POKEMON

When I was little, my parents never let me play video games, they wanted me to read books instead and focus on school stuff. Which was fine, but I feel like I missed out on a lot of the experiences with Pokemon that many people in my generation got. Either way, once I was allowed to play video games, I immediately became curious about Pokemon. I saw my brother struggling to get past the Jubilife clowns in Diamond, and after helping him figure that out, I wanted to get my own game. So I asked my parents to take me to Kmart, and I got Pokemon Platinum, I remember it was $35 (imagine if it was still worth that little). When I got home, I sat on my bed with my brother and he watched me start up the game that would forever change my life.

I played almost 500 hours on that save file, probably more actually if you consider that I did do a lot of soft resetting/closing without saving for certain things. I even got pokerus legitimately from how much I played. I kept up with every event I heard about, so I ended up with a very well rounded national dex. I miss playing in the underground for hours with my brother and my cousin; decorating our secret bases and setting traps. I miss the contests, even though I wasn't great at them.

I still have the original cartridge, as well as the box it came in, and the original save file too. I did move my team out of it though, after a scare I had with my copy of Animal Crossing New Leaf corrupting, I was terrified that that would happen to my Pokemon, so I moved them all to bank, and later Home. For a while they were stuck there, but with BDSP's release, I was hopeful that I could play with them once more, and even though it took a while, the day that BDSP implemented home support, I transfered them back to their home region, over a decade later.