Ahh Pokémon, the wonderful little Gameboy RPG that helped spark a franchise of toys, trading cards, anime, books and manga.  In this article I’m going to go over the Red, Blue, and Yellow versions of Pokémon.

The Pokémon game franchise Began in Japan in 1996, and made its way to America in 1998 with versions Red and Blue, which introduced the first generation of Pokémon.  The game was developed by Game Freak, which it still is today, and was Published by Nintendo.  Later in ‘98, and ‘99 for Europe and Australia, Pokémon Yellow was released, featuring a few different and new elements to the game, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Pokémon game play included an overhead view, like that of the Legend of Zelda games,  battles, a vast world to explore, and the ability to trade Pokémon with friends.  The battle system was turn based, like that of Final Fantasy, and gave you options to attack, use an item, switch out your Pokémon with one in your party, or run away from the battle.

There were two different types of battles, trainer battles, and wild battles.  Trainer battles were battles against trainers(obviously), trainers could have up to six Pokémon with them, you couldn’t escape from these battles, and if you won you got a lump some of money.  Wild battles were battles against wild Pokémon, you could escape from these battles if you pleased, or you could catch the wild Pokémon and make it your own.

Pokémon Red and Blue took place in the region of Kanto, starting in the small town of Pallet with the protagonist “Red”.  The young boy awakes one morning, and is told by his mother that their neighboring Professor, Professor Oak, was looking for him.   Shortly there after he ventures into the outside world towards a slew of tall grass, where he is told by the wise Professor not to venture into the grass because it contained dangerous wild Pokémon.

Returning to the Professors lab, where he receives his first Pokémon of choice(Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle).  Depending on Which starter you pick, your long time rival/grandson of Professor Oak, will choose the one that can easily overpower it(for example, you pick Charmander, he will pick Squirtle, because water beats fire).  This leads to your first battle, which you can win or lose because nothing will happen except “Blue”(your rival, also known as Gary) will say some snide remark and walk off.  You then run an errand for the Professor, and obtain your Pokédex, which helps you in your quest by indexing all the information on Pokémon you’ve seen or caught.

This now leads you on one of two main quests, that being to capture all the Pokémon for the Professor, and the other being to collect all 8 gym badges, defeat the Elite 4 – which consisted of 4 very skilled Pokémon trainers and the current Pokémon champion – and become a Pokémon Champion.  The gyms are run by various gym leaders, using various elements, and puzzles to challenge you.

Along your way to becoming a Pokémon master, you encounter not only your rival again at different points, but also the notorious Team Rocket, who are bent on controlling the world, and all the Pokémon in it.  You battle it out with these villains, and their leader Giovanni quite a few times, and eventually you defeat them.

Pokémon Yellow was alike in all ways said above, except it followed to the anime more in allowing you to get Pikachu as your starter Pokémon, your rival got Eevee as his starter, Jesse, James, and Meowth of Team Rocket made cameos,  and you could obtain all three starter Pokémon from the Red and Blue versions, and catch Pokémon from both said versions.  The big kick about this game was that Pikachu followed behind you in this game like the anime as well, and he would show different emotions, ranging from angry to content, happy to sad, etc.  The game reached number 1 a week after release, and was very complicated to find because everyone wanted to get their hands on it.

Well that’s all I have for part 1, part 2/4 to come soon.  Feel free to leave comments, critique, or any questions in the comments section.

Photos from wikipedia and photobucket