Feature: Interview with Pamtre Berry

Pamtre Berry is a Pokémon fansite that opened on August 25th, 2023. Created by Taliax, it features several games and activities as well as sections that show off their collection and creativity. In this interview, I speak with Taliax about his website, and what he has achieved with Pamtre Berry.

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Pamtre Berry’s website logo (May 2026)

It’s great to speak with you, Taliax! Can you please introduce yourself and your website to our readers?

Taliax:

Hi! I'm Taliax, but most people call me Tali. I've been a Pokémon fan for as long as I can remember, though my website is relatively young and recent. I run Pamtre Berry, just a tiny little fansite that is more a place to host whatever Pokémon-related projects I'm working on than anything else. I don't have any background in coding other than basic BB Code from the old forum days and bits of HTML/CSS mostly from working with AO3* (Archive of Our Own) skins, so making even this little website was pretty ambitious for me! Latias is my favorite Pokémon, and my favorite Pokémon game is a toss-up between Emerald, Omega Ruby, and Crystal. I also really love the Mystery Dungeons, which you could probably tell from my friend area rankings on the site.

You began Pamtre Berry in the August of 2023. What encouraged you to create the website in the first place?

Taliax:

Not too long before I started Pamtre Berry, I had made a Xenoblade fansite, Shulk's Scrapbook, with the help of my pal Luma who was a computer science major and a big Xenoblade fan. I had a lot of fun working on that one, enough that I decided it would be worthwhile to realize my original dream I've had since I was a kid, which was making a Pokémon fansite. I remember reading the website design guides on The Cave of Dragonflies and wishing I had the skills to make anything back when I was 11 or so years old. I'm almost 30 now, so you could say it's been in the back of my mind for a long time! Of course, now that fansites are fewer and farther between, I felt like I would really need a good reason to make one, and when I realized there wasn't anywhere I could play with a secret base maker online, I decided it was worth building myself.

Pamtre Berry’s website layout (May 2026)

I am curious to learn about your history with Pokémon, such as your introduction to the series and memorable moments over the years. What can you tell us?

Taliax:

My earliest Pokémon memory was going to McDonald’s when I was less than 5 years old and getting some Pokémon card with a happy meal. My mom says I apparently got a rarer one and the other kids in the PlayPlace wanted to trade with me, but I wouldn't, haha. I don't remember that specific moment very well, but I was into collecting the cards and watching the anime from my earliest memories.

My first handheld was a white Game Boy Advance with Pokémon Gold. I couldn't figure out how to get past Ilex Forest because I didn't understand how to use Cut and ended up restarting. Cyndaquil was my first ever starter, and I loved it so much that I named my childhood hamster Cynda after it.

When I was around 7 I got to go to Pokémon Rocks America in St. Louis, which was the first place I learned how to play the card game, and after that I didn't just collect but also learned how to battle with my dad. I learned how to shuffle card decks because he got tired of shuffling mine for me, haha. I still have quite the card collection today that I'm working towards selling parts of.

I won't sell my games, though - I've played every generation since Gen 2 and I'm really attached to them. I still have my original Emerald cartridge, where I had my first level 100 (a Latias named Latia - you can tell I was very creative with my names haha) who lives on in my Omega Ruby now. I got into competitive Pokémon briefly during Gen 6, and while I was never very good, I have a lot of fond memories of playing doubles on the Battle Spot. It was a big deal for me when I managed to beat Evelyn for the second time at the Battle Maison!

Your website has a games section, with a Secret Base Decorator, and a Content Dress-Up game, based on the official games they appeared in. How did you come up with the idea to create these to work inside of a web browser?

Taliax:

The Secret Base Decorator was really just something I wanted for myself! I had always loved the secret bases in the games, but it could take a lot of work to get all the items, and in some cases items could be locked behind time-based events (like the Lilycove Department Store sale) which were inaccessible if your internal battery was dry. I thought surely someone else had made a variation of it before, but I couldn't find anything. I knew it would take more coding abilities than I currently had, but my friend Luma was able to help me. I made a prototype for my Xenoblade site, a simple drag-and-drop page where you could arrange PNGs of characters and items on top of location background images from the game, to get some practice. Once we'd worked that out, I thought the Contest Dress-Up game would be easy enough to implement using the same coding. It ended up being more difficult due to the sheer number of Pokémon sprites, but I'm happy with how it turned out!

Pamtre Berry’s Secret Base Creator, May 2026

Pamtre Berry is also home to a page dedicated to your Pokémon plush collection! What can you tell us about that?

Taliax:

I've been collecting Pokémon plushes for as long as I can remember! I'm a big fan of the official Pokémon Center ones, especially the Poké Dolls from the Gen 3 and 4 eras. Most of those I got from birthdays and Christmases when I was younger, but my Ho-oh plush is special in that I got it directly from visiting the Pokémon Center in New York City, back when it was still there. I really wanted Lugia but they were all sold out! I remember seeing a kid on a bus later on during that vacation who had the Lugia Poke Doll and being so jealous, haha. If I had infinite money I would buy the Lugia and Shadow Lugia off eBay, but they're way too expensive for me to justify. For now I just pick up a Sitting Cutie or two every once in a while. A few that I would like but haven't gotten yet are Joltik, Dusknoir, and Porygon. You have to be careful though, because despite the name, some of them really don't sit well. I always read the reviews to check and see if it's worth it. My Lileep for example is far too top-heavy, but I manage to pin it next to my Cradily to keep it from falling over.

It's hard to pick a favorite plush, but if I had to, I would choose my Weavile Poké Doll. It's just so perfectly proportioned with an adorable face!

Pamtre Berry’s Plush Collection page, May 2026

It’s clear that you’re a very creative person, and the Creations section of your website certainly proves that. I was absolutely blown away by your homemade books, and I would love to hear more about them! What can you share?

Taliax:

Haha, thanks! I'm kind of surprised anyone thinks they're anything special, but making books out of cardboard and whatever craft supplies I had at the time was a big hobby of mine when I was little. What I have up on the site so far is a pretty tiny fraction of them. It takes quite some time to photograph everything, and for a while most of them were at my parents' house, but now that I have them back I should finish adding them to the site. Anyway, I really liked making up worldbuilding stuff (as you can probably see in the Eon Island book), so most of them were stuff like that - fake Pokémon worlds with sciencey-sounding facts about them that I made up. Several of the ones I haven't added yet were a series of different planets, like an ice one and a fire one. None of my friends I roped into making these with me were into Pokémon, I was just really insistent, haha. I did most of the writing and drawing and just had them help with ideas and finding supplies. I've redacted all of their names on the books for privacy reasons. Since we were so little and obviously not intending for anyone else to see them, we put our full real names on the covers.

Viridian Forest inside Tallax's "All About Pikachu" book that he put together during his childhood

In addition to your books, you have also shared lots of fanart and fanfiction for visitors to read. What are some of your favourites?

Taliax:

I'm looking back at what I have posted so far and realizing I really need to update my site, haha. Again this is only a small portion of my work, but my favorite [piece] of my art is definitely the Gen 1 Collage, the one with all the original 151 Pokémon in the silhouette of Mew. I didn't know if it was going to work out or not when I started drawing it, and I'm really glad it did! Back when I ran a tiny booth at a local Comic-Con when I was 17, that was the only print I sold out of. I'm still really proud of it! The Gen 2 one turned out well too, and overall I like Gen 2 Pokémon more, but something about the first one is still special to me. If you have a favorite Gen 1 or 2 Pokémon, I hope you'll spend some time trying to spot it in my collages!

For my fics, I have so few up right now, but I'm still really proud of Sea Mauville. The new lore we got in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire on the Mauville stuff was so fascinating, it was really fun to explore the dark worldbuilding the game gives us snippets of. If you never played ORAS, or you didn't explore every corner of it, I highly recommend at least looking up Sea Mauville on Bulbapedia to see what I mean. Anyway, I really love Maxie and Archie and hope to eventually write more with the two of them.

At the time of writing, Pamtre Berry is still a rather young website, and has just celebrated its third anniversary! What are your plans for the future of the site?

Taliax:

My main goal is to update more of the categories I already have - finish crossposting more art and writing, my old craft projects, plushes, etc. Life has gotten really busy in the past 3 years, with my graduating pharmacy school and working full time, not to mention still having several other hobbies, and hopefully moving to a bigger city this year. There's never enough time for everything I want to do!

I have been working on other content for the site, though. I have a detailed guide for replacing dead internal batteries on gen 1, 2, and 3 games that is nearly complete and just needs a few finishing touches to post. That project is really important for me to get right, because I've seen so many cases of bad advice on reddit and some YouTube videos. I would like to be able to provide a resource for fixing those games that doesn't require watching a video (which I always find difficult to follow along with while working), but has images and is comprehensive.

If I end up having the time, I'd also really love to work on guides for the Emerald Battle Frontier. I've seen a few here and there, but rarely do they have all of the useful information in one place. My own Battle Frontier run has been on hold though, and I'd like to make sure I actually have the skills to beat it myself before trying to help anyone else! Right now I've got 3 silver symbols (Battle Pyramid, Battle Pike, and Battle Factory) and 2 gold symbols (Battle Dome and Battle Arena). A quick tip - the Battle Factory is glitched to take your Battle Tower level into account for its difficulty, so leaving the Battle Tower for after the Factory is better strategically!

We love to ask our guests about Pokémon-related items and merchandise that mean something to them. What do you have which you can share with us?

Taliax:

I'm fortunate enough that I've kept most of my Pokémon merch! Of course you can see any of my plushes on my site, so I'll share some other items for now.

My most prized possession is probably this Groudon coin I got from Pokémon Rocks America in St. Louis. They had a screaming contest where they got a bunch of kids up to shout their favorite Pokémon name. I tied with two other kids to win by screaming "Jirachi"! I don't know if I was actually that loud or if they just thought I was cute because I was so small, haha, but this coin was the prize. My dad convinced me to leave it in the packaging and I'm glad I still have it after all this time. I think that it was also available as a promo if you'd preordered Ruby at the time.

A photograph of Tallax’s Groudon collector coin, given out to him at Pokémon Rocks America in St. Louis

Taliax:

I also got a promo Kyogre and Groudon EX for attending the event. (Actually, I have two of the Kyogre for some reason? I think I used to have two of the Groudon as well, but I can only find one.) Apparently these cards can be quite expensive and rare now! My Groudon isn't in good enough shape to sell, but I'm kind of grateful for that - I would rather hold onto it as a keepsake anyway.

A photograph of Tallax’s Kyogre promo card

Taliax:

Another special card to me is the Entei from seeing Pokémon 3 in theaters. I remember going with my cousins I was close with at the time, and for some reason tiny me crumpled the card quite a bit. I was always kind of sad about the damage I put on it - but in the last few months I mentioned this to a friend and he actually sent me a duplicate he had! So now I have both my original and a nicer-looking one.

A photograph of Tallax’s Entei promo card

Taliax:

My original copy of Emerald also means a lot to me, and I'm really glad I've been able to replace the internal battery and have access to growing berries again!

A photograph from Tallax’s copy of Pokémon Emerald, showing his Frontier Pass

Pokémon is now thirty years old, and at the time of writing there are nine generations with a tenth arriving next year. What are your overall thoughts on the series?

Taliax:

I'll be thirty years old this year too, and it's been really exciting to grow up alongside Pokémon. I can't say I've always enjoyed the newer games, but I'm glad they're still coming out. I recently had a yard sale and some neighbor kids were so excited to buy some of my old Pokémon cards off of me. It's really heartwarming to see younger people still enjoying Pokémon and that I can relate to them in that way. Sometimes I feel a little self-conscious about having so much of my personal identity tied to any franchise, but Pokémon has always been a big influence in my life. I'm happy to keep playing the games when I enjoy them, but it's okay if not every new one appeals to me either. I'll always have the older games to go back to. That said, I am hopeful about Pokémon Champions, and while I haven't had time to play it yet, I've been enjoying following the competitive scene online. I'm cautiously optimistic for Gen 10 next year, though I don't have a Switch 2, so we'll see if the games convince me to get one by then.

Taliax, it has been a pleasure to speak with you, and to highlight some of the fantastic work you’re doing with Pamtre Berry! Do you have any closing comments for our readers, and Pamtre Berry fans?

Taliax:

Thanks so much for having me on Johto Times! I'm so happy any time people visit Pamtre Berry and share anything in the guestbook. Please feel free to send in any pictures you make with my Secret Base Decorator or the Contest Dress-Up so I can share them on the site! While of course I wanted to emulate the games themselves on my site, I also really liked the idea of having a gallery of people's images, to recreate a little bit of the feeling of mixing records in Gens 3 and 4. Pokémon has always been a way of connecting with others for me, and I just want to share a little more of that with my little site. :)

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It was wonderful to speak to Taliax about his website and learn about his memories of Pokémon. We wish him the very best of luck with Pamtre Berry for the future!

Interview conducted on: May 26th, 2026
Interview published on: August 27th, 2026