Here's Looking at 'Chu!
By: Andrew Joy
Pokémon Red and Blue:
These are the games that started it all. Really, what else can you say about Pokémon Red and Blue? For the first time, players got to explore a seemingly ordinary world filled with extraordinary creatures, the titular Pokémon. Fight, capture and discover was the mantra of the game, as players trained them to learn a variety of new attacks and eventually evolve into even more powerful Pokémon. But, far beyond proving your worth against a series of gym leaders and collecting trophies of your skill, the Pokémon games were also about interaction.
When Pokémon Stadium was released for the Nintendo 64, Pokémon Red and Blue were both compatible with the title, allowing you to transfer your team into the 3D fighting game, and setting something of a trend for handheld-to-console compatibility that goes on in the series even today. One of the main elements of Pokémon Red and Blue in general was connecting to other players, fighting their own Pokémon and even trading them to help fill out your Pokédex. In fact, the only way to collect all of the creatures was to trade, as each color variation of the game included a handful of Pokémon not available in the other, and a few of the evolutions could only be achieved through trading, too.
Back when Pokémon Red and Blue first came out, there were 151 Pokémon to collect, and back then that seemed like a lot. But, like everything else in the series, oh, how things have changed...
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Pokémon Yellow:
For the most part, Pokémon Yellow was the same game as Red and Blue, though it adhered more closely to the anime. When players started, instead of a choice between the three starter Pokémon, their trainer must use Pikachu. While there are a number of other similarities to the TV show, this aspect is most important, as it offered insight into your Pokémon like no game before or after. As you progress through the game, you can “talk” to your Pikachu, and a little animation conveys how he feels about you. Pokémon Yellow also included some functionality with the Game Boy Printer (allowing the printing of Pokédex data, PC data, and high scores in the Beach mini-game), but the feature was as short-lived as the device itself. Apart from that, Yellow also started the tradition of Pokémon games having some sort of special edition, third color variation after the initial releases, which perhaps may be its most lasting legacy.
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Posted: 04/21/2007