I don’t care if you hate them, you’ve heard of them and will always remember them.
Nintendo’s diamond. There is no other way to explain Pocket Monsters, or Pokémon Red & Green versions without mentioning its legacy. In 1996 Nintendo released Pokémon Red & Green in Japan, which became hits and were pirated in the form of ROMs until the long awaited 1998 release of Pokémon Red & Blue in America and PAL regions. Ever since those years, the Pokémon franchise has grown to the second best selling game series of all time, at almost 250 million copies sold. This is only a few million away from Nintendo’s famous plumber-Mario, and around a hundred million copies from the third best selling series, Tetris. This type of success doesn’t come out of thin air, and it started with those buggy old Japanese cartridges.
Pocket Monsters Red & Green Versions
At the end of the GameBoy’s life span, nearing the release of the GameBoy Color, a developer called GAMEFREAK had just finished its first game.
The load screen that started it all, the first thing anybody saw while playing Pokémon. Press the Start button and let your journey begin! (the games were originally only in Black/White, on a GB Color they were converted to colors like in that video.)
After getting your first Pocket Monster, or as I will refer to them as Pokémon, from Professor Oak, you are set off on a journey similar to many other Japanese RPGs. Difference is, in this game there are 150 creatures that can fight you, be used to fight against foes, or simply be added to your collection. To add a creature, a Pokémon, to your collection, you simply go to a Pokémart and buy a few Pokéballs. Simple enough right? Wrong, each Pokémon has a catch rate, a percentage of which the ball will catch it. Some Pokémon are easy to catch, such as the worm Pokémon, Caterpie and Weedle. Others, such as the legendary Articuno, will take many Pokéballs of higher levels, such as the Ultra Ball. You are also given a Master Ball which will catch any of the Pokémon regardless of catch rate.
There are also a few “secret” or “hack” Pokémon found through glitches. Most famous of these is the legitamate Pokémon Mew, which can only be obtained through complex glitches in the game, and the test Pokémon Missingno., which are found at incredible levels and absurd types/moves. Some players say it is a necessity to obtain Missingno. and Mew in order to be respected as you “caught them all!”.
Catching all 150(152) of the Pokémon is just one of your goals, the other one is to become a Pokémon Master. To achieve this you must go about catching strong Pokémon and creating the perfect team of 6 to defeat all 9 gyms and the Elite Four. If you do this you become the champion, unless someone else has already beaten them, if that happens you will have to fight the current champion to gain your title. Pokémon hit their level maximum at 100, which usually requires a lot of experience, experience can be gained from defeating other Pokémon, or by the Exp. All item, which distributes the experience from defeating one Pokémon to your entire party.
The gyms are challenged in various orders, however the first two are required to be done in order, same with the last two, the middle four can be challenged in various different ways. While traveling, you will also encounter other trainers eager to fight, along with greedy men part of a gang called Team Rocket.
The multiplayer is what gave the games all of the hype and kept the GameBoy going for a few more years. (I still use mine to this very day with my old Red version) You can either battle or trade with your friends, and each version (Red and Green, later Blue and Yellow) contains different Pokémon, so you must have a friend with the other game to catch all 150 Monsters. Its always satisfying to go into a battle and win, or lose, and try again with a different strategy.
The graphics are decent for its time, but the amount of sprites put into the game is truly amazing. That over 500 character sprites had to be made. The music is wonderful, and some of it is enjoyable enough to have on for hours straight, others can get annoying. An interesting piece of music is the Lavender Town theme, which was rumored to kill over 100 kids in Japan. Many creepypasta memes have arose over the internet surrounding this theme, which contains a binaural sound that can cause nightmares.
Whether you love it or hate it, Pokémon is the best selling RPG series of all time, and it started with these two paired games in Japan, interesting music, incredible concept, loads of sprites, and 6 years in development. Pokémon Red and Green are games that I will remember throughout my entire life, and I’m sure you will too.
