Pokémon is celebrating its 30th anniversary on 27th February, and we’re collectively dying to see what might be revealed about the long-rumoured next mainline game and other projects. Moreover, Pokopia aims to shake things up with a new take on town life sims in early March. In its beginnings, however, the series took a long time to figure out.

This is what The Pokémon Company president and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara said during a brief appearance at the New York Game Awards through a special video (hat tip to Nintendo Life). The franchise as a whole received the Andrew Yoon Legend Award, which celebrates a “sustained body of work demonstrating exceptional artistic achievement and innovation.”

Ishihara took this opportunity to reflect on the series’ humble origins. The games were made with “limited resources” back then, and he underlined Red and Green took “a great deal of trial and error” to get right and to the finish line. He even revealed the entire process ended up lasting six years, which is shocking to learn about when you consider dev cycles back in the day were substantially shorter than nowadays. What now feels normal rarely happened back then.

We know it all paid off in the end, and much like us, Ishihara believes it was all about having a strong base-level idea the team was confident about: “Still, we all felt confident in the main gameplay elements that would become the foundation of the Pokémon video game series: catch, raise, trade, and battle.” These elements were designed with nostalgic themes and warm feelings in mind, as it was all tied to “fundamental experiences” many players had as children who connected with nature.

That said, he was “uncertain at first” about its appeal outside Japan as many formative childhood experiences aren’t shared. Needless to say, there was nothing to be scared of. After that initial hit, Pokémon’s core themes of friendship and our (often very complicated) relationship with the world shaped the franchise’s identity.

No comments on the next main game from Ishihara beyond continuing to use those tenets as a “major driving force,” but that could change soon.