So, with about 31 hours before Sword/Shield are available here on the east coast, here's my final 2 cents on everything that's transpired in the lead-up to release.

This may be a long thread, so follow closely.

I've been a Pokémon fan for the better part of 21 years. I've been through highs and lows, gone in and out, and always find my way back to this franchise at certain points in life.

Yes, I know it's not a perfect franchise. But that doesn't deter me from it.

I was there when the anime first started stateside in syndication, and I made sure to watch every episode for six years straight. My favorite installment is Crystal, an 8-bit masterwork if there ever was one.

There was a good amount of time where I cast myself away from this franchise, a good four or five years, because it just wasn't my thing anymore.

And then I got back into it with the excellent SoulSilver Gen 2 remake, and seeing Chuggaaconroy play through all of Crystal.

That's when you realize that that thing you liked as a kid never truly went away. It was just resting for the right moment to come back and bring you back in.

And it got me deeper and deeper into the franchise in more ways, learning about fan works and Nuzlocke runs and resources like Bulbapedia and Serebii and Marilland.

What really made me go "huh, this is still pretty cool" was seeing some of my classmates in my senior year of high school playing FireRed on an SP or loading up a ROM. It wasn't just me, it's something that a lot of people probably went through.

And throughout this decade, I've seen the Pokémon games go through changes and advancements that felt impossible to imagine as a kid.

Going from the slow as molasses Gen 4 engine to the briskness of BW/B2W2, to the - admittedly rocky - leap to 3D with Gens 6 and 7, and even seeing a pretty fun Switch remake of Yellow happen.

All good in my hood, at least.

And that's the one constant that's remained over the last 10-plus years of releases: change.

Change has to happen to keep things fresh and progress forward.

Look at the anime, it was stuck doing the same thing, over and over, for years and years. And then the Sun & Moon season(s) happened, shook everything up, and turned into the best run of episodes in a LONG time.

The same thing with the games. You need little tricks and features - or "gimmicks," if you're a pessimist - to add some spark back in. And speaking personally, they've been good additions with a solid batting average.

Not quite 1.000, but in the .600-.700 range.

This is something I enjoy. It's something that I've been enjoying for nearly all of my life, and I do like to see younger audiences get into it as well, so they can learn and go back to what we had in the late 90s and early 2000s.

So whenever I see discussions over these people pirating these new games, leaking info and misleading people, I can't help but get pretty frustrated because these people are taking the enjoyment away - again, speaking personally - from me.

I'll be the first to say that these games have never been perfect.

The old GB carts are a pain to maintain because of those batteries. Gen 4 runs slow as CRAP. Gen 6 has some bad slowdown because it's pushing the hardware as far as it can go.

But that doesn't deter me away from those games. I know and understand that there's bound to be some issues and problems, but I don't let that consume my entire view on them at large.

I know that I'm bound run into some issues with these new games, I accept that. But I'm not going to cry out in a fit of rage and try to intimidate people into arguments of bad faith.

That would just make me an asshole.

I mean, I already AM one, but not that kind of specific one.

So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to get my copy of the game on Friday after work, I'm going to start playing it when I get home, and I'll be offline for most of it because I wish to be undisturbed by everyone over it.

I'll chime back in on Monday to jot some thoughts down, and then I'll probably keep playing it some more.

This is something I always look forward to, a new batch of Pokémon games. Even at the crisp age of 25, I still get plenty of enjoyment from them. And I've got a good feeling that I'll enjoy these games as well.

tl;dr:

Pokémon is cool, stop being insufferable twatwaffles over it.

/end