>>49891601I played gen 1 in sixth grade. I was really into Pokémon, including going to events and later playing the card game in card stores. By the second half of middle school, I was more into Magic The Gathering. By high school, I was a marching band person with a girlfriend, and advanced classes, so there wasn’t much time for Pokémon. Remote work in 2020 and 2021 gave me time to catch up on a lot of things I put down years ago. By early 2021, I dusted off a 3DS with Pokémon White I bought in 2011 (but never finished the game). Started a new save. For some reason, I was hooked this time. Spent the rest of 2021 playing the rest of the 3DS games in order, Black, BW2, X&Y, ORAS, SM, and USUM. I had never played past White, so jumping through the generations was kind of mind blowing. By the fall, I had a Switch with Let’s Go, SwSh, and later BDSP. Finally, PLA went way beyond my expectations, giving me the experience I dreamed about as a kid playing Red on GameBoy pocket (my context for a 3D open world Pokémon game was N64 Legend of Zelda games). I feel like I really stumbled upon a good year to get back into Pokémon.
