Messed Up — Pokemon

So here’s to the mess. Here’s to the 1/256 Miss. Here’s to getting frozen by Ice Beam and never thawing. Here’s to the broken, beautiful chaos of 1996.

We all love Pokémon. We love the trading, the battling, and the impossible dream of “catching ‘em all.” But if you take off the rose-tinted glasses of childhood and actually look back at the Red , Blue , and Yellow versions? The game was absolutely messed up .

You pay money to enter. You have limited steps. You find a Chansey. You throw a Rock. It runs away. You throw Bait. It runs away. You throw a Safari Ball. It runs away. pokemon messed up

Let’s be real for a second.

We didn't love Pokémon because it was fair. We loved it because it was ours . We exploited the glitches. We taught our friends the "cheats." We lied about Mew. So here’s to the mess

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Stay tuned for next week: "Why Gen 2's level curve is a war crime." Here’s to the broken, beautiful chaos of 1996

But Gen 1 was the Wild West. It was messed up because the developers were figuring it out in real time. Psychic types were broken because nobody did the math. Focus Energy failed because code is hard. MissingNo existed because memory was limited.