Pokemon: I Just Don't Get It

It is amazing that Pokemon has been around here for going on 13 years (in North America) despite everyone's claims that it was a fad that would die off sooner than later. Now it isn't nearly as colossal as it once was but it is still probably Nintendo's number 1 cash cow.

But for me, I look at the games and the various spin-offs it has produced and just gotta wonder "why?".

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Pokemon. I just don't get Pokemon. To me it has always seemed to be something that just goes over my head. And I'm not particularly sure why. For one, I'm as big a Nintendo fan as they come, two, I'm not scared off by "cute, cartoony" graphics, and three, I like RPGs, so there really isn't an easy reason. I have bought one Pokemon game in me life and that was Pokemon Sapphire for the GBA with full intentions on giving it a fair go and I just got bored late into the game and haven't touched anything Pokemon related since.

Now I've actually thought about it and can come up with 2 reasons why I never got into Pokemon:

1. Wrong Age At The Time

Now this reason completely contradicts my general tendencies. My gaming tastes never really went from one extreme to the other as a tendency. I didn't suddenly stop liking Mario, Zelda or other goofy cartoonish games just because I was also playing Mortal Kombat, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill or Resident Evil at the time. But in '98 I was 15 going on 16 and Pokemon's making the scene totally didn't interest me. Which given in '98 I was still playing Mario 64 regular and games like Yoshi's Island was in my regular rotation makes it even more weird that I just didn't get Pokemon.

2. My Gaming Interests

To say I wasn't into RPGs at the time would be an understatement. Final Fantasy 7 and later Final Fantasy 8 would nearly destroy my interest in the genre and at the time I wasn't really into handhelds so I was more or less outside looking in on the "fad" of Pokemon.

So really it was a bit of bad timing I guess.

Yep.

That's all I got.