Magenta Game Boy Color and Pokemon Yellow

I already commodified my memory of the best holiday gaming gift I ever received for this website a couple of years ago. Instead of rehashing that one (spoilers: it was Earthbound) I will share the runner-up: a magenta Game Boy Color and Pokémon Yellow. It was the Christmas of ‘99. I was at the peak of my Pokémania. My cousins already owned an OG Game Boy and had been playing Red and Blue for the last year. Everytime we hung out I’d just sit there playing it, starting a new game and then never saving since there was only one save slot. How many times did I catch a Pikachu in the Viridian Forest only to release it hours later when I had to leave? Too many to count.

But that Christmas I not only finally got my own Game Boy Color—a beautiful little device the hue of watermelon bubble gum—I got my own copy of Pokémon, and one where you started the game with Pikcahu and it followed you around. All I did that day was play it cause no one could tell me to stop. There was no TV I had to share, or turns I had to take with the Nintendo 64 or PlayStation. Just me, the electric rodent, and endless random battles in the tall grass. I can still hear the music, and see my starting team from that original playthrough.

Ethan Gach, Senior Reporter