HAPPY 15th ANNIVERSARY OF POKéMON GOLD IN THE U.S. EVERYONE!
Pokemon Gold Version was and still is the most anticipated video game release of my entire life. It was the first time I had pre-ordered anything. My mom put the money down at Toys ‘R’ Us for me and gave me the receipt for my birthday on September 2nd. For an entire month and a half I stared at that slip of paper and waited, and pored over the issue of Beckett Pokemon Collector Magazine that had art and Japanese names for all of the new Pokemon. What could their typings possibly be?! I don’t think I ever could have expected a Water AND Electric type Pokemon, let alone Flying AND Ground!
October 15th, 2000 was a Sunday, and I remember going to the Toys ‘R’ Us to pick up the pre-order after having gotten the weekly groceries. I remember the shiny gold of the box, and setting the clock at the beginning of the game (woah!) and having to ask my family whether it was Daylight Savings or not. I was deathly afraid of getting it wrong and somehow messing up the game. I played in the backseat of the car all the way home, and it was late, so I pinched one of several small car-flashlights kept specifically for night time GameBoy playing in our car between my chin and chest, aimed at the GameBoy Color screen. I picked Totodile on my first play-through, but, having become enamored with Typhlosion by the time I had gotten Feraligatr, I reset my file and picked Cyndaquil, who is by now my favorite Gen. II starter.
It’s been fifteen years and two battery replacements to my original Gold cartridge since that night, and it is still my favorite Pokemon Game, maybe even my favorite GameBoy game. Every pre-order I’ve placed and picked up since then, and every midnight release reminds me of what is most important to me about gaming: holding the brand new box in your hands, peeling off the shrink wrap, investigating the manual, and loading up the game for the first time, knowing you’re about to explore something brand new, a whole world made by someone else with all of the places, ideas, love, and monsters put into it that are most important to them.
Happy Anniversary, everybody. I’m going to catch up on my own monster drawing today, as well as start a new file on my Gold Version. I hope you all share your thoughts and memories about Generation II today, too!
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