I think it's interesting that Pokemon have different names in different languages, but, conveniently for me, they are the same in Spanish and English*.

My first thought was that it'd have been very confusing for me when I joined the wider internet if everyone was talking about Charmanders and Bulbasaurs and so on and I knew them by different names, but on reflection that wouldn't have happened. My first introduction to Pokemon was the anime, dubbed to Spanish, but very soon after that I played the gen I Gameboy games in English (they had Spanish releases, I just didn't get those for whatever reason). So my confusion would've happened at that point, and I did not have much in the way of internet access yet. And then I would have memorised all the English names there because I spent a lot more time playing Pokemon games than watching dubbed anime as a child.


*strictly speaking not true, e.g. "Mr. Mime" is sometimes called "Sr. Mime" in Spanish, but the differences don't go further than that and only affect a tiny number of pokemon.

most of my team was at level 36 or 37* when i reached the second gym in pokemon X. that's somewhere between Erika and Sabrina/Koga in gen I terms, or just before Clair (final gym leader) in gen II.

I did not do any deliberate grinding for levels! what I did do is a lot of going through the same area to make sure I'd caught every pokemon that shows up there I didn't already have (or could evolve). I didn't fail many catches, the time consuming part was just trying to find that last low probability encounter for most areas.

the exp mechanics got more generous in gen VI, now you don't split exp. Instead, everyone who fights gets a participation trophy the full experience for the encounter. if you have exp share turned on, then everyone who doesn't participate gets half as much exp. This incidentally also means that 'catching up' a newly caught pokemon to the level of everyone else takes longer, even if you let them and only them take every fight, because everyone gets a decent chunk of xp anyway.

Maybe i should just think of the exp share as 'easy mode' and turn it off.

*except my Axew, who was a relatively new addition to the party and was somewhere in the high twenties.