Alone With My Game Boy

Found an old Game Boy with Pokémon Blue at a flea market. The plastic was gray and weathered, buttons worn smooth, but the cartridge fired right up. I chose Charmander and fell back into that world immediately—catching things in tall grass, talking to NPCs, the whole ritual coming back without effort. For a couple hours I was completely absorbed. Then I hit the wall of playing entirely alone.

The whole game is designed around two people. You’re supposed to trade to fill your Pokédex, battle someone to prove your team is stronger, compare what you caught. None of that works if you’re by yourself. You just cycle through the same gyms and fight NPCs that have the same dialogue every time.

What gets me is the design underneath it. They tell you to be a master, to catch them all, to be the best—but all of that means nothing if you’re doing it by yourself. The entire promise of the game collapses without someone there to prove it to.

I keep the Game Boy on my shelf anyway. Not sure why anymore. Maybe I’m still imagining I’d find someone else who actually wanted to do this—someone with an old console and the patience to battle. Probably nothing will come of it. But there it sits, powered off, just in case.