As described in Parts 1, 2, and 3, Pokemon has always played an important role in my development as a person throughout childhood, pre-teen, and adolescent years. In addition, my undergraduate university years had been positively impacted by the Pokemon franchise as well. In my university years, I had become increasingly interested and obsessed with competitive gaming. And since I was and still am an avid Pokemon fan, this sparked my interest in competitive Pokemon battling and tournaments. In my freshman year of college I had just found out about the deeper aspects of Pokemon stats, natures, individual values, effort values etc. Also, the fact that I followed and religiously watched the videos of Youtubers such as Shofu and Slowflake, two avid competitive Pokemon fans, further fueled my desire to actively participate in the competitive Pokemon community. At the time the next Generation of Pokemon games were on the horizon. At the start of my freshman year of college in fall of 2010, it was one week before the Japanese release of Pokemon Black and White versions for the Nintendo DS. At the time I had just started really getting intrigued by competitive gaming, which soon followed suit with the Pokemon and the Super Smash Bros. franchises. My drive and passion for competitive Pokemon battling would continue to last for my sophomore, junior, and my senior years of undergraduate university. I was discovering the competitive Pokemon metagame and I developed an increasing passion for researching Pokemon, building Pokemon teams, collecting shiny Pokemon, and participating in WiFi tournaments. During most of the duration undergraduate university years, the relevant generation of Pokemon was Generation V. Competitively speaking, this generation of Pokemon was dominated by weather teams, which are Pokemon teams consisting of Pokemon members that benefit in some way shape or form by permanent weather. The major threats of this generation in standard play were the likes of Drizzle Politoed, Drought Ninetales, Chlorophyll Venusaur, Tyranitar, Incarnate Thundurus, Excadrill, Sand Veil Garchomp, Genesect, Speed Boost Blaziken, Latios, Latias and other weather-abusing Pokemon. Often times, players would have teams with opposing weather and often the winner of the match would be decided from the get-go depending on whether both players would keep their weather inducer. The weather inducers in Standard Overused play were Drizzle Politoed, Drought Ninetales, and Tyranitar. These weather inducers would summon permanent weather upon sending them out in battle. The only way that the weather summoned by these Pokemon can be changed are either by the opposing player’s Pokemon using a weather summoning move, which isn’t permanent and the said weather lasts only five turns, or sending out a weather inducer which summons opposing permanent weather. In competitive play, weather teams were all the rage! This really inspired me to build two rain-based teams. My singles team, consisted of Drizzle Politoed, Dry Skin Toxicroak, Zapdos, Skarmory, Gyarados, and Latios. My doubles team for Pokemon VGC consisted of Drizzle Politoed, Swift Swim Kingdra, Dry Skin Toxicroak, Incarnate Thundurus, Swift Swim Ludicolo, and Cursed Body Jellicent. These teams served me well in Wi-Fi tournaments. I was not able to attend in-person tournaments because I was a college student in a major in STEM field at the time, and that requires a lot of time and hard work in itself. My best friends at university would be my friendly rivals, as we would regularly hold tournaments and competitions with each other as to who is the best Pokemon trainer between our circles of friends! I spent so much time playing Pokemon competitively, that some of my friends on campus called me the Pokemon Guru on campus. I truly strived to be the very best that no one ever was, and it was exhilarating! This was a truly magical time for me! My fascination with Pokemon during my undergraduate university years was at an all time high and it has never been as high nowadays ever since. Pokemon was my world during my undergraduate university years and I am truly grateful that I was fully immersed in the world of competitive Pokemon during these years.

Pokemon began a life-long friendship between me and a friend of mine at the start of my undergraduate university years. In North America, Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver were at the time the main games of attraction at the time. The main feature with Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver, was that they came bundled with the Pokewalker, which is an external device into which you can transfer one Pokemon from either game. The Pokewalker was a pedometer as well, counting the steps taken so that the more steps the Pokemon trainer takes, the more likely the Pokemon transferred to the Pokewalker would find rare items and even encounter rare Pokemon! The Pokewalker was significant in starting one of the biggest life-long friendships that all started in the second week of my freshman year of college in fall of 2010. I was near the Syracuse University Schine Student Center and I was waiting for a ride to the art store to get some supplies for my art class, when my soon-to-be friend was just passing by and saw me playing with my Pokewalker. I was shaking my Pokewalker in order to increase the step count displayed on the LCD display, in order to get enough steps for my Pokemon to encounter the Flying Pikachu so I can transfer them to my game. This encounter with my soon-to-be friend was a start of a new friendship and this was because he caught me with my Pokewalker! A bond formed that day as we began discussing our shared passion for Pokemon and our adventures throughout the years. We would spend hours at each of our dorms with many other friends playing and talking about Pokemon. Pokemon WAS our college experience! We would also watch old episodes of the Pokemon anime together as well during the weekends whenever we had a stressful week full of exams and assignments. Our friendship is still going stronger than ever today and will last a life-time just because of that one moment when a Pokewalker was seen. Our lives were forever changed by that moment.

During my senior year of my undergraduate university years, Generation VI of Pokemon came out! Pokemon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS were revolutionary in introducing 3-Dimensional graphics and making use of the 3-D features of the Nintendo 3DS. I was waiting in anticipation for the games and the same life-long friend from freshman year bought me my Pokemon Y version that October in 2013 for my birthday and he got Pokemon X. It was my 21^st birthday that year so my friends held a huge Pokemon party for me. It was an amazing birthday party and it was the biggest celebration ever! There were literally 15+ people playing Pokemon X or Y at the party and there were plenty of amazing beverages there too!! These games were a new adventure for me and I had already continued to build new teams because these games introduced new game mechanics that made battling revolve less around weather as well as made building new competitive teams easier. We had the time of our lives. These games were fresh and new and I avoided social media coverage of these games to avoid spoilers to keep the hype and freshness regarding these games flowing through my mind and heart. I also was very excited to transfer my Pokemon from my previous games and see them in 3-D in my Pokemon Y version. I continued to play Pokemon competitively with my friends until after graduation of my senior year of college in late spring of 2014. Then not so long after my college graduation, I gradually lost interest in playing competitive Pokemon and started focused on other videogames. One could say that after MANY years of dedication to Pokemon, I had finally grown up from being a dedicated Pokemon trainer and began to explore other videogames more frequently. But after graduation, I made it a tradition that every year during summer time, I would watch the annual Pokemon Videogame World Championships on Youtube. Although I continue to be a passionate Pokemon fan, I would play only Pokemon games casually and for fun. Pokemon has opened my eyes to how truly fun videogames are and how they can truly bring happiness to one’s life.

Pokemon made me the gamer and anime enthusiast that I am today. I would not be into competitive gaming in general without Pokemon. Pokemon is truly my most beloved franchise of all-time and I will forever cherish it in my heart. No matter how old I become I will always remain a Pokemon fan. The Pokemon franchise as a whole has inspired me to not only believe in myself, but also always look for the good in other people and remain optimistic about life. Pokemon has allowed me to form life-long friendships that began in my university days that still hold strong today. And I must close with this quote, which sums up the importance of Pokemon in my life:

“Once a Pokemon fan, Always a Pokemon fan.”

Thank you, everyone, for reading my four part series on how Pokemon is my most beloved franchise of all-time. If you guys want to read this series from the beginning, the following links contain parts 1, 2, and 3 below:

Part 1: The Early Days

Part 2: The Gameboy Advance Days

Part 3: Pokemon During My High School Days