I played this game for over a year before putting it down to play the then newly released 4th generation of Pokémon. Compared to new entries in the series, especially New Horizons, it does feel a little barebones, but at the time, it felt incredibly ambitious and fresh.

Back then, I also relied a lot on the game to help me with the loneliness and depression that plagued my teenage years. That gap that would also eventually be filled by Pokémon, which helped me make new friends, some of which are with me to this day. Before that happened, though, it was caring for my isolated city and talking to Apollo, Marina, and others, that gave me joy.

So it's a complicated relationship I have with this game. Even though it's aged, and even though I would never recommend playing it and I will never do so again, it will always have this warm place in my heart to itself.