why is this considered a seperate game from pokemon blue
anyway
It's the original Pokemon game! Going into this, I expected this to blow me away with how much it pioneered considering that almost every single mainline Pokemon game takes a LOT of inspiration from the first game (3 fire-water-grass starters, start in small town, 8 type-specialist gym leaders, the back-to-back elite 4 (also type specialists) and champion, tall grass with random encounters, the whole rival thing, and the evil team on the side are the tropes that first come to mind). And this game does, in fact, do all of that, but I don't think it's the greatest game in the series, as some may have you believe.
This game, naturally, struggles with a lot of the problems Pokemon games naturally face; namely, it's slow. You will rarely see people play this game on emulator without abusing the speedup function. It's a game where you have to come in with a calm mind and not be in a rush. The game takes its time, from the long transition into battles and trainer encounters to the lack of fast movement until the latter half of the game, to the slow healing at the Pokemon Center. I'd say the game is paced decently enough that I was able to go through it my first time playing without minding too much, but I find that trying to play it again after the fact is brutal. You really come to realize how much the game likes to take its time. It's not necessarily a bad virtue to have, but if you're trying to get through the game linearly, it'll be a bit painful. If you're the type to go in all the different buildings and talk to many NPCs, you won't be bothered as much, especially since many NPCs in this game have straight up funny dialogue, like the guy talking about the first moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Generally, as Pokemon so often goes, this is a "make your own fun" kind of game. You ever see those challenge Youtubers who constantly use speedup and infinite rare candies and skip anything that isn't a required battle? They, too, are having fun. For me, it's completing the Pokedex. And for many, the biggest "make your own fun" is getting other team members. Yes, you can pick one Pokemon and run through the entire game with it, but the game becomes much more fun catching the little guys you like and trying to make them work on the battlefield, slowly leveling them up from trainers and Pokemon too strong for them. I used a Beedrill going through this game because a friend told me to, and I figured it'd just be deadweight, but to my surprise, it actually performed very well once it got Twineedle! It's memories like that that define Pokemon. The unexpected clutches, the shocking encounters, the unfortunate deaths, all occuring in the hundred ways you can approach this game.
You really have got to respect this game considering the console and time it came out. Was it the greatest RPG? No, acclaimed greats like Chrono Trigger had already come out. But was it awesome having an RPG with critters you can catch and play anytime? Hell yeah. And honestly, it's a miracle how much fit on this game cartridge. Compare this to the Game Boy's launch titles of Tetris and Super Mario Land and you'll see an absolute world of difference. The game is somehow held together and is coherent, but is, of course, very, very well known for being buggy. BUT! The bugginess of this game is extremely overhyped. You won't encounter any Missingnos unless you really go out of your way. There are a lot of battle inconsistencies, but they seldom make the game feel unfun, and are often enjoyable. I like seeing the strange battle quirks of this game! There are some annoying ones though, namely the really unintuitive nature of how balls work (seriously look it up, some bizarre programming at work there). And balance-wise, of course this game is unbalanced, it's gen 1. Bug types and poison types are way worse than Normal and Psychic types because that's just how things are here. If you're just playing through the game, the unbalanced type chart won't bother you too much, it's more of a competitive thing, anyway.
Outside of programming mishaps, this game has some bad design choices, too. Version exclusivity and trade evolutions suck and are fun for nobody. Imagine a society where you can fill out your regional pokedex on one game cartridge... magnificent. The first gym leader is a big troll, because for two of the three starters, it's a piece of cake, but for poor Charmander, he's heavily at a disadvantage. It's not unwinnable - far from it, but if you're new to the game and using Charmander, the Brock fight will absolutely stomp you. Additionally, many of the Pokemon you can catch after Brock are weak or very shaky against Misty. Why is Koga the 5th gym leader and Sabrina the 6th when almost every player will find themselves against Sabrina first. Big one here: why do so many enemy teams in this game have absolute dookie garbage movesets. It sometimes feels like some of the early game bosses, like Brock with Onix's Bide, Misty and Starmie's Bubblebeam, and Surge's Raichu wtih Thunderbolt, are way more threatening in their arsenal than later bosses, whose signature Pokemon may not even have STAB or barely any good moves.
As an RPG, this game isn't winning any awards, but as a monster catching game with a world with pretty nice writing, this game definitely had a reason for being such a cultural phenomenon in the 90s. That said, it doesn't hold up super well, you can tell it's aged. If you want to play through Kanto again, please just play FireRed / LeafGreen, they're excellent remakes (unless you plan on using a Golbat or Chansey). Regardless, I enjoyed my time with this one!
anyway
It's the original Pokemon game! Going into this, I expected this to blow me away with how much it pioneered considering that almost every single mainline Pokemon game takes a LOT of inspiration from the first game (3 fire-water-grass starters, start in small town, 8 type-specialist gym leaders, the back-to-back elite 4 (also type specialists) and champion, tall grass with random encounters, the whole rival thing, and the evil team on the side are the tropes that first come to mind). And this game does, in fact, do all of that, but I don't think it's the greatest game in the series, as some may have you believe.
This game, naturally, struggles with a lot of the problems Pokemon games naturally face; namely, it's slow. You will rarely see people play this game on emulator without abusing the speedup function. It's a game where you have to come in with a calm mind and not be in a rush. The game takes its time, from the long transition into battles and trainer encounters to the lack of fast movement until the latter half of the game, to the slow healing at the Pokemon Center. I'd say the game is paced decently enough that I was able to go through it my first time playing without minding too much, but I find that trying to play it again after the fact is brutal. You really come to realize how much the game likes to take its time. It's not necessarily a bad virtue to have, but if you're trying to get through the game linearly, it'll be a bit painful. If you're the type to go in all the different buildings and talk to many NPCs, you won't be bothered as much, especially since many NPCs in this game have straight up funny dialogue, like the guy talking about the first moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Generally, as Pokemon so often goes, this is a "make your own fun" kind of game. You ever see those challenge Youtubers who constantly use speedup and infinite rare candies and skip anything that isn't a required battle? They, too, are having fun. For me, it's completing the Pokedex. And for many, the biggest "make your own fun" is getting other team members. Yes, you can pick one Pokemon and run through the entire game with it, but the game becomes much more fun catching the little guys you like and trying to make them work on the battlefield, slowly leveling them up from trainers and Pokemon too strong for them. I used a Beedrill going through this game because a friend told me to, and I figured it'd just be deadweight, but to my surprise, it actually performed very well once it got Twineedle! It's memories like that that define Pokemon. The unexpected clutches, the shocking encounters, the unfortunate deaths, all occuring in the hundred ways you can approach this game.
You really have got to respect this game considering the console and time it came out. Was it the greatest RPG? No, acclaimed greats like Chrono Trigger had already come out. But was it awesome having an RPG with critters you can catch and play anytime? Hell yeah. And honestly, it's a miracle how much fit on this game cartridge. Compare this to the Game Boy's launch titles of Tetris and Super Mario Land and you'll see an absolute world of difference. The game is somehow held together and is coherent, but is, of course, very, very well known for being buggy. BUT! The bugginess of this game is extremely overhyped. You won't encounter any Missingnos unless you really go out of your way. There are a lot of battle inconsistencies, but they seldom make the game feel unfun, and are often enjoyable. I like seeing the strange battle quirks of this game! There are some annoying ones though, namely the really unintuitive nature of how balls work (seriously look it up, some bizarre programming at work there). And balance-wise, of course this game is unbalanced, it's gen 1. Bug types and poison types are way worse than Normal and Psychic types because that's just how things are here. If you're just playing through the game, the unbalanced type chart won't bother you too much, it's more of a competitive thing, anyway.
Outside of programming mishaps, this game has some bad design choices, too. Version exclusivity and trade evolutions suck and are fun for nobody. Imagine a society where you can fill out your regional pokedex on one game cartridge... magnificent. The first gym leader is a big troll, because for two of the three starters, it's a piece of cake, but for poor Charmander, he's heavily at a disadvantage. It's not unwinnable - far from it, but if you're new to the game and using Charmander, the Brock fight will absolutely stomp you. Additionally, many of the Pokemon you can catch after Brock are weak or very shaky against Misty. Why is Koga the 5th gym leader and Sabrina the 6th when almost every player will find themselves against Sabrina first. Big one here: why do so many enemy teams in this game have absolute dookie garbage movesets. It sometimes feels like some of the early game bosses, like Brock with Onix's Bide, Misty and Starmie's Bubblebeam, and Surge's Raichu wtih Thunderbolt, are way more threatening in their arsenal than later bosses, whose signature Pokemon may not even have STAB or barely any good moves.
As an RPG, this game isn't winning any awards, but as a monster catching game with a world with pretty nice writing, this game definitely had a reason for being such a cultural phenomenon in the 90s. That said, it doesn't hold up super well, you can tell it's aged. If you want to play through Kanto again, please just play FireRed / LeafGreen, they're excellent remakes (unless you plan on using a Golbat or Chansey). Regardless, I enjoyed my time with this one!