July 28th: Summer

I have reached the point where I feel I can put down the pen on this playthrough. I explored the land and sea of Hoenn, defeated the gym leaders, beat the Elite Four, experienced some of what the game can offer when linked with other games and systems, and chucked the Master Ball at the big fish that's on the box's cover art. I haven't explored the Battle Tower, but I've done it in SoulSilver and I think my observations would mostly be comparing the two.

Before I kicked off this save and my associated writings, I found myself in the mall I used to go to when I was a kid. I had been nearby running an errand and decided to treat myself to some cinnamon-sugar pretzels. That was my favorite part of a trip to the mall whenever we'd get them. I still knew where to go to find them. It was nice of them to not move to a different part of the mall just for me.

I sat down with my pretzel at a nearby table, giving myself time to look around and observe the surroundings as I enjoyed the warm, doughy, and sweet pretzels that I almost never went out of my way to get. Immediately obvious was the lighting, with every other light turned off in what I assume was an attempt to save on power. I had noticed this while walking to my destination, but sitting down and seeing it made the realization really sink in. Ever since online shopping took over as the most popular way to go shopping for most goods, malls had gone out of fashion and were closing doors or struggling to keep them open.

Where I sat was no exception. I looked up. Not at the lights, those were obviously not illuminating the place as much as I remembered from when the place was more alive. The pair of escalators and the elevator which had once taken shoppers to the food court were now out of order. I don't imagine they were all malfunctioning or in need of maintenance. More simply, they no longer had places to take people to. Nothing was left in the food court. No Taco Bell, no Sbarro, and no little local places. I probably could have found some stairs to go up and get a better look of whatever was left. I didn't see much of a point in doing so.

Not far from my seat was a booth shop. The type of store that's in a weird thing in the middle of the hall instead of a storefront. This one was filled with toys. I didn't look particularly closely at any of what was in stock. My only real reason for noticing the place was a toy truck of some kind on the ground that would periodically play a little jingle and maybe show some flashing lights. No doubt, this was a feature added by the creators to draw the attention of kids in the hope of securing more sales. The little truck played its tune to entertain a predominantly empty room, grand in scale and crushing in isolation, only drawing the occasional pique of interest from a strange man sitting by himself. He was looking around the open space without any clear purpose, contemplating something beyond the understanding of molded plastic and twenty cents worth of electronic components, interrupting himself to eat a large pretzel.

I've often seen things or places like this and found them to be lonely. The things themselves aren't actually lonely, on account of them being inanimate. Moreso, I'm left to wonder about the context and circumstances that result in their neglect. Time is limited and constantly moving forward, never choosing favorites or exercising malice. This wasn't the work of time. As new developments occur, people will experience shifts in their interests. Not everything gets the luxury of being remembered and cared for until its expiration date comes.

I knew I would be starting this project in the coming weeks. With the headspace I got myself in, I thought about how different the world had become. In a time when all the lights were on, the fountains had flowing water covering pennies that passing patrons would toss in after making a wish, when the escalators took people upstairs to get meals at the food court, the halls below were filled with shops on either side that people wanted to go to, when people bustled about to get what they came for, and the noise of footsteps and voices filled the halls... in a time when this mall was still in good health, I was just a kid. My parents generally took me there to shop for clothes or go to appointments with the eye doctor to get new glasses. We weren't frequent visitors, but we would be there multiple times in any given year.

In the late 2000's, I was still in elementary school. That was where I had my first experience with the third generation of Pokemon games. For the kids waiting after school for their parents to get out of work and pick them up, there were a couple of Game Boy Advances tucked to the side of a metal cabinet. They were the original models, notably missing their battery covers. Of course they were missing! Those seem to have gone missing all the time, even though that puts the batteries at risk of just tumbling out. I guess that's what a piece of masking tape is for. Making the systems useful were some games to play. They had a copy of both Ruby and Sapphire there.

Sapphire was the more immediately interesting to me, as it was the blue one. I don't remember much beyond little fragments of what my experience with it had been. I described that in my entry for 4/30, so I won't do it again here.

Time passed, and I eventually had my own Nintendo handheld to play games on. A black DS Lite! Along with the games made for the system, it could also play GBA games. I did get some GBA games, but none of them were Pokemon. More time, and I got an upgrade to a DSi XL, along with Pokemon SoulSilver. I didn't know at the time that I had just received a game that was simultaneously newer and older than the Pokemon game I remembered seeing at school. It scratched whatever itch I had and I didn't give much more thought to Sapphire. My life was still simple. After years in elementary school, I remember having a feeling that it was never going to be over. Anything beyond elementary school was going to take more time than I could imagine.

I do mean that in the most literal sense. The amount of time that needed to pass and the future that lay beyond that point were things I remember being unable to conceptualize. Some years passed and reality would do away with my need to imagine what would come next. My first memory of a feeling was formed during this time. Multiple years of toil finally concluded in a blinding light of accomplishment and finality, underscored by the void in the timeline of my life that would eventually be replaced with a new purpose. If I was a series of books, the feeling existed where I existed, between the last page of one book and the first page of the next.

Time kept moving and it only went faster after that. I kept making it through more grades and advancing through secondary education. Smartphones began to take over and I eventually got an iPod Touch to participate in the new era. I eventually wasn't using my DS as much anymore. My collection of games for it was built up and later most of it was sold off. At some point, we stopped going to the mall for things. There wasn't any big decision made for the shift away from it. A point came where we just didn't go anymore, and I don't remember when that was.

I met new people, had new experiences, played new and different games. Years of these developments had changed not only my life, but me as a person. I reached a point where I wanted to try Sapphire, the game I remembered from so long ago. That happened after I became a university graduate and worked a number of jobs. I was a long way from being a quiet little kid who mostly just didn't want to get picked on at school and do well on schoolwork to not get harassed.

Pokemon Sapphire has not had any real change made to it since its release in 2003. Picking it up now would theoretically be experiencing the same game as what I saw back then. Even though Sapphire hadn't changed, the entire world in which it exists changed over the course of two decades. I had changed. The game is the same, but the experience associated with it was going to be different. I could never have experienced the game then as I would eventually come to do so for this project, and there is no way for me to experience the game now as I did at least fifteen years ago.

I enjoyed playing Pokemon Sapphire during my time with it here. Trying out unfamiliar Pokemon in a team and exploring the rest of the Hoenn region was great. Thanks to those sixty-three Rare Candies I edited in, I don't regret any of the time I put into the game or to writing my thoughts about it. I do get the sense that I would have enjoyed this more as a kid. Being older and in positions where I have to be more responsible, I didn't take as well to any notions that I needed to spend seemingly unnecessary amounts of time to make progress or accomplish something. When playing SoulSilver as a kid, I was content with wandering around and didn't put much emphasis on completing the story beats outside of checking the boxes to be able to explore more of the map. I don't know if I just didn't know better or if I really didn't place much importance on progression, but I do still remember having a good time.

This is probably the best point for me to elaborate on the gift I gave myself when I was adding those Rare Candies to my inventory. In addition to those, I gave myself a Togepi whose moveset I modeled after the one that hatches from the egg that's received in SoulSilver. I was going to make it an egg but the software was having problems with that. Instead, it's just a level one Togepi with a special moveset. I had to get one this way because there's no way to obtain them without trading in any of the Generation III games. My thought with having this was to incentivize meandering about Hoenn even after I finished all of the main story beats. Togepi evolves into Togetic, my favorite Pokemon. The egg given in SoulSilver is most of the reason for this, as I remember liking my little spiky-haired bean a whole lot. This, along with the Pokemon I received while I was at the event, make me want to play the game some more to see them in action and explore more of the nooks and crannies.

Back in the mall, the only remains of my pretzel was some cinnamon-sugar powder left on the table. There's no way to eat them without making a mess. Feeling it was the responsible thing to do, I swept it up with a napkin and took it to a trash can. I didn't know how often the tables there got cleaned, especially with the crowds having dried up years ago. With my business there having been taken care of, I made my way toward the exit. It's unlikely that this mall would ever return to having the number of customers it once had. I visited this place about a year before while I was out and waiting for something. The more extensive look I took then had already shown me just how hard it had been hit. Most places I remember existing weren't anywhere in the building anymore. Some parts I didn't even recognize from how much they had changed. The reduced lighting and patronage compounded with this to make the place a bit spooky to be in.

From this, I would advise people to appreciate people, places, and experiences throughout their time interacting with them. It's nice to remember what someone or something was like in a particularly memorable part of their or its history. It's also important to be open to experiencing aspects of life after many changes have occurred that may have made them less desirable. Even if it's not what it used to be, there are still things worth appreciating about it. My mall had become something of a ghost town and was nothing like it had been. It was irrefutably a better place to be twenty years ago. Despite that, the pretzel I got was tasty and it ended up being a relatively quiet place to sit and think for a little while.

Overall, I'd recommend this game. With a lovable roster of Pokemon to catch, an interesting variety of environments to traverse, and some great music to complement the gameplay, there's a great adventure to be had! There's a lot of grinding that's required at times, but it's still a worthwhile experience even in 2025.