Back when the Pokemon craze was first hitting the shores of North America, I was 10. I had a gameboy, but the only games I ever played on it were the ones my dad bought. Two Mario games, Tetris, Ninja Turtles and The Little Mermaid. I never got to play Pokemon. Heck, I didn't even know it started out as a video game. I just knew it was a card game and a cartoon.
I remember acquiring some odd plastic Pokemon toys back then. A broken Pokeball figure, a Kakuna and a Vaporeon, though at the time I didn't know their names. I just knew that I really liked the Vaporeon figure and wish I could find one just like it again. I also vaguely remember playing with a girl in a McDonald's Play Place and she wanted to pretend to be Pokemon. I asked her if there were any cat pokemon and learned of Meowth, Persian and Mew. I also asked if there were any pokemon with no limbs, as to ascertain the identity of my Kakuna figure.
"What the hell is this thing supposed to be?" I thought.
Not too long after this, my little brother (7 years younger than me) caught the Pokemon bug and wanted to watch the cartoon. A video rental store had recently opened up in town, so we rented VHS tapes of the episodes to watch. And since this was something my little brother was into, I had to be against it. Because Pokemon was only for babies. Though secretly, I really enjoyed watching the cartoon with my brother and kept a tiny plush Eevee (from Burger king, I think?) hanging from the drawer of my nightstand. I also managed to get a couple anime Pokemon cards of Ponyta and Dratini. I continued watching the anime until the end of the Johto series. After that, I mostly forgot about Pokemon.
It wasn't until I was 20 that I rediscovered it.
When we started dating, my boyfriend Adam was big into the Pokemon games. He had Pokemon Pearl and would mine in the underground while taking the bus to school. I watched him play it a bit, and he suggested we go through the anime series, since I had only seen up to Johto.
Once we started watching the anime, and after I had seen him play more Pokemon on his DS, I got curious. I figured I might actually enjoy playing the game myself and asked if I could play his copy of Firered. He let me play it under the condition that I pick Charmander because he still needed a Suicune from the game. (I was gonna pick Charmander anyway because Charizard is awesome.)
Charizard knows he's awesome. Actually mine was a she and I named her Charley. :3
I freaking loved Firered. I ended with a team of Charizard, Raichu, Articuno, Lapras, Vaporeon and Nidoking. After Firered, I played Adam's copy of Emerald and loved that too. (Hoenn is probably my favourite region.) I also went through the tedium that is Pokemon Colosseum to obtain more pokemon. I anxiously awaited the release of Pokemon Platinum so I could finally play a 4th gen game. Plat was excellent too.
Not long after Plat came out, we picked up a copy of Pokemon Battle Revolution and I started breeding and training pokemon for battle against Adam. With the addition of Pokemon White, I have over 40 battle ready pokemon.
I also got into sculpting pokemon figures with Sculpey and have around 46 sculptures.
These are just a few of the ones I've made.
I love Pokemon. Adorable monsters, badass monsters, friendly monsters. I have too many favourites to list them all in one post. The games themselves are also incredibly charming with a battle system that's really easy to get into. I love elements as a theme, and Pokemon does it really well, if a little confusing to start. Pokemon was my first RPG and I'm so glad I started playing it.
I didn't use a Butterfree until my 3rd play through of Firered. Marty the Butterfree was awful cute, but boy was he ever the weakest member of my team. He did manage to take out Blue's Exeggutor with Silver Wind, but he was too slow and fragile to be anything more than a buffer against everyone else in the Elite Four.
Beedrill is awesome! He was my first bug pokemon! Unfortunately, like Butterfree, he just doesn't cut it as a late game pokemon. Excellent for the early game though. Even Butterfree had his use in the early game since he evolves much quicker than the rest of your party.
Rattata is a pretty cute pokemon. Raticate, not so much, but I used one anyway. He didn't make it into my final team, but he was good for HMs and his STAB Hyper Fang usually got the job done. Pursuit was also pretty useful on him.
