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According to the Morning Brew, yesterday was 25 years since the Red and Green versions for Game Boy (anyone of a certain age remember those?) were released. I never really got into Pokemon myself, but even I know how big it is and how many people still play it.

So to celebrate, let's talk about it. What's your history and experience with Pokemon? Is it something you played or still play?

I remember getting a blue Game Boy Color with Pokemon Blue for Christmas in I want to say 1998 (so I was about 6 years old). My older brother got Pokemon Red at the same time, and his name was subsequently what I called my rival "Gary" character. Played the shit out of it but, being a little kid, sucked at it -- don't remember ever actually beating it. Traded with and battled against my brother a tiny bit when we managed to get one of those Game Boy connection cords.

Had a Pokemon handbook that was really useful in laying out what each abilities each pokemon could learn, what they were good against, how they evolved, etc. Got a lot of use out of it and subsequently wore out the spine so that I had to tie a rubberband around it.

Collected the cards and played against my older brother at times, but I mostly liked looking at them all displayed in numerical order in a binder I had. Definitely got ripped off in a few trades with my brother and his friends and lost a few good cards to friends that moved away over the years. Remember going a couple times to a local Toys'R'Us where my brother and I would play against and trade with other kids during trading card game nights.

Watched the anime quite a bit when it was on TV, and we even had a few episodes on VHS. Was always really interested in the snacks that Brock made.

My older brother ended up playing Yellow, Gold, and Crystal, but I only ever stuck with Blue (and Red at times when my brother allowed it so that I could collect some of the Pokemon not in Blue). So I never really got into anything other than Generation I. Kinda crazy that there are like 10 generations now. Sorta fizzled out on it around middle school. There was, however, a resurgence in high school (probably around 2010) of everyone on my track team starting to play it again, which was sorta funny, but then it disappeared over summer break.

Overall, really nostalgic for me.

I don't really have much experience with Pokemon...I vaguely remember it first coming out and everyone in school having the cards, but I was never involved with it. I really just have two experiences with Pokemon, both years later:

The first was around 2004, when I joined a community for an online game and started making friends there. One of my closest friends at the time send me a game boy emulator and ROMs for the first two Pokemon games so I could play them on my computer. I actually remember liking them and planning to get more into them, but for some reason I never did. I guess I just never had time to until I finally forgot about the whole thing. There's a lot of things I kinda like and would like to delve into more, but never get around to doing, so that's hardly unusual.

The second was around 2012, when I was leading a small community (an offshoot of the one I joined in 2004), and one of my friends started a Pokemon RPG on the forums. I can't actually remember how it worked, lol...all I remember is that we had a lot of laughs around Diglett cause of it's...uhm, shape. If you guys remember Daxev from Wintreath's early years, he was part of that insanity too. xD