5 years older than me who was more or less my adult company, though said person's mom was with us most of the time.

Once I hit high school I made a pokefriend who plays with me even now, though she's a casual (Karen-fag who only beats the Elite Four) and I'm closer to mid-core (I catch'em all and enjoy breeding but don't do smogon/VGC). I actually have more friends who play Pokemon now who are all in our early-mid 30's than I had during the big craze. Almost all of us met in college and have been friends for the past decade. Embrace your hobbies. Having your own money and being out of school helps a lot, and we're all total nerds for additional reasons (anime/tabletop/PC/console shit).

Who else remembers waiting in line for The First Movie with your fellow autists and getting a free card?

The only other time I can remember a giveaway at the theater was Return of the Jedi: Special Edition. Everyone got a free Luke action figure in the black robes. Good times.

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>>30598049

>>30599709
>live in poverty as a child
>no money for anything
>got an N64 when other kids were getting Gamecubes for Christmas etc
>get home from school one day
>Mom asks me to get her an apple from the fridge
>open the crisper
>weird bag over the apples
>POKEMON THE MOVIE
>HOLY SHIT
That was literally one of the best days of my childhood

>>30599102
i am completely neutral about it
it's alright, but i can't see why so many people are asking for a sequel or remake.

>>30594190
25 here.
I don't give a shit. Everybody are too busy in their lives to give a shit about what you do.
I can talk with pretty much all my best friends about Pokemon, one of them is 30.

I'm planning on giving my little cousin a 2DS + Pokemon Moon to pass on the Pokemania.

>>30598855
>>30598887
>>30599934
Togepi doesn't exist in RBY.

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>>30600280
They find Togepi's egg like 40-50 episodes into the anime anon.

>>30600280
not sure if you're serious, but GSC were released in Japan a year or more before in other countries. The anime was made in Japan so us kiddos saw some GSC mons before the games had come out. Togepi was one of the first revealed and hyped for the anime so they included it in the book.

>>30600383
and on that note, Ho-Oh was in the very first episode of the anime.

>>30591998
It was a wonderful and magical time.

I remember it really climaxing when the first movie hit theaters. The lines were out the door and it remains one of the most happiest memories of my childhood.

it's kinda funny how I've become just like one of those pokemon fanclub NCPs from red & blue.

>>30599709
I got the Mew card, yes. I also got the Entei card promo at the Third Movie. Oddly enough the only other movie giveaway I can remember was from Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, where I got a miniature lego set of the Night Bus.

>>30600120
I think if Pokéfinder had been executed a little better we wouldn't need a sequel or remake. Having it run above 10 fps and adding some features would have forever satiated the Snap fanbase.

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>>30600010
That's really adorable.

>>30600280
What are you talking about? You can catch Togepy by fishing with the Super Rod in Misty's gym after catching the other 151 Pokemon and having a Chansey at the top of your party.

I was born in '91. Being a kid when Pokemania was a thing was certainly awesome. But there hasn't been a point in my life where Pokemon wasn't something I enjoyed. So the last 20 years have been Pokemania for me, really. The only difference today is the friends I play Pokémon with are adults now, I buy my own cards instead of opening packs, and I watch the anime on a laptop instead of a TV.

The first month of Go, the Evolutions booster set, and all the 20th anniversary nostalgia in general has made me feel like a kid during Pokemania again though.

>>30598778
>be pregnant
>go to work
>a job involving children, who are known for being unpredictable and unruly
>go out of her way to be a bitch to them
Edgy as it sounds, she had it coming.

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Some old non-tcg cards:
I think these ones came with VHS tape?

>>30600842
I can't remember where they came from, but they were kind of cool.
IIRC they have show/movie info on the back?

>>30600842
>>30600864
They're the Topps trading cards, I believe.

>>30600628
it really wouldn't
most of the people begging for a sequel are normalfags (for the lack of a better term) who haven't played past gen 1 and don't have sun/mon

>>30600864
Only has Viz Video and legal stuff on back

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>>30600842
Didn't realize I had my Sun code still set to name...

Movie 2000 promo cards

>>30591998
nigga it was during a time when everything went fucking right, god damn take me back. now its all trannies and stupid gimick shit. so yeah kys

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>>30600934
Burger King cards

>>30591998
>ywn play pokemon where using legendaries makes you cool
>ywn play pokemon for fun again
>ywn talk about pokemon with your friends at free time or recess
>ywn be excited on getting that new pokemon toy at Burger King as if it was a new pokemon game
My life back then flashed through me while posting this.

A few memories from my experience with Pokemania:
>Get into Pokemon by watching the anime before school
>Talk about it in school, the kid who sits next to me tells me there are video games and shows me his Red Version
>"Wow, that's so cool! Can I play?"
>"No anon, video games aren't for girls.
>Vow to myself that I'd get the games and get good enough at them to beat him
I moved shortly after that and didn't get the games until later, so I never got to battle him.

>Christmas 1999
>Wake up early to sneak downstairs and peek at the presents
>Greeted by a giant Pikachu stuffed animal that was easily 3/4 my size.
>Run and wake up my parents because damn I wanna snuggle that Pikachu ASAP
>Open presents, turns out they also got me Red, Blue, AND Yellow along with a yellow GBC
>Best Christmas ever

>Pokemon: The First Movie is coming out
>I get grounded for some stupid reason that I probably didn't deserve
>Won't be un-grounded before opening night, I'll miss getting the Mew Card
>Super bumbed
>The day after it starts showing my mom's (now ex-) husband gives me the Mew card
>He went to see the movie last night so that I wouldn't miss out on it
>It's the only good memory I have of him

>Summer Day Camp
>My grandmom gets me a GBA which I bring to camp to play GSC on
>The other kids think I'm really cool because of this
>After a field trip my new friends start yelling "I wanna trade first!" "I wanna trade second!" etc.
>I say that I wanna trade third
>"No anon, we're getting in line to trade with YOU!"
>I have somehow become the coolest kid on the playground

>Pokemon 3 is coming out
>On my birthday
>My mom comes and picks me up early from school
>She brings me to the theater to see it

I have even more memories of little things, like theorizing that there are more Pokemon we don't know about because the Pokerap say "150 or more to see", but I could be here forever talking about them.

Anybody else remember the short period of time between the release of RB in the US and the start of Pokemania?

I remember Walmart having an entire aisle of merchandise and all the kids being disinterested. It seemed very foreign at the time. Of course this was before the Anime explosion in the US.

I think the games actually being really fun and the word-of-mouth that followed is what kicked off Pokemania.

Anybody else have pre-Pokemania memories?

>>30598917
That sounds mighty comfy anon, good on you.

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>>30600987
Some weird little holographic tile cards

>>30591998
The only thing I regretted was not being a teen or young adult
>too old to "like" it by parents
>too young to find a job to support my habit

>>30593195
My mom was the same way. I ended up winning several yugioh tournaments in my area though, so that was one good thing I guess.

It feels good knowing that 12 year old me made edgy twenty-somethings rage quit by playing Gusto stall

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I lived in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, UK, and it was still fucking huge, bring your toys to school day was just Pokemon everywhere

when I came to the US at that time the theater crowds for Pokemon 2000 were massive, you had to go to the layaway to buy the cards from Wal-Mart because it was the most popular thing to be stolen

shit was crazy. Though I'm sure Minecraft has had a similar time with the kids in the last few years. But Pokemon is still the fucking best. Being among numerous fellow Pokemon GO players in the town square and at the Sun/Moon pre-release gave me more glimpses at that glorious time.

Who else became a database eating at Burger King everyday to get their god-tier Poke toys?

>>30601283
* fatass.

Stupid autocorrect.

>>30592089
Beyblade Metal Fusion hit my late middle school years hard. I had one of the portable stadiums, and a group of guys would battle each other. We actually bet money on that shit before they got banned (directly because of the gambling). I made about $50 using stamina builds. Felt good watching the super ADHD Vietnamese kid named Hao "Crotch" get his panties in a twist over my "vagina top".

>>30601267
Everyone knows Incineroar is the only acceptable mon to be following Calvin. Fucking scum.

>>30601036
>entire aisle of merchandise and all the kids being disinterested. It seemed very foreign at the time
Feel the same way pre-GO. The only way to get merch was to go to a specialize store or order online, and even then their selselection was little

>>30601101
Ohh fuck I remember these. Only a few kids actually had these, I never knew where they were from.

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>Threw away most of my Pokemania merch during the third gen while going through a,"this stuff I loved only a couple years ago is stupid kiddy crap and I hate it" phase
>One of the casualties was the first generation interactive Pokedex

I wish I could strangle my past child self.

>>30601101
Shit,I used to collect these things.

I was super into it when it was huge but weirdly never played the games. I watched the anime and had toys and cards and everything but for some reason never got a game even though I had a GBC.

First game I played was Emerald. I was a teen at this point and had been watching the generations anime for some reason so I bought it off my friend. I miss the way everything was new to me then since I'd been out of the loop, very little in a game like SM feels super new because I've been following the release.

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>>30601101
And the other set of cards

>>30595608
>constant bullying and suspensions

God damn I feel it, and 90% of the time the bullying was perpetrated by teachers/faculty. I have scars from a teacher digging her nasty acrylic claws into my arm so she could scream in my face. Cunt threw away Pokemon drawings I'd do in free time.

Your mom sounds awesome.

>>30591998
Fuck no.

>>30601613
Ohh man, I had a bunch of these. When I finally convinced my parents to buy me Pokemon cards they tricked me into wanting these because they were cheaper and had more cards per pack than the original trading cards...

>>30592919
Black and White is an infinitely better first game than RBY.

>>30599661
1984 Fistbump brah


>>30601043
Comfy as fuck.

>>30601906
Keep telling yourself that, underage.

>>30602033
I'm 20 years old and started with RBY. RBY is shit.

>>30599102
>Absolutely loved it as a kid
>Feel like I played it all the time
>Bought it again when it was released on the Wii virtual console
>Realize there's like maybe 2 hours worth of gameplay
>ehh

>>30602103
I'm 74 years old and started with Green
You're shit

>>30599102
I mean I enjoyed it, and would probably pop it in every now and then if I had an N64, but it's not nearly as great as some people say.

>>30602145
>Realize there's like maybe 2 hours worth of gameplay
Honestly, you can 100% Pokemon Snap in like half an hour. The fun of the game is finding all of the secrets for the first time.
Before you know how to do everything, there is quite a bit to do, but once you know it kind of has nothing left to offer.

I still replayed it a lot as a kid just to see how fast I could beat it, but there really is nothing left to do once you get to mew once.

Capturing Pokemon back then took real skill and strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pdFKoFvgYw

>>30593115
I'm still amazed I was able to catch all 150.

>>30593207
>>30593162
it also feels less fulfilling because they make "catching em all" easier and easier with every game.

Remember how much of a pain in the ass it used to be to catch Feebas in RSE?

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>>30601596
>I was a teen at this point and had been watching the generations anime for some reason

So I remember Pokemania, but because I was only like 8 at the time, I feel like I don't have a great idea of how far the cultural saturation went.

On a scale of 0-Pokemania, where did Beanie Babies stack up just a few years earlier?

>>30602408
Almost to Pokemania levels, I'd say it was closer to the Go craze

>>30602454
Quite honestly, Go wasn't that big of a deal. It was absolutely HUGE for like 2 weeks and then forgotten.

>>30602219
Even at 240p I can tell thumbnail chick is a MILF, holy hell.

>>30602254
Not to mention you either had to buy two Gamecube games or go to a very limited 2006 event if you wanted to get all the Gen 2 legends before HGSS came out in 2010. Kinda pissed me off that after all the trouble I went through to get Ho-Oh, Lugia, the Legendary beasts and then purify them everybody else got them comparatively much easier.

>>30602408
Beanie Babies were concurrent with Pokémania, weren't they? I recall 1999 being when the bubble for beanie babies burst.

Anyway, the beanie baby craze was a different kind of fad, with actual adult investors spending insane amount of money in the hopes of having a valuable collection to sell at a profit. Pokémon's fad was comparatively longer lived (3 years vs 1 or 2 for beanie babies) but lower in terms of intensity.

>>30602902
>>30602408
Beanie Babies is more comparable to Amiibos

>>30602666
This. Maybe 2 months at most. July and early August of this year. After the first big update it bled half its userbase. Then fall hit (in the northern hemisphere where 90% of the world's pop. live) and the userbase shriveled up further. If they were smart they would have waited til spring 2017 to unfurl gen 2.

>>30602945
This.

The difference between Amiibos and Beanie Babies is Amiibo have use other then collecting

>>30602945
Amiibos were never mainstream though. What little hype existed was entirely manufactured due to low production quotas.