Pokemon Red & Blue Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/12/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Pokemon Red & Blue/Green

Developer: Game Freak

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): JRPG

Platforms: Gameboy

Release Date: February 27, 1996

Pokemon is Nintendo’s biggest franchise, yet it is also not their biggest franchise. This contradictory statement won’t seem nonsensical if one reflects on Pokemon’s placement among the ranks of gaming’s most celebrated kings of the industry. Sure, if one references the raw data for the sake of argument, Mario has outsold the Pokemon games by a substantial margin, mostly due to predating Pokemon by a whole decade and managing to maintain relevance as the mascot for the company since his inception. One also can’t forget Mario’s whole “saved gaming from utter collapse” act of benevolence that kept the medium from being relegated to a quaint and embarrassing time capsule of 1980s trends alongside hairspray and Knight Rider. Mario is a messianic figure in gaming with no false prophets as potential contenders, which would ultimately make my argument that Pokemon is somehow bigger than video game Jesus a moot, sacrilegious point. Still, I stand by my statement because while Mario obviously towers over all in his gaming country, his legacy and impact are relatively confined to the parameters of his initial territory. Pokemon, on the other hand, has gold-standard assets in several other pockets of entertainment. The ubiquity of the anime series and trading card game along with the video games created a tidal wave of “pokemania” that swept over the nation in the late 90s/early 2000s so ferociously that it was like a Japanese cultural invasion was occurring. I was one of the several kids who was totally enraptured by Pokemon at the time, albeit at the tail end of the pandemonium due to being born in 1996, and I can tell you that the highs of pokemania were something that even Mario couldn’t even compete with. Were kids trading cards of Luigi on the school playgrounds during recess, clamoring for the hypothetically rare one where he has the Poltergust 2000 from Luigi’s Mansion? Not hardly. Mario’s goofy early 90s cartoon couldn’t even survive cancellation after only a single season, and the Pokemon anime series is still airing new episodes to this day. Pokemon is such a powerful cultural juggernaut across the world that it’s hard to recall that it stems from a series of games made by Nintendo, untethered to its source medium, unlike Mario.

Our first exposure to Pokemon with Pokemon Red/Green (with Blue replacing Green in the west) did not ignite Pokemania, as the IP needed the trinity of the games, anime, and cards to kick the madness into full gear. Still, Red/Blue served as the foundational wick needed to light this roaring candle in the near future. Because Red/Blue is the debut appearance of the entire Pokemon property, the game is the pinnacle of primitive Pokemon artifacts, and not only because the first game is inherently rough around the edges. You see, the trinity that comprises Pokemon’s massive universality keeps one another in check, with one asset influencing the other to maintain a sense of cohesion. Because Red/Blue predates all other Pokemon media by a few years, its presentation is so coarse that it can’t be sanded over. The Pokemon models, for instance, were forever shaped by how they were drawn from the anime, so their draft-level interpretations seen here are a tad jarring, to say the least. Look at how disturbingly chunky the de facto Pokemon mascot Pikachu is in his first depiction, signifying a primordial era in Pokemon’s history when Pikachu was another number in the Pokedex instead of the face of the franchise. They’ve slimmed Pikachu down extensively since then to maintain his cute little figure for the sake of appearances, and it’s wild to comprehend a time when Pikachu wasn’t Pokemon’s prime representative. That’s how far back Red/Blue warps us. Also, it doesn’t help Red/Blue’s case that it was developed for the original Gameboy practically as the swansong for Nintendo’s first handheld console. If one didn’t know, Pokemon is a play-on compound term for “pocket monsters,” so every mainline game has been developed for one of Nintendo’s handheld consoles to coincide with its cheeky wordplay. However, in the case of Red/Blue, this means that not only will the player have to contend with pixelated people and setpieces, but the visual primitiveness of black and white muting them to the point of aesthetic blankness. It’s no wonder why not even nostalgia saves Red/Blue in the eyes of the earliest Pokemon fanatics, as they suggest respecting the first game in the franchise while giving it a wide berth with engagement. However, for as primitive as Pokemon Red/Blue admittedly is, I think that the game still retains its initial appeal because it established the foundation that every subsequent, graphically superior mainline Pokemon title would continue to emulate.

The foundation in question is the sense of adventure and conquest felt through every Pokemon game’s progression. Pokemon is a fantasy game by definition, but the pocket monsters the player will find are not dragons (or at least the vast majority of them aren’t) and they are not hiking across the stormy countryside on a mission of chivalry assigned by a king. The world of Pokemon is molded by an air of modernity, another early example of what I like to refer to as a “domestic JRPG.” Walking around the various towns and cities in Pokemon Blue as the child protagonist from a birds-eye view will surely remind any experienced gamer of the “domestic JRPG” pioneer and fellow Nintendo IP EarthBound, only without color and absurd occurrences to disrupt reality. The young protagonist, whose canon name is the color of the game of the player’s choosing, is but a normal lad of early adolescent age who resides in a small town with his mom, spending his time playing the SNES in his room (the fashionable Nintendo console of the time). Apparently, pokemon are the crux of the Japan-inspired land of Kanto’s cultural and economic backbone, creating a society contingent on interacting, studying, and mastering the 151 different breeds of the wild beasts that roam throughout the country. Don’t worry, the society here doesn’t treat the notion of committing to a pokemon-related career with such insularity like in Harry Potter with wizardry. The player will see plenty of nurses, engineers, scientists, and fishermen along their journey who merely dabble with Pokemon as a hobby. In the protagonist's case, he yearns to be a pokemon master, the equivalent of becoming a professional athlete in the pokemon world. Pokemon Masters are held in the same glorious regard as rockstars, and that’s exactly what the adventure feels like. Every Pokemon game progresses to exude the sensation of a musician or band going on tour, stopping at the eight most populous areas in the country and challenging the gym leaders for their coveted badges before collecting all of them and finishing this renowned tour by defeating the Elite Four at the Indigo Plateau. Or, at least the tour is akin to playing in dive bars at first and then progressing to the pokemon equivalent of Madison Square Garden at the tail end of it. Who sponsors this tour for every eager, young pokemon master in the making is unclear. Even though this tour is being rendered by primitive visuals, this ambitious venture retains its spectacle nevertheless. By the time the player can conveniently come home or arrive organically back to Pallet Town after circling around Kanto, the wash of exhaustion and satisfying growth since they’ve left is still a palpable feeling.

But pokemon are not sterile tools on the player’s tour like instruments, amplifiers, or other pieces of equipment. The relationship between humans and pokemon is a precious bond with a deep, mutual understanding of each other's needs. Pokemon are more effective virtual pets than the Tamagotchi could ever dream to be, and the loving pact between man and his high-octane animal friends begins even before the player touches the grass past Pallet Town. In the player’s hometown is the laboratory of grandfatherly pokemon researcher Professor Oak, who has the player choose one of three pokemon as a “starter pokemon.” Picking a pokemon from a laboratory table at the beginning is one of the franchise’s most treasured tropes that persists for every single Pokemon game that would follow. These three pokemon are exclusive to this lab, so one must put their choice into heavy consideration. Red/Blue also begins the tradition of the three starters contrasting each other with the elemental typings of grass, fire, and water. Because they are the first of their kind, the spotted, plant amphibian Bulbasaur, the orange, flame-tailed lizard Charmander, and the aquamarine turtle with a squirrel tail Squirtle are some of the brightest stars synonymous with the Pokemon series. Their fully evolved forms are the photographic representatives for the box art of each respective version of the game, so they and their lineage probably shared equal billing as series mascots before the anime cemented the staticky yellow rat into the prestigious position so deeply that nothing can conceivably touch him. Like all things that come in pairs, the question of which one of the three Red/Blue starters triumphs over the other two goes down as a contentiously heated nerd debate like Kirk versus Picard or if Disney violated the legacy of Star Wars more brutally than George Lucas did with the prequels. Personally, I adore all three of the buggers, but I forewarn people against selecting Charmander because the player will be inadvertently signing themselves up for a glorified hard mode. Still, whether or not the pokemon you’ve chosen has doomed you to suffering prematurely, you’ll never want to stash it in Bill’s cramped, virtual pokemon storage box. Your first Pokemon’s growth coincides with your own because they’ve been present on the journey for the same length of time, and the connection that stems from their matchless tenure with you forms an aura of genuine sentimentality. Other JRPG parties simply cannot compete with Pokemon’s tenderness through pet-like companionship.

So why is Charmander the black sheep of the starting roster when he and his winged, dragon-like evolved form Charizard are easily the most popular of the three? Because Kanto’s odds seem to be stacked against the fiery little lizard. More so than incremental RPG leveling through experience, the core of Pokemon’s combat is a rock, paper, and scissors mechanic interconnected between fifteen distinctive elemental types that all Pokemon fall under. For example, the reason why Charmander is totally screwed early on is because its innate fire nature makes it weak against rock and water, the elemental themes for the first two Kanto gyms. By the time the player reaches bikini-clad water type leader Misty in Cerulean City, at least the player can fry her Pokemon into crispy fish sticks with Pikachu’s thundershock move. Good luck beforehand when you hit the brick wall (or rock wall in this context) with Brock’s rock Pokemon with any of the bugs scattered about Viridian Forest to assist your poor, defenseless Charmander. With Bulbasaur and Squirtle, rock-em sock-em Geodude and the intimidatingly massive rock basilisk Onix will immediately crumble, and that goes double for Misty’s pokemon when Bulbasaur absorbs all of their valuable moisture with his hearty, green leaves. If you couldn’t infer from the radically alternating outcomes, matching the opponent’s pokemon with their contrasting element is paramount to becoming victorious in a pokemon battle. The dynamics between grass, fire, and water are fairly self-explanatory, but how to combat the more cerebral types of pokemon is a tad confusing as their weaknesses aren’t as grounded in logic. Ground’s effectiveness towards rock and electric types is reasonable because of erosion and earthquakes sending society back to the stone age by knocking out their electrical power. However, I cannot fathom why it is also effective against poison. I also can’t comprehend why poison is weak against psychic unless the developers are trying to convey some pseudo-hippy bullshit that meditation can cure illness and disease.

Actually, this is really just a segway to discuss how psychic is the mischievous snake of an elemental type that disrupts the balance of Red/Blue’s mechanics. The few psychic types in the game, namely pokemon ``Nostradamus” Alakazam and the disturbing dream eater Hypno, are so overpowered that they will KO even those who aren’t especially vulnerable to psychic moves with one of their weaponized brain blasts so devastating they’d make Professor X’s nose start bleeding. There are two types that are technically effective against psychic types and no, they are not advanced calculus and a stealthily executed bullet to the back of the head. Bug and ghost are intended to be psychic’s weakness under the rationale that the two are common psychological fears, but the pokemon that fit the classifications are hardly the kryptonite vital in taking down these poke’men of steel. Bug types have abysmally low stats, the lowest of all the pokemon types on average, and most of them like Beedrill and Venomoth are bug-poison hybrids that will ultimately fall to the might of the psychic pokemon in seconds. An even crueler joke is that the only ghost pokemon line of Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar are half poison types as well, so catching one in Lavender Town will still leave the player shit out of luck. The developers engaged the “mind over matter” philosophy as a serious credo, causing a schism in the harmony of the almost perfect elemental mechanics of Pokemon. Dragon types are just as unfairly unbalanced but the player will only face three of them at the end of the game, and there are plenty of substantial ice pokemon with deadly freezing moves to thwart them.

Because no pokemon is perfect despite how a trainer may unconditionally feel about their precious partners, it’s essential to form an eclectically diverse team and build their strength. The tagline and core tenet of the Pokemon franchise is “gotta catch ‘em all!” which should ideally coax the player into sinking enough time and effort to round up all 151 of the beasts. Realistically, due to the finite limit of six per party, I’d suggest finding eight or so pokemon to use in a revolving squadron. The vast majority of Pokemon will not be handed to the player on a silver platter like their starter, which means they’ll be forced to proactively seek out worthy applicants in the tall grasses, abandoned buildings, caves, and by fishing to encounter wild pokemon. The last sliver of the wild pokemon’s health should signify that it’s time to chuck a pokeball to capture the creature if one is so inclined, and they’ll stay in their pint-sized incubator as a member of the player’s party until they are summoned for battle. I hear the interior of the ball is roomier than one might think, but I still remain skeptical. Besides one’s starter who is among the top percentile of base stats, I recommend adding a flying pokemon and a water pokemon for those who passed on Squirtle to the posse. HMs are moves that the player can teach their pokemon exactly like TMs, but the main difference is that the pokemon can use them outside of battle. Fly and Surf allow for a smoother retread of Kanto’s hilly and ruptured landscape whenever the player is forced to travel, plus they are highly effective moves during battle as well. The other two HMs, cut and strength, will merely produce a scratch on any foe, so designate the role of junior deputy HM bitch to a pokemon who can learn both whenever there is a long swath of traversal. Other than that, the key to an effective pokemon sextet is selecting those with adequate base stats relative to what your starter pokemon is lacking in elemental advantages.

But your starter pokemon, namely Charmander, won’t be a sitting duck who needs a battalion of support to survive for long. Through the typical leveling mechanic found in every JRPG comes one of the most interesting and engaging facets of Pokemon. At level 16 for each starter, they will evolve once into Ivysaur, Charmeleon, and Wartortle respectively, and then Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise around the level 32-36 range. Pokemon is really a window into a Darwinian case study, exploring how these creatures adapt to the growing severity of battle rather than their physical environments. As one could infer from the nature of evolution, the advanced forms of each Pokemon that are able to evolve are stronger and far more durable than their cuter, pre-evolved versions. While your Pokemon will become less cuddly, evolving is just as essential to battle as elemental pairings. Out of every pokemon capable of evolving, there isn’t a clearer indication of this point than with Magikarp. The useless, dopey orange fish who simply splashes about evolves into Gyarados at level 20, a sea beast behemoth so intimidating and terrifying that pirates probably tell spooky tales of it while drunk. You’ll be thankful that you didn’t chop up that Magikarp into sashimi and feed it to your other pokemon, as tempting as that sounds. There are a handful of pokemon that don’t evolve, but I’d say that Lapras, Tauros, and the fighting Hitmon brothers are already proficient with their base capabilities. For those that do evolve, fighting the pokemon of your fellow trainers who will challenge you once you cross their line of sight provides a consistent stream of battle experience. A small selection of pokemon can also evolve with elemental stones and by trading with another player via a Gameboy link cable. Not only is evolution important, but the process is also just as exciting for the player. While the stark familiarity one definitely has for every single one of the first 151 pokemon might void the element of surprise with what a pokemon will evolve into, the personal milestone of evolving a pokemon after using it for so long is still gratifying.

That epic aura felt from a Pokemon adventure is due to the chunks of content besides collecting gym badges. Any game’s pacing is always elevated by a consistent deviation from the main objective, and Pokemon succeeds in this aspect with the circular trek around Kanto. Gyms, where the player earns the badges, are located in metropolitan areas, surrounded by several other establishments that usually include a Pokecenter and a marketplace. As architectural sensibilities would dictate, the various cities of Kanto are not packed together like a bento box. Numbered interstate roads branch off of the cities, connecting them all by a sensible distance like an actual country. On the rural pathways between destinations lies the organic elongation of the pokemon journey. While I appreciate that these places flesh out the poke'nation of Kanto, I wish that caves didn’t comprise so goddamn many of them. Being bombarded by an endless slew of pokemon (mostly Zubat) while trying to navigate through the wet, labyrinthian darkness is a maddening excursion, and I’m always relieved and always scream FREEDOM whenever I find the exit. Sure, repel items will stave off the hordes of pokemon for a short period, but they are not purchasable before the instance of difficulty curve whiplash that is Mt. Moon, which is located directly right of the very first gym badge. Once the player is inhibited from traveling linearly to Saffron by both a road closing and a sleeping Snorlax parked along the path, this is the point where progressing around Kanto gets interesting. Navigating around the lazy, fat tub of lard before giving it a rude awakening with the sound of a flute gives the player the freedom of tackling on-edge Lt. Surge, cool and collected Erika, disciplined Koga, mysterious Sabrina, and the hot-headed Blaine in whichever order they please, a random roulette of five of eight gym badges. Along those zigzagging trajectories are a trove of sites unrelated to the main quest like the gamified Safari Zone in Fuschia City, the morbid pokemon gravesite of Lavender Tower where a disquieted Marowak spirit is in a state of unrest, and a relaxing ride on the ritzy S.S. Anne Cruise ship. Pokemon Red/Blue’s B plot that will often distract the player from collecting badges is Team Rocket, a uniformed organization of fundamentalists that use pokemon to enact acts of terrorism. They are led by the sinister Giovanni, who happens to be the final gym leader in Viridian City which might signify a prevailing corruption in the Pokemon League. Defending the peace from these whack jobs provides another solid quest parallel to the main one, but traversing through their places of operation is just as vexing as any of the caves. The black and white graphics visually muddle every floor of the eleven-story Silph Co. building, leaving me as hopelessly lost as a guinea pig in a test maze.

Finally gathering all of the gym badges from all across Kanto is always a prideful accomplishment, but the adventure is far from over. Over yonder, the western path from Viridian City is the final test of the player’s mettle that will prove their status as a pokemon master at Victory Road (which is yet another fucking cave). At the apex point of this vertical ascension is the Indigo Plateau where the Elite Four reside. If the gym leaders are high school teachers, the Elite Four collective are Ph.D. professors, the leading experts in their field in the Pokemon world. Each member of the Elite Four uses the strongest ensemble of pokemon revolving around a vague elemental theme, and the player will have to fight each of them in order without having all of their Pokemon faint. Failing to do so will result in starting from square one with the first Elite Four member, so the stakes are quite imposing. Stocking up on full restores will sadly not affirm a victory in this strict test of might, however. The Elite Four’s pokemon range from levels 53-62, and the total amount of experience gained through fighting trainers, Team Rocket, and gym leaders will not suffice in matching those numbers for six separate pokemon. To stand a fighting chance against these esteemed Kanto leaders, the player is forced to enact a blistering grinding regimen for so long that all the steps taken to get to this point will feel like forever ago. This tedious process persists for every Pokemon game afterward and is what I dread upon replaying each game in the series.

From all that I’ve described, the world of Pokemon seems like a brutally competitive place. What it takes to succeed in this environment is an ego-driven pursuit to be the best while callously dominating all that stands before you on your way up to the glorious ranks. I stated that a strength of Pokemon was a tender relationship with your pokemon, but using them to step over everyone all throughout the game could prove otherwise that the bond is purely transactional. What verifies that extra layer of emotional substance in Pokemon is comparing and contrasting the adventure arcs between the player and their rival. He started his venture the same day you did and what everyone can immediately deduce from his initial interaction is that he is an insufferable prick. He’s impatient, obnoxious, arrogant, and always undermining your abilities as a trainer from the get-go. Even though you beat him every time he decides to randomly pop his head out anywhere in Kanto, he always has the higher ground in some respects. His adventure is better financed because he’s Professor Oak’s grandson, plus the starter pokemon he chooses is always the type advantage of the one the player selects. Unexpectedly, the rivalry peaks when it’s revealed that your rival has defeated the Elite Four just before you arrived, and he’s the last challenge in the endurance gauntlet to snatch his newly awarded champion title for yourself. While his Pokemon are higher levels than even that of the Elite Four, your rival is somehow easier to subdue than any of the over-qualified members before him. Professor Oak makes an entrance after the final battle to lecture his grandson on treating his pokemon like servants instead of friends, the factor that led you to victory over the snooty little shithead. Pokemon establishes its warm ethos by presenting a foil to the protagonist, a lesson in how unadulterated aggression in battle is not the key to victory.

If you’ve played one Pokemon game, you’ve essentially played all of them. This is both a minor indictment of the series as a whole and a point of validity to the first outing of Pokemon Red/Blue. Its impact on the gaming landscape is something that no other Pokemon title can proudly bestow as some people are still lumping the entirety of the storied franchise with just its early Pokemania era. I completely understand why fans disassociate with this particular entry because of its primitiveness, which I began to sympathize with at certain points of jaggedness relating to its graphics. Besides the few instances of the visuals inadvertently causing more strife in the caves and other tangled dungeon-esque environments the game offers, criticizing the visuals of Red/Blue is a shallow assessment. Pokemon Red/Blue still retains that Pokemon magic by providing a poignant adventure of growth and self-actualization.

(Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/20/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Pokemon Yellow

Category: Expanded Game

Release Date: September 12, 1998

The Pokemon anime is arguably the biggest franchise-defining factor in the trinity of its assets. Television has a much wider audience pool than gaming could possibly imagine, so it's likely that the largest common denominator discovered Pokemon through stumbling upon it while flipping through channels and making their own assessments about this bewildering fad from across the Pacific Pond. Its higher popularity compared to the niche of its video games and trading cards dictated the course of how the franchise will operate from here on out. Refer to the rising star power of Pikachu as the definitive figure of the franchise because of his deuteragonist role in the anime, and you’ll agree with my stance. The anime has influenced all of the other facets of Pokemon in sizable doses, but the biggest extent to which the developers tried to capitalize on the anime’s substantial popularity is with Pokemon Yellow.

Pokemon Yellow is basically Red/Blue with anime protagonist Ash at the helm of the adventure as opposed to the Red or Blue character avatars. Ash receives a Pikachu as his starter instead of giving him the choice of three different pokemon, and it cannot evolve into a Raichu because of Pikachu's aversion to change in the anime. However, it does adorably follow around Ash everywhere like a lost cat, and this additional interactivity from the starter Pokemon should ideally increase the personable bond between a boy and his pokemon. Gary is the immutable name of the rival character, who will be granted an Eevee that evolves based on the player’s performance during his encounters. Jessie and James, the flashy, incompetent Team Rocket duo from the anime are recurring bosses who attempt to steal Ash’s Pikachu, along with their talking Meowth who sounds like he’s from Brooklyn. The progression of Ash’s Kanto adventure also subtly directs him toward the same team he has in the anime, which is why the player can eventually receive all three starter pokemon from Red/Blue. Unlike Pikachu, all of these starters can evolve, meaning that the player could potentially have three of the strongest pokemon in Kanto of differing types on their person. Sweet!

From a gaming standpoint, at least Pokemon Yellow uses its hindsight to remaster some of the jarring aspects present in Red/Blue, and there sure were a lot of them. For starters, locking the player to electric-type Pikachu when Brock is shortly on the horizon seems like a cruel joke, but fighting-type Mankey is present in Viridian Forest to break Brock’s rock pokemon in half. The pokemon sprites resemble those of the anime, and the drawings of a bonafide illustrator surpass that of the binary pixels that rendered the first drafts of every pokemon’s early designs The colors of the Gameboy Color console that succeeded the Gameboy also allow these refined pokemon depictions flourish, along with a color-coded health bar that coincides with the damage done to a pokemon in battle.

Is Pokemon Yellow a licensed game? It functions as a truncated version of the events of the popular anime series, which practically runs parallel to the story of Red/Blue with a bunch of dumb shit injected in between to elongate the length into a TV series. It may have several perks that the original Red/Blue doesn’t, but it lacks the same scope of those games because the player is assisting Ash on his path to glory as opposed to one for their own taking. Pokemon Yellow is Pokemon Red/Blue with gimmicks that would solely appeal to fans of the anime who might foolishly believe that this is a licensed adaptation of the Pokemon anime (or at least at the time). Frankly, I’m offended at Game Freak’s gall to retcon their original vision to accommodate this demographic.