If you really want to play one of the first generation games, Yellow Version is really the only way you can go wrong; it arbitrarily limits your choice of Pokémon and adds too little to the experience to compensate for this major inhibiting factor on your enjoyment.

A very short, uninteresting series of highly specific objectives that are far too interested in showing you how many orcs it can throw at you and not interested enough in giving you something to do that might keep you from falling asleep.

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A handful of new missions with a slightly different flavour that add nothing meaningful to the game as a whole and are so brief that even the most obsessive completionist will be done with it in about an hour.

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A deeply enjoyable and surprisingly nuanced game that does enough right in most respects that I feel like it’ll have a place in the memories of many for a good long while.

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If you’re into this kind of game enough to be willing to try something as dated and technically limited as this, I do genuinely think that this is one of the best games on the Game Boy. It’s easy to see why this game exploded the way it did and why the cultural ramifications of that explosion are still being felt today.

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An astoundingly well put-together game that’s not afraid to put its systems to full use and force players into mastery, and it is a genuine shame that there isn’t more of it.

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Whilst it’s obviously been refined and perfected, there’s still a place for the janky, ugly original for just about anyone who’s after an engaging platformer and doesn’t mind having to wrestle an absolute hunk of a camera into place every fifteen seconds.

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Between the creative limitations imposed by the need to adhere to the series’ formula and the technical limitations imposed by the Game Boy itself, it struggles to find its own voice in a meaningful enough way to make the single hour it takes to finish feel worthwhile.

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As much as I enjoyed this on the same basic level that I enjoy a tasty sandwich, it’s clearly unfinished, too easy, and doesn’t flesh out its main attraction nearly enough to make up for how much it’s lacking in other areas.

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Jammed full of imagination, charm, and replayability on a scale that makes the overwhelming bulk of the genre feel undercooked by comparison and reminds you just why it is that a giant, unfeeling corporation like Nintendo maintains a rabid fanbase to this very day.

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Sure, it settled into the spectacular mold set by its predecessor rather than blowing it out of the water, but when it comes down to it, it’s still one of the most impressive platformers in history, and a game that honestly deserves to be played just as much as its predecessors.

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Not only the best game the Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer, but also one of the best platformers ever made, and the fact that the franchise has largely just coasted of this game’s success for decades and decades does little to diminish its rock-solid place in the canon of gaming as a medium.

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Ultimately, this is a fantastic offering, laden with content, challenge, and creativity, even if it is one that will take a lot of getting used to for those going in expecting a traditional Mario entry.

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Its learning curve is essentially a wall from the very beginning, but as somebody who enjoys extreme difficulty in games and creative level design, this is a title that I can come back to over and over.

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While all of its mechanics have been appropriated and redesigned in better and more streamlined ways, the simple charm and mechanical soundness mean that the original will always have a place in the libraries of platform fans.

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