>>27148318>The only people who "feel like trainers" are people who haven't picked up the game in 15 years.I've been playing pokemon games straight since I got Red for Christmas during Pokemania. I am not a "normie", as you /r9k/ cast-offs like to term, nor am I an autistic sperglord like a good portion of this board. Just a dude in grad school.
I downloaded Go because, despite hearing from friends who beta-tested it, I heard it was fun and I thought, "What the hell, why not?"
I was in my kitchen with my girlfriend when I finally got the game to load. Willow did his spiel and then I saw on the map the starters. So far, it was just like the games where you're just a sprite on a grid interacting with other sprites.
And then, the AR clicked in. I was suddenly holding a pokeball and there was a bulbasaur on my kitchen counter. It was no longer some routine that took place in the tutorial, it was no longer just another pokemon game, there was a bulbasaur in my kitchen. Do you know what that feeling is like? When suddenly something that was your escape from a shitty period of your life, when something that helped connect you and your siblings, when something that played such a massive role in your childhood, something that you only thought was a simulation on a computer screen, suddenly gets brought into the realm of reality? To see that pokemon there in front of you? To be the one physically throwing the ball at the pokemon? To curse when you overshot the throw and realized that this wasn't just pressing a button? That feeling of elation when you caught that pokemon, not some trainer, not some sprite, but you?
Do you know what that's like to suddenly realize that you are a pokemon trainer? That years of escapism and fantasy, of memories with your family suddenly coming to life in a way you never thought possible?
This is every child that grew up wanting to be something, wanting to be the hero, the adventurer, suddenly having the power to do that in their hands.
