Pokemon player warms hearts with emotional story about missing Arcanine
Game Freak / Twitter: @triforcemeg
For decades, Pokemon has played a large role in many kids’ childhoods. Released in 1996 on the Game Boy, players from around the world became hooked by its addicting “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” design and vibrant cast of characters.
Many adults who grew up with the RPG continue to play the Nintendo property to this day. However, one Redditor warmed the hearts of fellow Trainers when they recalled a story about their Arcanine and how the two reunited years later.
Game Freak / NintendoPokemon Trainer’s wholesome Arcanine story
The popular Fire-type monster was first introduced in Red & Blue, and could be obtained by giving Growlithe a Fire Stone. The pup has long been a fan-favorite. Over on Reddit, user ‘nickc27584‘ opened up to the community about how they lost the Pokemon while growing up.
The fan first explained how much the character they’d named “Grow” had meant to them, explaining, “This Arcanine was the first Pokémon that I had ever trained to level 100. Caring for this Pokémon really helped me get through my awkward teenage years. Arcanine and I battled friends, beat Pokémon stadium 2.”
Unfortunately, the Trainer lost the beloved ‘mon when their save-file for Gold died one day. “One day I turned on the game and noticed there was only a “New Game” displayed on the screen. The battery in the game had died, and therefore all of the Pokémon I had collected including Arcanine have also died. This Arcanine was 1 of a kind to me,” they said.
Game Freak / NintendoBut all hope was not lost. Years later, the Pokemon fan decided to boot up Stadium and found the canine. “I turned on Pokemon Stadium 2. Just to play around and battle a bit. When I saw it. Grow was sitting there in a few registered party slots. I jotted down his stats and made an exact copy of him to put into Heart Gold. Right now, he’s sitting inside of my Pokémon ultra sun game.”
While the user admits that their current version of Arcanine isn’t the exact same one that they caught when they were a kid, their story still connected with many users on the forum. Fortunately with the release of the Home app in 2020, players can now transfer all of their monsters from recent games into one database.
The fan’s emotional story really demonstrates how much the franchise has really connected with people. For many, they grew up alongside these Pokemon, and in a lot of cases were able to carry them throughout the generations.
