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Over two years ago, I found out my then-four year-old cousin LOVES pokemon. He loved it so much that he'd hops around his house shouting "Pikachu! Pikachu! Pikachu! Pikachu!" Since his parents didn't have any of the games, he pretends that he's a pokemon trainer by throwing toys around in his basement and shouting, "I choose you, [pokemon and mostly Pikachu]!" Well, I decided to let him play around on the Pokemon: Flora Sky hack on my phone and he loved it... Until he wanted to play using a pikachu.
Not only did I have no clue where pikachus were in the hack, I wasn't even all the way through the game, so I didn't know if I could get to where they were. Still, I promised him that if he behaved while he and his brother were at a live Elmo show, I'd have a pikachu for him when I got back from the gym.
At the gym, I was trying to figure out what I could do. He'd already seen and was expecting GBA graphics, so I couldn't just download a rom of Yellow. I was about to look for a FRLG rom, not knowing how long it would take to find a pikachu in Viridian forest, but then I thought of something. There had to be a hack of Fire Red out there that was essentially Yellow version for the GBA. I did a quick scour of the Internet and, sure enough, found a good one.
For the rest of my time at the gym, I got weird looks from people as a 27 year-old man played pokemon while finishing his workout and then while sitting in his car. I got him past the boring intro (including naming the main character after him), the parcel mini-quest, caught him a few back-up pokes for fighting Brock, and got a few levels on them. All of that was worth it when I got back to their house and watched his very first trainer battle be a pikachu-sweep against Gary Oak outside of Viridian City.
I don't know what that little guy is going to be when he grows up, but I hope he becomes the very best at it, like no one ever was.
