My first memories of Pokémon start with the television show. I happened to catch it on my UPN affiliate on the day that it premiered, of all the luck. I don’t know what exactly drew me into the cartoon, but it just felt like something cool to watch right before I headed off to school. My brother originally hated watching the cartoon, and we’d usually fight over the TV as we ate breakfast, but he got over it.

I was so into the cartoon I eventually decided that I wanted the game. I picked Pokémon Blue, while my brother picked Red. It was an easy dynamic that we still somehow manage to do 20 years later. Now I’m getting the Pikachu edition of Pokémon Let’s Go, while he gets Eevee. To date just how long ago this was, I still remember walking out of KB Toys with Pokémon Blue in my hands. Do kids these days even remember a KB Toys? Geez, here’s a sign that I’m getting old...

Growing up I wasn’t a fan of role playing games, mainly because back then it was easy to get lost in a game’s overworld if you didn’t have a map, and most of the time I didn’t have one. Red and Blue, luckily, are straightforward enough that you can just navigate around and eventually find what you’re looking far. I think by today’s standards these games feel old and archaic, but back then they were a joy to play, and still are in a nostalgic sense.

I remember a lot of rumors about the game, mostly regarding capturing Mew. The S.S. Anne truck was probably the most infamous myth. Time and again, it was proven to be wrong though one just has to wonder why it was there in the first place. I remember kids kept telling me that, before the Generation 2 games came out, there were Gen 2 Pokémon in R/B/Y. One kid at the summer day camp I went to insisted that he had Togepi. He never produced, and to this day I still think that he’s one of the biggest liars I’ve ever met, no doubt.

The Pokémon craze itself really kicked off when I was in seventh grade. This was when the Pokémon Trading Card Game also took off -- EVERYONE was into the card game. Kids were playing it all the time, but getting the best cards were always the talk of the school hallways. To this day, I’m still peeved that my brother got Charizard before I did.

Pokémon: The First Movie also was a big deal too. I’ll never forget how cool it was just sitting in a theater, watching a movie based on a video game and cartoon series that I loved. And I have to admit, Ash turning to stone and everyone crying to bring him back to life did pull on a few heartstrings there.

The craze kinda died down after that, at least at a mainstream level. I’ve played every mainline Pokémon game there is, but no memory is as vivid as me playing Pokémon Blue for the first time. I’ve always picked the water starter from the beginning, and I’ll be more than happy to choose it once again when the next generation of Pokémon games arrive next year.