Pokémon.

There were no other games worth mentioning in 1998 when Red/Blue traveled to our western shores. I was but a lad of fifteen, and I was deep into the Pokémon hype. My frothing demand was stoked by Nintendo Power, which had started releasing monthly “mini-magazines” called Pokémon Power, which served the essential function of acclimating western gamers to Capsule Monsters, er, Pocket Monsters, in Japan. Put together, the six mini-mags functioned as a simplified strategy guide for Red/Blue, and I don’t think NOA rolled out the “help our audience understand this weird thing” carpet to this degree since Dragon Warrior came stateside, and they literally gave that away to subscribers. To be fair, Pokémon (as it came to be known over here) presented a unique twist on the standard JRPG template: you built your own party, but you did so by capturing adorable monsters, leveling them up, watching them turn into more powerful monsters, and then using a times table-like type advantage chart to strategize your battles.

I didn’t realize at the time that NOA’s localization team didn’t just rename the monsters but actually reprogrammed both games to more closely resemble Pocket Monsters Blue, which was the third game released in Japan (after Red/Green) and featured updated art and text. So we got a sort of Frankenstein version of Red/Blue and then Yellow came out not long after that. Yellow was North America’s Pocket Monsters Blue, but it was also based on the hugely popular anime, which I totally watched. My brother bought Blue and I bought Red. We battled, traded, and generally became awesome at Pokémon. We both got that nice completion certificate for obtaining all 150 Pokémon and we fell for every rumor that Mew was obtainable (it wasn’t). It’s amazing to me that NCL didn’t think we’d “get” Pokémon over here because good lord, did we ever.

I got into the games, the show and…oh yes, the cards.

Oh, the cards.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game (or Pokémon TCG) was published by Wizards of the Coast over here, starting the month after Red/Blue released stateside and I was addicted. I spent every spare dime I had on new card packs and eventually managed to collect an impressive array of foil cards. It wasn’t all collecting, though; I joined the local Pokémon League and played semi-competitively, at times using cards that I made myself based on Japanese cards that hadn’t come out here yet in order to wow my opponents. One of my best decks relied heavily on Machops and Hitmonchans to deal cheap damage (20 for one Fighting Energy) with a few Electric types to field the inevitable Normal/Flying types that had a resistance to Fighting types. My hand-made cards were a source of pride and hard work. Gaze upon my works and despair below!

My appetite thoroughly whetted, I consumed Gold/Silver when they came out, but weirdly didn’t feel the need to grab Crystal. I stayed with the TCG through the first ten sets (Base – Neo Revelation) before dropping out. The game eventually changed considerably to the point where I don’t recognize it anymore. Over the years, I’ve tried to “complete” my collection of TCG cards from those ten sets, and I’ve gathered the majority of them, along with some Neo Destiny, Legendary, and several “promo” cards like the “Pre-Release” version of Misty’s Seadra and a Meowth card that came with copies of the Pokémon Trading Card Game for GBC. I also most of the “triple star” cards but I’m missing Shining Gyarados (and based on how much it goes for on eBay, it’s gonna stay that way).

That whole era includes my favorite Pokémon memories. It was a great time to be a fan.