I started with Pokemon Blue in 1999. I have played every Gen except SM/USUM. I might get SwSh, not sure tho.

My favorite games are HGSS. I don't really like current Pokemon because GameFreak can do better. I would really like a Pokemon MMO, or at least something on PC that can do an expansion-pack based model. I would like all regions, and transportation between them, on PC if possible.

But I've wanted this for a decade now, and I doubt that GameFreak is interested in doing such a thing. It would be amazing if they did, however.

>>33328
>a Pokemon MMO, or at least something on PC that can do an expansion-pack based model
That's basically Pokemon GO. Yeah, it's terrible, but that's basically what it is. Gamefreak isn't interested in the same market as Blizzard. Kids, Pokemon's main demographic, are using pcs less and less too. You're just not part of the people they care most about.

I played Silver when I was a kid and recently I played, Black2, ORAS and X, I thought they were good, then I tried Ultra Moon and I didn't like it.

I started with Red, Blue, and Yellow. Then I played Gold and Silver, and many years later played Fire Red. Did some Pokemon Stadium on N64 with my neighbor. It was pretty much the most badass thing ever as a kid. I remember that, for some reason, I drew out a map of the cave that you needed flash for on some lined paper.

>>33331
If playing on the Gameboy Color you could cheat your way through that cave by changing the colour scheme on the start-up screen. The booklet had a list of button combinations for that. Black worked well, but other colours also did the trick though of course with a tint.

I haven't seriously played since gen4. I tried to pick up X/Y, but it bored me. I think that's mainly due to there being no feeling of adventure. I'd like to non-linearly go forth into the wilderness to catch and train my Pokemon; I'd like to find some stuff like rarer creatures and such whilst stomping about as a reward for exploring; I'd like to visit locales and meaningfully engage with the people and fauna; I'd like the engage in various activities that benefit my monsters (e.g. farming -> cooking -> food for Pokemon); I'd like more ways to bond with my Pokemon; I'd like to play a role more aligned to my desires in a world full of creature companions. (I don't know if they addressed some of these.)
It'd be nice if they returned to their Japanese roots, but that's more of a bonus for me. I don't think I could play gen1&2 and their remakes as my imagination wouldn't be able to tide me over like it did when I was a kid.

>>33329
You don't need a PC for an MMO with expansions these days.

>>33333
>You don't need a PC for an MMO with expansions these days.
I think they keep releasing more monsters, so maybe they're adding other stuff too. I remember old attempts at creating online severs where people could play the same game and see each other's sprites, but that was really rudementary.

I used to be somewhat invested in pokemon fan projects. The biggest being pokemon garnet, a fan game, and an animated adaptation of the manga. Garnet looked really impressive for the time when it was first announced. A large amount of music and art was created for it, it got updated reguarly, the creature designs were already finished. The years rolled by though and nothing was ever released. The animation project was a mismangaged mess which got next to nothing accomplished. So many promises though. I'm a little bitter about it. Those were both western fan projects and their utter failure really makes me wonder if the passion and dedication needed for doujin or fan projects of any kind is absent in the west. Look at the animation Touhou inspired. Any small bits of animation based on the pokemon manga were also done by Japanese fans.

I only collected some tokens that came in snacks when was 7 or something. Everyone did, monkey see monkey do but I didn't care about the series. Never watched it or played any of the games. Never had any consoles either.

I played Pokemon Yellow in an emulator, covering the whole screen of my shitty pc with it's enormous ugly disproportioned pixels. I didn't know better. Played some time, never ended it, never touched a Pokemon ever again.
I always thought the new games should be nice but never touched them and at this point I wouldn't even know were to start. I guess I missed that train.
If I ever get a NES or a GameBoy I will probably get the everdrives and then I will end playing the first ones for sure though. Actually I think I will get a GBC soon.

The worldwide release for XY really were perfect symbols of the franchise's loss of identity. Sure, BW were based off America, but there's still plenty of aesthetics inspired by Japanese folklore, both in the designs of several routes/towns, as well as Pokémon. The tone of those games, even, acquired mostly from the straight-philosophical NPC flavor text, added to the feeling of transitioning of paradigms.

>>33339
>the straight-philosophical NPC flavor text
I'm not sure what you mean by this. XY were released after the point I stopped caring, but I remember the worldwide release sort of encapsulating everything that changed. BW were alright and the story had some interest to it.

>>33339
Black and White 2 has some incredibly philosophical lines of dialogue in it.

>>33343
Have some examples of that?

I started with the anime and was huge into Pokémon but I never could play the games at the time because I didn't have a Gameboy or anything. Later on in my life I got to play Pokémon Diamond. It was fun but I ended up getting an action replay and just cheating my way through. I played Gale of Darkness at some point afterwards. Fun, but I got stuck. Dropped the series after that.
I then played Y many years later and enjoyed it but man, was it piss easy. I got to play Omega Ruby some time after that but I ended up grinding for levels and I just got bored of the series after that. If nothing else, if I do play Sword/Shield then at this point it will be because I can customize my cute girl trainer even more so than usual. It took me a long time to realize it but something I appreciate about Pokémon is that it feels like it's your adventure with your friends. It centers around you. It makes me feel like I'm playing some kind of anime simulator, if that makes sense. I'm not so sure if I'm getting it across too well.
I'm sure there are many more games that do this better but I don't know what they are. At this point, that's the only reason I would play Pokémon anymore. It's a nice franchise despite how corporate it is but for me there's only one reason to bother anymore.
Also I ♡ delphox.

>>33352
I bought an action replay after playing through Platinum the first time. It's basically like a new game+. The intended experience is fun the first time, but then you don't want to be restricted. Some events were also only accesible for a short time, so cheating is the only way to access them. Not buying any potions or using them during important battles is sort of like a hard mode and I liked doing it that way.
>I'm sure there are many more games that do this better but I don't know what they are.
Dragon Quest maybe

Pokemon is still huge. Although Niantic's mobile game & Ryan Reynold's movie are ruining it for me...
Agree with OP that it's being diluted & homogenised to appeal to everyone.

ポケットモンスター OP 1 めざせポケモンマスタ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-lEahV5Q_o

>What has been your personal experience with Pokemon?
The games, primarily. I watched the dubbed anime because it was on morning TV during the week, but the games mattered to me much more. The gen 2 games were the ones I put the most time into. I really loved how much more advanced they were compared to the gen 1 games, with a day/night system, characters that come out on particular days of the week, berries, apricorns, and getting to do Kanto when you've done Johto. As soon as I saw Erika I got an intense but short-lived crush on her.

I used to borrow my cousin's Gameboy colour to play Pokemon Silver but he would not let me save(because it only allowed one save) and it always ran out of batteries after 4-5 gyms and then I would just get more batteries and repeat it all over again. I never saw much of the anime and I only got a handful of cards which I forget where I even got them from. I really liked Pokemon but my parents never cared enough about me to buy anything for me even though they easily could have.

My dad got me Blue for my 6th birthday, but it took me a while to get into it (I was the kind of kid with an aversion to anything popular). So long that by the time I decided to finally try it out, my stepmom had already gotten halfway through the game and I just picked up where she left off. I don't think I ever beat it. That being said though, I fell for the marketing hype hard and had a bunch of toys, VHSes of the anime, a couple of the movies, and even a few cards despite having no friends to play it with. I even had this talking watch that got on everybody's nerves, including mine when I lost it and had to hear "GET UP, GOTTA CATCH EM ALL" every morning until its battery died.

Once GS came out I got Gold for Christmas, and that one I really enjoyed. About halfway through Kanto, though, I started getting bored and got this thing called a Monster Brain, basically a specialized cheat device for Gold and Silver. Maxed out my guys' stats and just cheesed the rest of the game.

Last one I played was Ruby. But I didn't play it when it came out because I was in middle school, I had already stopped caring about Pokemon, and even if I did like it I feared getting made fun of for it. No, I just got it because it was ~2008, "rofl herd u liek mudkipz" was in full swing, and I wanted to play it for the memes alone. But as usual, I got bored partway through. Refusing to evolve my Mudkip for meme reasons probably contributed to that.

>>36708
>As soon as I saw Erika I got an intense but short-lived crush on her.
If there's one thing that GameFreak has and continues to do well, it's the girls' designs.

Christmas of 1999 with Pokemon Yellow. I remember I had a Raticate I leveled to 100 and he was my main throughout the whole game pretty much. Good times when I didn't know any better. It was pure bliss back then. Year and a half later I got Crystal and those 18 months of waiting to get that felt like it lasted for 5 years or so. Had lots of fun with it was well, not so much as in Yellow because by that time I was a little more conscious about the world and nothing seemed as fun anymore, still pretty good though.

By the time gens III and IV came out I was a teenager eager to play grown-up stuff like RE, Fear and the Silent Hill games so I skipped them without a second thought. I grew out of my grown-up phase just in time to play Pokemon Black which I must have played for a 100 hours or so. By that time it felt like a pretty amazing thing to do with a game. The DSi is the closest thing I had as a friend in video game console form. I must have thousands of hours put into that particular console. I played a little of the gen 2 and 3 games on the DSi as well through emulation, but never got very far.

I'm not sure why or how I was mentally back in 2013 but I skipped X and Y for some reason and for some reason I have not touched them to this day. 2016 I bought a 3DS with Pokemon Sun and did a full run with insect only types. Had a great time doing it as well. I don't have a Switch and I'm broke as fuck so I don't know when I'll play Sword and Shield. Never cared for the anime or the toys (I would have toys but money).

Gotta say I completely disagree with OP. The Japanese aesthetics and sensibility is there for every game, even when they set it in Hawaii or whatever. The 'foreign setting' is so superficially implemented, Pokemon remains a extremely Japanese game imo. The Pokemon designs are just as great and they look as endearing and friendly to me as when I first looked at them, 20+ years ago. If there's anything I dislike about the newer versions is that I sometimes feel there's just too much stuff to keep track. Too many item altering things. Too many gimmicky thingies. The last game I played, Pokemon Sun, has a bunch of Tamagotchi mechanics that got old fairly quickly, at least for me. Of course none of that is actually a big deal for me. The actual reason I haven't played the newer versions is because I don't have the money to get a gaming console. Then of course you have to buy the game as well. Now, me being broke is not Pokemon's fault, it's mine. I'm planning to get a Switch Lite sometime during my lifetime.

I still enjoy Pokemon very much. If for nothing else it gives me comfort that a thing like Pokemon exists.

>>36712
>The 'foreign setting' is so superficially implemented, Pokemon remains a extremely Japanese game imo. The Pokemon designs are just as great and they look as endearing and friendly to me as when I first looked at them, 20+ years ago.
I agree that the foreign setting is superficially implemented, but I don't think the games are earnestly Japanese. I definitely get the feeling that the creators want to generalize the games for a worldwide market as much as possible, but the result of that seems like a souless husk to me. Of the 3d games, the only monster designs I really like are klefki and pyukumuku. Girl character design is still top-notch.

They need to stop adding Pokemon; instead, refine what's already there.

I feel like after the DS games, pokemon is just so bland. It was always a cashgrab, but it's even more blatantly moreso now. It's souless, and even more expensive than before. But I'm glad I don't really play any more, because getting tied to franchises and companies are a bad thing.

Why do I believe it's souless? Well, it seems that the games are shorter and easier now so than before. I remember it took me a while to beat a game, but now, I could probably finish the main story line of one of the newer ones within a day. The stories aren't as intruiging as they were before, and what really irritated me the most was the new pokemon games on the switch being lazily made. They are made with the same engine as the 3ds games and look like low-effot higher-resolution versions of those. Then they have the nerve to charge tons of money for it- along with DLC.

All in all, I don't respect anyone who says they bought a new Pokemon game for other than the reason of it being 'Pokemon'. I feel like that's the only reason why these people buy these games.

>>36715
Not to mention the mobile game (via Niantic) that's thinly-veiled datamining.

>>36718
Disregarding that fact even, gacha is evil, and is made to prey on the mentally ill.

Pokketo Monstaa are normie fare. Enjoy it but don't make a big deal about it.

I loved the games as a kid. I started with gen 4, but mostly played gen 3. Stopped playing after gen 5 because I didn't get a 3ds and wasn't that bothered to ask for one.
I still like Pokemon I guess. It can be fun to pick up on occasion, but it's very rare these days. I've replayed them a lot of times over the years. There isn't anything new for me with the games that I'll play.

Gen4 was the last enjoyable one for me. Had a certain mystique to it.

Pokemon is for kids but that first OP in nihongo still slaps hard for me.

Started with red, also somewhere around y2k, and loved it to death.
Being a kid, completely ignorant of the way technology works it seemed like anything was possible.
I remember that an NPC somewhere around Pewter city said that Diglett can build entire caves, and I was absolutely convinced that this meant I can do that in game and build my own tunnels to other cities. Tried out a lot of stuff, but unfortunately nothing ever worked.
Also always tried to find a way beyond the fences or other barriers limiting the areas, because there was always something visible beyond them that looked like there's entire areas there you could visit if only you could find a little hole, somewhere the designers forgot to put a fence.
The thing was just magic, especially with all the rumors floating around, like glitch city, or that you could find mew if you left the game on for 100 hours and then the truck blocking the way at the dock of the M.S. Anne would go away. Actually I was more interested in exploring the area behind the truck than I was in getting mew.

Then I got crystal as a gift and the day/night cycle blew me away. The game was damn immersive, and at some points even managed to scare me.
The strange radio transmission creeped me out enough that I'd avoid them when playing at night.
Now that I think about it the game had a bit of an eerie feel in general.
Lost the cartridge eventually, then ended up with another from who knows where and then lost it again, which pisses me off to this day. The translucent case always fascinated me. Now they're expensive as fuck.

Then I got ruby, and later emerald. Played that generation for a couple of years, well into high school actually, and tried my hand at making custom roms, without much success. They really upped the immersion with that one, adding base building, different weather and biomes, growing of berries, etc.
I guess that was my favorite gen of all, precisely because of that.
Also the great music. Pokemon designs were nice too.
LG/FR was a step backwards in that regard iirc, and I never ended up getting it, only borrowed it from a friend, though I did still enjoy it.
Never went beyond Gen 3 despite wanting to, because I never got a DS and ended up getting a PS2 for my saved up pocket money instead.

I have no idea how Pokemon is now, but I'm inclined to believe that it is just a cash grab at this point, just like everything else made by corporations. Why wouldn't it be after a crapton of iterations?
As for thinking of Pokemon as a JRPG, I don't really think of the old games as JRPGs either... though I guess I never really thought about the genre at all. It was always just Pokemon.
Neither Gen 3 nor Gen 1 had that strong of a Japanese theme though, did they?
When i think of strong Japanese cultural themes, i think Gen 2.

>>41366
If you ever want to play a Pokemon game you haven't before, I would recommend gen 4 or 5. They're pretty good. melonDS is the best DS emulator.

>Neither Gen 3 nor Gen 1 had that strong of a Japanese theme though, did they?
Not really in Gen 3, but Gen 1 had themes and aspects relevant to 90s Japan, like I mentioned in the OP.

>>41368
I loved G4 since it really did have an air of mystery to it, but it took a bit of time to adjust its comparatively slow pacing.