La primera generación la recordaba mejor:

Conocí Pokémon gracias a su serie animada y 2 títulos de la saga: Pokémon Rubí y este. Cuando era pequeño, me encantaba jugar a este titulo y lo consideraba de los mejores de la saga, pero unos años más tarde, decidí volver a jugarlo y ¡¡NO ME PUEDO CREER COMO MIS RECUERDOS ME ENGAÑARON!! ¡¡LA PRIMERA GENERACIÓN NO ES COMO MUCHOS LA RECORDABAN!!

En varios apartados, este juego no ha envejecido bien del todo, como el control del personaje en el mapeado, ya en los primeros juegos este no podía correr y a estándares actuales les resultara algo aburrido. El inventario no es infinito como seria a partir de la 2º generación, ya si tienes cierto números de items en el inventario, no podrás meter más. Eso significa que tendrás que deshacerte de algunos items. Otra cosa que no me gusta mucho de esta versión, es que como tiene influencia en el anime, tu inicial es Pikachu y puede resultarte muy complicado de primeras, sobre todo en el gimnasio de Brock, ya sus pokémon son de tipo roca y tierra y el tipo tierra son invulnerables a los ataques eléctricos. Lo bueno es que puedes obtener a los 3 iniciales de Kanto a lo largo de la aventuras.

Otra cosa que hace que yo prefiera esta versión por encima de Rojo y Azul, es que sus sprites de Pokémon están mejor detallados y más parecidos a los artes, ya que los sprites de Rojo y Azul de los monstruos de bolsillo son bastante deformes visualmente (solo miren el sprite de Machoke en Amarillo con el de Rojo y Azul, hay una mejora notable).

En fin, no es un mal juego, para su época estuvo bien, pero a estándares actuales del videojuego no ha envejecido bien del todo a comparación de entregas posteriores como Esmeralda o Platino, pero prefiero jugar a esta versión de Pokémon por encima de Rojo y Azul.

In the big string of old Pokemon I’ve been playing lately, I had a real hankering to play through the first gen of Pokemon again. It’s also been a very long time since I’ve played Yellow in particular, and last time I didn’t even use Pikachu in my party! It so happened that I also needed more TMs to complete a team of Pokemon for more Pokemon Stadium nonsense, so this all made for the perfect excuse to track down a cheap copy of Yellow and give it a proper playthrough this time~. It took me around 21 hours to beat the Champion, and I played through the Japanese version on real hardware (with a team of Pikachu, Blastoise, Hitmonlee, Mr Mime, Fearow, and Rhydon). A note before I begin is that I have already reviewd gen 1 Pokemon very recently, so I’m not going to be quite as exhaustive here, and I’m mainly going to be comparing it to that review or referring back to descriptions/statements made there previously (as I see little reason to just type out all the same stuff all over again for the heck of it).

The story of Yellow is more or less the same as the original story in Red & Green, but with some interesting new twists. The whole gimmick of Yellow (or as it’s known here, “Pocket Monsters: Pikachu”) is that it’s the first Pokemon game but remade to be a bit more like the anime, and it achieves that about as well as it reasonably can, for better or worse. You don’t get a choice of starter, and instead you just get a Pikachu at the start. You not only can’t evolve this Pikachu, but he’ll also follow you around on the map, just like Pikachu does with Ash in the anime. You also have a few new touches, like Jessie & James (with their anime appropriate team) fighting you here and there, and a few characters like Brock and Misty having a more anime-appropriate outfit, but overall it’s still the same game, just with a few new touches.

Gameplay wise, Pokemon Yellow still has all of the fundamental issues with balancing that the original Pokemon Red & Green have, so I’m not going to go over them again here. The important thing that is different, however, is that the game has been rebalanced in ways big and small to make it overall significantly harder. Some of these are the result of the base premise. You have only a Pikachu, so the first gym that has only rock/ground type Pokemon are REALLY good against your starter. If you don’t know that there’s a rare chance to get a fighting type Mankey in a side route on your way there, you’re gonna have a HECK of a difficult time beating the very first gym (as I did) because you’re fighting with a type disadvantage and a Pokemon that can’t evolve. Then there are changes in making certain gym leaders and such have teams more accurate to how they are in the anime, so Lt. Surge is actually made quite a bit easier due to the fact that his whole team now only consists of one quite burly Raichu.

The other changes are more present in the later half of the game, with basically every gym from the fifth one onward having VERY significant power increases compared to the original Red & Green. Up through the Elite Four and even the champion, everyone has Pokemon roughly ten to fifteen levels higher than they usually do, and many of them have better put together teams as well. It makes for an interesting change to the normal Pokemon formula, sure, but I’m not sure I’d really call it “better” per se. Pokemon, especially with the very limited tool set of first gen stuff, isn’t something that often benefits significantly from being much harder games in this fashion, as all it really amounts to is making the player grind more as well as forcing them down choosing more optimal teams (rather than teams of interesting makeups or weird gimmicks). It’s not an impossibly hard game, sure, as I still beat this in the same amount of time that it took me to beat Green, even with my weirdo team full of sub-optimal move sets, but it’s still definitely more frustrating and less fun as a result of just how sudden a jump in difficulty so many of those late game gym leaders are (especially compared to the relatively unchanged levels of the Pokemon leading up to them).

Aesthetically, this game is pretty much still just what Red & Green were with a few changes here and there. On the smaller side, we have some slight adjustments to environments. As mentioned earlier, we also have some new character sprites here and there to get them more up to form with the anime, and there’s even a new song or two put in to accommodate new characters like Jessie & James (who have their own theme when they confront you for a battle). On the more drastic end, EVERY Pokemon has been given a new front-facing sprite, though their back sprites (the ones you see when you use them) are still unchanged. This has the upshot of making everything look a lot more like what it looked like in the increasingly codified key art of the time, but it also does take away a lot of the janky charm that original Pokemon had with all of the weird, disparate art that it had. It also has the unintended side effect of a fair few of the back sprites looking VERY odd compared to the front sprites, because some of these changes are so drastic that the old back sprites just don’t look very cohesive anymore compared to their front views. Overall, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but I don’t think I’d call much any of it outright good or bad. It’ll really depend on what you like in particular about aesthetics of Pokemon of this era on if you like or dislike these changes.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. While this certainly isn’t a bad game and it isn’t even a bad version of gen 1 Pokemon to play, I’d still very strongly hesitate recommending it, especially to a first-time player of this generation. While a lot of the balancing changes are going to likely be interesting to an experienced player, they’re just going to make the experience more frustrating and grindy to someone unfamiliar with the first Pokemon games. Aesthetic changes aside, this just isn’t a very great way to experience how the original Pokemon games were, and while this is still a neat and fun time in places, I found it to be a simply inferior experience compared to just playing the original Red & Green (which, over here at least, are just as common and just as cheap to get your hands on).

Everybody's got their one right? The Pokemon game that was their first. Mine was yellow, and just happens to be my favorite of all time. Not just because of blind nostalgia, but because of Pikachu.

Instead of having to pick one of the three starters, you have a Pikachu that follows you permanently in your party and you easily acquire all three starters throughout your journey. Making it feel like the anime.

I've heard people call this one difficult because you have Pikachu stuck in your party. ??? You can easily have all three starters with no trading!!

Anyways.. it's just classic pokémon. And if you loved the anime, this one really lets you feel like ash. At least in my opinion. I loved it. 10/10 with nostalgia goggles. O_o)

By the way... A wild Zubat appeared... FUUUuuUuUuUuuUU

As someone who didn't really get into the show or the cards, this was my true exposure to Pokémon. I was a Digimon kid. Still, this game was amazing for a little kid that was just getting into RPGs at the time. Getting to form a unique team from a huge roster of creatures makes for a flexible experience, and the mechanics are simple enough to provide a gateway into the genre without being overwhelming. The game also has very clear progression as you travel around Kanto, with a few optional paths along the way. Also worth noting that Yellow version in particular lets you field a roster of all the starters if you wish, and it has the recognizable art style that the series has maintained since. All in all, it's a perfect game for having on the go.