I don't know if you've ever been told by a police officer that you weren't allowed to buy a Pokémon game, but it tends to ruin one's evening.

That was the exact situation that ComicsAlliance Senior Editor Caleb Goellner, the creators behind Trip Fantastic and I faced when we went to Nintendo World in Manhattan for the midnight release of Pokémon X and Y and found ourselves at the end of a line that wrapped all the way around Rockefeller Center. We had gotten there too late, but the adventure... was only beginning.

I'd wanted to grab Pokémon at Nintendo World (where I'd previously picked up a Squirtle doll because they had the absolute nerve to tell me that a Bulbasaur doll did not exist) ever since I found out it was being released during New York Comic-Con. Caleb and I, along with Derek Charm, Jason Baxter and Mac Hamilton, decided to walk up ten blocks to grab the game at midnight.

Unfortunately, what we had forgotten was that we were in, you know, the middle of New York City, and that there would be a line with roughly one million people. And to be fair, it was better organized and generally more polite than any line I saw at the con, and there was even a fair bit of cosplay:

 

Gothorita cosplay at Nintendo World's Pokemon X and Y event
loading...

 

Unfortunately, when we got to the end of the line, all we found was a police officer telling us that there were no more Pokémon games to be had. Defeated, we wandered over to the Rockefeller Center skating rink, which also happened to be right behind a stage they'd set up for the event.

And that's when it happened.

Pikachu, in all his six-foot glory, rounded the corner, and we collectively lost our minds. Though his handlers (trainers?) prodded him to continue backstage, the electric mouse Pokémon stopped, smiled to us, and waved.

 

Pikachu (#25) at Nintendo World's Pokemon X and Y event.
loading...

 

I snapped a picture, turned around and hugged Caleb, almost brought to full-on weeping. There was hope yet in this cold, cold world.

More From ComicsAlliance