Pokémon 20th Anniversary - best Pokémon memories

[hydrosharp_98]

Pokémon 20th Anniversary - best Pokémon memories

With the 20th Anniversary coming up, I thought it would be a great idea for us to share our best memories of Pokémon, in the anime, manga, games or otherwise. Our love of Pokémon as fans has kept this going much longer than many thought was possible, and I look forward to anothe twenty years of Pokémon!

Standard forum rules apply!

 

[Y-Pestis]

My best Pokémon memory would have to be my thirteenth birthday. As a present I was given a Game Boy Color and a copy of Pokémon Red. I'd been wanting the game for ages, having seen all my friends at school playing it. I was a bit behind them in getting the game but I loved it so much. And I still own that copy of Red, plus the Game Boy, to this day.

 

[Wulava]

I used to memorize all original 151 Pokemon in numerical order back when I was in grade school.
Now, there's 722...

Of course, now I can't. But at least I can still easily identify all 722.

 

[Link 9000]

My best moment was when i got my first ds and pokemon diamond. My cousin was a pokemon expert and loved the game to death, so he showed me everything to know about pokemon. I loved diamond to death and is one of my favourite games overall. I was only 7 but i was able to start from the beginning and so many surprises awaited me. Diamond was also the 1st game i ever owned.

 

[RedJirachi]

Battling/playing Pokemon with my sister

 

[hydrosharp_98]

I have a ton. When I was in reception, I remember being given a basic, 40HP Bulbasaur, my first Pokémon card. My first playthrough of a Pokémon game was two hours around a friend's house, on LeafGreen, getting to Mt Moon by the time I had to leave - of course I started with Bulbasaur!

The first Pokémon game I personally owned was bought when I went to Australia, coupled with a special blue NDS I haven't seen elsewhere yet, even online. I accidentally overwrote my playthrough of a Lv32 Pokérus Marshtomp and started with Treecko. As a Sceptile he became my ace, and at Lv93 and having been taught Dragon Claw (my other Pokémon were mid-40s, oops), and after grinding for what felt like months, we beat Drake of the E4, my hardest ever battle. Sadly this game file became corrupt and I haven't completed Ruby since...

When I get my hands on Diamond, going in blind, I caught a Lv2 Starly with a Premier Ball, and it went on to become my ace. I trounced a number of friends using legendary Pokemon by using Brave Bird. Luckily I still have this Pokémon to this day! I also remember stumbling upon Giratina at Turnback Cave, and was the first of my group of friends to do so, again with no insight as to what I was in for. I just remember seeing a small lake on the map and decided I wanted to try and get there whilst at a friend's. I battled them later and destroyed all of their Pokémon with Giratina.

Here's to another 20 years!

 

[Auraninja]

Greninja in Smash Bros.
Catching shiny Registeel.
The bunches of other shinies I caught.
Raising Pokemon I really liked such as Metagross or Greninja.
My play on Mt. Battle with my ragtag team of Pokemon of lv. 70 in Colosseum to get Ho-oh.
Catching multiple Deoxys in Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs.
My numerous trades with friends.
Battling my cousin in Sapphire, where I lost with the Kyogre left 3 HP and poisoned. I should have used Flygon's Dragonbreath, not Crunch. LOL (Another ragtag team)

 

[Solid Cyndaquil]

Memorizing almost all the Pokémon up to Gen IV
Catching my first Legendary without a master ball
Playing through the Mystery dungeon games
Watching the first few Pokémon movies

 

[Aquarelle]

I have so many Pokemon memories, so I'll just list some of them based on which generation they're related to:

Spoiler: too long

Gen I:
*Becoming a fan by watching the anime for the first time at 5 years old
*Collecting Pokemon cards, toys, etc. as a little kid
*Beating Yellow for the first time after being terrible at the game
*Restarting Yellow to catch Mew using the Mew glitch
*Buying Japanese Green around Christmas 2012 and having fun laughing at the sprites

Gen II:
*Many things related to my Gold version (the first game I owned):
-catching my Lugia, Suicune, Raikou
-beating Clair after losing many times
-beating the Elite Four after losing even more times
-reaching the main part of Kanto (or as I called it, "that place"), and seeing cities/towns I knew from the anime
-battling Red for the first time (or as I called him, "hey, it's my person from Yellow!")

Gen III:
*Playing my cousin's Sapphire and being blown away by the new Pokemon and graphics
*Getting my Ruby version
*Playing my other cousin's FireRed and then convincing my dad to buy me LeafGreen after
*Beating my LeafGreen in 5 days (record for me at the time)
*Playing Colosseum & XD at my friend's house

*Many things about Emerald:
-playing through it for the first time
-experiencing all the new additions from RS
-failing at the Battle Frontier a lot (ok, maybe not a "best" memory...)
-succeeding at the Battle Frontier sometimes
-raising my mono Water team after the E4

*Discovering Serebii.net in 2005
*Joining these forums on this date (Feb 23) in 2006 (TEN YEARS!???!!)
*Discovering the Pokemon Adventures manga (and learning that Pokemon manga exists)

Gen IV:
*Buying my Pearl on the North American release date in 2007 (first time getting a game on the day it came out)
*Playing through Pearl (climbing Mt. Coronet for the first time, battling the Elite Four, etc.)
*Getting Platinum and SoulSilver in Japanese because I wanted to play them ASAP
*Getting my main (English) Platinum's play time to 999:59

*Just many things from my Pearl & Platinum:
-battling all the Sinnoh Gym Leaders & Elite Four
-exploring the Sinnoh region
-the Team Galactic storyline
-breeding and raising 5 boxes of Pokemon
-completing the National Dex for the first time on Platinum
-the Battle Frontier on Platinum

*HGSS being announced, a dream come true for me
*Experiencing an updated Johto region in HGSS
*Being super excited when I finally got to play my HeartGold (came out in N. America when I was on a school trip to Spain, so my parents bought it for me and it was waiting for me when I got home)

Gen V:
*Catching Victini in White
*The announcement of B2W2
*Join Avenue in B2W2
*The Pokemon World Tournament, a feature that I'd been wanting since forever

Gen VI:
*Staying up late for the XY announcement
*Exploring Kalos for the first time
*Using Pokemon like Sylveon and Mega Mawile on my Y

*Waking up to the news that ORAS was announced (my sister left me a note about the games, though I thought she was trolling me at first)
*Just being happy that I was finally getting to return to Hoenn
*Then playing through my Omega Ruby with some of my favourite Hoenn Pokemon like Milotic, Altaria, and Gardevoir

Okay, this ended up being a lot longer than I thought.

 

[Gillachu]

For me my best Pokemon memories involved catching my 1st shiny in Ruby, beating Platinum, and completing my Black 3 Dex.

 

[Lexya428]

My first full team of level 100 Pokémon. Silver version. The team consisted of Feraligatr, Blastoise. Lugia, Espeon,Togetic, and one other Pokémon whom I don't remember (probably Ho-Oh.).
Getting my first two shinies (Silver version) red Gyrados (in game event) and Wooper, which happened at a completely random encounter.
I spent countless hours playing Silver, but these great memories come with one of the worst. "your saved file has been corrupted". -.-

More recently, entirely randomly encountering a Shiny Trapinch on Pokémon (X). And MM'ing for the first time ever, Dratini! (AS)

Dratini was at increased odds, with shiny charm, different nationality parents... so that's not as odd.
Both Wooper and Trapinch were no increased odds, completely raw and surprising encounters.



Animé wise. The first movie. My brother told me that he cried when he watched it for the first time and I was like "okay sure" and I bawled my eyes out. XD

 

[Pikachu Fan Number Nine]

Being Pikachu on 10/31 for a few years as a child (with a partially homemade costume)

Extreme Pokemon marked the only time Kids WB aired a new episode of the show on my birthday (my 13th to be exact, it was the same birthday Ohio State clinched the 2002 national college football championship on). It's safe to say once Kids WB ditched Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh in favor of an all-American line-up it was never the same.

Being on these forums has provided me with some good memories too.

 

[Mrs. Oreo]

My best pokemon franchise memories were visiting the theater to watch the first movie and getting a Mewtwo card as a promo & finishing Red version's pokedex. :3

 

[ebevan91]

I used to memorize all original 151 Pokemon in numerical order back when I was in grade school.
Now, there's 722...

Of course, now I can't. But at least I can still easily identify all 722.

You were hot stuff in elementary school if you could memorize all 151 in numerical order. I sure was able to.

Anyways, not a "best" memory per se, but I remember catching an Onix with a Master Ball in Blue and my friend who introduced me to the series laughing hysterically about it when I told him.

 

[~CallOfTheIndie~]

I became a fan halfway into Gold and Silver, just before Ruby and Sapphire released. By the time I joined the hype, everyone had seemingly grown out of it, so I basically had no one to play with, and even stating that I liked Pokemon would grant me dirty looks and mocking laughter. Eventually though, one of my childhood friend's cousin moved to my area, and we ended up bonding through Pokemon. Our playdates basically consisted of us having link battles on RSE and GSC, and the occasional Stadium showdowns. It was a good few years of not having to worry about what anyone had to say of my interest in Pokemon, because I knew that at least one person liked it as much as I do. We don't talk as much as we used to back then, but it's always a fond memory of mine that I tend to look back on.

 

[JudySpell]

For me it was buying Yellow version, pulling a holo Charizard card from my first pack of cards, and finishing my Gold version in a week.

 

[Satoshi & Touko]

My biggest memories thus far are Dawn's final Contest Battles, Serena's Canon crush in the X and Y anime, and Trainer Customization in the X and Y games.

 

[SlowPokeBroKing]

Playing LeafGreen with my bed-ridden grandmother (RIP). She owned the game and it was the very first Pokémon game I had played.

 

[The Pokemon Broadcast]

When the TCG was super popular. This was back when I was only grade 5, I believe.
In a way, it was truly magical seeing so much people interact with one common interest even if it was only, for the most part, during recess, because that was when everyone would mostly do their trading with one another. I never had any of my own Pokemon cards at the time, but still, looking back, it was truly an amazing time.

 

[M.P.]

My first ever starter (Torterra) reaching lv. 100.
Beating a Pokemon game first time ever.
Catching my first legendary (Dialga).
Catching my first shiny (Tentacool). Actually, catching any shiny I've (randomly) encountered myself (Bunnelby, Gible, Scatterbug).