My mom picked Explorers of Darkness up from Kohls. I never played a Pokemon game before. I wasn't interested at first but I gave it a shot and it wasn't long before I was invested in the game. My first duo was Piplup (now my favorite line of Pokemon) and Pikachu. I never finished the game before starting over when I got stuck on Mt. Bristle, however. My next duo was Pikachu and Turtwig.
It was also my first RPG. I wasn't used to story being this big of an emphasis on games. But I loved it. Also, I didn't understand the concept of getting stronger with each level up. I thought as I returned to earlier dungeons that used to give me trouble like Mt. Bristle I just got more skilled at the game.
I also remember being stuck at Mt. Travail for about a month or three and was ecstatic when I finally got through it.
The game's story was long. I was hoping it would never end. I remember getting a little post game depression when new story sequences stopped occuring and the NPC's, as well as my partner, would say the same thing every day and I would have nothing to do but job missions, which I still enjoyed.
My post game team included me, my partner, cresselia, and regice. I evolved my partner into Torterra right away, but couldn't figure out how to do it. I always checked but every time, the evolution category of the summary was always 'not possible now'. This was before I looked things up so I kept hoping I would evolve by leveling. I remember hoping Pikachu evolves into Electivire. Just thought it looked cool. Still my favorite electric type to this day. I was probably level 70 before I found out I coukd use a thunderstone. I had tried before when I found one in mystifying forest and selected 'use' and nothing happened. A few months of putting the game down and I open it up and see "Evolution: Possible Now." So I evolved into Raichu, and worked my way to master rank.
This series went on to become one of my favorites. I enjoyed all the others as well. I still prefer it to the main series. Hopefully we get a new one for gen 8.