Pokemon

Let me be very clear about this: Fuck the Blue version. Red is where it's at.

Within the last few days I decided to fire up the old Pokemon cartridge. It's a game I come back to every now and then, just like all the games of my early adolescence (like Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy 7, Ocarina of Time, etc...) I think of that time in my life as a sort of golden age of video games, when I wasn't distracted by things like work, or a social life, or the desire to create and achieve.
Coming back to these games is like coming back to my own bed after a long trip away from home. It's always nice to be back in a familiar universe.
Now I'm back into Pokemon like I haven't been in years, and an idea has been forming in my mind since I started the new file. I wasn't certain that I could be right at first. I was sure that I would be proven wrong, but I must say that now I am confident of my new opinion, and want to share it with the world:

Pokemon proves that all this ADHD, hyperactive-kid epidemic talk of the last decade is just absolute, flat-out bullshit.
Why? Because Pokemon is an INCREDIBLY slow game. Difficult, one might say, to even get through.

You start off with one Pokemon of your choosing. Now, training one pokemon wouldn't be so tiresome, but you can carry six pokemon at a time. Now, tell me, who isn't going to want to carry six? So, you go through the game, fighting and capturing the low-level pokemon that you come across and building them up as well. The thing is, these new pokemon you capture (and even the ones you start with, originally) are just as weak as the pokemon they're fighting. So that means your Pidgey and your Rattata are good for maybe one or two fights before you have to take them back to the Pokecenter in town to heal.
And hey, you're not a psychic. You're no Alakazam. So you're gonna want to build up all the new pokemon you come across (especially in the beginning) in case they have any sweet moves or evolve into something cooler. So you spend hours of gameplay walking around grass and caves, fighting little fights for measley amounts of experience, and as the game progresses you stay forever locked into a losing battle to make your little animals stronger.
AND THAT'S THE WHOLE GAME!
Most games that are released nowadays can be beaten in about 10 hours. There's no real reason to buy games anymore, because you can run through them no problem in two or three days. But in Pokemon, the game has only just begun at the 10 hour mark. I JUST got the ability to move quickly in the game. My pokemon are JUST beginning to get all four of their moves. I've caught 27 out of 150, and all I see are fucking oddishes, which are basically radishes with feet.
I mean, I read for fun, and this game is trying my patience.
How could a country full of little hyperactive kids sit through this entire game, content only to move their thumbs and watch a little cartoon kid walk in circles in the grass? I submit that they could not.