Pokemon came out in the states when I was 3 or 4 years old so I can’t remember my first experience with it. One of the earliest things I can remember is after I beat Misty, I saw that Starmie was in my Pokedex. Because it was in my Pokedex I thought that meant that I owned it but my brother quickly corrected me and I was disappointed. It probably would have helped if I knew how to read when I played the game lol. When I talk to my Mom about Pokemon she likes to bring up how helpful it was when I was learning how to read which I think is awesome.
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great thread idea!
playing blue on gameboy as a wee lad and watching in dismay as my charmeleon died repeatedly to brock. restarted with bulbasaur and the rest is histo
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Haha, this the exact reason I went with Squirtle. I think I almost had a Charizard by the time I was going up against Misty. I was so young that I didn’t fully grasp all the Pokemon differences and thought Charmander was the weakest starter because I struggled so much against Brock & Misty early on. Even Mt. Moon with all the Geodudes popping up drove me nuts. Meanwhile my Squirtle/Wartortle just walked over them.
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I actually do remember the famous seizures incident making the news, possibly because at the time the Sailor Moon anime was running on TV (I guess Sailor-MOON and Poké-MON, is in a way, similar), and the incident was just so unusual. In fact it’s one of the earlier world events I definitely can exactly recall from my childhood (among others are Bob Dole falling off a faux balcony and the death of Princess Diana).
I remember the anime being advertised on TV some months later and watched it from the very beginning. Didn’t get into collecting cards until they had been around for a while, and didn’t play Pokémon Red until even later.
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trying to play while riding in the car at night, waiting to pass a streetlamp so I could see for 2 seconds. Had a worm light eventually too… Wonder if I still have it.
Navigating rock cave without Flash?
Pshh.
Playing the game in the dark before backlights. 
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4 standout early memories from JoshB’s childhood ca. 1999:
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Being introduced to Pokémon cards on the playground when a friend showed me their base set Ponyta and Diglett, and being instantly mesmerised.
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Dad taking me to Toys R Us to buy my first Pokémon cards, a Brushfire theme deck.
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Pulling a Zapdos from a booster pack and a stupid kid straight away trying to scam me out of it by offering a beaten up fake Mewtwo.
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Seeing a shadowless base zard for the first time, which was on sale for £20, stuck up in a card sleeve on the back wall of a shop in town. The feeling of awe seeing that card has never been matched since.
Got plenty more specific memories but those are my earliest!
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That moment when I started to collect pokemon is when I saw Blaine’s Magmar vs Ash’es Charizard.
Magmar was too cool (spoilers) sadly lost from Ash’es Charizard. Lol great episode. How Ash use Pikachu and Magmar popped up from the lava like a beast. Getting Goosebumps might have to buy the dvd with that episode for safe keeping. 
Great episode. Now I collect PSA magmars n magby
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20 plus years spoilers 
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If you start with Charmander, the trick is to just keep using Growl on Onix so it does basically nothing when it uses Bide. Then just Ember away because both Geodude and Onix have pitiful Special stats.
Or, if you want to take the longer way, catch a Caterpie in Viridian Forest, evolve it into Butterfree and level Butterfree up until it learns Confusion.
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That’s what I did. Got Butterfree
facts
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This is a fantastic question! I haven’t really thought of my first memory in years but it still stands out to me.
I was in 5th grade and I noticed a bunch of my friends were all huddled around in a circle. Turns out our friend Chris had some Pokemon cards and everyone was super into it right away. I wasn’t too big on some of the cards but I did find it fascinating. But then he showed me some of his holos - one of which was an Alakazam, and I was immediately hooked. I wanted that card so badly. He said he’d trade it if I got two Arcanine’s. The next few weeks, Pokemon exploded onto the playground and I couldn’t ignore it after the first month or two and finally got my first pack. I pulled a Dragonair which I still have to this day. 
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I remember a lot of tears from never pulling the base charizard. So much so that my mom had to make an ebay to just buy one. Funny to think that pokemon is all we did on ebay in 1999 and its all I do on ebay now.
my pulls still suck though
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My pulls also are not the best still. I never did get that charizard as a kid but now as an adult I can finally get those base set holos
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