This was the first Pokémon game I ever played. At the ripe old age of six, I had no idea what I was doing, but I had watched the anime enough to know that Pikachu ain't got shit on Brock's Onix, at least not without straight up cheating.

With not an ounce of understanding of the game mechanics in my empty little head, I'd catch me some cute Pokeymans in Viridian Forest (completely oblivious to the Mankeys you could find to the west), and then I'd take my electric rat and my cute birds and bugs and unsuccessfully throw them against Brock until I ran out of money. No more Potions for mid-fight heals, no more Pokéballs to catch stronger Caterpies. I effectively softlocked myself from progressing out of Pewter City. Then I would restart my save file and try it all again: same strategy, no changes. I was having fun just walking around with my Pikachu, and that's all I needed.

It's impossible to convey just how many times I restarted this damn game in an endless loop of defeat at the hands of the first gym leader. But I can tell you that each time I did, I paid a little less attention to the intro sequence, and I put a little less care into the name of the player character and his rival. By this time, I had all but given up on the idea of victory over that Pewter City bastard and was content just vibin' around in the forest like my idol, Ash Ketchum. Who cares what my name is if I'm just gonna reset the save again in another hour? All I cared about was raising another Butterfree, maybe a stronger one this time!

Then it happened. By some cosmic miracle, my little Nidoran♀ managed to take down an Onix. Blood, sweat, and tears fell from my teal Game Boy Color that day, and an entire route of new content opened up before my little eyes. I was awestruck. Even then, I recognized the incredible amount of luck that the universe just bestowed upon me, and I was not gonna tempt fate by restarting that save file now. I was committed.

And that, my friends, is how the legend of ASHpkmn♂♀ was born.

Replay of this gem of a game from my childhood, on my original childhood cart too! I'm not sure if it's just the nostalgia talking, but I had a lot of fun revisiting it.

My final team consisted of:
Gyrados/Dugtrio/Pikachu/Moltres/Zapdos/Articuno
(Hey, I took the time to catch those dang birds, I should be able to use 'em!)

Gen 1 is a mess of glitches and terrible type balancing, bad move pools, annoying HMs, and a pretty steep spike to the level curve going from the final gym to the Elite Four. However, I still just love the entire experience so much, especially how open Kanto feels to the player, all of the strangely dark things that never really appeared in the franchise again that are just sprinkled throughout this otherwise really simplistic and childis story, and trying out new weird teams every playthrough (Pikachu, Nidoqueen, Farfetch'd, Hypno, Dewgong, and Ninetales this playthrough, by the way.)

Honestly prefer the weird sprite work from Red and Blue over Yellow's more refined ones, but otherwise a game I really can't find too many things I don't like about it.

playing through Generation I for the first time since before the Switch even came out feels funny, and for me there’s an added effect that I did not grow up with these games. My first game was FireRed; and i always forget how old these first few games feel even compared to Gold, Silver, and Crystal. it’s like digging through your parents’ stuff and using their old technology and remembering what they didn’t have back then that you’re so used to now. “ah, yes, that type match-up was different back then,” or “riiight, that mechanic wasn’t introduced until the next generation.” it made doing a nuzlocke a lot more interesting, because there were moments that caught me off guard because i was playing a game i wasn’t used to like the others. I know FireRed and LeafGreen like the back of my hand, and playing these games and finding out what i know and what i thought i knew was fun. it’s also just so fun to play this and realize where it improves on Red & Blue versions and realizing how much the stars perfectly aligned for this broken game to become such a phenomenon. When newer Pokémon games come out and seem unfinished and clunky but are still fun as hell, that’s just Game Freak’s style!