Review: Pokemon Red

Dated yet wholesome JRPG fun

Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve been interviewing people regarding their first Pokémon experience, and it usually involves finding out about it a few months, or even years after it launched in the US (like Laura’s first intro to Yellow). As for myself, I still remember the night I picked it up, on launch day, September 28, 1998. After getting off work, my parents drove me to Toys”R”Us to spend my allowance money on Pokémon Red, which I picked out exclusively because it had a badass dragon on it. The rest was history.

Even though it was a school night, I played it for hours on end, until I was stumped on Mt. Moon and had to call it a day. I’m talking flashlight (backlight, even!) under the bed, the whole kid shebang. I was addicted. To an extent, that’s still how I play a lot of games today, including Pokémon Y (which I also picked up because it had a dragon…thing on the cover).

While it’s clear that age is a factor in my recent playthrough of the first generation re-releases, a lot of that same spark is still there.

Pokémon Red (3DS [reviewed], Game Boy)
Developer: Game Freak 
Publisher: Nintendo 
Released: September 28, 1998 (Game Boy), February 27, 2016 (3DS eShop) 
MSRP: $9.99

[Check out our reviews for Pokémon Blue and Yellow.]

As an RPG, Pokémon ticks all the right boxes. The element of party building and loot acquisition is still alive and well, but it’s on a much more personal level with Game Freak’s creation. You didn’t just happen to run across a Tauros as part of the main storyline — you spent 15 hours trying to catch it on your friend’s copy of Pokémon Blue so you could transfer it over to finally complete your Pokédex (true story).

It was a whole new world, and the trading element, spurred by the exclusivity found within the two (and eventually, three) versions was genius. It was a marketing strategy first and foremost, but it worked, and the topic of “What Pokémon did you find today?” was a common conversation in an era just before the rise of FAQs.

Of course, as an RPG from the ’90s, it has all of the typical trappings you’d expect. Battles can be non-stop, especially on the tight quarters of the S.S. Anne, which can dampen exploration a bit. The visual element of only engaging in fights in grass is appreciated, but caves and areas like cycling roads are off, pacing-wise, to the point where it can feel like padding.

But even with its multiple iterations of advancements lingering in its shadow, the original trilogy still has a ton of life to it. In the re-release, I spent hours in Celadon City, traversing the giant general store and whiling away in the casino. There’s a reason that the second generation revisited Kanto again — it’s one of the most iconic locations in the entire series. I found myself rediscovering new hidden zones like it was 1998 all over again, and getting nervous that I didn’t carry enough Ultra balls with me. The fact that I still remember every single first-run Pokémon to this day speaks to its longevity.

As for the 3DS version itself, it’s not ideal that nothing was really added in at launch, but its concessions aren’t the end of the world. Most notably, the removal of save states makes perfect sense, so people couldn’t game the system. It would have been nice to get a few extra quality-of-life changes, like more in-game options, sure. But the fact that you’ll be able to transfer (potentially broken) Pokémon over to Sun & Moon is the cherry on top of this muted sundae.

Even though it’s been left in the dust by its successors (even as early as Silver and Gold, which knocked it out of the park), there’s no denying that the original series, including Pokémon Red, the objective best first generation game, has its charms. As long as you’re able to deal with some antiquated mechanics and a ton of random battles (you are not prepared, even with repels), it’s worth booting up all over again.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}