>>56806868picture this. You're a kid who understands coding about as well as nuclear fission. As far as you're aware the games were made with voodoo witchcraft. You are aware by now that there are rare pokemon encounters. You're used to games at thetime being filled with all sorts of secrets and easter eggs. Datamining is nonexistant, and all knowledge beyond that which people have personally discovered comes from notoriously incorrect guidebooks and nintendo power(which told you dragonite can evolve into yoshi). Playground rumors are abound about rare unseen pokemon and secrets. You've already seen the entire lavender town story where a literal ghost possesses people to suck blood so strangness is nothing new. Then you here tales about a hidden pokemon who can be found right next to this strange abandoned mansion where experiments were conducted. All you need to do is supposedly talk toan old man, fly to cinnabar, and surf. You're expecting a tentacool when you enter a battle, but something's different. There's a pause, the battle isn't happening. Then you're met with something you've never seen before. Not in any guide book or anime, or against your friends. This completely foreign thing that not only can you battle, but you can catch. You're young and naive so you don't understand that this is a freak coding quirk that by some sheer unfathomable coincidence is almost completely stable and functions. To you a weird never before seen pokemon has just appeared. In that moment you weren't playing a game, you were in the pokemon world, amazed at a brand new discovery in the ever growing mystery that is these fantastical creatures. You want to know where it came from, what it is, why it's bird type, and why it leveled "up" from 100 to 80 and then evolved into a kangaskhan.
That sort of immersion sticks with you.
