Track for May 25, 2025

"What Kind of Future" by Mitchie M & Hatsune Miku

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What song reminds you of your first heartbreak?

You said first, get ready for first.

The kids at school convinced me to beg my mom to get a new Game Boy game, so mom took me to the old caged-in tech section at Walmart. We needed an employee to unlock the glass case and reach in to grab one of the cardboard boxes with square cartridges in them. I asked for Pokemon and I was presented with a choice: red or blue? Obviously I picked the blue one with a big turtle on the cover. Maybe it's because I like water and as a kid I was very scared of my house burning down. Maybe it's because I don't find an orange dragon too appealing? I remember studying the instruction booklet and memorizing the Type vs Type damage table inside. I miss the damage charts. I miss the readable damage charts, now they're too complicated with seemingly infinite types and combinations.

The instruction booklet didn't help me at my first challenge of the game. I started the game, typed my name in, went down stairs to talk to mom, and... that was it. I was trapped in the house. You see, the only other game I put a lot of time in to, but never progressing the story, was Link's Awakening. The difference between Pokemon and Zelda was that in Zelda the doors to leave buildings were clearly defined. I didn't know that a rug at the south side of the room meant "door" and the game didn't tell me.

I remember taking my big original Game Boy to school the next day to ask if anyone in my class could help me. It was a field trip day so we were gathered in the gym and one of the kids explained doors to me. In later iterations of the game when you got close to a door a down arrow would appear. I assume that kid's uncle really did work at Nintendo.

Okay so, this is supposed to be about heartbreak right? Well, I spent the summer playing this game nonstop. I took it to a computer summer camp and would play it any chance I could. I collected all the badges and knew what to do next: The Elite Four at Victory Road. I don't know how many tries it took me, but I did beat them. I got my in-game certificate, the credits rolled, and it put me at the title screen. I had never beat a game before, and to my knowledge once you beat a game you... start again. So I hit New Game and started over. And eventually saving over my game. I called the friend who taught me doors and told them the good news: I had finished the game. They told me to have fun catching the rest of the Pokemon. My heart dropped as I asked "what?" and was told that I had deleted my game and that it wasn't over yet. I still had to catch Mewtwo. I still had to catch all 150 (or rather 151, 152 if you count Missingno) Pokemon. I felt awful, but I started again.

Epilogue

The next summer I would get Pokemon Red and I used both cartridges to finally collect every Pokemon possible on my Pokemon Red cartridge. I put the cartridge away as a monument to my achievement. It would be over a decade later before I learned that these fucking cartridges had hidden batteries inside them, so once again I have to assume my save is lost. Rest in peace, my beloved pocket monsters.