Pokemon Red/Blue (GB)

Pokemon.

The game of champions.

Pokemon Red/Blue started a wonderful series filled with spinoffs, anime series, and wonderful concepts. Back in those days, you knew that there were 150(Or 151 depending on if you knew about Mew) Pokemon.


Pokemon is exactly why the Game Boy survived. Akin to Final Fantasy saving Square Team from total bankruptcy.


Back then, there were fifteen types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, although the Psychic type was dominant due to having strong moves/Pokemon (Alakazam) and the one weakness it had being too weak to actually be exploitable.


You start off in the town of Pallet, where the resident Professor Oak lives. Upon an attempt at leaving, he stops you, brings you to his lab, where your rival awaits. You pick your starter, either Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle, and your rival picks the starter with the type advantage. What a jerk! Jokes.



You do battle with him, and after beating him or losing to him, your adventure begins. Catching Pokemon, training them, you take on the Kanto League, facing Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Erika, Koga, Sabrina, Blaine, and the secret Gym Leader Giovanni (Also the leader of Team Rocket)


The goal is of course to "catch them all", but you can't do it on your own. You need a friend with a Game Boy, a Link Cable, and the version opposite yours, requiring you to interact with others to complete your Pokedex.


You also have to catch Mewtwo, the strongest Pokemon of the time, and go to a Nintendo Event (or abuse a glitch) to obtain the rare Mew.


All in all, the main part of Pokemon is the battles. Ingame the goal is to simply defeat your opponent, requiring little-to-no skill. However, facing real-life people is where the real excitement is. Casual playing doesn't take much to do, but competitively, this is the truly exciting aspect, thusly why I play. Some Pokemon are more useful than others, for example Starmie > Blastoise. While Blastoise may have its niche nowadays, back then it had a terrible movepool which prevented its true potential from shining. Starmie however, had a better typing (Water/Psychic), better stats, and a much better movepool.


Competitive Pokemon is quite fun, a fun alternative to casual play. But I digress.


The point is, Red/Blue were two wonderful gems in the series that spawned forth greatness, controversy (Mostly from the anime series, but also including Jynx, which was accusedly racist due to its artwork at the time) and a source of enjoyment for many.

For those remotely interested the main series goes:


Red/Blue/Green(Japan Only)
Yellow (Based off of the Anime)
Gold/Silver
Crystal (Enhanced version of Gold/Silver)
Ruby/Sapphire (First to the Gameboy Advance, newer game mechanics with no connectivity with previous titles)
FireRed/LeafGreen (Enhanced remake of Red/Blue, LeafGreen due to it being Red/Green in Japan with Blue as the enhanced version of R/G)
Emerald (Enhanced version of Ruby/Sapphire with minor changes such as "new" locations/additions) Diamond/Pearl (First to the DS, changed game mechanics)
Platinum (Enhanced version of D/P with new locations/additions, also new formes of previous Pokemon)
HeartGold/SoulSilver (Enhanced remake of Gold/Silver with the storyline of Crystal with D/P/PT mechanics)

And coming soon,

Pokemon Black/White


To wrap this up, I give Pokemon Red/Blue 5 Thunderbolts out of 5.