A Proper Introduction, After Two Months

[darkxthedragonknight]

So, let's take this from the top- even if it's a little bit late.

 

Hello! I am DarkX the Dragon Knight- or simply X for short- a recent college graduate, official woman in STEM, and gamer of over 15 years (maybe closer to 16 years by now). And yes, that does include Pokémon- in fact, my love of Pokémon dates back to my early childhood, as early as my exposure to video games as a whole. If I love something enough, I start to engage in its fan content, and I've engaged in Pokémon fan works a fair amount over the years. This, as you can imagine, culminated in me learning about this website's namesake, Pokémon Reborn. And in fact, just a few months ago I decided to not only play the game for myself, but to go even further and record/post my playthrough in the form of a screenshot Let's Play over on Tumblr.

 

This is why I eventually wound up finding out about these forums and joining, though not until towards the end of April (for reference, I started my screenshot Let's Play back in October). To be honest, I didn't know this topic existed until...just today; it's been a long time since I was on a dedicated forum website, it was a little overwhelming and I had few ideas of what to do or where to start, I was just playing it by ear. But despite my anxiety, I still figured doing some cross-posting between platforms wouldn't hurt- after all, there might be some more people actually interested in reading about my playthrough. Of course, the actual first post of mine on this site does a better job explaining things, so I'd recommend giving that a look if you're interested. Granted, I'm no competitive player, far from it- I'm a casual player, and happily so. My main exposure to the competitive side of Pokémon comes from randomized Showdown battles and various YouTube videos about the topic. Sure, I think I'm fine enough at strategizing- I enjoy mystery games like Ace Attorney and strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem, but Pokémon is a whole other ballpark, especially with the kind of wacky luck I have a lot of the time.

 

But my real aim in playing Reborn isn't just because I love Pokémon- I love games with proper stories in general. RPGs happen to be among my favorite genre of video games (if not my absolute favorite), and that's because they tend to be pretty good with providing amazing stories that make me feel so many things, and that's doubly so if they manage to integrate the gameplay with that story. I think it's that love of storytelling that led me to pick up writing as a side hobby of sorts, and I've even written several pieces of fanfiction for other fandoms over the years (although I've only ever completed two projects, and one of those was a remake). I love Pokémon, and I enjoy a majority of the stories the games tell, but even I can't deny there's potential for stories set in its world to go further, dig deeper. Fan games, I feel, can live up to that potential, not held back in the way actual companies are, allowed to tell stories that touch on more mature and darker topics (not to say darker stories are inherently better than primarily light-hearted ones, I wasn't joking when I said I still enjoy a majority of Pokémon's stories, including the mainline ones). I'm not sure yet if Reborn will scratch that itch, but I'm enjoying it enough so far to indulge in thinking up ideas for fanfiction elements and making my player avatar into a separate protagonist and character, so I think that says a lot about my investment.

 

So, a Pokémon fan who has played casually for a vast majority of her life deciding to play a fan game that is well-known for its difficulty and complex gameplay additions- what could possibly go wrong? :D