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First Pokemon Stories!

Storm_Echo

Gamer of Videos
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Location
Ethereal Plane
Hello all, let's talk about our Pokemon "Firsts"!

First shinies, first starter, first game, first anything!

I'll go "first!"


My first-ever Shiny pokemon was a Zubat in the Oreburgh Mine on... my friends copy of Diamond version. Naturally I let him keep it, only to have a dry run of 0 shinies over the next 6 years. Finally, I caught my first shiny on my *own* game, and... it was a Zubat! Caught it in Omega Ruby version, named him Batman, and then tragically deleted the entire save file several years later because I forgot he was still on the game. I still feel deep sadness over that loss to this day....


My first pokemon experience was Ruby and Sapphire, in elementary school. I started with Torchic and had a blast kicking my way through the entire game with essentially one pokemon, using Blaze Kick and Sky Uppercut in tandem to wipe out gym leaders and Team Magma alike. Many years and thousands of hours later, I still love that silly bird and will probably play pokemon as long as it exists.
 
Okay.

My first Pokemon game was red and my first Pokemon starter was Charmander. Though I regretted him early on and restarted and chose Squirtle. I really like Wartortle so we were buddies for a long time.

My first shiny was a shiny Slowpoke in Gold. I don't really care for shiniest but I do really like Slowpoke so I was still happy about it.

My first real disappointment was Sword and Shield because they are complete trash.

And here is my Sword and Shield journey.

And an addendum
Pokemon: Sword and Shield Addendum

-Pokemon aren't scaled correctly

In the Wild Area and routes where you find Pokemon roaming around you'll find that their heights are what they should be. For example a 30'2" Steelix will tower over the player's avatar in the Wild Area, but once this Pokemon is caught and used in battle, it shrinks!

Suddenly Steelix is Teenylix and is no taller than a 4'7" Cinderace. This is the same with the likes of Gyarados, Eternatus and any large Pokemon you can think of and it looks terrible, especially when you want to feel imposing with your world ending legendary…

In a game all about scale, that doesn't shut up about the Dynamaxing phenomenon that turns Pokemon huge, you'd think Game Freak would adhere to the heights of Pokemon, especially on a console like the Switch which is powerful enough to do it (hell, even the Gamecube managed to do it).

-Reused NPCs
It's a 'thing' in Pokemon to reuse characters, especially in the anime with the likes of Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, and this, for these characters, is fine for the games too, but it's outside of these characters where the games take the piss.

There are so many copy-pasted NPCs in these games that it's beyond distracting. The same NPCs are in every town sometimes twice and three times over.

For example; I saw two identical NPCs standing side by side at a market stall. In my head I assumed the market stall was a family business and that two identical twins were doing their parents proud. But then I went up the stairs on my immediate left and saw a third identical NPC standing at the top of the steps. Triplets!

Another time was when the Gym Leader Raihan had me battle three Pokemon trainers that had been hand-picked by him as part of his gym challenge. One of these trainers was a male and the other two were female and the two female trainers looked exactly the same. No change in hair style or colour, no change in skin tone or body shape, no accessories to set them apart, nothing. Lazy!

Team Yell, as well, only have two members; one male and one female. The character models are copy and pasted and reused time and time again throughout the adventure and it looks awful.

The constant reuse of NPCs makes Galar feel artificial in the same way that the terrible draw distance does and is yet another example of GF's sheer lack of passion for the games.

-Downgraded animations
For all GF said that the National Dex was cut to focus on 'high quality animations', they don't seem too keen on using them…

During a Dynamax Raid Battle every Pokemon's attack animation is replaced with a standard splash explosion with a colour added to denote the element of said attack. So instead of Cinderace kicking around a flaming ball before launching it at a super sized opponent, he'll just do a standard animation and the attack will show as a splash of colour.

You'd think GF would like to show off all of those sexy new high quality animations that they snapped half of the Pokedex out of existence for but apparently not, can't have too much of a good thing can we?

Conclusion; there are more underdeveloped aspects I could shine a light on such as the Pokemon Trainers themselves teleporting around the stadium during a battle and the lack of music during a poignant cutscene which cheaps out with storyboards instead of an in-engine cutscene but I have spent far too much time and energy on these games, so much so that it feels as if I've given more thought to these games than Game Freak themselves…

In the end, Pokemon Sword and Shield are just not good enough and GF and TPC should be ashamed of themselves for putting out such an apathetic product when they had both the money and power to make Sword and Shield the best in the series. - 4/10
 
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mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
technically my first pokemon game was yellow around 2nd grade, but I hated it and barley played it more than a couple hours, I don't think I even made it to brock; after that I rented a game and for some reason was able to rent colosseum along w/ it, I played it for like 30 minutes before turning it off, I just didn't care about pokemon

my first real dive into pokemon was fire red in 11th grade, it was bundled w/ minish cap for $20 on ebay [both games were fakes, didn't know that at the moment], I chose bulbasaur and got really into it this time, and now here I am where I have played one game per generation except sun/moon and sword/shield

my first and only shiny was the red gyarados in pokemon silver, yes the one that's basically just given to you, b/c despite playing almost all the games I still have never ran into a shiny

oh and pokemon black was my first DS game, I borrowed it from a friend for a bit
 

Princess Niki

Allons-y
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Location
Alola
First time I saw Pokemon period was the anime of course and it was big stuff for a 1st grader we even had a poster of the original 150 in my classroom.

First shiny that wasn't Gyarados was a Silcoon I caught in Ruby.

First experience game wise was my cousin's copy of Yellow, first one that was my own was Red my neighbors snuck me a copy of it along with a GB Pocket. I ended up getting stuck in Mount Moon for ages.

First starter was Charmander cuz it was the only one that looked appealing from behind in the original gen, the others don't bother me as much any more but back then it did.

First game I beat was Crystal cuz I was stuck in Mount Moon got this game and it was way easier to beat, especially since my starter was Cyndaquil.
 

Quin

Disaster Master
Joined
Dec 26, 2017
Location
Netherlands
Started with Red and chose charmander. Honestly probably a big reason why Charizard is still my favorite mon. I have no idea how many times i replayed the game but it was a lot.

First shiny was pidgey in gold. Made him a pidgeot and cloned the heck out of him with the box trick. Good times.
 

Storm_Echo

Gamer of Videos
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Location
Ethereal Plane
my first and only shiny was the red gyarados in pokemon silver, yes the one that's basically just given to you, b/c despite playing almost all the games I still have never ran into a shiny

Ouch, and I thought my luck was bad with only one non-gyarados shiny in 15 years of playing (before Sword and Shield where I now have a small handful thanks to shiny charm and breeding). But to play a game from every gen and never come across one? That's tragic.
 

NintendoCN

Team Captain
Joined
Dec 6, 2014
Location
North Dakota
Gender
Protagonist
First shiny was when I was streaming Sapphire Nuzlocke on a site that no longer exists. Couldn't use it but it was a Sandshrew I caught it with no issues! My first game was Pokemon red, I didn't quite understand what was going on, but I eventually got through it. I started with Charmander because Fire Lizard, (I was 5) It cemented my choose the fire starter mentality regardless of what I have to deal with first.
 

Storm_Echo

Gamer of Videos
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Location
Ethereal Plane
I started with Charmander because Fire Lizard, (I was 5) It cemented my choose the fire starter mentality regardless of what I have to deal with first.

A lot of times there are plentiful decent water/grass types in the game but there's usually a lack of good fire types, especially early on. So picking the fire starter has always kind of been natural for me - taking Kanto for example, by the time you finally get to growlithe/vulpix you already have access to poliwag, tentacool, magikarp, bellsprout, and oddish for strong water/grass types.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
Ouch, and I thought my luck was bad with only one non-gyarados shiny in 15 years of playing (before Sword and Shield where I now have a small handful thanks to shiny charm and breeding). But to play a game from every gen and never come across one? That's tragic.
I'm kinda willing to play sun/moon at some point so maybe then? I ain't banking on it of course
 

Storm_Echo

Gamer of Videos
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Location
Ethereal Plane
In Ultra Sun and Moon there is a place called Ultra Space and shinies have a higher spawn rate there. I also noticed the Friend Safari has one in YX.

I never played the Ultra versions, only the base game. Depending on what spawns in this "ultra space" I may need to investigate! Heard USUM were good games so it might be worth it regardless.
 
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Location
Ohio
Gender
tree
My first full experience was Ruby; I played around on my sister's Gold and Crystal games every so often, but never had a file of my own.

I chose Treecko the first time around, but my battery died before I could save anything. I took Mudkip after that and he's been my favorite starter ever since. I named him "Buddy" which has been a personal tradition of mine every time I get the little guy.

My first shiny was a Golbat on Mt Silver which I didn't catch because even then I didn't care much about shinies.
 

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