Nostalgia Trip: My Case for Switch Pokemon Red/Blue

I think it was spring in 1999 that I noticed all my classmates huddled about, swapping Pokemon cards. I had “heard” of Pokemon, sure, but I was an eleven-year-old kid who had some kind of superiority complex when it came to animated materials. I didn’t like animation like Dragon Ball Z (I thought it was ugly), and wasn’t Pokemon the same “type” as that?

Back in those days I subscribed to a small children’s magazine, “Disney Adventures,” which I predominantly liked because there were always comic strips in the back. In a lot of cases, it was like advertising — there were actual screenshots of The Lion King movie turned into comic panels for instance, and each edition of the magazine usually had some sort of theme. The September 1999 issue featured Pikachu right on the front cover.

You can imagine my distaste at the moment when my copy arrived in August of that year. I didn’t want to get into anime, I didn’t want to like something just because it was popular. Despite myself, I read the magazine, skipping the Pokemon pages. Until I got to the comics.

It was the episode “Clefairy and the Moon Stone,” the shots from the anime turned into a comic in the usual “Disney Adventures” way. I actually skipped those pages as well, at first — but once I had read the other comics several times, I was itching for something new, so I gave it a shot. I was intrigued with all the different monsters, and, of all things, when Brock releases Zubat in the fight, he says, “I captured it, just before we entered the cave.”

Captured? These monsters are catchable?

Despite my initial reservations, my curiosity was peaked when I looked at the cards my friends were hording. “What is Pokemon, anyway?” I asked a classmate — I will call him Jordan — and he gave me an appraising look. “You’re kidding, you don’t know Pokemon?”

My classmates then proceeded to teach me about the franchise — it was a show, there were trading cards, and there was a game. From the sounds of it, it was the best game ever, and it was for Gameboy (which I had, although I had gotten so frustrated at Mario I had put it away temporarily). “I tell you what,” said Jordan, “I will let you borrow Pokemon Blue, but you can’t save it, okay? There’s only one place for a save, and you’ll wipe mine if you do.”

The next few mornings I waited for Jordan to remember to bring the Pokemon Blue consisted of me giving the show a chance, it played religiously in the mornings as I was getting ready for school and afternoon, about 4pm. I had plenty of opportunities to get acquainted with the Pokemon world, and maybe the animation wasn’t so bad, in fact it was a bit cute… By some act of providence, the initial Pokemon episode, “I Choose You!” aired during my testing of the waters, and I was hooked.

Jordan snuck me his Blue cartridge at school, glaring daggers at me in a final warning. I had told my parents I was interested in playing Pokemon, but my mother shook her head, telling me it was just a fad, and that I would probably not like it. “But go ahead and try the game,” she said, “if you actually do like it, we will buy it for you.” (I can only imagine my parents’ anxiety, even though they had bought me a Game Boy and a NES and a Sega Genesis, they weren’t really fans of video games).

I fired up the game as soon as I got home. In 1999, it was an unbelievable experience. Pokemon came alive for me in that moment like tinder catching fire, flaring to life, bright and shining. I did a lot of soul searching in those initial opening moments — which starter did I want?

I knew what each starter looked like, because I had seen the artwork, I had seen the initial episode of the anime. “Maybe I should pick Bulbasaur,” I thought. “It’s supposed to be for beginners, and I am definitely a beginner.

“Maybe I should pick Squirtle, it’s pretty cute.

“But Charmander… it’s supposed to be the toughest. And it’s probably the most boy-ish of all the starters…”

I sat there, looking at those three pokeballs on the screen — for how long, I’m not sure, but it felt like ages. “I don’t like fire,” I thought, remembering the time I had burnt my hand at a campfire, sealing in a proper respect and, frankly, fear. “Maybe Squirtle…”

I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t pick Squirtle. Not for those reasons.

“I’m going to be a better Pokemon trainer than my friends,” I decided, “And I’m going to face the things that scare me.”

I picked Charmander, late summer of 1999. I wound up naming him “Firebolt” because I was also very into Harry Potter. I was, then, twelve years old — a little late to start my Pokemon journey, judging from Ash being ten, but better late than never.

18 years later I can remember those events easily, whereas I have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast yesterday. I wound up getting my own copy of Pokemon Red and starting my own journey properly with Firebolt the Charmander. I remember sitting at the table at the local Cracker Barrel as I found, for the first time, Pikachu was in Viridian Forest. I think I actually shouted in victory when that pokeball shook for the third and final time.

I was hooked, utterly and eternally.

I loved looking at Nintendo Power’s Pokemon team examples that other trainers sent in to feature in the magazine, and I wound up fashioning my own team in reflection. I went to see the Mewtwo Strikes Back movie in theaters, specifically ate Burger King because they had Pokemon toys. As time went on, I made a fan magazine out of Crayola markers and printer paper all about “Pokemon Gold and Silver” and what that would be like — it felt like a far off dream, or the most epic of legends. When the rumor came that Pokemon would be able to breed, I started fashioning my own “Pokemon hybrids,” not realizing how the breeding mechanics actually would work, but instead designing “Charmachu,” the Pikachu and Charmander hybrid, or “Bulbafree,” Bulbasaur and Butterfree’s theoretical offspring.

If I could go back in time and tell 11-year-old me that, at age 30, I’d have an office filled with Pokemon merchandise and that we are facing the end of Pokemon’s 7th generation with the release of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, I would have been ecstatic.

I am not the only fan with strong, vivid, nostalgic memories of their original Pokemon experience. Pokemon’s initial popularity was only recently brought into the forefront once again with the mobile release of Pokemon Go, and many fans who had left the franchise back in the 90’s and early 00’s downloaded and played the game — at least for a little while. Pokemon just celebrated it’s 20th film release with “Pokemon: I Choose You,” an epic retelling of Ash’s early days as a trainer from a whole new perspective. “I Choose You” received several event releases in theatres, and I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen.

The amount of nostalgia I got from the 20th film actually made me tear up in the theatre, and I have never left the Pokemon fandom. It made me thirsty to see Kanto from a new perspective — full 3D, on the Switch, not as the first generation of Pokemon, but as my favorite region set in an even bigger world, a region fully fleshed out and imagined as it should have been, and not as the Gameboy limited it. I immediately wanted to revisit Kanto from the same perception as Rainbow Hero Ash — a Kanto where trainers and Pokemon from other regions made an appearance, a Kanto that knows Sinnoh and Alola exist. A Kanto where I could start anew in this Pokemon world with Firebolt, the Charmander, again.

I have replayed VC Red on my 3DS, and while I loved it, it suffers the problem of age. Red and Blue were in a very different Pokemon era — we had no special defense stat, nor a special/physical split, and critical hits were solely determined by speed. Without breeding, that one Eevee was all you were going to get. The remakes, Fire Red and Leaf Green, still suffer from being remade too early. And now there is clamoring for Sinnoh remakes, when technically the remakes of the original generation are now the oldest games in the franchise without a revisit.

Game Freak’s behavior is nearly impossible to predict at this point. They buck trends and ignore patterns every release now, so thus, making any sort of forecast on what is to come is fruitless. Fans thought it was a sure thing that “Pokemon Grey” would follow Black and White, instead there were sequels. Fans thought Pokemon Z was a sure thing after the Pokemon XYZ anime announcement — instead, the third year of Generation 6 was empty and followed by Generation 7 in Alola.

What I would like to see from Game Freak’s venture into the Switch, eventually, is a revisit to Kanto in much the same way “I Choose You” is a revisit to Ash’s past. Considering alternate dimensions and timelines were made canon by the addition of the Ultra Wormholes, Game Freak could feasibly make any game they can imagine without worry that it will retcon some aspect of the universe. I want to see Kanto regional variants for Pokemon from other areas.

It begs to be seen how Game Freak with capitalize on the resurgence of Pokemon nostalgia, and what the Switch era of Pokemon will bring. Pokemon on the Switch could be out as early as 2018, but there has been no definitive date set as of yet.

What do you want to see from Pokemon on the Switch?