Yeah, I'm one of those nerds. But, to be fair, Pokemon is a game that gets a deep as you feel like and can suit a variety of gaming needs. I'll admit that I fell out of the franchise after the third generation and then was pulled back in by Pokemon Go over the summer. I was pulled back in so much that I got Pokemon X and, in December, got Pokemon Moon.
Coming back to the franchise is actually really refreshing aside from the nostalgia element. Yes, getting to see and play with the pokemon I remember from growing up is really special and I enjoy it tremendously, but I equally enjoy being exposed to new and exciting creatures. Especially Rowlet, I was so excited to play with that pokemon just because of how cute it is!
These games still have a wide range of appeal for an equally wide range of gamers. Someone can casually pick up a pokemon game and just play with the creatures they enjoy, I know that's how I played as a kid. This itself brings hours of fun and satisfaction, especially since these players don't tend to breeze through the game too fast or even if they do will keep going back to use a pokemon they wanted to but hadn't yet.
Then you have the completionists, the people who go out of their way to really "catch 'em all", and have a level of patience I have difficulty fathoming in order to do so. For those unfamiliar, there are over 800 pokemon, so these people work so hard to catch, trade, evolve, and breed every single one of the over 800. That is a monumental task and I can only imagine the profound satisfaction someone has from acquiring every single pokemon. Related are the shiny hunters, who spend their time trying to find the extremely rare (1/4096, which is more likely than it used to be). Shiny variants are ones with special coloring that frequently look even better than the originals. Again here, the patience required for even a single shiny is absolutely astonishing.
Like any modern game, there are also the competition players. These players craft the strongest teams with the best moves and stats to combat each other. Yes, even Pokemon games have competitive play, and it can get fierce. The amount of work that goes into crafting one of these teams is immense. Not only do you have to look at the stats (of which there are six) of any given pokemon, you have to consider which of the over 700 moves the given pokemon can learn, how effective those moves are given its stats, how the moves work together all without even considering typing. For an example, just look below at how complex this gets (bearing in mind that this is a relatively limited selection)!
Pokemon have different types (like fire, electric, dragon, fairy, etcetera) and that results in different strengths and weaknesses to the other types. Given 18 different types of Pokemon, each of which could have one of the other 17 as a secondary type, that results in over 150 possible type combinations. I can't even begin to remember all that, so I have a spreadsheet!
Once they've accounted for all that, then they also have to consider what pokemon are popular among the other competitive players and how to counter others' strategies. Still think Pokemon is just a simple child's game?
I'm one of those especially twisted nerds who enjoyed the strategic element so much that I play the game exactly for that reason. I don't even engage in competitive play, I just like the challenge of creating different teams based on different themes (like the one in the picture below based on 'manly' pokemon). Just the intellectual challenge is enough for me, followed by playing with the team to see how my strategy plays out.
These games offer so much, regardless of how you might choose to play them. I enjoy the franchise these days for the strategic and intellectual challenge, but it is equally as valid to just enjoy playing a game with such cute creatures or pushing yourself to acquire every single one.
