Tag: pokémon

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Let us start October off on the right foot with an exciting new edition of the Pook-Emu Bee Links.

Oh no, whatever will I do?

1 | Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. Sep. 30, 2026.)
One may think that your favorite (I hope) feed proponent would be outraged about Reddit discontinuing its RSS feeds. To paraphrase the Reddit community: “Well ackshully….” Why in the world would I want to contaminate my feed collection with Reddit?

2 | Citi Bike user reveals outrageous ‘hidden tax’ slapped onto every e-bike (Aurielle Weiss for the New York Post. Sep. 26, 2026.)
These lunatics are complaining about the speed limit. The fees can’t be high enough.

Kitty

3 | Bronx Zoo welcomes adorable snow leopard cub threatened by extinction (Natalie O’Neill for the New York Post. Sep. 30, 2026.)
I too welcome the new snow leopard.

4 | Workers free kittens from shredder that could have ‘obliterated’ them in purr-fect rescue mission (Steven Vago for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
A very timely kitten rescue.

Starcents

5 | Starbucks to close 250 stores: ‘Difficult decision’ (Anders Hagstrom for Fox Business. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have never been a big burnt coffee fan, but there was once a time when Starbucks was clearing the bar many people

6 | Starbucks Japan releases new Pikachu Honey Cream Latte into the wild for new Pokémon collaboration (Oona McGee for SoraNews24. Sep. 29, 2026.)
I wouldn’t drink it because it looks like a year’s worth of sugar. But Starbucks did a surprisingly decent job of converting the Pikachu aesthetic into a drink.

Self-Hosting

7 | Radiology practices that own their imaging equipment less likely to face closure (Marty Stempniak for Radiology Business. Sep. 30, 2026.)
That checks out.

8 | Self Hosting Passwords (Chuck Carroll. May 20, 2026.)
He uses KeePassXC and Syncthing. He is a smart man. I hubly say that because I too use KeePassXC and Syncthing. With that being said, I would not necessarily recommend our combo to “normies.”

Photograph

9 | Sheep Tree (Jan Ulicki on Lens Culture. May 20, 2025.)
Great photo, baaaa.

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Liked 9 Games to Know Me (Strange Voyages)
Part of the User Manual Series where I give some brief overviews of the media, experiences, thoughts that help make me...me. Released hourly on my 32nd birthday.

I read a post on the Strange Voyages blog titled 9 Games to Know Me (HT Bubbles Weekly). It caught my interest because the concept struck me as similar (albeit not identical) to my September 2023 article titled Ranking My Big Impression Video Games (see simple list version), wherein I ranked the 12 video games that left the biggest impression on me. The author at Strange Voyages states that he put the list together for his 32nd birthday, which would have him being born in August 1994. Thus, the author a bit younger than me, given that was about when I received my first video game console (model 2 Sega Genesis) and game (Sonic 2) (see my recent discussion). Because early games often have ways of leaving big impressions, a difference in when one first encounters games will likely affect these sorts of lists. With that being said, my big impression list and the Strange Voyages 9 games list both include Persona 4 Golden (I included it in one selection with the original Persona 4). The Strange Voyages list also has later entries in two series I included in mine. Strange Voyages has Pokémon HeartGold while my list had the original Pokémon Gold (to be sure, Heart Gold is a better game than the original Gold/Silver) along with Pokémon Red (which I ranked number one) and Pokémon Ruby. Strange Voyages has Animal Crossing: New Horizons while I had the original Animal Crossing for GameCube.

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I read an August 31, 2026 article in SoraNews24 titled Tamagotchi evolves into a ring for its 30th anniversary, preorders now open. I had a Tamagotchi at some point in the 90s, but I do not think it left a big impression on me. But this headline made me think. Pokémon celebrated its 30th anniversary on February 27 of this year. Is Pokémon older than Tamagotchi? I would have probably tentatively guessed “no” had I been asked before seeing this SoraNews24 article, but the headline suggests that Pokémon is older. Unfortunately, the SoraNews24 report did not note when the first Tamagotchi was released. Onto internet research. My search for an authoritative resource led me to the Tamagotchi history page on the official U.S. website. I quote:

Tamagotchi was released on November 23, 1996.

Tamagotchi (U.S.) History of Tamagotchi Page

The original Pokémon Red and Green in Japan beat Tamagotchi by just under nine months. However, Tamagotchi was released just before the first copies of the Japanese Pokémon Blue were mailed out. Since the international Pokémon Red and Blue are based on the Japanese Pokémon Blue rather than the original Red and Green (which had been released on February 27, 1996), I suppose we can make a case that Pokémon only wins a partial victory as far as international audiences go.

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Pook-Emu Bee links are back today as we start the new work-week.

Yellow flower in Brooklyn. It glows because of the camera flash.
I took this photo on July 2, 2026. I “believe” it is in Columbia Street Waterfront District.

1 – Persona 30th Anniversary Paper Fragrances Feature Designs Announced (Orpheus Joshua for Noisy Pixel. August 9, 2026.)
I have been a Persona fan since I first played FES more than 16 years ago. I have been seeing one 30-year anniversary note after another. I am respectfully asking Sega’s marketing team to calm down. The shark has been jumped.

2 – Someone built a browser that generates every website from scratch, and it impressed me more than it should (Mahmoor Faisal for XDA Developers. August 8, 2026.)
I wouldn’t advertise being impressed by what Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony accurately described as being a “slop machine.” With that being said, I have no doubt that many more people will read about his mind being blown by a slop machine than my daily links, so what do I know?

3 – The Current Status of American Schools (Larry Sand for American Greatness. August 4, 2026.)
Could be better. But the administrators in New York City are doing great.

4 – NYC Council pushes slate of measures to address dangerous e-bikes (Craig McCarthy, Matthew Fischerri, Hannah Fierick, and Matt Troutman for the New York Post. August 4, 2026.)
It’s not enough, but it’s a start. Unfortunately, the start will have to contend with the anarcho-bikists and a Mayor who enables and encourages them, so count me on the “not optimistic” side.

5 – ReactOS Implements First Windows NT6 System Call In Step Toward Vista Compatibility (Michael Larabel for Phoronix. July 2, 2026.)
I had a decent experience with Vista so I think I’ll take my talents to ReactOS once they reach full Vista compatibility.

6 – BasicSync and Synctrain: solid apps for bringing Syncthing to phones (Rodrigo Ghedin. May 8, 2026.)
I don’t use iOS but I am glad to see that there is now a plausible, free, and open source Synthing option there (even granting the iOS-imposed limitations).

7 – Magic Magikarp Makes Moves (Ian Boss for Hackaday. December 5, 2025.)
Nintendo should be ashamed of itself for not coming up with this idea on its own.

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I have never been to Montana. Save for the occasional competitive U.S. Senate race, Montana is also not a common election hotspot. Thus, I never thought much about counties in Montana. I just learned that Great Falls, Montana, is in Cascade County. Do I see what they just did there? I see what they just did there. For seeing what they just did there, I will accept a Cascade Badge. Signed N.A. Ferrell from Kings County New York.

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Today is April 1. It is both April Fools and the first day of Passover (happy Passover to any Jewish readers!). I do not have a new April Fools joke prepared, but maybe there will be something April Fools-related in this edition of Pook-Emu Bee,

Links from around the web

1. Israel halts all defence purchases from ‘anti-Semitic’ France (Carl Deconinck for Brussels Signal. March 31, 2026.)

France has finally achieved what it has been passively aggressively working toward since October 7, 2023.

2. Judge Leon Blocked The East Wing Ballroom Based on Offended Observer Standing (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. March 31, 2026.)

This is a good legal analysis but Mr. Blackman failed to ask whether the public can claim offended observer standing against a legal decision which includes 18 exclamation points.

3. It May Be April Fool’s Day, But This Week’s Arcade Archives Release Is No Joke (Jack Yarwood for Time Extension. April 1, 2026.)

Should I buy this and learn shogi? I’m tempted…

4. Running a Game on a PC with no System RAM (Maya Posch for Hackaday. March 31, 2026.)

Nice preview of our game PC future after Sam Altman destroys all the RAM. Look, there are worse games out there than Snake. Years ago, my good friend Victor V. Gurbo had me play Life is Strange and Detroit: Become Human. I’d prefer Snake.

5. The email list cleaning conundrum (Matthew Guay for Buttondown Blog. September 26, 2025.)

I sit back and trust Buttondown to handle my email list clean-up.

6. ‘More AI Slop than AI Magic’: WSJ Reveals the Reason OpenAI Suddenly Shut Down Sora (Lucas Nolan for Breitbart. March 30, 2026.)

On one hand I struggle to believe that the people at OpenAI are as stupid as they want us to believe. On the other hand, they do like the taste of their own Kool Aid, so I can’t rule out the possibility.

April Fools

7. Expert Gamer’s 1999 Yoshi in Pokémon April Fools Prank (Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 1, 2021.)

My personal favorite video game April Fools joke from back in the day.

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I am writing an article about Marginalia Search. I wanted to check something on the search results page. Since Marginalia is good at turning up small web and vintage websites and articles, I decided to search for an old school unsung Pokémon. After thinking for about 15 seconds, I settled on Seadra. Seadra seems like a good choice for an obscure generation one Pokémon. It was a standard water-type Pokémon and final-stage evolution in generation one. It received a new evolution in generation two, turning Seadra into a middle-stage Pokémon (with a stat hit to boot). I will venture that very few kids back in my day focused their energy on evoloving Horsea into Seadra for their in-game teams. (Seadra did have a moment in the Orange Islands arc of the anime, however. I will submit for the record that I remembered the first Orange Islands gym leader used Seadra off the top of my head.)

I ran a search and saw what I wanted to see on the results page. Then I started scrolling through the actual results for the search query. The desciption for one result caught my attention:

Seadra Cosplay: A woman dressed in a vibrant blue and yellow costume, reminiscent of the Pokémon character Seadra. The woman’s hair is styled to resemble Seadra’s fins, adding an extra layer of authenticity to her cosplay. Her outfit features a flowing sk …

Seadra cosplay? I clicked the link. Sure enough, courtesy of Yerna Photography, there is a woman sitting a forest setting dressed as a Seadra. This photo is from 2019. I wonder how she became a Seadra fan. I will submit for the record that I have never understood cosplay despite being a well-documented anime fan. But in my non-expert opinion, here Seadra cosplay seems very well put together and thought out. I tip my hat both to the cosplay effort and photography and to giving what I consider to be an “obscure” generation one Pokémon a moment in the sun. (I wonder if she used Seadra when she was a kid.)

Cosplay aside, I like how the Yerna Photography site presents the photographs. On the Seadra page I liked to above, note the “Yerna Color Index” section which shows, and names, the eight most prominent colors in the image. Clicking on any colors takes the visitor to all photographs featuring that color. That is a great touch to go along with the standard metadata about the photograph and image description.

You never know what you will find on Marginalia Search…

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I have some pressing work-work to attend to today, but I will not let that stop me from publishing my daily Pook-Emu Bee links last week. If you enjoy the (almost) daily links and commentary, you can also follow via feed.

Links from around the web

1. Pakistan air strike kills at least 100 at Kabul drug rehab centre (Yama Bariz and Simon Fraser for BBC. March 17, 2026.)

I see that BBC is trying to turn Pakistan into the “Israel” of the Muslim world but I don’t think the usual pro-Hamas suspects in the West are going to work themselves up for the Taliban. Of course, the Pakistani military’s problem is more whether the Taliban’s Hamas-PR strategy works with Pakistanis in Pakistan.

2. Horrific stomach bug that wipes out cruise ships rips across California (James Gant for the New York Post. March 16, 2026.)

You will never find me on a cruise.

3. Favorite bakeries in our neighborhoods in Brooklyn (Brooklyn Bridge Parents. February 26, 2026.)

Based on the neighborhoods I am thoroughly familiar with in this article… I think they more or less covered every bakery.

4. Revisiting The Barkley Rockets: Was He Worth It? (Harlan Schreiber for Hoops Analyst. September 8, 2023.)

The Rockets came two games short of the NBA Finals in the first of four Barkley seasons. Because it is less than clear that not trading for Mr. Barkley would have allowed the Rockets to make one final championship run in the Olajuwon era, we cannot be too hard on the trade.

5. “The Single Best Game Concept Ever” – Pokémon-Inspired Devs Talk The Series That Started It All (Jim Norman for Nintendo Life. March 2, 2026.)

Poké-clones would be more interested if they focused on what the original Pokémon games tried to capture than the specific mechanics.

6. LibreOffice blasts ‘fake open source’ OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in (David Uzondu for Neowin. February 20, 2026.)

I like and use LibreOffice, but I do not like this line of attack. It runs afoul of the principles I articulated in my 2022 essay about gaming on Linux. While I too prefer “open formats,” some people looking for Word alternatives may want, for fair reasons, an alternative that prefers .docx. There is room for more than one option out there.

Clicking “Random Article” on NLJ

7. Zero Gravity Foreshadowing in Super Mario Sunshine (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. September 19, 2022.)

I read a contemporaneous interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about Super Mario Sunshine. His use of the phrase (translated as, of course) “zero-gravity platformer” made me wonder whether he was already thinking about/working on the concept for the future Super Mario Galaxy.

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I was inconsistent in publishing daily Pook-Emu Bee links last week. But I am on the ball this week. If you enjoy the (almost) daily links and commentary, you can also follow via feed.

Links from around the web

1. Japanese Pokémon Pokopia player invents fully automated resource-collecting facility, but it involves Pokémon slavery (Carlos “Zoto” Zotomayor for Automation West. March 16, 2026.)

This reminds me that I need to play Pokémon Black/White 1 and 2.

2. The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten Season 2 Main Trailer Unveils Masayoshi Ōishi’s Opening Song (Joanna Cayanan for Anime News Network. March 16, 2026.)

This reminds me that I need to catch up on the better part of three anime seasons (although I will watch Angel Next Door as a simulcast given my extensive coverage of it).

3. Swastika scrawled on Brooklyn building as antisemitic attacks increase in NYC (Barbara Russo-Lennon for AMNY. March 15, 2026.)

The offensive graffiti was found on the facade, near the entrance, of a vacant storefront at 16 Court St. in Brooklyn Heights on March 13.

16 Court Street is Downtown Brooklyn (and third world), not Brooklyn Heights. The journalists need to stop trying to make everything Brooklyn Heights.

4. Memory Suppliers Are Actually Worried the Demand Boom Won’t Last ‘Too Long’, and Are Already Rethinking Expansion Plans (Muhammad Zuhair for wccftech. March 15, 2026.)

I hope that they are right. 2028 would not be too bad, all things considered.

5. Bam Adebayo Broke Kobe’s Record, and it Felt Underwhelming (Garrison Giddens. March 11, 2026.)

I haven’t followed the NBA too closely in the last decade but it is nice to see that the Kobe people are still irrationally sensitive (note that Mr. Giddens’ article is fine, but it references a trend I read about in other posts on the matter). For whatever it is worth, Kobe’s 81 was not a “record” since the record is Wilt Chamberlain’s 100, and I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that Adebayo’s 83-point performance (or Chamberlain’s 100 for that matter) were more impressive than Bryant’s 81 in 2006 against the Raptors. Of course, if we are just looking at Bryant, his 81 against the Raptors was arguably less impressive than his 62 in three quarters against a much better Dallas Mavericks squad a few weeks prior.

6. Spring pollen may be damaging your skin, so what’s Japan’s best moisturizing anti-hay fever spray? (Elliot Hale for SoraNews24. March 8, 2026.)

I never heard of hay fever spray. I remain more concerned with my sinuses than my skin.

On this day in NLJ history

7. 1880 Children’s Guide For Drawing Leaves (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. March 16, 2022.)

I can’t draw leaves. I can barely draw stick figures. But maybe you can draw leaves? If you want to draw leaves, I shared an 1880 guide four years to the day.

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I recently read about the announcement of the generation 10 Pokémon entries, Winds and Waves. I have yet to actually play through Scarlet and Violet and have no current plans to buy a Switch 2, so I may not be the place to go for a review of the new entries. But I can still offer my immediate first impression, or should I say question? Do we think Waves will have too much water? (For whatever it is worth the “too much water” quip got at a real issue in the original Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.)

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It is time four our daily Pook-Emu Bee links. If you enjoy the links, you can follow via feed (although I personally recommend following the main site feed for all of my postings).

Links from around the web

1. RFK Jr. Announces Plan to Teach Americans to Cook (Elizabeth Weibel for Breitbart. March 4, 2026.)

I support encouraging Americans to make their own food with real ingredients, both in and of itself and for keeping our HHS Secretary out of trouble. With that being said, I fear his proposed recipies may be a little too steak-heavy for me. (Steak is good of course, provided it is well-done and done in moderation.)

2. Columbia Anti-Israel Organizer, Now a New York City Social Worker, Calls For Zionists To ‘Burn In Hell’ (Jessia Costescu for The Washington Free Beacon. March 3, 2026.)

If you told me this was the moderate position for social workers with degrees from Columbia, I’d be willing to believe you.

3. Substantive Due Process After Mirabelli (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. March 3, 2026.)

I’m hearing the entrance music for Justice Thomas’s “Privileges and Immunities” concurrence in McDonald v. Chicago.

4. “Entry-Level PC Segment Will Disappear by 2028,” Says Gartner, as Soaring Memory Costs Start to Cripple Manufacturers (Muhammad Zuhair for Wccftech. March 1, 2026.)

I’m more concerned about the “build your own PC” segment disappearing due to cost-prohibitive RAM and other components, but that ship is already circumnavigating the globe.

5. Kevin Durant: face of the NBA Internet Era (Molly Morrison. February 26, 2026.)

Far be it from me to give life advice to one of the greatest scorers (and players) in NBA history, but I think he would be better off starting his own website to share his learned perspective on basketball than continuing to post from various acounts on X.

6. Geese in the Snow in Brooklyn Bridge Park (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. March 3, 2026.)

Honk.

Clicking the “Random Article” button on NLJ

Video Game Stories and Standing the Test of Time (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. September 28, 2022.)

I had to skim this article to remember it, but I see I published it to subtly commemorate what was then the 24th anniversary of the release of Pokémon Red and Blue in the United States. I focused on qualities that can make video games timeless, with an emphasis on good story aesthetics and ways to engage the player. It is not my most incisive games essay, but I think it stands up well (I am adding “related articles” to it since I had not done so before.)

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Replied to Feature: 30 Pokémon You Probably Forgot That Deserve A Second Chance by Tim Rattray (Nintendo Life)
While the most popular Pokémon take centre stage for the franchise’s 30th anniversary, I figured space should be made to honour the PokéMisfits that didn’t stand the test of time. These include oddities that only the staunchest Poké Maniacs will recall, others of minor notoriety that deserve more love, and phased-out mascots. While they may be easily written off as sideshows, these Pokémon still played roles (in some cases, infamously) in keeping the franchise on top for all these years.

Tim Rattay of Nintendo Life published a list of Pokémon which he believe deserve a “second chance.” His list is solid. I thought about my own contributions, limiting myself to Pokémon which (A) I do not perceive to be especially popular and (B) that have not received updates (such as new forms, evolutions, or pre-evolutions) or prominence (competitive or otherwise) in recent entries. I will submit Hypno, a generation one psychic Pokémon that was horrifically punished by the generation two special split but also arguably achieved its power apex thanks to being able to be traded from the generation two games to the generation one games with Amnesia. Alas, the special split more or less rendered Hypno, a cool Pokémon, offensively impotent from generation two on. Game Freak should right that wrong (for Dewgong as well as Hypno). NLJ readers may know the Hypno line has a special place in my heart thanks to my catching a shiny Drowzee in Pokémon Gold way back when.

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I am late with today’s selection of Pook-Emu Bee Links, but we need not allow a backlog to form (I have enough backlog as it is).

1. The Eerie ‘Blood’ Moon Will Grace the Night Sky Next Week, Thanks to a Total Lunar Eclipse (Margherita Bassi for Smithsonian Magazine. February 27, 2026.)

Sounds neat but New York City does not look like the best place to see it (but I did see the recent Supermoons so we can call it a wash).

2. “Finally, we have a president who…” (Scott Johnson for PowerLine. March 1, 2026.)

Quoting the always-insightful Mike Doran on his tenure working in the G.W. Bush Administration:

When I went to work in the White House in 2005, I was shocked to learn just how geared the American national security establishment was toward appeasing the thugs in Tehran.

3. Switch 2’s GameCube Nintendo Classics Service Adds Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness Game in March (Alex Mateo for Anime News Network. March 27, 2026.)

I liked Pokémon Colosseum. For whatever reason, I did not get XD Gale of Darkness back in the day (despite having enjoyed Colosseum). Came to regret it. This would be my chance but I have no plans at the moment to buy a Switch 2 (much less whatever subscription tier one would need to play GameCube games).

4. Child predator dubbed ‘monster parents fear most’ cleared for release through California parole program (Stepheny Price for Fox News. February 25, 2026.)

I’ve seen wacky parole board antics in New York but taking up the cause of pedophiles (7 and under pedophiles) doing 20 years plus three consecutive 25-to-life sentences is still an attention-grabber.

5. B-2 Spirits Join Iran Air War, Pummel Underground Missile Caves (Tyler Rogoway for The War Zone. March 1, 2026.)

The superpower round-trip bombing runs from Missouri to Iran are back.

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Welcome to edition four of my Pook-Emu Bee links of the day. Pokemon turns 30 today (although as an American, its birthday from my perspective is September 28, 1998), so we will need some links for the occasion.

1. Imagination in Pokémon Red and Blue (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. November 18, 2022.) & Winds of New Beginnings: Pokémon Gold & Silver (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. October 15, 2020.)

I published these two Pokémon essays on the generation one and two games respectively, although my generation two essay came first. I played the first Pokémon games when they were new and can offer back-in-my-day lectures about Poke-mania in 1998-99, so everyone can enjoy my old man insights. You can find more on-theme articles in my Pokémon tag.

2. DeMar DeRozan says Toronto taxes cost him millions before the trade: “I felt like I’ve been getting robbed for nine years of my life” (Peter Sunjic for Basketball Network. February 27, 2026.)

I discussed in brief the 2018 trade which sent DeMar DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs as part of a package which brought Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors in my recent NBA Champions After Losing MVPs/All NBA Players essay. While the Raptors “won” the trade in that they won the 2018-19 NBA Championship (albeit it was a short-lived win since Mr. Leonard then bolted for the Los Angeles Clippers), Mr. DeRozan played very well for the Spurs and won in a different sense. As he explained, he received a raise without a new contract thanks to the difference between taxes in Texas and California.

3. Google rolls out Nano Banana 2 with faster, high-fidelity image generation for all users (Paul for AlternativeTo. February 27, 2026.)

In addition to leveraging real-world data and images from web search for more accurate subject representation, Nano Banana 2 can create infographics, turn notes into diagrams, and generate data visualizations.

My first thought was that many “users” who otherwise create nothing will use this to generate images based off the work of people who actually publish their own photographs or draw their own images. But on second thought, I have a feeling that the AI image generators will end up training off each other.

4. NYC politicians, activists urge closing of live poultry markets (Chris Harris for the New York Post. February 22, 2025.)

This post has been in my Newsletter to-use backlog for more than a year. It is probably too dated for the newsletter. But let it be said I approve of banning live poultry markets in the middle of New York City. There used to be a filthy one in the middle of the otherwise residential Columbia Street Waterfront District. Smelled awful. Then there was one on Second Avenue, just past Industry City, that I waked by once on my way to Bay Ridge. I almost died from the smell.

5. Do Good Politics Make for Good Grammar? Users of Grammarly Receive Prompts on Supporting Ukraine (Jonathan Turley. November 30, 2025.)

I don’t receive any prompts from Grammarly. You don’t need Grammery when your already perfect.

 

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I read an interview on the excellet Johto Times Pokémon site with “Blue Articuno,’ the creator of a Pokémon fan-site called Mount Moon. I liked one of the questions:

You were one of the many kids who grew up with Pokémon from the very beginning, when it launched internationally back in 1998. What are some of your earliest memories of the franchise?

Johto Times

Blue Articuno had a great answer:

The awe of turning on Pokémon Red for the first time and hearing that startup jingle. I loved the classic Sugimori art and the GB Games and the sprite art from that era as well.

Blue Articuno

The answer continued, but I like that first part. I received my copy of Pokémon Red red for Christmas in 1998 after having already become a fan of the TV show and cards. It has an all-time opening. You feel like you are about to go on a grand adventure.

I will offer my own little take-away. I appreciate that the Pokémon phenomenon as it was could have only existed when it did. I published a fun piece a couple of years ago on Pokémon urban legends of the day. Many strange rumors about the Pokémon games and universe spread due largely to incomplete information about the second generation Pokémon games, Gold and Silver, making there way to the internet and being misinterpreted on internet fora and warped by kids with vivid imaginations. Let us not forget how the many glitches in Pokémon Red and Blue added fuel to the fire. Had Pokémon made its way to the United States earlier, the rumors may not have taken off in the way they did. If it came later, better information on the internet and about the Pokémon series generally would have nipped them in the bud.