The words “gotta catch 'em all” have been imprinted into my memory for the last 15 or 16 years. It’s the slogan of "Pokemon," the game franchise that started me on the gaming path. For over three-quarters of my life, I have dedicated my time to these games in one shape or another. And reflecting on the time that has passed, I’ve realized that I’ve taken away much more than I expected from these games.
1. Perseverance.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned is patience. If you’ve ever played "Pokemon," you know what it’s like to be looking for that special Pokemon while having to muddle through all the goddamn Zubat in Mt. Moon or some other cave because you really want that Clefairy. Just never give up.
2. Organization.
When you get deeper into the games, you’ll come to realize — especially if you’re going on the “catch em' all” route — that you have a lot of Pokemon in storage. They’re only in order of when you catch them, and that always bothered me. I always made a point to organize each box by creature type in order to locate them quickly. While it sounds a little silly to say that I learned organization from this, I really believe it to be true.
3. Time management.
This goes for outside the game as well as in. When I was younger, I had that thing called a “bedtime” that I absolutely despised. It was the time when everything had to be turned off and I had to pretend I was actually tired a quarter till nine. If I was playing my game at that time, I knew that I had a time crunch on my hands, so I had to do one of two things: stop where I was, or map out the quickest way to achieving my goal for the moment, which usually involved training Pokemon to get an upper-level move or searching for a particular item. Further, in the games they make today, I can actually implement time management in-game. The games run on a clock system and have night and day, adding to the depth these games create.
4. Decisiveness.
Perhaps one of the biggest things that will help in-game is learning how to be decisive, especially in terms of team building. You have to make a choice from the get-go: “Are you a boy or girl?” Very serious stuff. But also, which of the three starters from that region will you choose? Usually people go in with an idea in their head, like choosing fire because they always choose fire, or choosing grass because that region presented some challenges for starting out that way. Your choice impacts a lot of early gameplay, so the ability to choose what you want is actually really important in the world of "Pokemon."
5. Fun.
If there’s one takeaway that I’ve gotten from these games, it’s that I freaking love them and have the best times playing them. They’ve given me a lot, whether it's just because of the games themselves and how they take me out of my day-to-day life, or even something as far as giving me material for writing. Without these games, who knows how different my life would be.
Who knows, I might not even be into gaming if these games weren’t around. For that and everything else "Pokemon" has taught me, I am forever thankful.
