If I were doing the dang thing right, I should have done my Gen 3 Hoenn favorite Pokémon list first, but since this is more topical with the Gen 4 remakes announcement, I’m skipping ahead instead. It’s the end of the month, and I still don’t have a book report, but I do have some renewed Pokémon enthusiasm, so let’s do another Top Five!
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Pokémon Top Five: Johto
It’s the end of the month, which means another round of Pokémon Top 5! This week, we go to the Johto region to visit the second generation of Pokémon games. Gen 2 wasn’t a generation I ever got to play as a kid, and my first real exposure to it was the remakes in Gen 4. HeartGold/SoulSilver are not my favorite Pokémon games, I found them a little too difficult for my usual method of play (only catching Pokémon you intend to use all the way to the Elite Four…somehow, the Pokémon distribution and the gym difficulty don’t really let you do that unless you trade over stronger Pokémon you can’t get until later), but there are still five Pokémon in the Gen 2 dex worth celebrating.
Continue readingPokémon Top Five: Kanto
It’s nowhere near the ballpark of a secret that the Pokémon games are my favorite. Pokémon is an iconic millennial franchise, a staple of the quintessential 90s/early 00s childhood (and beyond!). My family was certainly no exception, though with four kids, our collection was…eclectic, rather than complete: a hand-me-down original GameBoy with Red and Yellow, one GameBoy Advance with Crystal, and two GameBoy SPs with FireRed, Sapphire, and Emerald, with a Blue Version and a Ruby Version floating around in my brothers’ room due to trades with friends. I still have our original Sapphire and Emerald cartridges, with a FireRed version given to me by a friend. Our Gen 1 games are lost to time (along with original Tetris, RIP sweet friend), but thanks to the 3DS Virtual Console I have Red and Yellow again, as well as Crystal and Gold, which I never got to play as a child; never underestimate the tenacity of a baby sibling’s unwillingness to share once they have something of their own, as I learned to my detriment. I have at least one game from every generation, and am looking forward to Gen 8 with the tearful joy of a lifelong fan.
Which leads me to this post: the first of many in a once-monthly series I’m starting, where I list my top five Pokémon from each generation of Pokémon games. The original draft of this post was…frightful, to say the least. For one, I had all my favorites from each generation listed, and once I’d finally gotten all of it down, I realized I needed to streamline for my own sanity as much as anyone else’s. So, to kick it off, here it is, my Top Five for the Generation 1 series of games, taking place in the Kanto region.
Continue readingInternet Fame: A Study
An important fact about myself is my pathological fear of conflict (thanks, anxiety). One of the many behaviors this has spawned is that especially in online circles, I tend to refrain from dipping my hands into the drama pot and giving my two cents. Very rarely I will voice an opinion about political events unless asked directly. But recent (ish) events in the internet community specifically have made me introspective about the roles and dynamics of internet celebrities and how they fit into our current culture, so if this is a Hot Take, as the kids say, then prep the oven mitts, this one’s coming in piping.
Continue readingPokémon Sword and Shield: Trailer Reaction
It figures that my first real post on my shiny grown-up blog is about Pokémon.
I’ll bore you with the details of my Pokémon addiction in a later post, because right now I’m too excited for Gen 8. UK-inspired region! Cute starters! Dynamax battles! Riding bikes over water! Knife dog! Old lady professor! The Galar region’s hottest club is Pokémon Sword/Shield, and it has everything (maybe literally, with the introduction of Pokémon Home, a cloud-based storage service, coming soon to the Switch).
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