What was your first contact with the Pokemon world?

[J9794]

Pokemon has to be the saga that made the greatest impact on me when I was young, I watched the show, played the videogame, the TGC, I even have a pokemon board game that I got in my birthday like 15 years ago, and to this day I still play the videogames.
But, how did it all started? I don't remember exactly, but I recall playing Pokemon Red, Yellow and Pinball on an emulator on my computer (even though I didn't know what an emulator was at the time), it was funny because the emulator and the ROMs were run from a CD that was set as ReadOnly, so I was unable to save and I had to restart the game everytime I played, which made me almost know by heart the first cities and gyms from the game and made finally evolving to Charizard one of the best things ever.
Also, my first TGC card from a pre-made deck (I still have it somewhere) :

And, I had a VHS with some chapters from the anime, the samurai one with the Metapod battle, and the Clefairys one with the mad scientists and Brock catching his Zubat.

What do you remember about your early days when you met Pokemon for the first time?

 

[Valkyri]

I remember the first time I heard of Pokemon was when my brother got the Game Boy Colour and had gotten Pokemon Fire Red for it. At the time I was still pretty much a kid, so I didn't show it too much interest until my brother finished it. He told me that it was the best game he played in a while, but I wasn't allowed to play it so naturally I snuck it away and played a bit on his file. I had a lot of fun with it, so I asked my parents to get me Emerald when it came around. I think that got me hooked on Pokemon as a whole, I think I maxed out my time on Emerald and got my pokedex completely finished with the help of some friends.

When the DS games started coming out, I was at the age where I couldn't really rely on my parents to buy me stuff anymore, so I held out on getting a DS for a while. Overtime, I completely forgot about Pokemon itself until I got my 3DS and heard that ORAS was coming out. Seeing the original game that got me into Pokemon remade was pretty awesome, although it did take me awhile to get used to all the generations of Pokemon and type additions I missed.

Other than that, I kinda grew up away from the Pokemon TCG scene, I lived in a pretty rural area, so finding a group of kids who had cards was a slim chance.

Going away from games in general, when the anime started getting aired over where I lived (which took a little bit) , it was a difficult for me to watch it as my brother would watch Digimon that would be on at the same time. My dad managed to get around that with some weird VHS tape trickery so I was able to watch all the episodes anytime I wanted in my room. I haven't really seen any Pokemon episodes lately, but it seems that it's picked up a little in terms of story and animation with X and Y.

 

[Iridium Winter]

My first contact was watching the tv show when I was little. Took a while before I got the game, though haha

 

[KnighddDd]

It was Pokemon platinum when it came out mah first Pkmn game , then i stopped playing games once i completed Platinum and started watching the show, bought Hg and Ss in launch date and also bought B/w on release date i bought Y 3 months after it came out and got OR/AS b4 it even came out lol

 

[2205]

It was with the game, but at the time I didn't know what I was looking at. A friend had this gameboy with the game and was trying to explain me how the link to connect was working. I was so fascinated! Less than a month later, I discovered the show. I fell in love

 

[Alex]

The first time I played Pokemon, and the first time I even saw a Pokemon in-game, was with Pokemon Red. It already had a save data in it, so I loaded it up and it had an Aerodactyl. I'll never forget that >.<

 

[3905]

My first time with pokemon was with crystal. I played the game a lot and loved it to death as a 5 year old. I would always train my starter the most and catch almost every new pokemon I found. I remember having to spend hours preparing for a gym or strong trainer. I even battled a lot just to buy lots of pokeballs whenever I went after legendaries. Wow a lot of time has passed since then, feels like I was doing all this last year or so.

 

[blinboy]

I don't really remember; I've always seen Pokemon TGC cards lying around (this was the mid 2000s, when it was *relatively* more popular), and I remember seeing bits and pieces of the anime, mainly seasons 1 and 2. I also owned Pokemon 2000, Mewtwo Returns, and Pokemon: The Movie (the first one) and remember watching Pokemon 2000 a ton when I was younger (don't judge, I was bored). Anyways, I was a kid and loved the movie/TV show (I still do, although I've got to catch up 10 seasons; I know it's repetitive, but still... ) Sooo basically when I started playing Pokemon games, it was like I was touching holy ground (I apologize for being blasphemous). I first played HG/SS, which was amazing, then D/P/Pt, which was just as amazing. Even now, I regard Gen IV as the paradigm of what Pokemon is supposed to be.

 

[litleo2985]

My first contact with the Pokemon world was through the anime. Shortly after that I borrowed my friends copy of Pokemon Blue. After a few months I got my first Pokemon game Pokemon Yellow. Since then I have played and own every generation and have every Pokemon movie. I even still watch the anime saga. Pokemon to me is the best franchise in the world. Looking forward what's in store for the future.

 

[Starry Windy]

I started to know Pokemon when I seen it in one of the magazine, and at that time, the Pokemon anime was already booming, that I started to watch the show as well. I still remember going to neighbor's house just to watch Pokemon anime in VCD back then. And then, I saw my cousin playing several Pokemon games that I started to like it a lot.

 

[Real_MissingNO]

For me it was Emerald I was 6 years old. I would always train my starter the most and catch almost every newPokemon I found. I remember having to spend hours preparing for a gym or strong trainer. I killed Rayquazia because I thought he was the bag guy. My first encounter with Pokeballs was a Shiny Poocheyna which lives on in 4th gen as a level 89 Mightyena nicknamed goldey. My final Team was Swampert nicknamed Noah Beatifly nicknamed Jimmy Shiny Mightyena named Jack Pelliper nicknamed Peecko Tropious with no nickname and a Swellow with no nickname

 

[Danny]

My first contact with the Pokemon world was through the anime from very first look of pokemon show i was love in with pokemon world

Then about 3 or 2 year later i played my first pokemon game which was pokemon emerald and i really like it and on my 14 birthday my parents bought me 3ds and a pokemon game .

 

[Mikaya]

It was the anime that dragged me into the Pokemon world! the first ever series when it aired in 1996 (if I remember correctly). I was a little kid back then, and I was pretty much hooked onto the series. My brother bought Pokemon cards for me every other day, and I had some powerful decks and a huge collection. I used to battle my friends who lived close to me.

 

[Jyoster134]

To me my first contact with pokemon was thanks to a friend of mine that showed me the game Pokemon Ruby. That was when I was around 6 years old. Since then, I wanted to get a pokemon game of my one. When Gen 4 came around, that's when I got my first Pokemon game, Pokemon Ranger shadows of Almia. After that, I got many pokemon games later down the line.

So yeah, Thinking of it now made me realized how much time has past.

(Edited)
I forgot to mention that I also had a N64. With I had pokemon stadium, ah good times.

 

[Troy21]

My first contact with the Pokemon world was the trading card game. I always collected them, never used them once, and hoarded them. Then when i saw the TV show, I was astounded and i fell in love with the awesome, cool world of Pokemon. After a while, a managed to get Pokemon Black , then I got Pokemon Black 2, then I got Pokemon White, Then I got Pokemon pearl, and beat all of them. Then Only 2 years ago i Got my first actual awesome Pokemon game that i really enjoyed. Pokemon X and Y. Now i have all of those + Omega ruby and Alpha sapphire

 

[picachurocks123]

My first contact with pokemon world was when I was really little and my cousing showed me pokemon yellow in the computer with a emulator. I was so confused and excited at the same time :v. I didn't knew what to do at first so I just trained my pokemon in the grass so they become unbeatable. When I arrived the first city and beated Brook I feel so proud of myself .

 

[Dreamsinthestars]

My first contact was probably with the show. I never really watched it much though. In fact, the whole reason why I started playing Pokemon was because one of my friends at the time loved it. We would pretend to battle imaginary Pokemon and sometimes I'd watch as he played one of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team games. That game was what lead me to buying my first Pokemon game: Pokemon Leaf Green. I choose a Bulbasaur and creatively named it "Leaf" haha

 

[Pandaxclone2]

To be quite honest I'm not sure what my first contact with Pokemon was, but I know it was either the anime show or one of the first two films. That's the earliest memory I have of Pokemon. Later on I must've picked up Pokemon Blue because of it and got stuck trying to figure out what to do next after beating Lt. Surge (Who knew you had to backtrack? Crazy. )

 

[Mizunil]

My earliest memory was when my sister used to like Pokemon she played Emerald. And I played a little but i had no idea what i was doing. Then i just started watching Pokemon. And i became a big fan.

 

[Livada]

I don't recall the exact first touch with Pokemon but I remember me and my brother getting up every morning and watching and recording Pokemon shows. Still to this day it is my favorite memory. Next thing I remember is collecting those Pokemon coins (or whatever they are called). They were in bags of chips and my parents bought us a ton of chips and we ate it like crazy and we collected and entire bigger bag of those coins. I don't where they are now though I didn't collect cards as I was too poor and first game I played was Pokemon Sapphire on an emulator. It was just like @J9794 , I got it on a CD and was unable to save progress so everytime I wanted to play I had to start over, and i remember hapiness when I finaly evolved my Marshtomp into Swampert for the first time. Swampert is my first Pokemon starter love and still is to this day