Reviews Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow review

[jammi568]

These games are for the Game Boy

• Introduction/General Comments

There is a certain appeal about getting 100% in something. Sometimes, it's the awesome reward at the end of the quest (or sidequet for that matter). Other times, it's simply the ability to boast that you have, indeed, managed to do everything perfectly. This is the case for Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow. There is no direct reward for capturing all 150 Pokemon, Mew being totally optional, (except for a certificate), but it leaves a plesent feeling when you know that you have managed to complete a collection.

And there simply must be something appealing about that, "as of 23 April 2008, cumulative sales of the video games (including home console versions, such as the "Pikachu" Nintendo 64) have reached more than 186 million copies." (http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/9NH7dkYdedNEp7fwhDrI2NSqsKPVna6B, recieved from Wikipedia). This places it in second place, only behind that fat plummer calling himself Mario.

• Storyline

At the beginning of the games, players can choose Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle as their starter Pokémon from Professor Oak. They cannot catch any of the starters or their evolutions in the wild or by trading with in-game non-player characters; therefore, to complete the Pokédex with all 151 featured Pokémon, the player must link games and trade with other players, as well as attend Nintendo Events. The basic idea of each game is to become the best trainer in all of Kanto; this is done by raising Pokémon, defeating the eight Gym Leaders for Gym Badges, and eventually challenging the Elite Four and the Champion, the player's rival. Also, throughout the game, the player will have to battle against the forces of Team Rocket, a criminal organization that uses Pokémon for evil, and will eventually face off against their leader, Giovanni.

The player, known by default as Red, has a childhood rival, who happens to be the grandson of Professor Oak. This character's default name is Blue. He will battle the player at certain points in the game to test the player's Pokémon; being defeated is an indication for the player to level up his or her team. He will always choose for his starter a Pokémon that has a type advantage over the player's chosen one. For example, if the player chooses Charmander, a Fire-type Pokémon, he will choose Squirtle, a Water-type Pokémon, giving it an advantage over the Fire-type Charmander.

Pokemon Yellow is largely similar in terms of gameplay and plot, but follows the anime much more closely, including having a Pikachu follow you around outside of its Poke Ball, and having to fight Jessie and James. It also tweeked the encounter rates of certain Pokemon.

Personally, I would give this a 3/10. Not the best thing to start off wit, but there is a reason why, detailed below.

• Characters

There are a wide variety of characters in this game, from the steriotypical rival who's wanted to kick your ass from the day you were born, to the steriotypical old man who sets you this potentually difficult task with little to no preperation. As can be seen here, the characters have very little personality, only there to give you a boss fight, or developing the steriotypical plot. Can you see a pattern emerging?

Fortunatly, this really isn't a problem. The game is definatly geared for being an intense strategy game, rather then the RPG everyone claims it to be. And that is a very good thing. Being a proper RPG would drag it down a lot, and it just wouldn't feel right.

Therefore, I will give this section a 2/10.

• Gameplay

Like many role-playing games of the time, Pokémon Red and Blue are in third-person overhead perspective, with players directly navigating the protagonist around the fictional universe, all the while interacting with various objects and people. As players explore this world they will encounter different terrains, such as grassy fields, forests, caves, and seas; in which different Pokémon species reside. When players randomly encounter one of these creatures, the field switches to a turn-based "battle scene," where the Pokémon will fight.

A major aspect of playing through the main storyline is developing and raising Pokémon engaging in battle with other Pokémon, which can be found in the wild or owned by other Trainers. This system, characteristic and integral to all Pokémon video games, allows the winning Pokémon to accumulate experience points and eventually level up. A Pokémon's level controls its physical properties, such as the battle statistics acquired, and the moves learned. However, the ultimate goal of the games is to complete all of the entries in the Pokédex, a comprehensive Pokémon encyclopedia, by capturing, evolving, and trading to obtain all 151 creatures.

The game features various glitches including the Pokémon MissingNo., which Nintendo describes as a "programming quirk", and often causes the game to malfunction when captured, including scrambling the graphics or even corrupting the save data. In addition, other bugs exist, such as the ability to duplicate items or Pokémon, as well as being able to get Mew, the elusive 151st Pokemon, not normally obtainable within the game itself. However, as can be seen in this video, it's possible to obtain via the glitch. It can also be used to obtain version-exlusive Pokemon, such as Sandshrew in Pokemon Red.

This section gets a 8/10. Why, you ask? Well, there is a problem is levelling up. Fighting the same 120ish monsters that aren't one-off can get very repetative and boring very quickly. And when you have 6 Pokemon to raise, this can get to be a pain in the ass. Plus, there is the rarity of certain Pokemon. Take, for example, Pokemon Yellow's version mascot, Pikachu. This elusive bastard can only be found in Viridian Forest or the Power Plant. It can take apsolutly ages to to find one, and then you either: a) accidently kill it, or b) you run out of PokeBalls. First , then , then .

• Controls

The controls are very, very simple to master. "A" selects, "B" cancels, "D-Pad" moves the carecter around the screen, and "Start" opens the menu. , what could be simpler?

10/10 for the sheer simplisity of them. Do I really need to say anything else?

• Graphics

Being that this is for the Game Boy, and being made in the early 1990's, it's very understandable that the graphics aren't exactly the best things out there compared to todays exagginatingly high standards. However, there are very noticeable when seeing Pokemon from behind when you fight an opponant, as they look extreamly blocky. And not only from the back:

This ugly thing is Mew from the Japanese version of the games. You wouldn't have though it simply by looking.

Because of this, it gets a 5/10. The graphics were good, but no exceptional, even considering the times.

• Sound

The same points from the section above also apply here. Despite the crappiness of the sound quality, there are some noticable tracks that have become somewhat popular with fans, such as the Champion Battle theme and the Route 1 music:

This section gets a 7/10, if only because the music as a whole is a memerable and popular experiance, and continiues to be so popular, even today, around 13 years after the games were released in Japan.

• Unique/Extra Features

There are some definate unique features, one of them being that you can't actually complete your Pokedex from one game alone. Instead, the bastards at Game Freak desided that you you actually had to work you get boasting rights. Therefore, there are around 13 Pokemon unique to each game. This means that you have to hook your Game Boy to a friends Game Boy, and trade Pokemon across using the Game Link cable.

Whilst you have your Game Boy's connected, you can also fight Pokemon Battles against your friend, but with restrictions added (e.g. three Pokemon per person, no using items, etc). This give you an addition reason for levelling you to level 100. And it's very fun to do, as the AI in the game is fairly stupid, and thus pretty boring to battle against. The only problem I have with that is that you can't chose what restrictions you wantin place, nor can you chose to toggle them on or off.

An unique feature is that there are numerous glitches left within the game, most likely being intentional. For example, there is the Mew Glitch, which is mentoned above. Another is the ability to duplicate any item within your bag, so long as it is in the sixth item slot. Therefore, it's possible to recieve loads of Rare Candy and cheat your way up to level 100.


Overall, this recieve a 9/10.

• Replay value

Where to begin! This is one of the reasons I just keep coming back to these games so oftern, year after year. The possibilities are endless. You can have a low-level game, extreame-level, single elemental type, single Pokemon type, solo-game: the possibilities are limitless only to your imagination. For example, one guy managed to complete the whole game with only a Pidgey (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=71430259A6CF962C)


Due to this, this section gets a 10/10.

• Overall Rating

For my review, the overall rating is gotten from adding the numbers up, then dividing by the number of sections.


Therefore, my overall score for this game is 54/80 = 67.5%