When Pokémon released in 1998, I, like almost every other twelve year old, was immediately ensnared by it. The adventure, the discovery, the collecting; all these things appealed to me, a young boy who readily pumped the empty hours between school and sleep into the square, red cartridge. What really drove me, though, was victory, and there was no bigger opponent to topple than my older cousin and mentor, Derik.

For six years, I spent every Saturday night, barring any illness or poorly planned family vacation, sleeping over at Derik's house. We would carve wildly into the nighttime, playing games and drinking copious amounts of Diet Coke, sometimes taking breaks to eat pizza and watch Doctor Who or Monty Python on PBS. Over these years, Derik acted as my video game filter; he directly decided what I should be interested in and what I should play. Thanks to being mildly spoiled, Derik would get new games almost weekly, and I, who received games mostly on holidays or for good report cards, would scour his collection for games to play. He introduced me to Pokémon one fateful Saturday, the blue cartridge shoved tightly into the gray Game Boy, and explained the conceit and the objectives. He also told me how we could battle and trade Pokémon if I had the game. The next day, I convinced my mom to stop at Target on the way home and buy it for me, my pleas buoyed by empty promises to mow the lawn or do the dishes for two weeks straight, no doubt.

Like any story about a master and his apprentice, I constantly sought to best Derik, and Pokémon offered one of the purest opportunities to do so. This wasn't the same as winning a round of GoldenEye or pulling off a miraculous first place finish in Mario Kart; putting together the perfect team of Pokémon required not only planning around what Derik might throw out, but also literally putting hours into catching and leveling the comrades necessary in achieving my goals. So it came to be that after school I would spend hours kneeling under the living room lamp, preparing for our fated battles each weekend.

I'm sure I was able to squeak out victories here and there, but I'll never forget the surprise awaiting me one innocuous Saturday night. We plugged in our link cables, moved to the nearest Pokémon Center, and prepared for battle. I'm sure I had Charizard, my all-time favorite Pokémon, leading the assault. Derik opened with Chansey. This didn't really faze me, and I set me first move. Much to my surprise, the Chansey opened with a water attack that inflicted serious damage. I withdrew the Charizard immediately, and switched to a water-type. Derik withdrew his Chansey, and where I expected to see his Venusaur, I was instead greeted by... another Chansey, which hit me with Solar Beam. After a few moments, I had finally figured it out: an entire team of Chanseys, all taught different special attacks which could counter any of the Pokemon I threw out. I had trained all week for what I expected to see, and Derik had completely changed his approach and instead bested me. Sure, the next match I could re-tool my party and include fighting Pokémon, but it didn't matter; he had completely outsmarted me. That's why he was the master.

We battled for months, eventually moving up to the big screen thanks to Pokémon Staidum, and to the table top courtesy of the card game, but that one match has always been the most vivid and unforgettable to me. It illustrates best what I most loved about Pokémon: the chance to beat my biggest rival. It's because of this that no other game in the series has ever captured my attention and imagination the way Red and Blue did; even by the time Gold and Silver came out, we had moved on to different games and I, two years older now, wasn't as unacquainted with winning. Still, I'll always remember those Saturday nights, filled with losses, speckled with victories, and coated in Diet Coke, as some of the best days of my life. Pokémon will always be important to me, even if it can never recreate those experiences again.