Written on 2024/1/19
To help contexualize how much time passed between my starting the first SoulSilver save and me reaching the end of the game for the first time,
here's a list of significant and mostly relevant developments between the two points in time.
Release dates are for North America. I'm an American. It just makes sense to be using those dates.
Any release date that doesn't have a source was retrieved from its respective Wikipedia page.
3/14: Release of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.
3/29: The Nintendo DSi XL is released.
4/4: Got SoulSilver and started my first save.
5/24: This may be the date where I connected to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and used SoulSilver's online functionality for the first and only time on the original save.
9/14: Release of Halo: Reach.
3/6: Release of Pokemon Black and White.
3/27: The original Nintendo 3DS is released.
8/19: The Nintendo 3DS XL is released.
8/21: Release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
10/7: Release of Pokemon Black 2 and White 2.
11/6: Release of Halo 4.
11/18: The Nintendo Wii U is released in North America, which was somehow before the Japanese release of the system.
12/31: My first time playing Robotron: 2084 happened at a New Year's Eve party on this day.
1/24: Video sharing platform Vine is launched.
April: The percentage of adults in the United States who own a smartphone has crossed the 50% mark.
Statista Link
5/31: Flipnote Hatena is shut down.
10/12: Release of Pokemon X and Y.
This year: MLG montage parody memes become all the rage.
1/9: The first demo version of Sudomemo was temporarily online, later taken down to work on developing a more complete version.
5/20: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection services for Wii and DS games are shut down.
Summer: I played Cave Story for the first time, as an NXEngine port of the freeware version came included with a version of RetroPie I was using on my Raspberry Pi Model B (the first one).
9/10: I joined the Cave Story Tribute Site Forum, where I would meet many friends and post garbage.
10/31: First upload to the Pummelator YouTube channel.
11/21: Release of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
12/20: This marked the 10th anniversary since the release of Cave Story's original freeware release.
This year: The "Tie-Die" rom set is released for Robotron: 2084.
Due to the changes being made by the developers,
this may have resulted in Robotron contending for the world record for the longest time between two official updates of any video game.
The last update was applying a few patches in the 1987 "Patched Blue" rom set, putting an impressive 28 years between the two.
For reference, the game was originally released in the summer of 1982.
Link to Robotron: 2084 Guidebook
More information about this is somewhere on robotron2084guidebook.com, but they're redoing the website, so I don't know where that will end up.
2/10: Flipnote Studio 3D is released.
2/13: The New Nintendo 3DS XL is released.
5/31: Discord is released to the public.
Eventually, this social platform would become a dominant force in its field, as it was a better alternative to Skype and,
unbeknownst to anyone until years after this, a much worse alternative to forum sites.
It wasn't supposed to be the latter, but that hasn't stopped people from using it as such.
9/25: The regular-sized New Nintendo 3DS is released in America... which is after the release of the XL. Everything's bigger in Texas, I guess.
10/27: Release of Halo 5: Guardians.
January: Active members of the Cave Story Tribute Site migrate to Discord for casual interactions because 25-man Skype groups are fucking horrible
(I was there!) and some others were using IRC or other alternative options.
Summer: My original 2010 save is picked up and finished by my sister after I had left it dormant for years.
7/6: Pokemon Go is released, soon becoming a viral sensation among basically everyone.
September: The percentage of adults in the United States who own a smartphone has crossed the 75% mark.
This month also saw the release of TikTok.
Statista Link
11/18: Release of Pokemon Sun and Moon.
1/17: Video sharing service Vine is shut down.
3/3: The Nintendo Switch is released.
3/31: The DSi Shop is closed.
7/30: Aar uploads the Kashungo race video to YouTube,
where I took second by skipping the final boss in what may be the first recorded instance of
a major speedrun trick being discovered for this Cave Story mod that has likely been played by less than a hundred people.
10/31: Halloween Special 2017 is uploaded to my channel.
Aar is immediately a big fan of it and this inadvertently leads to me making similar videos as part of an annual series.
11/17: Release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
4/1: Flipnote Gallery: World and the Nintendo DSi Library for Flipnote Studio 3D are shut down.
10/31: Halloween Special 2018 is released as a sequel to the 2017 special,
which cemented these two videos as the first in the Halloween Special Series (note the title-casing).
11/16: Release of Pokemon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!
3/22: This marks the 10th anniversary of Pokemon Platinum's release.
9/20: The Nintendo Switch Lite is released.
11/15: Release of Pokemon Sword and Shield.
11/17: Start of my 2019 save. Much like the 2023 save, the original intention was to get me to the end of the game for the first time.
12/25: Pokemon Sword becomes the second mainline Pokemon game that I've put a significant amount of time into.
March: COVID-19 becomes the culprit responsible for a global pandemic.
3/14: This marks the 10th anniversary of the Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver release.
3/23: Half-Life: Alyx, while technically not the fabled "Half-Life 3", releases as the third Half-Life game.
Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and the episodes are just expansions.
6/17: The Isle of Armor DLC releases for Sword and Shield.
September: YouTube Shorts is added to the video sharing site, cementing vertical-oriented videos as a legitimate development not to be confined exclusively to phones,
despite it being an affront to the art of creating videos.
9/12: I set my current high score of 30,462,350 in Robotron.
10/22: The Crown Tundra DLC releases for Sword and Shield.
This year: The Pokemon Company celebrates the 25th anniversary of the franchise.
9/30: WoodenRat makes a thread on the CSTSF expressing his happiness for it still being around,
resulting in many replies of people getting nostalgic about times gone by.
CSTSF Thread Link
10/8: The Nintendo Switch OLED is released.
11/15: 20th Anniversary of Xbox, with the free-to-play multiplayer component of Halo: Infinite releasing the same day.
11/19: Release of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
SoulSilver was a remake made at a time when Diamond and Pearl were the newest original games in the series, which have now themselves been remade.
Okay, sure, Platinum existed, but I have yet to see a remake of that version pop up.
12/30: HaydenStudios makes his obligatory "I've been on CSTSF for 10 years now" thread and devotes a good portion of the initial thread post
to explaining why he feels forum sites are important and should be kept alive.
This inadvertently results in many replies agreeing with his sentiments in what felt like a logical sequel to the WoodenRat thread.
CSTSF Thread Link
1/28: Release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
5/31: Specifically chosen to occur on the ninth anniversary of the fall of Flipnote Hatena, Sudomemo releases the Flipnote Archive publicly.
11/18: Release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
12/31: This marks the 10 year anniversary of me having first played Robotron.
I set my highest score with an accompanying full video recording around 12.4 million points.
3/27: The Nintendo eShop for the Wii U and 3DS systems is discontinued.
9/13: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC for Scarlet and Violet gets the first half released in the form of The Teal Mask.
9/27: The Counter-Strike 2 update is pushed out to replace Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
I can't imagine I'm the only person who refuses to see Counter-Strike 2 as a new game because it's just CS:GO on the newer Source 2 engine.
10/9: I started my 2023 SoulSilver playthrough.
12/2: I set my highest Robotron score on a real cabinet at Game Terminal in Nashville, Tennessee with a score of 8,926,800 points.
I am shocked and appalled that this did not happen at an arcade in Michigan, but I'll take it. Game Terminal was a cool place.
12/14: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC for Scarlet and Violet gets the second half released in the form of The Indigo Disk.
1/2: In what was technically the very earliest hours of the day after the beginning of the new year, I beat SoulSilver for the first time.
1/11: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC for Scarlet and Violet gets the third half released in the form of an epilogue.
Don't ask me what that's about, I'm just reading release dates on Wikipedia.
1/29: Sudomemo hosted its 10th Anniversary Birthday Bash event.
The world changes a lot in 14 years.