TroytlePower

I grew up loving Pokémon. I remember the very first time I saw a kid at school playing the Blue version on a GameBoy pocket in the library, and went home asking for it that day. I competed in a tournament at a mall, once, and reset my save file because I heard you’d be disqualified if you’d used any cheats, and was worried that the Rare Candy exploit would count. I think I only got a “participant” gym badge, but I still got a Mew for showing up. I collected, traded, and played the Pokémon Trading Card Game, even going so far as to buy random Japanese packs from the Asian grocery store to get cards none of my friends had ever seen.

I kept buying the games as I grew up, but somewhere along the way, I stopped finishing them. I’m pretty sure I played through all of Gens 1, 2, and 3, and I think I beat Diamond, but I know I didn’t finish X/Y, whichever it was that I had. For Sun/Moon, we bought a 2DS so my wife and I could play together, but we dropped off part way through. I tried Let’s Go, and while the changes they made were interesting, they didn’t do it for me.

I never really stopped liking the idea of the series, though, so I’ve never stopped being excited when a new one gets announced. With that mindset, I was already pretty interested in Gen8 before today’s Nintendo Direct, and about a minute after it started my excitement levels were through the roof.

It’s got random battles again! It’s got different clothing options! It’s got big, rustic looking towns! and it’s absolutely gorgeous!

You got me, Pokémon. I’m back in. I might even pull out my copy of Moon and finish it off while I wait.

Oh, and I’ve got perpetual dibs on Grookey. You can and should admire them, but they are my starter, not your’s.

Oh! And Detective Pikachu looks totally great, too! Who would ever have thought that’d work?