Growing up I played and traded the cards after a friend gave me a Fossil Set Geodude illustrated by Kagemaru Himeno. It was a lot of fun and I'm sure my parent's and my allowance took a huge hit on something I tried to sell in bulk in a garage sale years ago, that was ultimately given to Goodwill. In college, some roommates and I explored the TCG again and it was a nice bit of nostalgia but I'm back out again.
I was the target audience when Pokémon first came out in America. As an eight year old I adventured through Pokémon Red that holiday season while my friends and brother adventured through their own versions. I battled with them and traded with them and it was a great time. As with seemingly most early Pokémon fans, I just kind of dropped out of it by the time of Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal. No one around me played it all that much so the trading and battle aspect was lost on me and I assume I found whatever the next money vampire society presented to me in colorful Saturday morning cartoons.
After the second generation gap, I decided to look back into it with Pokémon Ruby. It was a fun trek through Hoenn and the designs still hit me right. Plus, I just enjoyed catching and battling whatever fantastic pokémon would pop out next. Again, I was really the only one around me playing it so I wasn't sucked back in as far as I once was.
I decided to convince a few friends of mine to pick up Pokémon Diamond/Pearl. This was, at the time, the last chance the franchise had at me and it ultimately failed. I didn't even finish the game. The mechanics and adventure felt old, the game too easy, and frankly, I could just look up the pokémon designs online. That seemed to be all I was really there for anyways. I wanted something different than what the games were giving me, but that's okay. You can't please everyone all the time.
Then Pokémon White/Black came out and I was interested in a brand new world. No past pokémon and I didn't really look at many of the designs online before the release. Like many, I thought this would be a similar adventure to that of Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow when everything was new to me. Sadly, it didn't catch onto my friend as much as it did me and I sat with a game that felt fairly similar and half a world of catchable pokémon. At the moment, that's where I end my Pokémon gaming adventure.
I'm still interested in what Pokémone has to offer. The designs are a lot of fun, the idea of adventure is great, it just wasn't the game I wanted. I know there's a lot more under the surface: EV training, IV's, natures, abilities, breeding, shiny pokemon, and apparently the competitive battling scene is absolutely crazy. I just never played the games for that reason, nor do I have much interest to go up against strangers. I wanted to catch them all and I wanted the pokémon to become a little more like animals. I also would have loved to not feel like it was the same story over and over again, but that's all opinion.
All info and images obtained from Bulbapedia
Pokémon © Nintendo, Gamefreak, and Creatures Inc.
Pokémon Trading Card Game © Wizards of the Coast (1999-2003) and Nintendo (2003-2013)
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