https://imgur.com/a/LAjZXpJ

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^{Apparently I'm not as unique as I thought, lol. As I went to post this, I did a quick search out of curiosity on Reddit and found two other posts from the past six months in which others have announced accomplishing the same thing on their own.}

I started these games when I was in high school, and now I'm a married adult. For the past 7 years, I have been playing Pokémon FireRed off and on as I had time, and finally, without using any cheats or hacks, I have completed a living National Dex of all 386 Pokémon.

These were not required, but thanks to lots of different friends I met over the years, the final count for different carts used for this was:

• 3x copies of FireRed
• 3x copies of LeafGreen
• 2x copies of Emerald
• 1x copy of Ruby

(Used numerous GBAs, lots of link cable trades and eventually wireless adapter trades this last year, and a Game Boy Player for Gamecube just for fun.)

My young self that started this in high school would be proud of me for sticking it out but also I'm an idiot with a stubborn streak who said I had to finish this because I started it. The only way I got through was by taking it one Dex entry at a time and focusing on that single Pokémon until I caught it, instead of trying to do an overview of everything and "optimize" my path. I would have easily been overwhemed and given up or procrastinated indefinitely if I had done that.