Every Pokémon, No Opponent

Something snapped at a flea market last weekend—the old-school village kind, folding tables and boxes of forgotten electronics—and I walked home with a gray original Game Boy and a copy of Pokémon Blue. Not ironically. Genuinely. I turned it on, picked Charmander without hesitation, and was immediately swallowed by a world of special candy, gym leaders, and Pokéballs. I love this game unconditionally and I have never stopped. If anything, the distance has made it sharper.

The problem is I’m playing alone, and Pokémon was never really a solitary game. It was built around the link cable, around someone sitting next to you who cares what you’ve caught and how you trained it. Without that, I’m wandering through a universe of vacant NPCs in search of a challenge that isn’t coming. I’ve assembled a team around Mewtwo, Charizard, and Articuno—the kind of roster designed specifically to ruin someone’s afternoon—and there’s nobody to use it against. The game is a masterpiece of three things at once: nerdy obsession, tactical combat, and friendship. Two out of three isn’t enough.