Diamond: Once it appears, its rage never settles until it has razed the fields and mountains around it.

I have no idea where my copy of Diamond is.

My apartment might look messy (and it is), but despite appearances I’m not the type of person to misplace video games. They cost a lot of money, they contain unique save data, and replacing them is a hassle on both counts. I have lost games before, and gone through the rigmarole of replacing them. It’s not fun.

I still have every single Pokémon game I’ve ever owned, from Red to Alpha Sapphire, and all the spin-off titles. And yet I have no idea where Diamond is.

And I’m not sure if I actually care.

Pearl: In ancient literature, there is a record of a Gyarados that razed a village when violence flared.

There really wasn’t any one thing about Diamond and Pearl that I disliked. On the surface, it’s a Pokémon game like any other. You’re a kid in a small town with a professor named after a tree. You receive your first Pokémon and set off on your own journey to collect gym badges. And yet there was something about this generation that I never really cared for.

Many people, in recent years, have pointed to the Pokémon designs as a major factor in their declining interest in the series. I did feel that this generation in particular relied too much on new evolutions of old Pokémon, but this generation still has a number of my favorites. (Given that my interest in a generation tends to be directly correlated to how much I like the Fire-type starter, though, I really have no leg to stand on in this argument. After the Blaziken I’d loved and raised in Ruby, no Fire/Fighting-type could live up, and two succeeding generations with that type pairing was overkill.)

It didn’t help, either, that my all-consuming love for Pokémon that had blossomed with Ruby had faded to a simmer by the time Diamond and Pearl came out. I still loved Pokémon, of course. After ten years, it was clear it was going to be a lifetime affection. But these things ebb and flow, and the tide had gone out, for the time.

Did I catch a Magikarp in Diamond? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised, certainly. But without the game, I couldn’t tell you.

Diamond was the first Pokémon game I didn’t bother finishing. Imagine my surprise, then, when Platinum immediately captured my interest.

Platinum: Once it begins to rampage, a Gyarados will burn everything down, even in a harsh storm.

Looking back, Platinum isn’t all that different from Diamond and Pearl. I think it’s safe to say that what happened is that, having already seen what Sinnoh had to offer once, I gave it a second chance, and found myself surprised at everything it had to offer. I remember really liking the towns and the gym leaders, and the atmosphere of the game was very different from the other regions. All told, it was a fun experience.

It probably helped that, like my LeafGreen playthrough, I had planned out a team ahead of time and played through it with those Pokémon. And on that team was — what else? — a Gyarados.

The physical/special split in this generation really saved Gyarados, honestly. As much as I liked it in the previous games, it really wasn’t until now that Gyarados has a chance to shine. Oasis knew both Surf and Waterfall because I stopped playing Platinum in the middle of the post-game content and never used her for actual battling outside of that; I needed both of those moves just to get around. (Sinnoh was really bad about HMs.)

Still, actually having an Adamant Gyarados with Earthquake and Avalanche? Be still, my heart. Of course, when I loaded up Platinum I also found a box full of Magikarp I caught while searching for said nature. Never let it be said that I don’t go all out when looking for the Pokémon I want. (The Adamant nature increases physical Attack and decreases Special Attack, and is one of the best natures for a Gyarados.)

I wish I could remember more about my Platinum team; it looks like a really well put together set of Pokémon. I bet I had a lot of fun with them.

SoulSilver: Once it appears, it goes on a rampage. It remains enraged until it demolishes everything around it.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy SoulSilver. Objectively, it’s one of the best Pokémon games. The second-generation games were packed with an enormous amount of features, and the remakes do great justice to them.

It was more that once again, I ruined the game for myself.

For some reason or another, I looked to the success of my LeafGreen and Platinum teams and decided to take them a step further. I would make the perfect Pokémon team — in terms of stat growth, that is. Pokémon stats can be raised in a particular manner if you pick and choose which Pokémon to battle against, and so I set about training my chosen team of six that way.

This was so incredibly tedious that I almost didn’t play the game once I was done.

HeartGold: They say that during past wars, Gyarados would appear and leave blazing ruins in its wake.

I did end up playing through the game and beating the Elite Four, but I never went through the entire Kanto storyline. (I think I’ve only ever done that once, in Crystal. That’s the only time I recall facing Red.) I didn’t have a Gyarados on my team for this playthrough — this team was essentially a rehash of my LeafGreen team, with some alterations — but I did, of course, catch the Red Gyarados.

Even though I’d never used it, I was surprised to find a Gyarados with the same name as the one I’d used in Platinum. I wonder if I was paying homage, or if I couldn’t think of any other name. It’s a toss-up, really.

I’d like to go back and play through both fourth generation games someday. Let’s just hope I don’t get distracted by their respective minigames again. (Hi, my name is Larissa, and I have a Voltorb Flip problem.)

Travel to Unova

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