my favorite places in pokemon 

new hazel music album: smilingbroadly.bandcamp.com/album/smiling-broadly-ep also on youtube: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rX9ykAory9Q.html

i like to think the gated park sections in that alola city are to keep the local school children safe from level 5 murder rats.

It’s a shame the player’s house in the original mystery dungeon couldn’t be mentioned. The houses being shaped like the player’s Pokémon was cute and the water starters getting a small pond inside their house was my favorite part. That music is permanently in my brain

The twist in that stray cat story made my jaw drop, I'm glad Pikachu safely found their way home.

Hazel's videos always have that "nostalgia for the experiences you've never had" vibe. And I love that shit so damn much

I used to pretend I lived in Verdanturf Town in Emerald, and have legitimate conversations with the townsfolk. I even used to travel to Mauville city to get groceries for my mother. I loved Hoenn

I'm surprised National Park wasn't brought up. That always seemed like an area tailor made by the devs for hanging out and enjoying the music. Floaroma Town also fits that bill.

This video is the first time in a long time that I've felt like I was watching "Old RU-vid." The personal stories, strange anecdotes, even the weird, reality-bending story about Pikachu the cat, it all makes me feel like I'm back at my grandmother's house watching RU-vid for the first time at 12 years old. I love your narrative style so much! You've earned a sub just from the way you tell stories. Keep it up!

For me personally it's actually the anime- in Gen 7 for the Sun and Moon anime they completely broke the format- Ash had a home, a school, and the core cast consisted of a large group of friends. The region wasn't just a changing backdrop for episodes but a home, a place with spaces, everything could breathe and unwind and the animation staff got really into it so the whole experience was magical. The last episode when Ash finally decides to return to travelling after truly becoming part of his homestay family's life was extremely, brutally emotional in a way I struggle to describe. The whole ending of Ash waking up early in the morning, being driven to the airport, getting on the plane alone but for Pikachu and there's this tangible feeling of loss and character growth that really hit home. It was very fitting that the series after Sun and Moon was Ash's final season because at that point I felt like he'd reached a turning point. The new, non-Ash series also kind of channels that sense of home too. The protagonists live on an airship as a found family and it's full of spaces that feel lived in and have meaning, I'm really happy they went back to the same sense of physical and emotional space that made Sun and Moon sing.

The cat's name being Pikachu honestly sent me reeling!!! Amazing things happen sometimes!!

WoAAh!! Imagine my surprise when I was watching this and the rom hack I worked on was mentioned!! I was one of the pokemon designers n dex writers for Fools Gold, so I really appreciate the kind words! I’ve been watching your vids for a while so it means a lot

I think art style-wise Gen 5 really blew my mind in that regard. The Village Bridge is an absolutely beautiful little area, with a handful of NPCs who add to the background music, adding extra instruments and vocals and building off of each other to create a song so much bigger than themselves. And the BW2 Gyms have different versions of the Gym theme for each Gym...so perfect. The changing of the seasons in the Gen 5 games are also chef's kiss. I live in the NYC metro so living in the IRL region of Unova makes me appreciate Gen 5 even more because I know the inspiration behind the things they chose. Nacrene City for example was based off the area around Dumbo and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The warehouses and tracks reference the fact the Navy Yard had 30 miles of track used for moving freight. The Yard's self-contained railroad moved raw materials, ship sections, and other components from workshops to assembly area. Dumbo is known for being an artsy little community, which is accurately reflected by the Café Warehouse and Gym Leader Burgh's frequent visits to the city. Mistralton on the other hand is based off Teterboro Airport in NJ, which is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area, and also had among the highest rate of bird strikes in the nation back in 2009, so it's ironic to have bird Pokémon there.

Snowbelle City in XY is quite a comforting place. Sitting on a bench by the Gym and just chilling while listening to the majestic music is so cozy. The vibe is "Yes, you've made it to your eighth and final Gym, take a breather before the Elite Four". For the Gyms, I love the Kalos Gyms and the BW2 Unova Gyms the most. Like the fact the first ever Fairy-type Gym was a giant DOLLHOUSE, how magical the Coumarine tree was, that the Anistar Gym transforms into somewhere outer space, how chill the Humilau Gym is, or the Nimbasa Gym is now a runway for the queen...they all go so hard. On the topic of Gen 7/Alola, I appreciate the relaxing vibes of Paldean locations in Gen 9 as well like Alfornada based off Portugal's Algarve with its chimneys and decorative dishes. Porto Marinada is based off Portugal's Costa Nova. The striped houses of Costa Nova are known as “palheiros”, which in Portuguese means haystack, and refers to their looks. They were used by fishermen as storage for fishing nets and other materials. The houses were already striped (mostly with a mix of black and dark red stripes), but since they only served as deposits, the inside didn’t have any divisions or infrastructure. With time, the fishermen started bringing their families to spend the summer by the sea, and the storage houses started being turned into holiday houses.

these last few videos have been so fun visually, i’m loving all the camera footage and stuff. so much texture! so stylish!

The idea that Hazel has read adventures fills me with so much joy, that manga, especially the gen 2 arcs, mean so much to me.

I like how old games look WAAAAAY more than highly polished, graphically impressive, busy environments. Also, the more video-like a video game becomes, the less you have to use your imagination.

The beach or sharpedo bluff in mystery dungeon really is this for me. No music just ambient ocean sounds. There’s a bunch of other areas, like fogbound lake and a lot of the mid-dungeon save areas

probably not all that related, but i've always lowkey liked the aesthetic sensibilities of the pokemon series despite never being an actual fan. older pokemon has that coziness to it that i've grown to appreciate over time, not just in those games, but in video games in general. part of me is and was scared to play the games as i feel like it would ruin that blurry nostalgic comfort i associate with the series, only vaguely interacting with it through friends i had when i was a kid.

I loved the vibes in pomemon games , the towns seemed like cool places to hang out with friends and your mons. I really loved when we could pet our pokemon too

I'm a complete bitch for Unova, that place is genuinely like a second home to me. Such an incredibly well designed region. It's hard to pick just one location, but Village Bridge genuinely shakes me to my core whenever I listen to the full music track. It's so serene and I earnestly love how it has nothing to do with the story, you just stumble onto this little self sufficient community with plenty of people to talk to and little events to partake in.

I loved the Gen III secret base mechanic; it’s one of the most nostalgic mechanics in the games for me. My favorite place to set up my secret base was at the southwest corner of Route 120 between Fortree and Lilycove. I was really disappointed when the secret base mechanic in Gen IV just didn’t hit the same, even though I liked the underground overall

Since you brought up one of the movies, the 3rd movie with entei is just. Full of beautiful locations. Deadass I still watch that movie as an adult just to look at it. My particular favorites are the flower field entei dashes through after kidnapping ash’s mom, the waterfall they scale to get into the crystal castle, and the pavilion in the water in the end credits. It’s genuinely such a beautiful movie and then you turn on the sound or pay attention to the story for 3 seconds and you remember it’s one of the absolutely insane Pokémon movies.

Hazel enabled story time - everyone to the sitting circle ☺️

My favorite spot in all of pokemon has to be Viridian Forest in GSC. In gen 1 it's this spooky dark forest with creepy music filled with weedle that poison you and force you to run all the way back to the pokemon center. Then in gen 2 you approach it from the opposite direction and the creepy music starts... and then turns into a jazzy remix that's somehow upbeat and nostalgic and a little melancholic. And this huge forest that once took you hours to go through on your first go isn't even a speedbump anymore. It's not a seperate map, there's no encounters, it's like this forest that was so huge and scary to you before has now become a pleasant jaunt through the woods. Maybe it's a metaphor for growing up. Or maybe they shrunk the forest to free up some memory on the cartridge 🤷‍♂️

When I first played Pokemon Yellow, I was at such a young age that I don't think I could read that well and I needed my older sister's help to get Pikachu to show up at "Pikachu's house" and then once I had Pikachu I couldn't register that the grass at the top of the town was something you could walk through, so my entire conception of the game was that you were just hanging out with Pikachu in this small town and trying to become friends with it. I spent a LOT of time doing this. Just walking around Pallet Town and talking to people, talking to Pikachu, hanging out down by the water and pretending I was skipping rocks, watching TV with Pikachu in my house, and so on. I can laugh a little about it now but I think that was a really special experience and it's one I think the vibes that you hit on in this video were perfectly suited to provide. Thanks for reminding me of this!

When I was a kid playing pokemon emerald, I got so immersed in the story that I just didn't proceed with the main plot. I rested in bed a lot bc we'd just moved, I talked to my mom, pretended to do the dishes, that kind of thing. This video encapsulates something I really like about the series, which is that to me pokemon at its best can kinda feel like playing with dolls lol

I love these nostalgic-esque videos you make on things you love. It reminds me that no matter how old you are, you can always love and enjoy things that were from your childhood without embarassment or feeling like you're too "old" to be enjoying it. Thank you so much for your channel Hazel.

Yes, that exact spot above the flower shop captivated me as a kid! Something about the holes in the grass patch scratched my brain real nice

Your way with words is just so... unlike any other RU-vidr I've come across and it's such an experience to watch one your videos. You meander in way that is somehow appealing, and whisks the listener away to another place before they've even realize it's happening. Your simple observations and tongue-in-cheek humour pair with your incredibly deep observations and high brow humour in such a way that I actually feel smarter having watched one of your videos. Your quiet moments or reflection frequently crack my armor and force me to get in touch with emotions I didn't know I had or have been trying to repress or maybe just forgot about. Whether it's about Pokemon, or Cryptids, or some anime I've never watched, you just have this indescribable quality to your presentation and personality that makes you exceptionally fun to "be around" as it were. I'm so glad I found your channel, and I look forward to many more videos. You're friggin awesome and I hope you know that.

you know it´s a good day when hazel uploads, saved for my bedtime tea

"The void" is absolutely a memorable location! I have great memories of playing Kirby Air Ride with my brothers and driving out-of-bounds using the one gap in the invisible wall. Good times. :)

My favorite places in pokemon are usually dead ends you have no reason to return to but you do so anyways The end of a route that leads no where, a small map that only exists for some event in the story, legendary and mythical spots (especially if they're islands), etc.

Honestly your discussion about how handheld games, especially Pokémon ones, make for great spots for “idling” made me think of my own childhood experiences, playing on my Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS while my family would drive from place to place during summer vacation. Not to mention my overall feelings of comfort I associate with handled games, past and present, as I play my favourite games in my favourite places (which is why I generally prefer to play my Switch in handheld mode). It’s a great feeling.

Fortree city always felt so cool to me as a kid, a city of treehouses is peak childhood fantasy

i vividly remember seeing castelia city in black and white for the first time and being especially amazed at the 3D curved city layout paired with the whimsical town theme. the city visuals in that game make me want to replay it just to enjoy the landscape alone

My favourite spot in DPPt is partway through Mt Coronet on the way to Spear Pillar. After several winding rooms of caves, you emerge into this brief snowy area on the side of the mountain. It always felt so strange, wild, remote and lonely - like if you were to walk out of bounds the snow would stretch on for miles. It's so time-consuming to reach that you're unlikely to ever go there again after this part of the story, unless you really want an Absol, but that just makes it feel more special. Whenever I replay Platinum I look forward to revisiting it. As for Black and White, this is a basic one but Castelia City. God I love the vibe of it so much. The towering buildings, bustling people, all the little spots to explore - it felt like such a vibrant, exciting place. The cinematic camera on the bridge you cross when you arrive there for the first time absolutely blew me away the first time I played it too.

Hi Hazel! I absolutely love the way you look at and experience these types of games. Your appreciation for the little things in these series is brilliant- which is why I would HIGHLY recommend the Yokai Watch games (2 specifically, any version) for 3ds. There's so many simple and cute details such as the small countryside towns that you don't experience but get a such good impression of them from talking to people and their train stations. And not even to mention the trains that are kind realistic in how they're done. They don't take as long as real life trains but they're are these simple short trips where you get to pause with your characters who ride the train. Sometimes on the train, yokai will walk past you and want to fight or give you items, other people will sit down to talk to you, but sometimes (and this is my favourite) nothing happens. You and your two yokai pals just sit there, not talking to each other, not any music blasting , just you guys sitting and looking out the window. A lot of people hate this feature because they view it as a waste of time but I'm the opposite. I thoroughly enjoy my time sitting with the characters and just existing. It reminds me so much of what you like and I'd love it if you at least looked into it. No need to buy it or put your time into it but these games have such beautiful moments and I genuinely think you would love them.

The pokemon mystery dungeon games have ingrained themselves into my brain. The town theme from the first game occasionally pops in my head

Fortree City forever changed my brain chemistry to the point that any time I see a foresty-town in any media for the first time, my neurons activate and I revert back to my years as a kid, frothing at the mouth at all cool combination of trees and hanging fixtures. Like, when I first started playing FF14, Gridania was my starting town and once I was able to, I just wandered around the city, taking in the details, not even caring about the main storyline. I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in Canada recently and felt like I got transported directly into Fortree City when I got to the other side and saw the hanging bridges and treetops, completely in awe.

"BELLCHIME TRAIL AUTUMNAL FUNNY MOMENTS" is an activation phrase jammed into my matted neurons that I cannot pinpoint the corresponding action to. One day I will report back with whatever that is when the conditions are met. I can't stop thinking about it.

One of my favorite spots in Gen 3 is just hanging out on the little patches of land in the ocean just south of Mossdeep City. It's a combination of everything, I think; the music that plays (Route 120's theme, my beloved) all the rocky outcroppings being your only limit on where you can go, the occasional diving spots (also wonderful spaces in their own right), how the limited view space on the GBA just makes the ocean seem so vast and endless... It all just hits for me.

this video feels so cozy and comfortable. i stared watching in the morning then got busy and had to go to work but just thinking about my similar memories or my favourite locations and what the rest of the video would be like really helped me get through the day. i’m definitely gonna watch it again probably for sleep aid or whenever i just want a nice peaceful thing to listen to. thank you

the fact you have mareeps accompanying you in this video makes me feel so happy I love mareep so much it's my absolute favorite pokemon ;A;

Crystal (and by extension Gold and Silver) is my favourite Pokemon game aesthetically. The music, the sprite work, the colours, how the little flowers dance. It's peak cozy.

I started enjoying Pokémon about 4th to 5th gen and my first gen was 6. I love the cozy limited 3d. I loved the creepy pastors too. They where so crap yet somehow there was something drawing me to them. Also hope to get a cassette soon when the restock comes. Love the vid keep up the good work hazel.

Hazel giving us a video on labor day truly for the people

YES! The pretty petal shop clearing is SO nice! I've always imagined it like a nice clearing with light coming through the trees from the reflection of the lake and flowers hidden away. I just... imagine these places as such a nice detail. I dunno.

To me, the cozyest place is Virbank city from Black/White 2. I sometimes feel the urge to replay that game only to get there again and listen to that town theme.

God, what an opening shot

Absolutely adore this video topic. It’s one I’ve been thinking about myself for sometime. The concept of “idling by” in a video game and just being one with its atmosphere like you’re really living in it is actually something I factor in for if I can consider a game a favorite or not haha

The fact that a cat stumbled into your friend's house with the name Pikachu has to be a part of some kind of prophecy.

I still remember when i first walked into the National Park. The music caught me off guard as a kid and i thought i was stepping into a super important significant place, only to realize it was just a park, then stopping and just listening

My lord, your soothing voice mixed with this subject matter has me feeling such an overwhelming nostalgia. Thank you!

God two hazel videos within a month of each other, plus a new ep. We're eating good 🤤

i'm a big fan of the super fuckoff remote areas that usually have the legendary pokemon, like vast poni canyon and the snowy areas of mount coronet. giant chasm isn't that remote but it carries that vibe with the mysterious music and the fact that everyone in unova avoids it like the plague. i find the unforgiving and rough edges of nature to be oddly comforting for some reason and i think the pokemon devs have a lot of respect for it as well (as a gen 3 kid i am also legally obligated to shout out fortree city)

Gen 1 and 6's bike themes are the music I hear in my head every time I get on a bike.

hazel with the absolutely elite hyper-specific vibey topics, love it so much

hazels ability to find such joy in tiny things like this is always inspiring to me :)

I also love when it snows. Unfortunately, it’s pretty rare where I live, even more so for it to snow enough for playing in, but god, snow is beautiful. I remember I year or two ago running downstairs to look at the snow, knowing I couldn’t go out without turning of the alarm and potentially waking up my parents, and thus just staring out the window. I just love snow.

When i was a kid and finally beat heartgold id always return with my typhlosion to the peak of the mountain and just interact in the overworld and hear the cry reverberate at the mountain peak, it also didnt help that due to being a kid and having misread the pokedex entry where it said "its rage peaks" and instead misread "it rages at peaks" my mind figured this was its natural habitat anyway

girls love the void

Mystery dungeon was my favorite spot, it really felt like i was on a journey and it was so so scary, but having a friend to help me through it made everything feel better

A memory just unlocked. Back in my long lost cart of Pearl, I really wanted a Frostlass but didn't know how to get one. After buying a gen 4 pokedex book from my school's bookfaire, I got home and instantly check to see if I had a dawnstone. I caught a Snorunt and evolved her. I think she was one of the few 'mons to have survived me losing that cartridge having been moved to my later copy of Platinum (avoiding the fate of the dropped Wii's Ranch save with my Empoleon, Togekiss, and Fire Red Charzard). I think she's still in my copy of Moon.

My absolute favorite place is the lakes in Platinum but especially when they were drained (using explosives I think?). The fact that they had little reflective puddles made my brain light up like pop rocks (Also the route to the safari zone in hg and ss is so pleasing for no reason)

For me, the Saffron City Dojo in HGSS is so comfy. It's nice having a place where all of the gym leaders you've met along the way can just vibe with you and hang out. Doubly so considering to get them there, you get to learn more about their day to day life, what they do in their time off. You get to learn that Janine brings her dad food during her time away from the gym, the Jasmine eats her heart out at the diner in Olivine City and so much more.

I love sun & moon so much and I definitely think they’re worth looking into especially if you like cool locations! There’s an area with a beautiful field of flowers and maybe it’s bc there’s a cutscene there but it has stuck in my mind more than any other place in pokemon. Ultra wormholes are also one of my favorite features pokemon has ever had! I don’t want to spoil anything but there’s a surreal area involving the jellyfish ultra beast that I thought was really pretty

The first pokemon game I ever owned was Emerald, and while Hoenn might be my favorite region, when I think about memorable spaces in Pokémon to just... hang out, my mind immediately goes back to when I was four or five years old, watching my older cousin travel through Johto. Deprived of any context of what the game was really about, or how video games even worked, it felt as if at the same time that we were sitting on the porch, she was simultaneously sauntering down the boardwalk talking with the local fishermen or mosying past the craggy mounds where the unowns live, ready to do some archaeology. Oh, and Pokémon Heroes left me obsessed with Venice for the next 10 years

Child-me knew that Pokemon Heros was not good. But that didn't stop child-me from being obsessed with the beauty of the city it was set in. The movie def goes in the pile of "reasons my brain's internal screensaver is a city that's half made of water"

I really love the seasonal area variants in Black and White specifically the Autumn and Winter ones. Especially the areas in Black and White 2 i find extremely cosy as its the 1st Pokemon i really fell in love with as a child.

I absolutely love Kalos. There's like 5 towns that are like, straight up useless and serve nothing aside from eye candy. Normally that would be a bad thing and it is in terms of region design, but looking past that, I love it all. Kalos is just chock full of areas that you can just *partake in*. Courmarine is definitely a favorite of kine. I love that GF just randomly decided "Haha, train town!" but they did and it makes it distinct. Amberette is a divider between this massive cliff and the beach, the route before that town also being a favorite area. Snowbelle just has this random massive forest maze that you have to go through twice and then only return for like, trashcan spawns. I think a really underrated "Cozy" game is the Etrian Odyssey series. After a certain point when the game finally has you by the balls and you've sunk too much time to just drop it, everything just feels home-y. The first few floors of the grassy labyrinth are basically universally familiar to anyone who's played any EO game for even an hour. EO2's stratums especially are cozy, all being season-based and fairly distinct from the rest of the series. EO4 especially cranks up the coziness, with all of the sub-dungeons that occasionally have that one little thing that sticks out to you.

Oh man, Pokemon meant so much to me growing up, lemme think about a list here... in no particular order: - Pokemon Square (Pokemon Red Rescue Team): I adored the main hub area in that game, when I was little I'd speak to every NPC one by one as if I was having a conversation with everyone :) sometimes I'd just chill at the Pelipper Office looking over the body of water to the east. Or hang out at the Whiscash Pond just to hear the special music. - Agate Village (Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness): There are a ton of locations in this game I love but I distinctly remember hanging out here, probably because of the Purification Chamber but also just for the music. The woodland aesthetic made it so relaxing, I live both near the coast and in a pretty green state so anything remotely evergreen or coastal makes me feel comfortable. Gateon Port with its puzzle-like outer section and the entirety of Phenac City also just makes me happy to exist in. - Gathering Place Area (PokePark Wii): Literally every playable space in that game, even the final area with Mew, the Sky Garden, all give nostalgic tingles! Since I can't really pick any one of them to highlight specifically, I think the central treehouse in the Gathering Place is the best mention. There's something about the saturated color pallete, smooth geometry, and soft looking textures that just scream cozy kid's game :') (I feel too lazy to complete this comment with mainline Pokemon games. If you do a Part 2 I'll have to finish it then. Loved this video!)

Pokemon Legends Arceus has a really unique vibe for a Pokemon game, since most of its locations are untouched by civilization. The Heartwood in Obsidian Fieldlands is probably my favorite spot to hang out in, mostly for the music that plays there. Also a fan of the underground ice caves in Alabaster Icelands.

Village Bridge from Pokemon Black and White 2 will always be my favorite hangout spot. So long have I run over its brick, activating every musician in rhythmic harmony to build up the area's song. I especially love the vocalist guy who sings. It's impossible to truly replicate on your own, but it's never stopped me from trying irl when its tune seizes me somewhere.

As someone who just loves *existing* in a space in video games, especially Pokémon, this video is relevant to my interests and it makes me happy :) Reminds me of how in more action packed video games I like taking my character to a hub or more peaceful area before I shut the game off and I have no idea why

As someone who DID grow up somewhere where it snowed, it just is absolutely that magical. I spent a few years of my adult life in Texas and I desperately missed snow the whole time I was there.

It's nice to see someone appreciating the entire series in this way who also doesn't think particularly highly of kanto. I love the original Pokemon games, they are some of the first games I ever played. I grew up with them. I probably played them over 100 times in my life. They are barely in my top five Pokemon games lol.

I think artstyle-wise Gen 5 changed my brain in a way I still don't quite understand, and has made so many little areas and moments stick with me. I hadn't even played B or W 2 until this year, but White is still one of my most important games. The Village Bridge is a beautiful little area, with a handful of NPCs who add to the background music, adding extra instruments and vocals and building off of each other to create a song so much bigger than themselves. Castelia City was, to a young and isolated country kid like myself on those game's releases, a taste of what the big city was, bright and busy and shady and confusing. It evoked the feeling of a big city in a way that I can only compare to Shenmue 2, my favourite game ever for a similar reason. And while I have way less emotional connection to the sequels. Roxie's little dingy band set-up, Burgh's weirdly eerie cocoon gym, and the almost abandoned feeling Lentimas Town all add more of a unique feeling to the region. There are certainly areas in all the other Pokemon games I like, and Black and White while being my favourite games aren't even the ones I'm the most nostalgic for, but I do think White influenced me as a person the most. Pokemon's really neat in that respect I think.

I appreciate the magic realism of the Pokémon series

I could cry that action replay case with the scary piplup and chimchar.... SUCH a core memory and i didn't even realize it. i had such a physical response to that popping up on my screen i had to pause mid video jesus. this video is an amazing trip and matches my own experiences way more than i expected. a perfect encapsulation of growing up with these games. okay im gonna keep watching the rest of it now.

I always loved chillin in the little hot spring in lavaridge town. hoenn especially was chock full of little elements like that- stuff that made the world a fun place to hang out in even if no pokemon were involved. also, the heroes movie was my FAVORITE as a kid, and its very nice to see that its just as visually dazzling as my inner 9 year old remembers :]

The pokemon location that means the most to me personally are the gardens in pokemon the rise of darkrai. Its gorgeous, i really love how it incorporates the pokemon living there it really feels so serene

oh my younger sibling and I were OBSESSED with Pokemon heroes, we wore the hell out of that dvd. The plot is just as melodramatic and silly as most of the other movies but its just so charming and gorgeous to look at (not to mention the music). also the villains are very hot and imprinted on me very deeply. I would say besides altomare, the city from destiny deoxys also fascinated me as a kid. it was so kinetic, every sidewalk was moving and led to an escalator. every building was a thousand feet tall and a maze of elevators. and then all that technology shuts down and turns on everyone and the city floods with millions of robots?? incredible stuff. I also got lost in hoenn as a kid due to my poor map reading skills and also poor regular reading skills but I don't regret the time I spent wandering, both in the actual games themselves and in the glimpses we got in other media

Honestly this is one of those videos I come back to everytime things become too hectic in life. Like for some reason it gives me the same feeling of nostalgia that I get from watching my older sibling play videogames. With all that said great video! :D

No wonder you didn't mind the water in Gen 3. The whole second half is water, and you said you stopped midway through

A personal favorite for me has always been Ilex Forest. There's something so serenely beautiful about it, and its odd random shrine that 90% of players will never be able to interact with. It's just there, its purpose largely irrelevant, but still important. Also a shout too oreburgh mine, something about the conveyer belts of stone really spoke to me as a kid

Pokémon Heroes was both! It was both animated on cels and animated digitally! It's not that they were trying to achieve a cel look, it's that some of the shots were outsourced and cleaned up by a completely diferent studio than the main one (the digitally inked ones). It was one of the last films to be animated on cels in general, actually.

I was in the process of moving from my Childhood home when gen 5 was in its prime. One very vivid memory I remember having was me packing my boxes welling up with tears, with my ds blaring the vocal version of the Village Bridge theme. When we moved, I couldn't bare listening to the theme so I either just avoided that area entirely or muted the DS. That place, to this day, is probably the only video game location that evokes such a sad, nostalgic emotion from me.

i do really love when i replay a game i haven't touched since my childhood and its all very nostalgic and then i just reach that ONE AREA or hear that ONE SONG that stops me dead in my tracks and i can see, touch, feel, taste the exact room i was in the first time i reached that part, or heard that song. feeling so physically, so viscerally close to a space, to a time, to a mindset of my past is so surreal. it's like all the life experiences, the pain, the growing up that separates back then from now collapses in an instant, a brief state of not being weighed down by anything, feeling the same joy i felt all those years ago. but it doesn't leave me with a yearning for the past, for a simpler time, instead it leaves me with the encouraging reminder that i'm still me despite everything, and even the things that feel so mundane now can become special to me in time. sorry for the ramble :P this video is lovely! i love hearing about what little things people find special, reminds me of the days of idling on my ds, listening to songs loop over and over on long road trips :3

THIS IS SO GOOD. This is exactly a point I've been trying to articulate for so long - Pokémon is a series for hanging out and taking in the little details. I also constantly group Melee in with Gen III because I got my first Gamecube in '04. Also shoutout to BEER the Rayquaza. The Pikachu cat story is actually INSANE. X and Y has SO many of these spots for me with all the benches - imo the best spot is the bench in the gym in Cyllage city. It's so off the beaten path and has no point except for just vibing out and staring at a waterfall.

i used to go to the fleemarket to switch the batteries of peoples cartridges for new ones with the right screwdriver and some tape always makes me happy to hold these games in my hand

My mouth fell agape at the Pickle cat being PIKACHU. Thats some serious fate shit. Cat distribution system destiny mode omfg, amazing

I knew after 20 minutes this will be my new favorite video of yours. Rarely can someone articulate feelings so well about such a subjective topic as favorite places in a media franchise. I also love the camcorder sections for narration that have cropped up in here and your last video, a very distinct style that gives the video undeniable personality. Keep up the great work!

For years it never struck me how much I cherished the memories of these locations of these games until this video. I have distinct memories of going on car rides with the music from these games playing. Johto's National Park is a vibe, the seaside locations of Hoenn felt lively, the frigid peaks of Mt. Coronet in Sinnoh felt isolating. There are times I wish I could be as easily impressionable again.

undella town will always have a special place in my heart

@hhhazel I feel Hazel is the personification of the very realm of the Liminal that exists in between memories and the nostalgia. The ward and host who guides whomever finds themselves between dreams and waking life. Love your videos!

lets fucking go

I really loved the visuals in Pokemon 3: The Movie. There are all of these big, flowery, organic-looking crystalline environments that have been embedded in my memory for 20+ years despite renting and watching it only a single time at my grandma's house in like 2002.

Emerald was my first Pokemon game and I can confirm it hits different. Something about how wild the region feels, how whenever I seem to imagine each section of the region in terms of the colours schemes of the environment. Shout out to the way they made ponds look like these brilliant perfect blue reflective mirrors, the image of my trainer reflected in the water lives rent free in my mind.

I’m about a quarter of the way through the video and all I can think about is how you will love the frutiger aero aesthetic. It just fits really well with a lot of the stuff

The part about the advent of 3D making you feel like there should be places to explore beyond the boundaries was interesting to me because I felt that way in the SNES still not 3D era, too. For example, in ALttP I’d always wonder what was behind the barriers around Hyrule and I’d look longingly down at the forest you could see north of Death Mountain beyond the world the game let you see.