Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue were the first Pokémon games released for the Game Boy in the United States. Both are independent games and feature the same story, the only differences are the wild Pokémon species which present in the game, and slight differences in the in-game color scheme. While both games can be played independently, gamers must trade between the versions if they wish to collect all of the Pokémon.
The games are known in North America and Europe as Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, and in Japan as Pocket Monsters: Red and Pocket Monsters: Green.
Pocket Monsters: Blue, A separate game, was originally made available to order exclusively through the children's magazine CoroCoro Comic, though it was released to the general public on October 10 1999. Pocket Monsters: Blue should not be confused with the Pokémon Blue version.
Gameplay
In Pokémon Red and Blue, the player, a Pokémon Trainer commonly believed to be Ash Ketchum from the anime[1], can choose Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle as their starter Pokémon from Professor Oak. After that choice, they cannot catch the other two starters or their evolutions in the wild or by trading with in-game NPCs, so, to complete the Pokédex, the player must trade with other players in the real world. The basic story is to become the best trainer in all of Kanto; this is done by raising Pokémon, defeating gym leaders for badges, and eventually challenging the Elite Four, the greatest trainers in the land.
The player has a childhood rival, the grandson of Professor Oak. This character's default name is the color of the version owned (i.e. in Red version, the character's default name is RED). Also, the rival's default name is the opposite. If one plays Red, the Rival is BLUE. In the first season anime, he is known as "Gary" in the U.S. He will repeatedly 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 a Pokémon that has a type advantage over the player's chosen one; if the player chooses Squirtle, he will choose Bulbasaur (Squirtle is weak against Bulbasaur). In terms of making the beginning of the game easier, Bulbasaur is the best choice since the first two gyms use Rock and Water Pokémon, both of which are weak to Grass types.
Bugs and glitches
The Pokémon Red and Blue versions have become notorious for having many bugs and glitches. The most well-known of these are the Missingno. and Glitch City glitches. There is a form of Pokémon Cloning in Pokémon Red and Blue, though it is error-prone and can result in the pokémon involved being erased. There are also several less notable glitches, such as standing on a bush, seeing a man on top of the Cinnabar gym, opening up an invisible PC in Celadon City, and fishing on statues.
List of inconveniences fixed in later games
- The inability to go back and forth through Pokémon stat screens without having to return to the party list.
- The inability to use HM's outside of battle without entering the menu and manually selecting the ability.
- The inability for a Pokémon to forget an HM move, permanently crippling its competitive capabilities.
- The health bar of all Pokémon to be one colour, confusing the amount of HP a Pokémon has.
Link-up capabilities
These two games introduced the concept of trading Pokémon between cartridges via the Game Boy Link Cable. This had to be done in order to complete the game without cheating, since each of the two games held version-specific Pokémon which were unavailiable for catching in the other version.
The Link Cable also made it possible to battle another player's Pokémon team - this meant that experienced players could pit their Pokémon against equals, something they were unable to do in the game world without cheating.
As well as trading with each other, Pokémon Red and Blue can trade Pokémon between the 2nd generation of Pokémon games (Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Crystal). However, there were some limitations; Pokémon introduced in the new games could not be traded to Red, Blue, or Yellow, including those of the new types Steel and Dark, nor could Pokémon with "illegal moves" (nonexistent moves) be traded. Also, the English versions of the games were not compatible with the their Japanese counterparts, and trades resulted in corruption of the Pokémon that were traded.
Much to the dismay of many fans, none of these games are compatible with the Pokémon games of the later 'Advanced Generation' for the GBA & Gamecube.
Legacy
The games clearly set the precedent for what has become a blockbuster, multi-billion dollar franchise and sold the Game Boy in vast numbers. Succeeding games have expanded on the concepts set in these two games, eventually turning what was a simple catching game to a vastly complex game of mechanics.
These two games have been remade into Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen and have become one of the best-selling remakes ever, showing the popularity and nostalgic bond that Pokémon players have to these two games.
Version-specific Pokémon
Each version has eleven Pokémon that can't be found in the opposite version. This excludes Mew, which normally can't be obtained in either version except from a promotional offer by Nintendo.
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References and notes
- ^ "Pokemon - Red: Computer and Video games", Amazon.com. URL last accessed on March 13th, 2006.