-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Title: Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
Platform: Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: PEGI: 12+
Release Date: 27th February 2016
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Score: 8.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summery:
(Virtual Console Review) After 20 years Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow are still enjoyable and additive games to this day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When it comes to extremely popular Gameboy titles there were Tetris and Super Mario Land which became excellent pack-in choices for every consumer. However when a little game called Pokemon arrived on the gaming scene it took not only the Gameboy to a large crowd but also expanded into various media and still remains as one of Nintendo's top franchises that's still loved by fans. Thanks to that we got a TV show that's still going on today, plenty of soft toys, trading cards and other forms of merchandise that anyone is happy to make money out of. It's been 20 years since the original games had launched in Japan and to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the franchise Nintendo has released Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow versions onto the 3DS Virtual Console for those who love the old school and want to start their collection all over again. I will admit it has to be one of the fans biggest requests for Nintendo to put onto the Virtual Console and how has 20 years served for this fantastic gem? Well I am so glad you asked.
In case anyone who had a Gameboy but not Pokemon then I would like to ask what were you doing with your life? Pokemon follows you as a kid who goes on a journey to become a Pokemon Master, you start out by choosing one of three starter Pokemon. These are Bulbasaur, Charmander or a Squirtle or if you picked up Pokemon Yellow then you get to start the game with a Pikachu. Pikachu is the little yellow electrical mouse Pokemon with red checks that is usually popular with kids and gamers alike which is then at that point Pikachu became the mascot of Pokemon as well as for Nintendo. Pikachu itself steals the show in Pokemon Yellow because in that game you get to hear Pikachu's voice on the speaker and was really incredible at the time to hear some of the voice samples through the Gameboy speaker and that it still shows well on the Virtual Console release.
Your goal is to go around the world of Pokemon, finding other Pokemon to capture and then training them for harder challenges, compete in 8 gyms and also saving people from Team Rocket who are using Pokemon for their evil deeds. Users who own Pokemon Yellow will be surprised that Jeese and James from the TV series make their appearance and will challenge you a few times through out the game as well. It's surprising that they do have Ekans and Koffing as well their evolved forms yet they don't have Lickitung or Victreebel but the quote they say when they have been beaten is still there which is a nice touch.
You start out by going around each of the areas finding items lying around, visiting the items store to buy supplies like potions and antidotes and then also visit the Pokemon centre to heal and restore your Pokemon completely. You then make your way through areas like forests, outside fields and caves as they have various Pokemon and also rival trainers that want to challenge you. You usually need to walk around in grass patches to trigger a fight with a wild Pokemon.
Now each of the various Pokemon have their own strengths and weaknesses that you need to keep in mind. Each of them are separated into different types like Fire, Water, Ice, Electric, Rock, Ground, Fighting, Flying, Psychic, Shadow and Normal in which every attack beats out a Pokemon type. For example Electric beats Water, Ice and Flying type Pokemon but their attacks against Rock and Ground type Pokemon are ineffective, Fire Pokemon can easily beat Grass type Pokemon but they are weak against Water Pokemon. It's often a best strategy to pick out the best Pokemon type to handle the right fights otherwise you'll end up in a very bad spot. It's a JRPG utmost and foremost and you will need to spend a good time having to grind up experience points to make your Pokemon stronger so that they can survive the tougher challenges.
Battles take place in one on one fights and they are turn based allowing each of the Pokemon to use their own attacks against each other. Each Pokemon can only have up to 4 moves otherwise any new moves they learn will replace one of the previous moves they learnt if you so choose. It kind of gives you a bit of a limitation of what abilities a Pokemon can have but it does add strategy in a way in seeing what attacks are useful and what's not. You can either use either one of the abilities to attack the opponent's Pokemon till it goes down, use an item to recover your Pokemon's health or status effect, switch Pokemon or to run away if you are in a Wild Pokemon fight. Pokemon's abilities is set between physical attacks, special attacks corresponded to their own types but they can sometimes use other types of attacks through items called TMs which can grant them other abilities if they are compatible with them. They can use other abilities which can cause status effects like poison which slowly drains their HP, paralyse which sometimes prevent an infected Pokemon's turn and use abilities which temporally boosts own offence and defence or lowing the opponent's stats. These turn based battles are very additive and very challenging because like I said you need to pick out the right Pokemon type and the right Pokemon attack is the best way to ensure victory. Each Pokemon you defeat earns you experience points in which they gain level ups improving their stats and learning new attacks.
You can capture other kinds of Pokemon that live in the wilds but not by other trainers. You do this by purchasing and acquiring Pokeballs and then challenge the Wild Pokemon into battle. The idea is to weaken the Pokemon to low health so that you can throw the Pokeball and capture it easily otherwise doing it early will just be a waste. Afterwards you can then train it and raise it or you can trade it with friends. Oh yes the trading system where you can give various Pokemon that you can give to friends so that they can complete their collection. In case anyone asks immediately, yes the Virtual Console release of the 3 games contains all the multiplayer features of the Gameboy originals which is done using wireless features and the developers should be credited for this idea, yeah sure you can't trade or battle online but hey those are the original games so it's best not to knock points down for it. Obviously the fights with friends are still just as enjoyable as everybody remembers. There are about 150 different Pokemon in these games but here's the catch, between red and blue there are some Pokemon that you cannot get in the wild meaning that you have to trade with friends who own the other version to get the remaining Pokemon you want to finish the collection. This was to ensure that any version you had didn't have all the Pokemon you need and that would have forced you to either trade between friends or owned the second version and Gameboy that you could have done the trading on as well. Keep in mind that the traded Pokemon you get in return may not obey your orders unless you have fulfilled conditions.
When you enter a new town you get to enter the Pokemon Gyms which each have their own trainers to take down before you face the leader. Defeat the Gym Leader and then you earn a badge allowing you to enter new areas in which you can then uncover HM items which will teach Pokemon abilities to cut grass, fly to previously visited areas or to light up a dark cave area. On the subject of previously visited areas you can also get a Bicycle which allows to travel faster which is rather neat. After you defeat the 8 Gym Leaders you can then head of to the Pokemon League where you take on the Elite Four for the final match. After you beat the main game a final battle awaits with the strongest Pokemon in the game, Mewtwo.
There is also a Slot Machine Minigame where you can earn coins to spend on prizes like TMs or other Rare Pokemon. Pokemon yellow has a Surfing Minigame which is pretty fun but keep in mind that you can't legitimately teach Pikachu the Surf HM without Pokemon Stadium on the N64 as such the game is now programmed to play the minigame without the requirements. Even though in Pokemon Yellow's opening intro it shows Pikachu surfing on a Surf Board and flying with Balloons you can't teach it flying but surf can be learnt through requirements on Pokemon Stadium. For glitch lovers I would also like to mention that the Missingno and Mew glitches still works in the games but you must be aware of the consequences when catching a Missingno.
Lastly the games have an excellent soundtrack composed by Junichi Masuda which are really enjoyable to listen to after all these years especially the battle tracks. My favourite goes to the Gym Leader theme tune which gets you all pumped up to battle him/her and that feeling when you make a come back after the Gym Leader starts hammering your Pokemon down is so good.
While the base game is enjoyable but it does have it's issues. Pokemon Yellow has slightly less Pokemon available to capture then in red and blue which is a little disappointing in my opinion because that forces you to like I said trade with friends to complete your collection, that means you have to spend dozens of hours taking notes of the Pokemon you want to have friends trade to you.
However the game's real issue is how some of the areas are designed and this something that exists in all 3 of the games. Now to be fair for a moment the outdoor field areas are well designed with jumps you can make, reasonable amount of trainers to fight and really good pathways. The artstyle is quite good on the humans and Pokemon in Red and Blue while the artstyle in Yellow looks more closely to the anime which is great and takes advantage of the Gameboy Color technology. The animations while simple does show off some rather cool effects with many of the attacks dispute the battle screens lacking any kind of background but you really can't fault the Gameboy technology for it. However many of the tower and cave areas not only have Pokemon Trainers but you also have very frequent Wild Pokemon fights to deal with since in those areas Wild Pokemon fights can appear from anywhere. Sometimes it's difficult to take about 2 steps (that's right 2 steps) before you end up in another battle and when making your way through the cave it can get annoying. It's the kind of thing that anyone who's played classic J-RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest where random encounters constantly pop up slowing down your progress making navigation a chore, it's bound to make your party of Pokemon very tired and weakened to deal with other trainers. A very forgiven feature is that if all your Pokemon are defeated and unable to fight you end up back at the Pokemon Centre instead of being pulled back to the title screen.
Also annoying are some of the puzzles and that can also be a problem when you have to fight against Wild Pokemon. Some puzzles are okay like cutting grass, surfing and navigating your way through tiles that zoom you across the area but the other puzzles are just a minor nuisance. Moving boulders is simple but you have to constantly activate the ability every single time you move between different floors. There's one puzzle in Vermilion Gym where you have to activate two separate switches by searching through each of the piles of trash to get to the Gym Leader, if you get the second switch wrong the switches change position meaning that you have to activate the switches again till you get lucky and that can seriously get annoying. Saffron City areas have a teleporting puzzle which can be a little confusing for first time players. Later on in the game there is also the Safari Zone which has plenty of Pokemon you can catch but however There are also times that your item bag will be full and you will have to sort your items bag forcing you to deposit or sell items that you no longer need but insure that you have the required items that you need for later portions. These are mainly small issues that I do have with the game and they might have some effect if any new players are playing the game for the first time.
Those aside I say Pokemon Red/Blue and Yellow hold up incredibly well and it's amazing to see they have included all the features of their original counterparts available for their Virtual Console release. It's just amazing to see how much generation one of Pokemon games age so well and they are still fun and enjoyable games today. I can always remember the days when me and my brother spending dozens of hours on the original games trying to get our hands on the various Pokemon scattered around on each of the games and also seeing which of our pokemon was stronger. I always had more memories of Pokemon Yellow because having to hear Pikachu's voice on a Gameboy was just fantastic in terms of technology and design and also because I wanted to take on Team Rocket's Jeese and James and this game doesn't fail on that aspect. It's also enjoyable to see Pikachu doing all sorts of things like goofing around when idle, doing the bucket trick when fishing and also giving such high praise when you get that badge or capture a Pokemon. I always liked that Pikachu follows the player outside of it's Pokeball just like Ash's Pikachu in the anime cause you know it doesn't like Pokeballs that much plus I'm not afraid to admit that Pikachu was quite adorable and cute and I was quite attracted to the thing when I was little. For those who want to play the old school I shouldn't need to recommend or not recommend the games to long time Pokemon fans but for the first time players I do say that they are worth checking it for those want to see where the Pokemon series started before they started to go stale. Hopefully with this review I would have rekindled my interest in Pokemon again after I stopped caring about it after the release of Gold and Sliver.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Good Points:
---------------------
1. 150 overall Pokemon to train, trade and collect
2. Enjoyable Turn Based Combat that still has it's depth and challenge
3. Excellent Soundtrack and Pikachu's voice in Yellow is really great
4. Enjoyable Minigames including the Surfing Minigame in Yellow
5. Pokemon Yellow features Jesse and James from Team Rocket and you can fight them
6. It retains all the Link Cable features
The Bad Points:
---------------------
1. Some small frustrations with puzzles and cave sequences
2. Pokemon Yellow has less Pokemon to catch meaning that you have to spend time trading Pokemon to fill up the Pokedex
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------