Pokémon Red, Blue, Green and Yellow

Pokémon Red, Blue, Green and Yellow

Gotta catch 'em all!

Genre:	Role-Playing Monster Collecting
Platforms:	Game Boy
Release Date:	JP: February 27, 1996 NA: September 28, 1998 AU: October 23, 1998 EU: October 5, 1999
Developer:	Game Freak
Publisher:	Nintendo
Franchise:	Pokémon
Next Game:	Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal

Pokémon Red and Blue are a pair of role playing games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. They are the first installments of the Pokémon mainline series and overall the first games in the franchise. They were originally released in Japan as Pocket Monsters Red and Green, with Pocket Monsters Blue releasing a few months after Red and Green. An enhanced version, Pokémon Yellow, was later released.

Why It Rocks

The concept is very creative and fits very well with the Game Boy's portable nature.
Catching Pokémon and raising them as virtual pets is very fun.
The games are designed to be played with others; there are some version-exclusive Pokémon that can only be obtained by trading with other players who own the opposite version from yours.
- The games don't punish you for only having one version either nor encourage you to buy both versions.
There are 15 different elemental typings that Pokémon can have, these types have a rock-paper-scissors nature where types have advantages and weaknesses against specific other types.
- For example, Water is strong against Fire, Fire is strong against Grass, and Grass is strong against Water.
- Some Pokémon have two types at once, which change the stenghs and weaknesses further.
The game's world map is based on the real world Kanto region in Japan.
There are 151 different Pokémon to choose from for your team and you can use whichever ones you want. Different team compositions open lots of possibilities for strategies and combinations.
Using a Link Cable, you can play Pokémon battles with others.
The game's story mode takes you around eight Gyms where you fight "boss battles" followed by the Elite Four challenge.
You have a rival that frequently challenges you throughout the game.
Yellow is one of the few Game Boy games with voice acting, in this case Pikachu's voice.
Pokemon Yellow allows you to have all 3 kanto starter pokemons without glitches unlike its sequel

Bad Qualities

The game is notorious for having lots of bugs and glitches, some of which can be game breaking, most notably the infamous MissingNo., the literal glitch Pokémon.
The game is very poorly balanced, with Psychic-type Pokémon being severely overpowered, both due to no types being able to counter them well (Bug-types at the time were very weak; furthermore, a glitch made it so that Psychic-types are immune to Ghost-type moves), as well as the Special stat, being used for calculating both the defense and attack values for special moves.
Like many older RPGs, the game relies on level grinding to pad out it's length. Stronger Pokémon also gain EXP slower which means they require significantly more grinding.
The game has the infamous HM moves which are not only required for story progression but also unable to be deleted. Since they are also bad in combat except Surf, Fly, and (to a lesser extent) Strength, you are essentially forced to use subpar moves for the sake of progress. Players were often forced waste a team slot with an "HM Slave", which is a Pokémon whose sole purpose is to have as many HM Moves as possible and never be used in battle.
Your bag has limited space and you can also only store a limited amount of items in your PC.
TMs are consumed after use and many of them can only be obtained once per game.
The infamous Lavender Town theme, which sounds very unsettling, especially Red and Green.
Some of the Pokémon's sprites are creepy (particularly in the original Red and Green), especially the infamous Golbat sprite in Red/Blue. Fortunately many sprites got fixed in the Yellow Version.
Brock and Misty can be very hard if you choose Charmander.
- Butterfree is the best way to defeat Brock in Red and Blue (and Mankey is also viable in Yellow), while Pikachu is pretty much necessary against Misty.
Some Pokémon's cries are too similar (for example Charizard and Rhyhorn, Paras and Mewtwo).

Reception

Pokémon Red, Green, Blue and Yellow were a massive hit when first released, became the Game Boy's system seller, and would go on to spawn the entire Pokémon franchise, which to this day remains one of Nintendo's biggest intellectual properties as well as their signature franchise for their handheld systems.