Random

Pokémon Tag Challenge

I come to you once again because I've been tagged to answer some questions. These ones are all Pokémon related, so I hope that you enjoy.

1. What was your first Pokémon game?

The first Pokémon game I wanted to play was the original Red/Blue, but I unfortunately never had the opportunity. As a young kid, I was sort of dependent upon my parents buying it for me, and our family didn't even have a Game boy at that time. We didn't get one until years later, at which time we got the latest and the greatest game available: Leaf Green. As a remake of the original game, it felt awesome to me. My three younger siblings and I all shared it, making separate PC boxes labeled with our names so that we could each have the Pokémon we wanted, as well as a common box for legendaries and our starter. I later bought Fire Red (when I finally had some money of my own from babysitting) so that I could have a save file all to myself, and, as some of you may recall, this was the very game that inspired Getting Out of Fuchsia.

2. What's your favorite region?

This is a question where I don't actually have a clear preference, but I'm going to make an argument for Johto. In terms of the games, it's awesome because it's essentially getting two regions in one. In the anime, it was great because it had all of the old favorite characters (minus certain exceptions... Butterfree! Come back!) plus new ones that my siblings and I loved. In terms of canon, I love the story of the towers with Ho-oh and the legendary dogs. In terms of Pokémon, Ho-oh is my favorite legendary (cool design, cool story, awesome anime foreshadowing) and Chikorita is my favorite Pokémon of all!

3. What gym leader would you be?

I'm not sure if this question is referring to actual characters or whether it's trying to ask what kind of gym leader I would make if I were to become a new one. When I was a kid, I always liked Erica best, but this was because there were only three female gym leaders at that time. Sabrina was too creepy to be relatable, and my little sister had already "called dibs" on Misty, so Erica remained. This may be the reason that grass became my favorite type.

I know there are many more female gym leaders now, but they all kind of blur in my mind. I would probably have to do research in order to make a better choice.

If I were to become a brand new gym leader, I would probably be one of the early ones who aren't as awesome at battling but just love having fun with the Pokémon they love. That pretty much describes my battle style in the games.

4. What's your favorite pseudo legendary?

I'm not sure what a pseudo legendary is... Isn't a Pokémon either legendary or not? If you're talking about a Pokémon that's really rare but not technically a legendary, I might do a toss-up between Dratini and Porygon. As mentioned previously, I watching the anime was my first exposure to Pokémon, so a lot of the nostalgia power is there. The Dratini episode was banned, so I never even got to see one apart from in the theme song. This made it feel very rare and special to me, especially because this seemed to be supported by references to it. I also remember the Dragonite episode at Bill's lighthouse, after which I thought that all Dragonite are as tall as buildings and are so rare that few people have ever even seen one.

Porygon is a more recent favorite, and it's entirely because I've become a computer programmer. I'm fascinated by the idea that a bunch of scientists and programmers in the Pokémon world actually created it. I've been considering writing a story about how that whole process might have worked, but I worry that my references to programming would be boring to those who don't understand and would seem too amateurish to someone who really knows what they're doing when it comes to AI. It's worth mentioning that the Porygon episode of the anime was also banned, so it also feels rare and special, not to mention the fact that you can only obtain it by special methods in the games.