I got surprisingly emotional when Pokemon Winds and Waves was revealed last week. Maybe it's to be expected as someone who's grown up playing the series; Pokemon Blue introduced me to the wonderful world of RPGs in the late '90s before I had any notion of what an RPG was. It's wild to think about how the series has continued to evolve since then, and that almost three decades later, I'm still striving to be the very best, like no one ever was.
Naturally, I can't help but be excited (and cautiously optimistic after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet) to put my trainer hat back on in shiny open-world entries for the new-gen Switch 2. But my dewy-eyed state over the reveal actually stems from something far more sentimental. Over the last 27 years, I've kept up a lifelong tradition that's connected to what's always set the Pokemon series apart: the different versions of each generation.
