Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow discussion

[bob]

Started playing Pokemon again since having a Pokemon themed party.

 

Decided to play through Red with only one Pokemon (solo-run)

 

That shit be easy as fuck! Seriously who-ever is pumping all that 'you need a strong, balanced team' nonsense is full of crap.

 

I chose Squirtle, and pretty much as soon as i was done wiping the floor with Brock, my Squirtle was double the level of the others. There wasn't a single gym leader that took any health off me.

 

The only tough moments were running out of PP (which happens a lot, i forgot that you can't buy ether) and catching a grass-type Pokemon to teach cut to when you are level 40 and it is level 12.

 

Other than that - piss. Fun though, a nice speed through to remind myself of how awesome the game is. By the end of it, my Blastoise was level 85. The Elite 4 were a bit tricky, as i thought i was going to run out of PP in the middle, but it was fine.

 

Awesome game! Might try it with a different starter.....or a Rattata perhaps....

[Jonnas]

The original games had so many flaws, though.

 

-Even the strongest trainers have movesets that utterly suck (like Blue/Gary's Arcanine and Exeggutor still having Ember and Barrage. Or Agatha's 2nd Gengar having Dream Eater...but absolutely no way to put you to sleep).

-The AI sucked, too. Always using whatever type was Super Effective against yours, no other criteria needed. I remember that putting Machoke against Dragonair would cause them to use Agility (Psychic-type attack) over and over. Same thing for the aforementioned Gengar: Dream Eater over and over again!

-Not to mention the abusable and unfun battle system with utterly paralysing moves (like Wrap) and status effects (the horrendous way that sleep worked back then)

 

My point is, Gold/Silver is where it's at! The subsequent games introduced Abilities and buffed the movesets of opposing Pokémon, but there's still very little that compares to what Gold/Silver was back then. So much to see, do and explore, encouraging communication and community playing at an age before online was such a thing.

[Serebii]

Try Challenge Mode on Black 2/White 2 with one Pokémon. That'll make you snap your DS in half

 

I replayed through RBY a year or so back to re-cover it for the site. Great nostalgic fun occurred However, I still prefer the modern ones

[Zell]

Funnily enough, I have been playing through Red again. I've just done the Rocket Hideout, my squad consists of Charmander (haven't evolved him yet), Mew, Raichu and Vaporeon. Observations so far:

 

-The music in this game is fucking sweet.

-You make progress in the game very quickly. There seems to be a lot less padding than the later games (Gold and Silver are the biggest culprits in this regard).

-Doing the Mew glitch was easier than I thought it would be.

-Wrap is incredibly annoying. Bellsprouts are the worst. There strategy is to use stun spore followed by wrap continuously. I nearly died in Rock Tunnel because of a Bellsprout.

-The difficulty curve fluctuates a lot for no apparent reason. There were a lot of high level trainers in Rock Tunnel, but then the rockets in the game corner were pathetic. It's the same with the gym leaders. Misty is pretty damn difficult with a level 21 Starmie, but Lt Surge's Raichu is only 3 levels higher. Erika for some reason has a pathetic level 24 Tangela that only uses constrict (only 10 base power I think).

 

In my mind, Red and Blue were the best Pokemon games. It's easy to look back now and pick apart their flaws (and believe me the games are pretty darn broken in places), but these games were the template for all the Pokemon games that followed. The original Pokemon games were truly fresh and original and the subsequent games are arguably Red with a new lick of paint and slightly updated battle mechanics.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I started Yellow over the summer and have briefly been playing it through, as I've never played it (I had Red). It's still a great game, and no matter how many Pokemon Nintendo keep adding, you can never beat the original 151. They seem to have more charm to them than the ones added afterwards.

 

Whoever else are in my party, Kadabra/Alakazam and Haunter/Gengar need to be in there. I ALWAYS start with Squirtle because Blastoise is a beast when you finally get him. I like the idea of having Gyarados, but Magikarp is boring to train.

[Ike]

That shit be easy as fuck! Seriously who-ever is pumping all that 'you need a strong, balanced team' nonsense is full of crap.

 

In game you can get away with using one Pokemon, sure. It's competitive play you need a balanced team. The original games were pretty broken anyway. Psychic types were nearly unbeatable.

 

Replayed Red a few months back, while a lot of the game holds up, the battle mechanics haven't. Anyone who claims Pokemon is the game should play Black 2/White 2 then try RBY.

[Guy]

Red and Blue are the greatest Pokemon games. Everything else, as noted before, has improved on many aspects, but failed to capture the charm.

 

Gold and Silver are extremely cool though. Especially the DS remakes.

 

Wouldn't Fire Red and Leaf Green be the ultimate versions, technically? Did they rework the battle mechanics to function better in that game?

[Hero-of-Time]

Pokemon Yellow is still the highlight of the main series for me, but I still adore Red/Blue.

 

I remember spending countless hours just doing the Missingo glitch and getting a massive amount of rare candies to level up my Mons. It was made easier by the arrival of Pokemon Stadium and the Dodrio mode. On one of the games I had every Pokemon on level 100, including all their evolutions.

[Serebii]

Red and Blue are the greatest Pokemon games. Everything else, as noted before, has improved on many aspects, but failed to capture the charm.

 

Gold and Silver are extremely cool though. Especially the DS remakes.

 

Wouldn't Fire Red and Leaf Green be the ultimate versions, technically? Did they rework the battle mechanics to function better in that game?

Yeah they did, but those battle mechanics are antiquated now too

 

Before Black 2 & White 2 were revealed, I postulated that the next games would be sequels set in Kanto in the same timeframe as BW, so 5 years after HGSS, showing various changes in Kanto

[bob]

In game you can get away with using one Pokemon, sure. It's competitive play you need a balanced team. The original games were pretty broken anyway. Psychic types were nearly unbeatable.

 

Replayed Red a few months back, while a lot of the game holds up, the battle mechanics haven't. Anyone who claims Pokemon is the game should play Black 2/White 2 then try RBY.

 

Yeah well I'm assuming that competitively people have 6 level 100 pokemon anyway, so there's no way you could have only one.

 

Still, i didn't think it would be so easy.

 

My first lvl 100 pokemon was my Pikachu, followed shortly by my Blastoise, both of which I levelled manually in the Unknown dungeon. It always surprised me how so little of the game dealt with pokemon after about level 65. Once you'd beaten the Elite Four, there was no real point to getting your pokemon any higher unless you were competing.

[Ville]

Started playing Pokemon again since having a Pokemon themed party.

 

Decided to play through Red with only one Pokemon (solo-run)

 

That shit be easy as fuck! Seriously who-ever is pumping all that 'you need a strong, balanced team' nonsense is full of crap.

 

I chose Squirtle, and pretty much as soon as i was done wiping the floor with Brock, my Squirtle was double the level of the others. There wasn't a single gym leader that took any health off me.

 

The only tough moments were running out of PP (which happens a lot, i forgot that you can't buy ether) and catching a grass-type Pokemon to teach cut to when you are level 40 and it is level 12.

 

Other than that - piss. Fun though, a nice speed through to remind myself of how awesome the game is. By the end of it, my Blastoise was level 85. The Elite 4 were a bit tricky, as i thought i was going to run out of PP in the middle, but it was fine.

 

Awesome game! Might try it with a different starter.....or a Rattata perhaps....

 

Great idea, man! My problem with new Pokémon games has been that I can't be arsed to catch and level up platoons of critters anymore. Maybe I could try this one-monster strategy to plow through them...

[Jonnas]

Yeah they did, but those battle mechanics are antiquated now too

 

Well yeah, a couple of generations afterwards But at least they aren't broken and abusable like the first generation.

[Hero-of-Time]

Just read this on Gaf.

 

On February 27th 1996 Pokemon Red and Green versions were first released in Japan after a six year development by Gamefreak.

 

17 years have since passed and Pokemon is now one of the highest selling video game franchises in the world, routinely selling 15 million units + for mainline games. "The Fad That Wouldn't Die".

Pokemon was the first handheld game I ever played and it has been a strong (possibly the strongest) influence on my gaming life until recently, clocking up thousands of hours over various games. I've been involved in the community in various ways, including acting as a translator for one of the big fan sites and while my job (and activity on GAF) has lowered my direct involvement, I still help out occasionally. While not a major factor, I would be lying if I didn't say that Pokemon had no influence on my decision to continue learning Japanese through high school.

 

Despite never straying far from the original formula, Pokemon's mechanics in 2013 are far more robust, refined, and complex than they were back then and with X & Y the series is only going to grow more. The number of Pokemon (including forms) is already well over 650, dwarfing the original 150 designs. I remember joking about there being 1,000 Pokemon and we're getting close.

 

Anyway, just wanted to share.

 

Man, I feel old.

[Ike]

Wow, I would have been 8 in 1996. I got into the games when I was 10/11 though (imported the US version of Red, my first game import).

 

It doesn't feel that long ago.