Feb. 21, 2024
TRAINER'S EYE #78 - "Memories Sent In Rowlet Feathers" ft. Johto Times
In this Pokemon interview, we are joined by Johto Times, a Pokemon Trainer from the U.K and founder of the Johto Times newsletter. The Johto Times is a Pokemon-focused newsletter publishing weekly content with a focus on personal memories and nostalgia.
Johto Times shares their Pokemon journey starting during the initial days of Pokemania where Pokemon first arrived and people across the world bought the games and trading cards. Johto Times shares his first experience playing Pokemon and shares why the Johto region games are his favorite games.
Johto Times eventually transitions to talking about his experience with Pokemon GO and playing in his small town. He shares what he enjoys about the game and how it resembled when he first experience Pokemon when he was younger.
Finally, Johto Times shares why he started a Pokemon newsletter and his goals to see what the newsletter becomes in the future. He gives insight in how he chooses his guests for interviews and some of the rare Pokemon toys he has collected over the years and some of his favorite parts of Pokemon history he had the privilege to cover.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Connect with Johto Times: Website | Twitter
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
Join Our Discord Community!
https://discord.gg/AqAbD7FbRt
Transcript
WEBVTT
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My name is David Hernandez, and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns.
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Welcome to as the Pokemon Turns.
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Our journey takes us to the uk where we meet a founder of a Pokemon centric newsletter centered around the idea of preserving memories and the history of Pokemon.
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The newsletter's goal is to preserve the history of the early Pokemon fan community and to recollect what it was like for Pokemon fans growing up in the late nineties and early two thousands.
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It does this by releasing content about events, reader submissions, photos, and interviews with past time guests such as the band members from one of the Pokemon theme songs.
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Here is its origin story into the world of Pokemon Go.
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This is Johto Times.
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Today, I'm joined by Johto Times.
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They are a Pokemon focused newsletter created back in February of 2023, where they publish weekly content every Thursday with a focus on opinions, personal memories, and nostalgia.
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Johto Times, welcome to the show!
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Thank you for having me.
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It's great to be here.
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For sure.
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Now, let's start from the beginning.
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So, what's your first experience with PokemoOh, goodness, n?
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So I first started with Pokemon back in 1999.
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I'm from the UK and that's the year that it hit.
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So I was right there, Pokemania, everyone, like it was everywhere.
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You could not get away from it.
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I was, the perfect age, the perfect sort of target demograph for this.
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the problem was that, We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so I couldn't get a hold of the games and the trading cards until later, so I think it was probably a year later where we got Pokemon cards and then I think 2001 is when I got Pokemon Blue and a Game Boy Color, and then a few months after that it was Crystal and Crystal and Johto was just Absolutely incredible.
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I adore those games and it just kind of kept going from there.
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I bought every other game on release day after that.
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It was, you know, I wasn't going to miss any more.
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I think by that point my friends had caught kind of, Come off Pokemon a little bit.
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They'd moved away from it.
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but that's when I started to go online and I started to talk to other fans and, chat with them about Pokemon.
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Even the anime, the anime, I'd wake up at like seven 13 in the morning.
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I'd rush downstairs, hit record on the VCR and just record to watch it later.
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VCR, you take me way back now.
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If you're listening, you don't know what a VCR is.
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It was like a big box, and what was it?
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Cartridge.
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And you put it in, and then it plays the little, Toot! Kind of sound effect.
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please don't say we've reached a point in life where we have to explain what VCR Is this what it's like to be old?
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Now, I feel very old these days.
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We've reached a point where we have to explain DVDs.
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Oh, no.
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And this make, this is bad because before we had a VCR, I had a Betamax.
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Is it Betamax?
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Betamax?
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Uh, which is even older than that.
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That goes back even further, which I think was better quality, but anyway, that's not the point.
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I
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Is that like the 8 Tracks or something like that?
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think so.
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They're just smaller tapes, but apparently the tape was better quality.
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I'm not sure.
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I was very young at the time, but, again, we didn't have a lot of money.
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So we had a lot of older things that we kept a hold off.
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Now, you mentioned how you were online trying to find the communities or you're part of the communities.
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Now, this is, of course, before, I guess, the days of Discord and what we have now.
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What were, like, some sites that you would visit to just kind of engage with other people with Pokémon?
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Oh goodness.
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So I think one of the very first websites that I ever visited was a website called the Pokemon Masters.
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And I would go online because I didn't have an in internet connection at home.
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so I used to go onto like the computers at school, drawing it lessons and then sort of like quickly minimize it when the teacher came around.
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but I would we all did it.
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And then it was PokeMasters, Serebii, of course Serebii was around that time as well.
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Pokemon Elite 2000.
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just loads of great sites, but they were very different than, you know, now you've got like just a few that survived from those days and everything else is just Facebook and YouTube shorts and TikToks and it's just not the same.
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I feel back then you went to these sites and they were just so personalized.
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Everyone, you know, there were sections for things that they had like a fan art section and fan fiction and, you know, even like gifts and all kinds of things.
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And I feel like.
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Um, forums, you know, forums were a huge thing, and I'd be on various forums chatting away, and that encouraged discussion, whereas now I feel like discussion is dictated to you.
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you sort of have, like, a Facebook page that will put out a question or something, then you get responses to that, and you don't really have control, and, you know, and then things get lost in algorithms and all that kind of stuff, and I miss the days of where people were creative in different ways, and the control was with the user that owned that community.
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And they had that, originality.
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They could do what they wanted and hopefully, we can go back to those times.
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It is happening.
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Like, there's a really thriving community on NeoCities, which was like GeoCities back then, but like old style websites.
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But they're modern, I guess.
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they're really cool.
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There's a few great Pokemon communities just on that platform alone.
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Now, of course, you're known as Johto time.
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So is that kind of your favorite region?
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Oh, as I said crystal, I adored that game I just absolutely loved The Johto region, it was, it was great.
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So it was a very easy choice when it came to choosing a name and times, obviously, cause it's, it's like a newsletter.
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So yeah, Johto Times just, it just seemed to work really well.
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So what was it about Pokemon crystal that really what, what about that game makes it your favorite?
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It's very easy, this one, so I've mentioned this a few times, I Just remember playing Pokemon Blue on a Game Boy Color, and I'm not sure if you've used the Game Boy Color but, when you put in a regular Game Boy game that's normally on, like, a sort of green Game Boy screen, usually, when you put them onto that console.
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It does colorize them, and you can sort of see a bit of color, and I just assumed, oh, that's, that's the Game Boy Color, well that's neat, that's cool, and then, Pokemon Crystal went into there and it's a whole different thing, like, the vibrancy of the color, like, just putting that cartridge in, I remember vividly, I'd been shopping, I really wanted Pokemon Silver, and I'd been saving up my pocket money to get Pokemon Silver, absolutely determined, Lugia, the best one, yeah, absolutely have to have it.
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I was in stores just holding the box, reading the back, just, like, really wanting this game.
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So I saved up all my money, went to the store, and Silver wasn't in stock.
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The guy at the counter said, well, Pokémon Crystal's just come out, and it's an improvement.
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over silver and, you know, waiting weeks, months for this game, thinking to myself, well, I kind of really want to get silver.
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But he said, look, I promise you that you will appreciate this one more.
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So I took his word, didn't go home immediately.
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Mum decided to take a detour to my brother's house.
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So I ended up, I couldn't wait, sat on my brother's floor Just turned on this, Game Boy Color, and you see the title screen, and the title screen is just, Suicune running across this field, and the Unown sort of flashing, and then the music comes in, you see the sprites of, Pichu coming out of the grass, and all this color, and it just blew me away, like, I'm amazed that the game looks this good, I guess that was like shock factor for me, was like, wow, this is like a whole other level, like, now, when you play it on an emulator or something, it's not, it hasn't got the same sort of kick as, as going from blue to crystal.
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It was, it was quite a step forward and of course after crystal going to pokemon ruby and sapphire on the game boy advance was an even larger jump.
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but there was just something really special about that time and it was just a really, really good time, so I have some very strong, very, positive memories of crystal.
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You mentioned a lot about how, not only those games, revolutionized Pokemon experiences, because you think about the day and night mechanic, you know, before that we just knew regular one colors that changed with the towns, if you're lucky.
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Yeah.
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and then you mentioned how, you know, you got the different vibrant colors of the cutscene and the different Pokemon, and was very, it really drawed you into that region,
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It really did, and another thing that I should add as well is that, if I didn't have a Game Boy Color and I just had, like, a regular Game Boy or something, and I wanted to play Crystal, I wouldn't have been able to, because Crystal was a Game Boy Color exclusive, so I got very lucky in the console that I had matching up with the game that I had, so it could have been a very different experience with Pokémon.
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I wouldn't have been able to play it, I still have it.
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I never got rid of it.
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I've, I will always it.
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Yeah, I've still got it to this day.
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Does it still work or it still safe?
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sorry, no, it doesn't save, no, but, uh, that's fine.
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I'm happy to just leave that as it is.
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I do have an additional copy of Crystal that I do plan to change the battery on at some point.
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Plus HeartGoldSoulSilver is a very, very fun game and I still have copies of that as well, so I can still enjoy the Johto region.
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Well, let's talk about those real quick.
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How do you like those adaptations to your favorite region?
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Oh, they're a masterpiece.
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They're so good.
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Like, they were so faithful, and they put so much love into those games.
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It really is a dream come true for a fan to go from that game to this incredible game.
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They improved in almost every way, and I love them to bits.
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And this is why, you know, I've got friends that started and played with Diamond and Pearl growing up, and then they get Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl, and it's a very different feeling.
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There's some, you know, there's a lot of people that really do not like those games.
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I'm certainly one of those people.
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I feel like they, I don't want to be too negative, but I think the majority of people listening to this probably understand where I'm coming from when they, hear that I'm dissatisfied with those games.
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It's a real shame.
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I wish that people that grew up with Diamond and Pearl had the same, sort of connection with the game like I did with, Gold, Silver, and Crystal to HeartGold and SoulSilver..
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The last question in regards to just the video games, if you're going to do a playthrough of Pokemon Crystal, what six Pokemon would you choose?
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Oh my goodness, so, that's a tough one.
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I should have prepared for that question, shouldn't I?
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Um, I, I think I would try and sort of replicate the team that I had back then, and it was just a mix of all kinds of different Pokémon.
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I like some really weird, odd Pokémon.
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Like, I'm a fan of Fortress, for example.
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I don't know why, I just liked the fact that it could use spikes, and every time a new Pokémon came in they'd take damage.
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I just thought that was really cool.
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And I do like the steel type, so Steelix I also really like.
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I probably wouldn't have both of them in a team, because of the type, and I'd probably try and go for something like, like a nice mix of them, so.
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I also really like Jumpluff as well.
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I had a Jumpluff in my team that I took all the way to level 100, for some reason, so I love Jumpluff.
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so I probably, I'd probably bring Jumpluff along.
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I'm not a competitive Pokémon player, you could probably tell.
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Um, Jumpluff, I probably,
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your team.
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You can choose whatever six Pokemon you want.
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yeah, so I think I would go with Steelix, Jumpluff, Poliwrath.
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Because I had one of those.
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I'd probably bring Charizard back over from blue.
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I'd probably want him in there.
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Victreebel or maybe Misdreavus?
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I thought Misdreavus was really cool when I was a kid.
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I would probably lose immediately, but still that would be probably my team off the top of my head that I would go for.
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I think the only thing I didn't like about Mistribious is that you had to wait till the end of the game to
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Oh yeah, yeah.
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was like you cuz he didn't get you didn't get one to Mount Silver and it was in the cave I think at night and I'm like, what's the point of this?
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It's like the game's already over I'm not gonna bring it into red Yes,
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continued to play Crystal way beyond that.
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And I had a local friend that I would battle with and trade.
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And I guess one thing that's missing from that experience these days, because people don't really play second gen and trade with link cables and things.
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You have the battle house in Viridian and you could play like a CPU version of.
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that training.
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You know what I'm talking about?
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And we would use that and you could level up your team way, way more using that.
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So we easily got to level 100 and I also used the, pocket Pikachu as well, to do like a mystery gift to my friend every day.
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And, we'd share things like that.
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So that was really great.
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Not mixed records.
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What's it called?
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You could use the infrared port on the top of the, Game Boy Colors, and you could do a mystery gift once a day.
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so we got loads of cool items, and, I remember one time I got a Nintendo 64 for my room in the game as, like, a little item, like dolls you could get, but this was a Nintendo 64.
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And my friend got a plant, and he was so upset, like, tears, like Crying, because he didn't get a Nintendo 64 that he just went home and I didn't see him for the rest of the day, and I just, I was smiling that I got this Nintendo 64.
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I was absolutely delighted with that, But just little memories like that just come to the forefront and it's like, it was just such a good generation.
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I loved it so much.
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For those who may not know what we're talking about.
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So there was a little house in Viridian and whenever you, I think it was a mystery gift or you just had to interact with the game, like
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I think you, you needed to, like, trade or battle or just do a mystery gift.
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It might have been a mystery gift, I can't remember.
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It's so long since I've done it.
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I know it's been a while for me too.
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So basically, you know, you had to interact with somebody else somehow.
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We don't remember which way it was.
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And what was fun about it is that when you go to this battle house, they'd be a trainer.
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And the last trainer we interacted with, they would bring a team, I believe, of level 50 of whatever Pokemon they had in the party at the time of the interaction.
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So you got to face a CPU of, for example, I guess in your case, you battled your friends, level 50 whenever you went into that
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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I think when you first battle, I think it's Kal, I think, there's like a trainer called Kal, and you can fight his Pokemon.
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It's coming back to me.
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It's been a minute, but it's finished to me
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But it was a great way of levelling up because Johto, it was terrible to get experience after a certain point.
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So, how on earth are you supposed to defeat Red in Mount Silver when you've got like level 60 Pokemon, because that's about as high as I could get.
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And then you've got his team with like level 80, whatever, and it's like, this is going to be very, very difficult.
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So you have to grind, but at least with, trading and doing the battle house with my friend, you could easily get those levels up.
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but you could only do it once per day.
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So it meant that you had to get back over there, get down that street, take your link cables, and just start battling.
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So, eventually, you know, we fast forward to 2016 and Pokemon Go comes out.
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I know you play Pokemon Go, so did you start day one or did you come in afterwards?
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I think I started On the day, because I don't think it came to the UK the same day as it came to the US, but I got an APK I just played it on my phone regardless.
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It's like, I'm not missing out on Pokemon Go.
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so I played it and my battery was terrible.
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I didn't have data on my phone and it was just, it wasn't working.
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and it was down a lot.
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I remember that.
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It was just inundated with like people trying to connect all the time constantly and it was just down, down, down all the time.
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but yes, those like first few weeks of playing Pokemon, it was back.
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Pokemon was back for everyone.
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Everyone was enjoying it.
00:14:55.543 --> 00:15:06.134
You know, just the crazy videos that I saw online of like, I think it was like, A hundred people plus running down a beach because there was a Blastoise or something I remember seeing and it was like, that was crazy times.
00:15:06.450 --> 00:15:14.659
And it just felt like a complete restart for Pokemon, like everyone was like talking about it, everybody wanted to play the games, games were just selling out.
00:15:15.341 --> 00:15:17.240
What's your favorite way to play Pokemon Go?
00:15:17.841 --> 00:15:19.201
I do like to play it on my own.
00:15:19.231 --> 00:15:19.782
It's nice.
00:15:19.802 --> 00:15:26.201
It's a great excuse to get out of the house and just, have a nice walk and just explore new places that I haven't been before.
00:15:26.511 --> 00:15:29.631
that was kind of the, the main sort of selling point of the game for me.
00:15:29.631 --> 00:15:36.442
but also finding local communities and actually speaking to people who play it locally, and meeting up with them I did make some good friends.
00:15:36.751 --> 00:15:44.664
But sadly that fell away over time, people, started doing their own thing and obviously the pandemic happened and, that sort of prevented a lot of those meeting up.
00:15:44.664 --> 00:16:05.543
So I think a lot of the smaller communities in my area kind of died at that point, but you still get the odd people here and there playing it, and sometimes it's like a little nod and a wave, like, I see what you're playing there, and you know, so that still, that still happens, but I live in a small, sort of like, on the outskirts of a town, so it's more of a village, and you don't really see that many people around, so it's more of a rural area where I live.
00:16:06.147 --> 00:16:13.966
Did you feel like when Pokemon Go came out and the Pokemania was kind of going at that point that it was similar to back when we first started playing in 1990s?
00:16:14.096 --> 00:16:14.956
Definitely, yeah.
00:16:14.956 --> 00:16:23.225
It felt like it was just everybody wanted to play Pokemon Go and I've not seen anything quite like that since, and I don't think we'll see anything like it again.
00:16:23.534 --> 00:16:26.345
That was like day one of Pokemon in 1999 for me.
00:16:26.345 --> 00:16:30.095
everybody was just talking about it, it was in the news, it was, it was just everywhere, wasn't it?
00:16:30.115 --> 00:16:31.264
It was, it was crazy.
00:16:31.455 --> 00:16:36.625
Which is fantastic, you know, as a Pokemon fan it's like, wow, everyone's playing Pokemon again, this is amazing.
00:16:36.625 --> 00:16:43.565
and I think this was around the time where I kind of stopped playing Pokemon, I wasn't playing it much at all, so it was nice for me to come back and actually explore that.
00:16:43.868 --> 00:16:49.447
You know, that was just Pokémon for a few years for me and then it died off again a little bit and then I came back to it.
00:16:49.447 --> 00:16:53.057
I tend to do that with Pokémon these days, just kind of fall off and then come back.
00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:56.669
You've been listening to as the Pokeball turns.
00:16:56.969 --> 00:16:58.369
We're going to take a quick break.
00:16:58.674 --> 00:16:59.754
We'll be right back.
00:17:50.068 --> 00:17:53.439
Now, moving forward, eventually you decide to start the Johto Times.
00:17:53.741 --> 00:17:55.412
Why did you want to start the Johto Times?
00:17:55.412 --> 00:17:56.511
What was the reasoning behind it?
00:17:57.111 --> 00:18:00.477
I've always written about games and, and sort of.
00:18:00.549 --> 00:18:03.180
communicated with people in, in the games industry.
00:18:03.210 --> 00:18:04.660
Not, not on a high level.
00:18:04.660 --> 00:18:22.906
I'm certainly not going to call myself a games journalist or anything, but I've reviewed AAA games and I've had, my writing in print and I've always enjoyed writing about things I kind of lost interest a bit, and I wanted to do something different, and I just thought, well, wouldn't it be great to write about Pokemon, and originally it was just going to be a WordPress blog or something.
00:18:22.926 --> 00:18:28.352
I was just going to write about my memories of Pokemon and just share them with anyone that was interested in listening.
00:18:28.352 --> 00:18:31.271
And then I thought, well, what about a mailing list or a newsletter?
00:18:31.567 --> 00:18:35.950
So we went for this newsletter and I put out a few issues, and it went really well.
00:18:35.950 --> 00:18:42.140
There was a lot of really positive comments, and, the subscribers started to shoot up, and it was like, wow, okay, let's keep doing this.
00:18:42.446 --> 00:18:49.896
And we just expanded it from there, and, I think as of December, I think we reached, 500 subscribers, which for me is a huge number.
00:18:50.192 --> 00:18:52.292
I expected to maybe get a hundred.
00:18:52.313 --> 00:18:54.962
in a whole year and we got that the first month.
00:18:55.287 --> 00:19:03.027
And then, people, came to me and said, Hey, you know, if you thought about contacting this person or having an interview with these people and it just kind of built from there really.
00:19:03.027 --> 00:19:24.268
So we've been doing interviews and people's memories and, sharing opinion pieces and collections and, you know, then you put some news in there and you put a mailbag in there in case people want to, like, contact the site and, share their, creative endeavors like any artwork or, you know, if they've got a tattoo that they want to share, you know, depending on where it is, they'll take a picture of it and send Um,
00:19:24.948 --> 00:19:28.458
Oh my gosh, have you seen a lot of bear, behinds a lot
00:19:28.553 --> 00:19:33.722
I, not yet, not yet, but you know, we're only a year in, so let's see what happens in the future.
00:19:36.277 --> 00:19:42.772
But it's great to see people just write in and share their memories, you know, of like when they attended an event or something.
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