How Pokémon Helped Our Generation Evolve

By Michael H. on February 2, 2012

The Pokémon series – short for Pocket Monsters – has been immensely influential on our generation. Over the years, we lived with multiple generations on various continents in the Pokémon world. Most kids from all over the world have loved at least one of the 646 species of Pokémon. We’ve learned many virtues from these games, and I think the biggest ones are: perseverance, patience, and loyalty.

photo found on flickr.com, uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/3424800816/

Patience is probably one of the easiest values to pull out of the game. Many of us lost hours upon hours trying to level up our favorite Pokémon in the tall grass, hoping to make it evolve. We’ve bought multitudes of the various food items and power-ups to stuff our Pokémon with in order to make them happy. Some have even reset the game repeatedly when catching special Pokémon in an attempt to provide it with the best version of its battle stats. Some remember wearing down legendary Pokémon so they could be captured, sometimes finding it necessary to afflict them with various ailments before finally succeeding.

A teaching that came closely tied to patience was perseverance. It took a lot of time in the game for us to earn all eight of those badges, defeat the Elite Four without healing and still have the energy to beat down the current Champion. The other common occurrence we faced was dying – usually after facing Gary Oak, since he always seemed to be way overpowered compared to the later rivals. All of us had to continue our battles back at the Pokémon Center every once in a while. This could occasionally be slightly disheartening, and would require us to have that patience to re-enter the tall grass and continue training or try the battle again with some revised tactics. We learned from our mistakes, kept calm and carried on. Without this perseverance, we’d have given up the first time we lost to a gym leader who happened to use the same element type as our weakness. We’d have given up when we killed the legendary Pokémon on accident, but instead we shut the game off and tried our hand again.

One of the most important values that Pokémon subconsciously instilled in our generation is loyalty. This loyalty is shown by the number of people who still use the first Pokémon they were given in the beginning of the game; they have always been there for them. Taking another perspective, you can see the promotion of loyalty when you trade Pokémon with another person. The Pokémon are disloyal if you don’t have enough gym badges to earn their respect – which varies based on the traded Pokémon’s level. If they don’t have respect for you, they will ignore you. This shows that they still have loyalty for their original trainer, and encourages it. Most people tend to favor monsters that they caught on their own. Without this loyalty, trainers would constantly be swapping out Pokémon that were weak for stronger ones rather than keeping the currently weak ones because the trainer “liked” them.

As you can see – and know, if you’ve played the games – the values listed above were conveyed to us through a video game. Every December, people have a “Pokémon Profile Picture Month” on Facebook. The love for these imaginary creatures spans many years and even in our collegiate years we have not forgotten our favorite Pokémon. Through these values they have instilled, they have not forgotten us either.

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