Is Gen 1 Nostalgia Different From Other Gen Nostalgia?

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I’ve kinda been pondering about this. See, my first Pokemon games were Ruby and Sapphire. I’d of course seen the anime and everything beforehand, so I was a fan of the franchise but more so only through that and a bit of the card game of course. I didn’t play through the games that came before Ruby, only seeing them when my friends would bring them over.

Gen 1 and Kanto are obviously extremely popular, and I can see why. Even now, Kanto Pokemon seem to still reign high and I think many people are eager to collect from their cherished time from childhood, their favorites that they were introduced to and grew up with. But – I’ve noticed that I don’t think I personally hold a lot of nostalgia for Ruby and Sapphire like how some people do with the first gen. (I mean, Genwunners is indeed a term I’ve heard.) And obviously through the years and through the different gens there’s always new kids and people experiencing their first Pokemon game, but like I said, I don’t see as many passionate fans for say, gen 5 and beyond, you know??

I guess I’ve wondered about it becuase yeah, Kanto isn’t really my favorite. Not the biggest fan of Charizard, but then again, also not the biggest fan for Blaziken or some other starter. My guess is that this might have to do with the poke mania that was going on back when the games hit the market and everyone was going wild for Pokemon. I guess I was a little too young to experience the full force of that, so maybe it plays a role. I was just curious about other peoples’ thoughts, and their experiences or what makes them “nostalgic” for a game. Tell me about those early day experiences! :3 Cause from what I can tell, it does kinda feel as though gen 1 nostalgia is different from other nostalgia. But I’m just glad to see people having fun and being so passionate about what they love. That’s the important thing!

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Good related read but obviously focused on Gen 2

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Hmm, nostalgia for me is often tied to the music, Pokemon calls, and gameplay mechanics (looking at you - Entei, Raikou, Suicune random encounters). Like many on e4, I grew up with Gen 1 and played through Gen 3. I wouldn’t say that I feel more nostalgic for one generation or another. Maybe this is because I have specific memories from each of them, and genuinely enjoyed exploring “The World of Pokemon” with each successive release.

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Gen 3 is extremely nostalgic for me – beyond anything else (Pokemon or not) that comes to mind. And I’ve met plenty of others who feel similarly. While I have no doubt you’re correct that more people are nostalgic for Gen 1 than Gen 3, I don’t think it’s a different type of nostalgia.

Re: Gens 5 and beyond – I think the obvious explanation for this is that the people who grew up with these games are still growing up. Whereas people who grew up with Gens 1, 2, 3, and 4 have all already reached adulthood. In a decade, I’m sure you’ll see a lot more people expressing nostalgia for Gens 5/6. Whether or not that nostalgia translates into desire to buy cards from those generations, of course, is a totally different question.

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It’s special in it’s own way to me. The first card, the first game, the first anime episode, the first pokemon friends. A lot of firsts, coinciding with a pretty decent period of my life which I guess made it all the more special in a way. Thanks to all the problems with gen 2 I also spent a lot of time playing RBY to support GSC and Stadium 2, my Pokemon Blue has been on 999 hours for many years.

I still know the entirety of Rock Tunnel by heart without using Flash, Cinnabar is still one of my absolute top locations and Base is my unquestionable number 1 set and always will be.

I’m not as nostalgic as I used to be these days but there is definitely a certain tingle associated with Gen 1 that nothing else can reproduce.

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I’m going to ramble but Gen 1 was released at a pretty unique time. I don’t want to lean too heavy into the “90s kid” trope, but even if pokemon, specifically gen 1, released for the first time today, it just wouldn’t be the same.

Pre 9/11, the internet in its infancy, mobile gaming limited almost exclusively to a game boy, kids (and a lot of adults) not having cell phones - all of this seemed to be a perfect storm for the kids of the time to immerse themselves in the pokemon world. Hours upon hours playing the games at home, on car rides, link cable with friends on the playground; watching the anime before the bus comes, trading cards at school; it was the perfect storm.

Nintendo Power guides, rumors no one could prove or dispel like “mew under a truck.” The MissingNo glitch. Iconic experiences generation 1 offered in part due to a complete lack of information readily available to kids at the time.

While each person will have their own nostalgic experiences of when they were first introduced to pokemon, the first generation had the first-mover advantage and the uniqueness of the time it was released.

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I grew up watching the original anime and collecting Base/Jungle/Fossil cards. The first Pokémon game I actually ever played was Pokémon Stadium (we had an N64 but no Game Boys).
My first for everything was Gen 1 and I hold a ton of nostalgia for it, but nothing beats Gen 2 for me. My godfather gave me a Lime Green Game Boy Color and Pokémon Crystal for my birthday in 2001. I became obsessed with that game, I especially loved the music and 152-251 Pokédex.
Would things have been different if I played Red/Blue/Yellow first? Who knows.

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What sets it apart is just the impact and influence of Pokémania. It is difficult to communicate how huge of an impact Pokémon had on popular culture, how completely different it was from anything western kids were playing with at the time, and how much it defined the lives and relationships of kids during its heyday.

Nothing reigned supreme over Pokémon. Pokémon was religion. For me, this was roughly a period of 2.5 years. But it feels like my entire youth, and it’s the lens that I view my whole youth through, and nothing has ever come close to how significant Pokémon was at that time.

If you were there, you take it for granted. If you weren’t, it may never make sense.

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Yeah I would echo this, if you didn’t grow up in the 90’s it feels like a completely different world, everything was word of mouth, little to no internet (which I would say is probably the biggest factor). There was a lot left for imagination

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I don’t consider Gen 1 necessarily any more nostalgic than any other Gen (because we all have varying forms of nostalgia), but it’s also from a way different time in the world and culturally speaking. Back in 1999, I came from a neighborhood where people kept the doors unlocked 24/7. I know that sounds crazy in 2022, but the world was way different back then in so many ways.

Combine this with the very small amount of internet we had (if at all), and pretty much all the info on Pokemon we would find from magazines, friends and other obscure places. Pokemon and the Pokemania was a real thing back then that I’ve never really seen since. Late 2020 with all the hype was probably the closest I’ve seen Pokemon blow up like it did in 1999.

For these reasons and others, you can’t really re-create the Gen 1 experience the same as it would be for another Gen, especially anything in the past 10 years or so. It was brand new and with a lot of mystery and hype for what was to come. In respect to the TCG, it was the first time we all got to see the Pokemon drawn, which added a lot to the experience of playing the games and our enjoyment with Pokemon.

Gen 2 & 3 further kept the party going for quite a number of years. I can’t think of a better sequel/continuation than Gen 2 after Gen 1, I almost feel like they could go together as a single Gen at times. Gen 3 although my memories of it aren’t as strong, I do recall enjoying Ruby on the GBA a lot at the time, and it was still a pretty good upgrade over the previous GBC games in a lot of ways. The biggest aspect that dropped off to me after Gen 2 was the TCG and I think a lot of this would be my age group, because it seems like a lot of kids moved on to Yu-Gi-Oh or in my case MTG along with my brief period of Yu-Gi-Oh playing/collecting.

So overall, I think Gen 1 and other Gens are all very nostalgic for a lot of people for various reasons. I think Gen 1 is unique for reasons beyond just Pokemon. Other Gens are also unique for different reasons, and our nostalgia will vary. Even now, I feel like in 20 years I’ll be nostalgic for the SWSH era, thinking back about all the things that happened in 2020/2021 and all the memories I’m going to have, similar to all my enjoyment & memories of Gen 1 & 2 from my childhood.

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I’ll detail some experiences, for posterity. As time goes on it’s probably good for 90s kids to talk about this stuff because it’s becoming more and more of thing that only exists in memory.

Pokémon was part of my everyday carry. I wanted to bring my Game Boy or my Pokémon cards with my everywhere I went. My Pokémon were a measure of personal pride and social currency. I needed them to signal my worth to other children and connect with them over our assumed mutual interest. There were no strangers among Pokémon kids. Any barriers between you melted away the moment you pored over a binder together or swapped Game Boys to look at each other’s team. When I was told I couldn’t bring my Pokémon with me, I was resentful. I counted the steps until I’d be back home and could be with my Pokémon again.

When I was out in the world, I was on the lookout for Pokémon cards. It didn’t matter where we were. Anywhere that sold anything might have Pokémon cards. I saw Pokémon cards for sale at a barber shop. Pokémon was simultaneously hard to find and also everywhere. It was always selling out but you’d never know where you’d find more. I was never not hunting. I was never not scanning cashier counters and store windows and display cases at every place I ever went hoping to see Pokémon cards for sale. My parents hated them, they rarely bought them for me. But sometimes just seeing them was enough.

Pokémon dictated all of my social capital. Having good Pokémon cards made you a cool, popular kid that people wanted to spend time with. People fawned over you and your collection. Small cliques formed around kids with great cards because even just proximity to their collections was elevating. I did not have great cards, I was never going to be the focus of an entourage, but I was willing to do whatever it took to change that. I stole from other kids, I lied to other kids, I tried every nefarious trick I could conceive to separate them from their Pokémon. I was usually not successful, but when I was it didn’t matter which friendships were damaged. Pokémon was all that mattered.

Pokémon was something I could form an encyclopedic knowledge of. 151 of something seemed like a huge amount, that was a big number to a little kid, but I tried to learn everything about it. This was difficult in a pre-internet culture where you could not just Google something and confirm it. You needed to experience everything there was to offer, absorb knowledge from interaction, and enrich yourself with osmosis. Eventually the information starts to repeat, its been a while since you learned something new, and it gave me the feeling of having seen the edges of the universe. There was nothing else to learn.

Kids told stories about Pokémon all the time. So-called Poké Gods, Mewthree, all these rumors were unsubstantiated. I got pretty good and immediately disqualifying gossip. I knew the limits of Pokémon. I knew what was true and what wasn’t. When Missingno hit playgrounds, I threw it out as gossip. This was not real. This was not possible in Pokémon. Then I saw it. Suddenly the limits of the known universe expanded. Suddenly I was confronted with the inexplicable. This literally altered my brain chemistry. To be confronted so dramatically with a mystery that could not be rationalized in a context where I previously believed I knew everything there was to know altered me for life. Suddenly the world was not finite. The world’s mysteries could never be fully comprehended. The universe will never relent its wonderment. All men are fools and anything, everything, the unimaginable, is possible.

Pushback against Pokémon was everywhere too. Schools, churches, afterschool programs, summer camps, all contended with the prevalence of Pokémon. Kids did not want to do anything else except for Pokémon. You could not keep their attention. Most places that hosted children for any reason banned Pokémon cards. Every week there were stories in the paper or on the news about Pokémania and its dangers. The harder adults and institutions pushed back against Pokémon, the harder kids clung to it. We got better at being sneaky. We kept our interest closer to the chest. But it was a secret language we all spoke.

Pokémania was a period of total and absolute obsession. There has been nothing else like it and with how broad and varied culture is now I don’t think there ever will be again. Pokémon was the last bastion of hobby that virtually every kid was into before the internet hit and changed the way people interact. It was the dawn of an era and the end of an era at the same time. If you were there and were affected by it you are probably forever changed.

Hopefully you outgrew it. God help you if you didn’t.

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I started on gen 3 and this gives me secondhand nostalgia. The mania that went on seemed truly magical.

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Being into Pokemon since the beginning is interesting because each generation has it’s own nostalgia that brings me back to that point in life when I played the games. I’ve played each one when they came out so I can remember when I got each game and what point of life I was in.

Red and Blue came out when I was 4 years old. I remember playing through Red and having a tough time because I didn’t know how to read yet :joy: According to my mom, Pokemon was the main way I learned how to read. I had a poster that had all of the Pokemon along with their names so I would run back and forth from my poster to my table writing the names and memorizing them. I remember watching the anime when new episodes would come out, re-watching old ones on VHS, and collecting any toy that was remotely related to Pokemon. Everything I did seemed to involve Pokemon in some way so replaying Red,Blue and Yellow or seeing anything from that time period just evokes some of the earliest memories of my life. But being so young there’s a lot of holes in my memories and for that reason I think I hold the most nostalgia for Gen 2.

Gen 2 was completely different because I remember being so excited to find and catch new Pokemon. Every time I look at the sprites from Gold and Silver I can remember the excitement I had of discovering some of these Pokemon for the first time. When I replay them I can remember exactly how I felt when the game shifted from day to night or discovering all of the legendary Pokemon.

Gen 3 is kind of a funny story because I didn’t know that Ruby and Sapphire had released until I went over to a friend’s house and saw him playing it. He let me play it for a little bit and my mind was blown! The GBA took Pokemon to a whole new level. The sprites looked good, the world looked good and the music was chef’s kiss. I wrote Pokemon Ruby on my birthday list and it was the gift I was most hoping to get. When I was opening my presents my last gift was this huge box and when I opened it I found nothing except a huge bag of onions :rofl: I was so confused until I lifted the bag out to see Pokemon Ruby waiting for me at the bottom.

I don’t know if my ramblings really gave an answer to the question but it was fun to share. I really enjoy reading everyone else’s childhood experiences with Pokemon and learning how they similar or dissimilar they were to my own.

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I think we should also mention the impact of the movies, specifically the first three. These were major block busters. And although Pokemon The Movie 2000 and Pokemon 3: The Movie were integral to the success of Gen 2, they were as much a celebration of Gen 1.

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It’s just something that can never truly be matched.

While my nostalgia for Gen 2 is actually greater than anything else (@pfm already referenced my thread on it that I made months back), the circumstances surrounding Gen 1 can simply never be replicated.

This is why I hate when younger people who weren’t around when Gen 1 was released say “Genwunners.” It’s annoying because they just don’t get it and have no room to even give an opinion because they weren’t there to experience what it was really like.

Gen 1 went beyond just Charizard and Pikachu. At the risk of sounding corny, it wasn’t just a video game; it was a movement. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing “Pokemon” plastered somewhere. Billboards. Storefronts. Grocery stores. Magazines. The news. Morning shows like Regis and Kathy Lee. Literally everyone was talking about it.

You had the video games. The anime. Cards. Battle figures. Plush. Posters. Movies. It was just something that couldn’t be stopped.

Kids of all different backgrounds loved it. It was really something that brought everyone together. Whether it was link cable battles/trades, showing off binders full of cards on the playground or whatever, it was so interactive unlike anything we had ever seen before.

Remember: this was the late '90s, and while the Internet existed, it wasn’t the sprawling metropolis that it is today. The only social media you really had back then was AIM, and you didn’t have Xbox Live or anything of the sort, so the fact that you could play Pokemon Red and Blue with friends via link cable was something truly revolutionary.

As popular and globally known as Pokemon is now, it doesn’t even compare to the phenomenon that happened in 1998 and '99.

It may sound cliche, but you really had to be there to understand what it all really meant. It was truly a generation-defining moment in time.

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I think Gen 1 2 3 blend perfectly well together. Nostalgia peaked at Gen 2, the Gameboy Gold Silver. Not a lot of nostalgia after gen 4…

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I was like 11 when the cards were released. The hype before was beyond nothing I remember, take beanie babies and multiply it by 100. I wanted everything pokemon, I played Red and Yellow and silver every second I could, I stared at my cards in a binder and sorted them over and over. Couldn’t wait to watch the movies. My friends and I were trading at school, at home, at soccer practice. Talking pokemon for like 2-3 years straight. Reading the magazines, price guys, rumors and checking EVERY store everywhere I went for packs.

Closest thing I can remember is PoGo in terms of pokemon hype; everyone was talking about it, playing it and it was great. But just like everything else that is just a fad, it fades in weeks. Yo-yos, tamagotchis being two big things in my area as a kid that lasted like 3 weeks. Pokemon didn’t do that in the 90s, it was just all over and I couldn’t get enough. Gen 1 is just different.

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Beanie Babies, to me, were the first real big “thing” for '90s kids. That mania was insane. But yeah. Even that couldn’t even compare to Pokemon.

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I’m 32 so I was at the perfect age when Pokémon came out in 90’s’. My older brother got the red version and I got blue version. I “wasn’t allowed” to pick Charmander because that was his starter.
Fast forward to today and most of the Pokémon I used in the game are still my favorite.
Blastoise, Alakazam, Eevee, Haunter, Gyarados, Arcanine.
Not a big Charizord fan

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In a way I feel like Gen 3 was the peak of the games and I had a lot more hours on those games, but I still loved Gen 1 and especially Gen 2. Crystal was my first game

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