"Squirtle's Bubble Never Popped" ft. Danny Steinbrecher | TRAINER'S EYE #178

TRAINER'S EYE #178 - Danny

Danny: [00:00:00] Hey guys, I'm Danny. and this is my Pokemon story.

―Anime Music Intensifies―

David Hernandez: Welcome to As The Pokeball Turns, where every voice, every journey, and every memory brings us closer to the world of Pokemon. I'm David Hernandez and I am joined by Danny. Danny, welcome to ask The Pokeball Ball tournaments.

Thanks for coming on.

Danny: Hey, thank you for having me on. [00:01:00] Man, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I've been listening to your podcast now for at least the last two months.

David Hernandez: You know, It's always weird for me when people say like, I've listened to your podcast for a long time. I'm like, oh really? You have? Thank you. I don't know, I feel kind of weird whenever accepting it, but I wanna start with the question, you know, where does your experience with Pokemon begin?

Danny: So my experience began when I was seven years old. My parents got me a game boy advance. I remember it was the Gray, gray shelled one. and they got me a copy of Pokemon. Because my friend across the street, ironically enough, his name was Daniel.

no relation. Completely, completely different kid.

I have no idea where he's at in life now. He moved away when I was young. Me and him, uh, started our Pokemon journey together. And that was fun because on Pokemon Blue, he chose. Charmander for Pokemon Red. I chose Squirtle as my original starter. Hence why Squirtle is always so dear to me. I forget what he named his charmander, but we both came up with like [00:02:00] little names.

But for me, every time to this day, whenever I get a Squirtle in any. Its nicknames is guns. 'cause for some reason 7-year-old me looked up like what blast voice looked like. We saw I had the cannons and I'm like guns. So now my, my journey started out at the very first generation of games. I played that generation all the way through.

I caught me two, if I remember correctly. I lost zap dose 'cause I didn't realize first time. That if you don't save before and you kill them, you can never catch them again. So I learned a lot of things the hard way that way when I was younger. but me and my, me and my friend had a good rivalry. We stayed neck in neck through those first, uh, that first generation of games.

Um, one day he ended up getting the, um, Pokemon transfer cable. We started trading Pokemons. Um, he was trading with other kids at his other school. Now, I'm not sure, have you ever heard of [00:03:00] the poke virus in all your stories?

David Hernandez: Yeah, well, none of my podcast, but I've heard of it.

Danny: So when I was younger, I knew something was wrong 'cause my friends game started acting up where it started deleting his save file. But we still traded Pokemon 'cause he got Pokemon that I didn't have yet, and my file was still good. But through that trade cable that somehow this poke virus, uh, would double and then transfer over.

And if you trade with other games, that's how it would spread. Um, what was crazy is, is as I grew older. I thought as a kid I must have imagined it. I must have thought it was like a memory issue with the game cartridge. Like I thought, like it was just like some crazy thing that just happened to my game file.

'cause all of a sudden my game file just reset itself. And so I started it over and I got past Brock and I like started trying to make my new team with my new guns in tow and um. When I saved the game and closed it [00:04:00] the next day, I just turned it back on and it was a fresh, safe file again.

so it basically

became a one life challenge to beat Pokemon Red.

I only found out about five years ago when I ran into a couple articles that actually talked about it, that the virus was in fact a real thing, and it was spread through trade in infected Pokemon. For me, that was some good validation. It's like as a kid, I wasn't insane, but at the same point, holy cow, did it suck to deal with that?

And I don't know who the asshole was who made that virus. I really don't understand what the point of making a virus that just destroys games does. Like what's the thrill in that?

David Hernandez: The secret is I'm the asshole. I'm the one who made the virus.

Danny: Damn it. David,

David Hernandez: But

Danny: how could you, my man, I trusted you.

David Hernandez: the guy. I'm not that sophisticated. Trust me. you know, you [00:05:00] started with a friend who was across the street, basically a neighbor. know, you talked about, I guess y'all were competitive. How were y'all competitive before getting the game link?

Obviously you couldn't battle, so were y'all like doing certain challenges or like, what did that look like?

Danny: I mean, ultimately it was who could get to the gym faster.

Like how were we handling different trainers? Uh, when we dealt with Gary or whatever we would name him. like how did our Pokemon compare? Then we got the trade link and we were able to start battling each other and we got more competitive in that facet because it was like, okay, now we can directly fight.

Now we can directly see. And we were able to do that for a while before our games got infected. And so, like I said, I was able, I got all the way up. I caught me two, um, I got two of the three legendary birds. Um. Did the Elite four. So like by that point it was like we were just catching new Pokemon to continuously battle them back and forth.

Um, eventually I had another friend who had Pokemon Stadium on the Nintendo 64 [00:06:00] with the Game Boy, uh, adapter for the controller. So we were able to load up my Pokemon into Pokemon Stadium for a little bit, and I was able to see them in like three dimensions. Battling against his Pokemon Stadium team, and that was something that really stuck to me for a long time.

I wish we got to a point where like that was a little bit more, uh, straightforward, but I guess now with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet as a sword and shield too, like we're just there as Pokemon gaming. But back then it was so intense to be able to see like your 2D Sprites be like fully, uh, polygons is the best word back then.

But like they, they did a lot for The Pokeball Stadium. Like some of the ways they had Pokemon move were very different to like some of the simple movements we get now.

David Hernandez: I, I would say they're probably more, they added more life to 'em or more character that you probably wouldn't get. Like for me, I always remember [00:07:00] Venus or with the red Eyes,

Danny: Mm-hmm.

David Hernandez: PGY always flapping its wings and Firo was more slower flapping, if that makes sense.

Danny: Mm-hmm.

David Hernandez: don't get that now. a lot of the, I'll say graphics just don't have those kind of distinct, I guess, characteristics that you wouldn't expect from Pokemon, if that makes sense.

It's like it's all standard nowadays.

Danny: Well, and of course too, while I'm playing my Pokemon game and competing against my neighbor across the street and my neighbor down the street with Pokemon Stadium, when I got to go over there.

we're at a time too where The Pokeball Anime was just started in America. So I'm now starting to watch The Pokeball Anime and watching Ash Ketchum and his Pikachu go through and fight these gym leaders that I'm also fighting.

and my 7-year-old self and my 7-year-old vocabulary bullshit that a Pikachu beat an Onyx 'cause my Pikachu died to an Onyx.

David Hernandez: Hey, the sprinklers mattered, [00:08:00] man.

Danny: I didn't have sprinklers in my battle that wasn't allowed.

David Hernandez: you should have used RainDance, bro. Like you gotta get with this.

Danny: But you know, and so for the next few years it became, I was following the anime as we were also upgrading to more Pokemon. So

David Hernandez: mm-hmm.

Danny: had Pokemon Red, my brother got Pokemon Crystal as that came out.

David Hernandez: Oh, okay. He got the upgrade.

Danny: he got the upgraded game with the Crystal Game Boy Advance that you could see through and everything.

Um,

David Hernandez: favorite.

Danny: uh, I don't think there was a favorite between the two of us. We both had some perks. We both had some defects. You know, the parents probably would've chucked us out if they could have sometimes,

David Hernandez: Sure. Sure.

Danny: but. No. So after a little bit, and then I had my own trade cable, um, I eventually got, uh, Pokemon, uh, oh, actually I don't think I got a Pokemon game for a few years.

It was my brother who got, [00:09:00] so he got Crystal, me and him both played it, shared character on Crystal, and then he got Pokemon Sapphire. And for a little while we did a shared character in Sapphire. now at this point, I've gone through first grade, second, third, my neighbor from across the street has moved away. and. I had gotten into Yugi O Card trading in a little bit. I didn't quite understand how to play Yugi O, but I was collecting the cards. Mm. I had a friend of mine who gave me like a couple binders or cards, and so I would hold onto those.

Now, where this becomes relevant to The Pokeball journey is a good recess trade I made

I wanna say this was about fourth grade. one of the girls, sometimes she would bully me, sometimes she'd be my friend. You never knew what you were gonna get with her.

But she approached me because she was tired of Pokemon and she wanted to trade me for [00:10:00] Yu Gia.

And I'm like, well, I've got binders. Like I had three binders of Yugio cards. I was kind of done with it. I didn't know how to play the game. I didn't know why I had them. So I'm like, okay, I'll show you three binders of eco cards. Probably nowadays some of those cards are worth like thousands of dollars, but in return, I got a couple of those old Pokemon statues, one of them being a Squirtle statue, so that was what kind of sold me.

As well as I grabbed a version of Emerald that she never should have given away because it had special tickets on it

David Hernandez: Oh, okay.

Danny: lu.

David Hernandez: the eon tic and stuff like that. Yeah,

Danny: Yes, Lucia and Hoho. Plus it had the battle frontier because it was emerald.

So at this point I have emerald. I also got a copy of Ruby from her in this trade. So now between me or me having Emerald and Ruby and my brother having Sapphire, we had all three versions of Gen [00:11:00] three.

And this is while the gen three anime's going and we're getting all the movies. Some of them hits, some of them miss. Um, but like this was basically like the heyday of, uh, Pokemon for me. I'm doing battle Frontier stuff. And as I'm going through, I got to see the updated cut scenes for like the Kyogre and Groudon fight before that actually hit anime with Rayquaza coming down and separating everyone.

And like on a little Game Boy Advance. I thought that was so cool. I thought that was one of the coolest things 

David Hernandez: So you didn't play gen two at all? At least initially it sounds like you went from one to three.

Danny: So as far as like a my own solo play, I went one to three, but with gen two, me and my brother kind of shared a profile. 

David Hernandez: Did him like being able to play those games, kind of create any kind of rivalry or bond between you two since you didn't have those games at the time?

Danny: Sometimes, sometimes again, you're dealing with brothers and like young brothers [00:12:00] too can be like the best of friends at time and the worst of enemies at time. So like there were times where it was like I'd wanna play, but he just wouldn't let me. But then there are other times where it's like, we only did the Elite four because we worked together and because we built this team together, like,

David Hernandez: teams together. That's amazing.

Danny: well, yeah, you had to if you were doing a shared profile.

That was, that's part of that issue with the Sapphire, uh, game is it was a.

David Hernandez: I'm like, I grew up mostly an only child. I'm the youngest of 12, but I grew up mostly an only child, so that's why I was kind of curious. This is kind of cool though. So y'all would create your own team, kinda like a draft, and y'all would go together and beat the lead four.

Danny: Oh yeah, no, and like sometimes like his Pokemon would be better than The Pokeball I was using. We weren't necessarily like EV training or anything. We were just

David Hernandez: Right.

Danny: up what worked and we would like put moves on them and everything else. But like. And ultimately we could always go to PC and swap out for like six of our own Pokemon if we wanted.

But like half the time it [00:13:00] was better to combine 'cause we liked different Pokemon. So like that's how we did a lot of, uh, crystal, especially when my version of Fire Red, uh, corrupted because then I lost access to my Pokemon. so, and then Crystal, we did a lot of that. Then we started Sapphire doing that, like it was his game.

So he, he chose the starter, so he chose Mud Cap, which that swamper we made strong. but like we even, uh, we figured out some of the codes for the Reggie and stuff in that one. Um, when there were puzzles, like he couldn't figure out, I would take 'em over. As you know, the older brother. those puzzles aren't that hard.

Come on, let me see.

David Hernandez: Well, it's just the braille, that's the hard part

Danny: Oh, I know. The braille was the fact that they put braille in a game that you can't feel braille on. I know they put it in the instruction manual. That's how I found it out. It was one day I'm in the Toyota reading the instruction manual and I'm like, oh, there's braille back here. Huh? I wonder what that's, oh.

Oh, come on. You never took [00:14:00] a one of those old video game instruction booklets in there. That's half, that's half the time I spent doubt back there. 'cause you didn't have smartphone to just like pull up YouTube or anything like it was that or you look at a shampoo bottle. Hmm. From Helm to Hide.

David Hernandez: Right, right.

Danny: Wait, my mom never let me take my Game Boys into there. I couldn't just do that.

David Hernandez: Right. So you took the instruction manual as a substitute,

Danny: Exactly. It was, but anyway, Eventually we both got a dss so being able to do the wireless communication to battle became an option.

so we were doing that.

That's when one of the worst possible things happened. Now, I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but there was a situation where we brought roommates into our house, with a couple of, uh, children who are our age group as well. So we were all gonna the same school together anyway, and. After a [00:15:00] couple months of being there, the parents decided to steal some of our things to pawn.

David Hernandez: Right.

Danny: of the things they grabbed was my Nintendo ds, and at the time it had, I believe it was my version of, uh, the Fox McLeod game in the DS cartridge or the Star Fox, I mean. And in the GA advance, 'cause this is the original DS, or is the original like DS Light. So it had the GA advance slot in the bottom.

It had sapphire in it

David Hernandez: Oh no.

Danny: and that got swiped. After three something years of like legal stuff and evidence and everything else. 'cause the police found the Ds at the pawn shop. They got that back. We get it back, but there's no games in it. The pawn shop never received it with games, ironically enough. So the copy of Sapphire that me and my brother put all that time into raising those, that mud kit up and [00:16:00] everything else.

Never came back.

David Hernandez: You know,

Danny: Matt was.

David Hernandez: be somebody who comes on my podcast and say like, yeah, I got a stolen copy of Pokemon Sapphire and my parents attended the pawn shop.

Danny: Yeah, they, they, I bought this copy of Star of Sapphire and this pawn shop and like, oh man, they had like a couple Reggies, they had cuo, they had like all this stuff on it. Their, their, their Swamper was so strong.

David Hernandez: Mm-hmm. But that must have been kind of hard though, 'cause it's something you and your brother both built together. I mean,

Danny: He blamed.

David Hernandez: and disappointed when it was gone?

Danny: I do feel like he blamed me a little bit for it. I don't think he does now As an adult. Yeah.

David Hernandez: Sure,

Danny: time I think he blamed me for it. ' cause like I was the one who wanted to play it and I left it in my DS when it got stolen and like we were kids.

Like there, there was a little bit of a resentment that I felt as a kid, uh, when that happened.

And then it never came back. I got my DS [00:17:00] back, but it never came back. again, I don't think it's something he thinks about now as an adult, but as a kid that's how it felt like. And like that was kind of hard. And I think that's part of the reason why. ' cause after he lost Sapphire, he got, uh, Pokemon Diamond and I tried to get into Diamond with him like we did with gen two and gen three,

but it just didn't click the same way.

And I didn't, it almost didn't feel right.

David Hernandez: Do you think it

Danny: Um.

David Hernandez: of what happened, or do you think just because the games, the way they were based were different that kind of led to that? Or maybe 'cause y'all are older, maybe.

Danny: Uh, as a kid, I definitely blamed it on the games. So they're just, they're just too much. They're changing too much. Like I honestly tried to replay, uh, diamond, when they did the release. and it's honestly in a lot of ways a carbon copy of Gen One. Like, I mean, let's be fair, a lot of those Pokemon lines are duplicate lines.

I love the timber lines so much, but it is the macha line. and as a kid I definitely did blame it on that as an adult. Thinking back, I do think part of it was just, uh, just that guilt I [00:18:00] felt of losing that game cartridge, even though it was nothing in my control, is the way kids perceive things.

it definitely, I think that played a part into why I fell off when I did, because that was when I was about 14, so I was also hitting puberty.

A lot of the kids in my age group, a lot of the boys in my age group were like, oh, Pokemon's not cool anymore. We're not doing it. And it didn't help that the animation style of, uh, the diamond and pearl saga of anime just didn't work for me. I didn't really care for the arrivals. They were introduced in either, so I kind of fell off the anime around the same time.

I'd still play, uh, emerald from time to time in Ruby from time to time.

David Hernandez: Mm-hmm.

Danny: even then when I got the three DS and it didn't have the Game Boy option, those kind of fell off. I never got into the, uh, uh, sun and moon and I think, uh, the years, two generations of X and YI never played.

I heard they're good too for the story.

I just [00:19:00] never got into it. I tried playing when they did the rerelease as of fire right at Leaf Green. I, uh, played for the re-lease of fire, right? I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the re-release of Crystal, so I didn't get a chance to play that. Never played Omega Sapphire, Ruby, even though I loved third generation.

David Hernandez: Really, I'm

Danny: had a chance to play the re-release.

David Hernandez: Okay, so you just haven't had time to, you just, it's not 'cause of the game itself.

Danny: No, it's not necessarily 'cause the game itself, I just never got around to doing it. And like, even if I had the time now, like I have other Pokemon games to play.

so like most of the games with mega evolutions, I never, never actually played, minus Pokemon Go.

Commercial Break

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David Hernandez: Before we dive into Pokemon Go, I wanna ask a what is your favorite Pokemon, 

Danny: It's gotta be squirrel. He's been my tried and true. the close secondary would be, uh, torch,

evolving into a blaze kin. Um. But no, I mean, squirrel's been my tried and true. If there's a game, I can get squirtle in squirrel's on my team.

David Hernandez: Is it, is it still 'cause of the gun thing or is there kind of more to it?

Danny: I mean, I think it's a nostalgia thing ultimately. Uh, he's great. Like blast voice is great as a defensive Pokemon. Uh, he's great for, uh, setting, like spikes out, uh, the withdraw, bringing up his defense. And then hydro pump is a great offensive move for him. so like ultimately on a team, I think he's a great balance out.

Uh, typically I like to put him down and then maybe like another tank Pokemon into the [00:21:00] team. So like a Chancey, uh, or sorry, O Bliss or, um, something that's just gonna take damage as well as layout status effects. I typically try to get spikes out early. 'cause the people, when I do play Pokemon battles against people, my friends, they'll like to, um, switch Pokemon consistently to try and like type balance and be like stronger no matter what.

So I'll try and get spikes out early so at least even if they're switching, I'm still dealing that little bit of damage.

David Hernandez: It sounds like you like that slow, passive type of game when it comes to Pokemon battles.

Danny: yeah, typically I'll, I'll let it slow down a little bit. I like having my heavy hitters that come out as well. Um, and they can like do a couple one shots, but most of them are very specialized, so like if they're type effectiveness is hit against them, they'll just go down in the hip. so having my tanks there to keep that fight going is, uh, crucial.

David Hernandez: Well, let's transition to when you came back to Pokemon. You mentioned Pokemon Go. Did you come back because of Pokemon Go or was it different reason?

Danny: I think for a good, uh, majority of it, it's 'cause of Pokemon [00:22:00] Go. Um, we're talking at this point, I'm probably in my early twenties when, uh, Pokemon Go releases. I remember hearing about it. I remember the Google April Fools joke that they did with Pokemon. Um, and thinking that it'd be really cool if they did it.

So when they announced Pokemon Go was the thing. Uh, day one, me and my girlfriend, fiance now at the time, um, and then her brother all downloaded it. Now, mind you, at this time, financially struggling for money. So like our phones didn't actually have service, so we were stuck with just wifi.

I dunno if you ever dealt with Pokemon.

Go on. Just wifi, Oh, it was rough, thankfully because of COVI and everything else that had happened around that time. in the Phoenix area, they were doing, uh, free wifi, uh, through Cox, uh, wifi emitters throughout the entire city. So if you were close enough and you had a Cox account, you could just connect up and get wifi.

So that's how we had to play [00:23:00] is we would find Poka stops that was nearby some of these wifi routers so that we could just get wifi to spin the Poka stops. 'cause we couldn't pay for poker balls to do anything. And it was the same thing for the gyms. And that's how we started Pokemon Go, was going just wifi to wifi to wifi.

eventually we got phone plans again and things became a whole lot easier to like catch Pokemon, get poke balls. Um, I really personally enjoyed the slow setup of the different Pokemon generations, whereas like we started with the Canto, then we got the Jodo, um, going into gen three and on like, I like how it was, brought in slow and steady.

But it wasn't necessarily waited too much on for a little while. It felt like with just canto there was just too many of the same Pokemon.. 

David Hernandez: I want to ask a question before we continue, 'cause you

Danny: Yes.

David Hernandez: very, it's a very interesting way you played initially. You know, you were tied to [00:24:00] the wifi spots. guess, was it kind of frustrating or motivating to kind of be able to play that way? Like how did you feel having to kind of be restricted by that?

Danny: Oh, it was absolutely frustrating. Oh, it was so frustrating having to find spots where we could just connect. Especially 'cause again, this is Summer of Arizona. So we're talking during the day temperatures of 115 plus. So we're only going out at night. We're talking nine, 10 at night

we had the benefit of, we have a car, we have gas, so we can drive and go and do these things.

But even then, it's a matter of like finding the right spots. 'cause we might have wifi in one spot so we can catch Pokemon, but without a poker stop. Not getting pickle balls. So that's where that became the frustrating part.. Oh no, I was just gonna say the,

David Hernandez: like hotspots y'all went to or like specific places y'all found because of that reason? Because that's a

Danny: uh, there,

David Hernandez: kind of dynamic to find balance, you know?

Danny: there were a couple spots. I'll say, um, the malls. We're a great spot because typically malls [00:25:00] have a large wifi pool that's free to use and a lot of malls have multiple Poka stops. So you could walk one length of the mall to the other and spin the Poka stops, and by the time you get back they're refreshed again.

David Hernandez: Mm-hmm.

Danny: you could kind of fill up on bag space that way. And uh, a lot of the Muzzles had gyms though at that time. Gyms were a lot harder to maintain because so many people were playing.

But, malls were a great spot to go. Some of the parks worked well, but their wifi spots were kind of limited in range, so you're typically stuck at like one or two poker stops. aside from that, there were some businesses, like Starbucks would, uh, have free wifi and typically a poker stop or a gym. So we did our best to find the places that were best to be able to stick around for a little bit of time without it being like weird or awkward.

Um, it helped that a lot of people at that time were also doing Pokemon Go. So a little crowd there wasn't abnormal, 

David Hernandez: you [00:26:00] said that you described this frustrating. You're in Arizona, where it's 140 degrees, 180, God knows it's hot.

What made you want to even attempt to play Pokemon Go the way y'all were playing, like. Why.

Danny: probably because I wanted to enjoy Pokemon again. I wanted to have a reason to enjoy it. around that same time I had tried getting back into The Pokeball anime, but it's sometimes it's a little hard to get back into. they hadn't had any games at the moment that were coming out too, that were like, oh, that's something I'm gonna go get.

'cause I'd been away from it so long and I'd only seen some controversial Pokemon designs, you know, like a live in set of car keys.

David Hernandez: A

Danny: Pile of garbage that evolves into a big, old, bigger pile of garbage. So again, like there's a, there's enough there to be like, I don't need to worry about these games. The anime is an intriguing, I want to enjoy Pokemon again.

I want to go collect them all again though. [00:27:00] So like Pokemon Go was this fun alternative that's like, I can go and catch that first 151, which to this day. I have 150

David Hernandez: Oh my gosh. What's the one you're missing?

Danny: U2.

David Hernandez: Really Mewtwo,

Danny: Giovanni has not had him back when you fight him in Team Rocket raids.

David Hernandez: right?

Danny: has not been something that's popped up in the gyms as far as I've seen.

I can't even get shadow of U2 to show up right now. Like I just need a U2 to finish my 1 51.

David Hernandez: That's gotta be torture.

Danny: At this point I'm gonna finish my 1 51 shiny and my 1 51 base at the same time by catching a shining YouTube. That's gonna be my luck.

David Hernandez: hey, that be not a bad way to kind of close out that chapter of can, I'm not gonna lie. I

Danny: No, it wouldn't be. But do you know how frustrating it's gonna be? 'cause that's still like 60 something shiny as I gotta catch.

David Hernandez: Oh, I thought you were just went away.

Danny: No. [00:28:00] No, that's why I'm saying that will be my luck is it'll be like three years down the road. I'll finish both of them at the same time.

David Hernandez: How do you think you'll feel once you complete it? Are you gonna be ecstatic? Are you gonna be like relieved?

Danny: I think in a sense relieved. Um, I definitely will be a little ecstatic. My fiance will not hear the end of it. But then like I'll definitely just move on. Like ultimately that's kind of always been my thing with uh, Pokemon. Like for me finishing this one is gonna be an accomplishment 'cause I've never officially finished a polka deck.

So at least like in Pokemon Go, yeah, it's the easy polka deck to finish. But at least like, Hey, I did finish this one and then I can go on to finish the jodo, which is getting pretty close. And then the, So like that's what I'm kind of looking at for it. I do eventually want to try and do another play through on my Violet account and try and, uh, do a full poker X run on that and try and collect everything because I have Violet, my fiance has [00:29:00] Scarlet, so I'm able to trade Pokemon between the two to get that full polka x.

David Hernandez: even outside of Pokemon Go, do you and your fiance kind of engage with Pokemon in general? Like, what does that dynamic look like?

Danny: Oh, honestly, it was so fun. So I'm not sure if you remember, but shortly after Pokemon Go, we had Pokemon, let's Go Pikachu, Evie,

and that was the first Pokemon game she played.

David Hernandez: Really.

Danny: watch her play Pokemon for the first time and see how she made her team for the first time on a remake of my first Pokemon game.

And that was so fun. Now I have my thoughts about the Let's Go series. 'cause I do hate how easy they made the game with the Shared xp, but there were so many aspects that were fun about it too. And then from there. We both had a sword and shield, so we started competing a little bit on it, similar to how me and my, uh, friend across the street used to do, where we'd be like, all right, we're going to this gym.

Let's battle now. All right. Onto the next gym [00:30:00] battle. we get very competitive, like I am a, uh, Virgo, she's a Scorpio, and so like very clashing natures. In that one, uh, we're very much a yin yang, so when we get into games that can be competitive, we very much build polar opposites to fight each other.

So our battles become excruciating. They come down to the wire because is her offense gonna beat my defense? Can my status effects delay her enough for my team to defeat her?

And it's become fun because she, she understands some aspects of the game that's like I might not fully get even with all my experience, whereas I understand different aspects because of my experience that she doesn't know because she's only had so much behind it.

but the last couple generations we've definitely played. As far as like Pokemon, let's go. We got Pokemon Sword Shield, and then [00:31:00] Scarlet and Violet.

David Hernandez: When it comes to just you watching your fiance, 'cause you said she watching her play Pokemon. Let's go picky two. And Evie was just, I guess, a different type of experience. Did it kind of come similar to back when you used to watch your brother play Pokemon Crystal and even when you were just joining with your friend.

Danny: Oh, so like did I get frustrated at watching them play and not listen to any advice I gave? Absolutely. Let me tell you about that because let me tell you, am I a bad backseat gamer? Yes, I am. I do my best to stand off and let people learn the game at their own pace, but sometimes I cannot help myself

It is always fun when you're like, Hey, so these are things you shouldn't do. And somebody's like, oh, you say I shouldn't do them. I'm a do them and prove you wrong.

So I would talk about like balance teams and being like, Hey, make sure you have like type coverage, this and that. And she'd be like, you know what, no, I'm gonna go with like. Three electric types, but like they're, they're different electric types and I'm also gonna have [00:32:00] like this other strong Pokemon one and I'm gonna have one tank.

I'm like, okay. Somehow she still beats me because she out speeds me, she'll beat me through speed and the fact that she can out speed all my Pokemon,

which again, too, it's like, it's just a different way of playing, but like. I don't necessarily disagree with the way she goes about it either. 'cause like a lot of the times I, again, I told you before recording 9,000 ideas, 2% are right.

So like my backseat gaming isn't always the best.

David Hernandez: It's like Lieutenant

Danny: Um,

David Hernandez: where you try to get the trash cans figured out.

Danny: yes, so that's where I'll try and give advice, but advice won't always be heard

for better or for worse. Sometimes it leads in a specific puzzle like trash cans taken two hours to get done. Other times it leads to a better solution.

But no, it, it was, it was definitely a lot of fun to watch her play through the first generation of Pokemon, especially in a 3D environment, and seeing The Pokeball actually. [00:33:00] Showing up in the game world for the first time was something that was like I had only ever hoped of. The fact that you could just catch a Charizard by flying around was so cool.

and then when it carried on into Sword and Shield and the fact that she was excited for Sword Shield. That made me happy because like all of a sudden I have a reason to be back into these games. Like The Pokeball may be a little weird. Um, I think in Sword and Shield. What was that Score Bunny? That was the Frog and Oh, who was the third starter?

Gki.

David Hernandez: The, yeah, the grass pipe, uh, with

Danny: Yeah. No, I, I picked Gki as my starter. I loved that little grass. Uh uh, that little grass ape. She picked Score Bunny. So again, just opposites. And that made those battles so much funner, especially with, uh, adding in axin into it.

And even though she was newer to The Pokeball games and newer to the franchises, it's not like that held her back.

[00:34:00] And that was a lot of the fines. Like it definitely, it stayed neck and neck. My experience didn't necessarily matter when it came to. Her understanding of the game and her being able to just understand how to build her Pokemon in a way that kept it challenging. And that was a lot of the fun as we've continued on.

I mean, even now we're talking about redoing a, uh, play through of Scarlet and Violet, where we just reset our accounts and we're gonna go through each gym at the same time. We're gonna plot them out and, um. Go through with the idea that is like before the gym, we're gonna battle each other.

David Hernandez: I know you said that Pokemon Go was primarily the reason that helped you get back into Pokemon. Do you think also it was because of just your fiance also getting into it, or you think you still would've gotten into Pokemon because of Pokemon Go?

Danny: I do think a big part of it definitely was her, again, into The Pokeball franchise and giving me a reason to be back in. Pokemon Go was a big thing too. 'cause again, uh, me and her did that together. So we started it [00:35:00] together with Pokemon Go when that came out, and then that led into the, let's Go. 'cause we had, uh, she had a switch and then down the road I got my own switch.

And so we started able to get in both copies of, Pokemon Games as they came out. So in a lot of ways, I think Pokemon Go is a good launchpad for that to get us both interested enough for her to say, Hey, I want to get the Let's Go series. And from there it became a, Hey, this is something we like doing together.

David Hernandez: Well, that's gonna be an episode. I want to finish on this one last question. It's gonna be a fun one.

So if somebody was gonna come challenge you all the way in Phoenix, what six Pokemon would you bring to a Pokemon battle?

Danny: Mm. Well obviously we have, uh, blasto. AKA guns.

David Hernandez: Mm. Gigax or Megas

Danny: We'll take the drink ax.

David Hernandez: Gigax. Okay.

Danny: we'll take the drink. Ax Blasto. Um, it would probably also be a Blain, re lab bloom, and that would gimme some type coverage there.

I think I would take a [00:36:00] wheezing. Lots of static effects and spikes. I can drop with that one.

fightin type

David Hernandez: wheezing, or is it Gian?

Danny: ooh, canto.

I can't tell reason. Uh, for my fighting type, uh, I'd probably take an Nile, a ghost fighting. Uh, he's a strong hitter too,

so that's five. I need a six one to end it out. I think everyone needs a legendary to end it out.

I'd probably have to go zaps, I think get an electric flying in there would help round out the whole team.

David Hernandez: thank you for listening to As The Pokeball Turns, if this story resonated with you, share the podcast with a fellow trainer and don't forget to follow us. For more voices, more journeys, and more memories, I'm David Hernandez, and remember, your next Pokemon adventure begins here.