Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow began as a pitch that Nintendo's own staff could not make sense of. In 1990, the game developer Satoshi Tajiri described his concept to them, and the response was skepticism. They judged his ideas too ambitious and struggled to see the appeal. Six years later, the first of these role-playing games reached the Game Boy, built by the studio Game Freak and published by Nintendo. Tajiri himself kept expecting the company to turn him down. What was the idea that baffled so many people? Who changed their minds? And how did a set of cartridges made by a small team grow into one of the best-selling video games ever recorded?

  2426282352

• 2. A Boyhood Hobby

  ›

  Insect collecting was Satoshi Tajiri's favorite pastime as a child, and it planted the seed for everything that followed. As he grew up, the town where he lived became more urban, and the insect population shrank. Children now played indoors instead of outside. Tajiri imagined a video game full of creatures that resembled insects, and he called them Pokémon.

  He believed kids would bond with these creatures by giving each one a name. He also thought that commanding them could be a healthy way to work off stress. Yet Pokémon never bleed or die in battle. They only faint. Tajiri felt strongly about this, because he did not want to add more "pointless violence" to the gaming world.

  Shigeru Miyamoto was the person who rescued the project. Where other Nintendo staff saw an overreaching idea, he saw great potential, and he convinced the company to go ahead.

  The finished game is full of tributes to its makers. The hero is named Satoshi, after Tajiri himself. In Tajiri's words, "Basically, he's me as a kid." The rival is named Shigeru, after Miyamoto, whom Tajiri regarded as a mentor and role model.

  The creatures themselves came from an artist and longtime friend, Ken Sugimori. He led a team of fewer than ten people who conceived the designs for all 151 Pokémon. Atsuko Nishida drew Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, and many others. Sugimori finalized each design, sketching every creature from several angles so that Game Freak's graphics department could render it correctly.

  Even the name took a winding path. The working title was Capsule Monsters, but trademark problems forced changes to CapuMon and then KapuMon. The team finally settled on Pocket Monsters. Tajiri said the Poké Ball came from the Capsule Monsters of the tokusatsu superhero series Ultraseven, which aired in 1967-68.

  2426325334

• 3. The Link Cable Idea

  ›

  Tajiri's idea for trading began with a frustration in Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line. He was hunting for an item that an enemy dropped only rarely, and he could not get it. Ken Sugimori was playing the same game and had found two of the item. Tajiri wanted that spare, and he wondered whether items could be traded between copies of the game. On the Famicom, they could not.

  The Game Boy changed his thinking. Its link cable, he realized, could carry information from one player to another. At the time, such cables were used only for head-to-head competition, so trading was a new idea for the industry. Tajiri recalled his excitement: "I imagined a chunk of information being transferred by connecting two Game Boys with special cables, and I went wow, that's really going to be something!"

  Two more influences shaped the design. Miyamoto suggested releasing several cartridges, each holding different Pokémon, because that would give players more reason to trade. Tajiri also credited Square's Game Boy game The Final Fantasy Legend, which showed him that the handheld could host more than action games.

  The finished games made trading a requirement. Certain Pokémon evolve only when traded, and each version has exclusive creatures, so no one can fill the full roster alone. Linked players can also battle each other's teams.

  Compatibility had its limits. A Game Boy Advance or SP needs the Nintendo Universal Game Link Cable, because the standard cable will not work. Trading between the English and Japanese versions corrupts the save files, since the two use different character sets. Red and Blue can trade with Gold, Silver, and Crystal, but not if a party holds Pokémon or moves from those newer games. With the Transfer Pak, data could also move to the Nintendo 64 games Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2.

  27263497

• 4. Kanto and Its Rules

  ›

  The adventure opens in Pallet Town, where Professor Samuel Oak stops the player from wandering alone into the tall grass. Oak, a famous Pokémon researcher, warns that wild Pokémon may be lurking there. He leads the player to his laboratory and introduces his grandson, a rival who also hopes to become a trainer. Each of them picks a starter from Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander. The rival always takes the one that is stronger against the player's choice, and he challenges the player to a first battle.

  From there the goal is to earn eight Gym Badges by beating the Gym Leaders of the region's cities. The badges open the door to the Pokémon League at the Indigo Plateau. Waiting there are the Elite Four and, finally, the League Champion, who turns out to be the rival. Along the way the player keeps foiling Team Rocket, a criminal organization that schemes to steal rare Pokémon.

  The region itself is called Kanto, and it is based on the real Kantō region of Japan. Its settlements include Pallet Town, Viridian City, Pewter City, Cerulean City, Vermillion City, Lavender Town, Celadon City, Fuchsia City, Saffron City, Cinnabar Island, and the Indigo Plateau. Every one of these except Pallet Town, Lavender Town, and the Indigo Plateau has a gym. Habitats range from caves such as Mt. Moon, Rock Tunnel, the Seafoam Islands, and Cerulean Cave to open water. Tentacool can be caught only by fishing or while in the water, and Zubat only in a cave.

  Battles run on a turn-based screen. In each round the player can use one of up to four moves, use an item, swap Pokémon, or try to run, although running is impossible against trainers. When a Pokémon's hit points reach zero, it faints. Survivors earn experience points and eventually level up, and some evolve. Higher evolutions gain more statistics per level but may learn new moves later, if at all.

  Catching works through the Poké Ball. A target is easier to catch when its hit points are low, when it suffers a status effect, and when the ball is a stronger type. Filling out the Pokédex, the in-game record of all 151 creatures, is the long-term goal.

  The sound was the work of Junichi Masuda, who used the Game Boy's four sound channels for melodies, effects, and the Pokémon cries. He wrote the opening theme with battles in mind and used white noise to imitate a snare drum. Masuda composed at home on a Commodore Amiga and converted the music with a program he wrote himself.

  1620212240

• 5. Glitches and Secrets

  ›

  MissingNo., short for "Missing Number," is the most famous glitch in the games. It is a glitch Pokémon with several forms, which appear depending on which glitches the player performs. Other creatures can also be summoned by bugs. The sheer number of glitches has been blamed on the games' large scope compared with Game Freak's development experience at the time.

  Another trick is called the "EXP underflow glitch." It manipulates unsigned integers in the game's code for Pokémon in the "medium slow" experience group, and it lets a player push any such Pokémon to the maximum level.

  Some secrets were not accidents at all. A 151st creature named Mew was hidden inside the game by Shigeki Morimoto as an internal prank, and it was never meant to be revealed to players. Tajiri later disclosed its existence, hoping to spark interest. He believed it "created a lot of rumors and myths about the game" and "kept the interest alive."

  Nintendo eventually decided to hand out Mew through a promotional event. Then, in 2003, players found a glitch that produced Mew without any official event at all.

  1314155149

• 6. Crossing the Ocean

  ›

  In Japan, the first versions were Pocket Monsters Red and Green, and development was finished by October 1995. Release was planned for the 21st of December 1995. It slipped to the 27th of February 1996 because the derivative products were not yet ready for sale. Sales started slowly, then kept climbing.

  Pocket Monsters Blue came next, as a special edition mailed only to subscribers of CoroCoro Comic on the 15th of October 1996. It reached general retail on the 10th of October 1999. Blue added updated artwork and new dialogue, with Blastoise as its mascot.

  Hiro Nakamura led the North American localization team, which renamed the creatures for western audiences after Nintendo's approval. Nintendo also trademarked all 151 names so they would belong to the franchise alone. Translation alone proved impossible. The code was fragile after an unusually long development, so the games had to be reprogrammed from scratch. The result used Blue's programming and artwork with the creature distribution of Red and Green.

  Fear of rejection ran high. Reports differ on the marketing budget. One figure puts Nintendo's United States spending at 13 million dollars, while another says it allegedly passed 50 million. The localization team warned that the "cute monsters" might not appeal to Americans and recommended redesigning them to look "beefed-up." Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi refused, treating the American reception as a challenge.

  The games reached North America on the 28th of September 1998, more than two and a half years after Japan. Foreign audiences received them extremely well. Australia followed later in 1998, and Europe on the 5th of October 1999. In Europe, they were the second-to-last original Game Boy release, ahead only of Pokémon Yellow.

  Portugal got a launch with a pun. On the 15th of October 1999, the town of Monte Real in the Leiria District was symbolically renamed "Pokémonte Real" for the day. The local distributor Concentra arranged it with the parish council and the mayor of Leiria, Fernando Lopes Jorge. About 50 children attended, and the event cost 5 thousand contos.

  Ricardo Feist, Concentra's marketing director, picked the town because its name echoed the game's title. He also wanted children outside the big cities to share in it. The animated series was already airing on the SIC network, and Concentra aimed to sell 50,000 units by the end of the year. It set aside 35 thousand contos for a campaign meant to create a "Pokémania" in Portugal.

  6061554252

• 7. The Yellow Edition

  ›

  Pikachu is the only starter offered in Pokémon Yellow, and it walks behind the player across the overworld. Ikue Ōtani gives it a voice, and the player can talk to it. Its mood depends on how it is treated. Leveling up keeps it happy, while frequent fainting makes it unhappy. The rival starts with an Eevee, and some non-player characters, including Team Rocket's Jessie and James, are borrowed from the anime.

  Other additions were smaller. Yellow has slightly improved graphics and can print Pokédex entries as stickers on the Game Boy Printer. It also includes a minigame called Pikachu's Beach, open only to players who won a Nintendo contest or finished a challenge in Pocket Monsters Stadium or Pokémon Stadium. Later games, including HeartGold, SoulSilver, and Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, brought back the following-companion idea. Source code leaked from Nintendo hints that a "Pokémon Pink" may once have been considered as a partner for Yellow.

  Yellow entered development after the Japanese Blue was complete. It appeared alongside Pokémon: The First Movie. Satoru Iwata, later Nintendo's president, said people probably felt Yellow was unnecessary because Gold and Silver were coming later that year. It was released in Japan on the 12th of September 1998, in Australia on the 3rd of September 1999, in North America on the 19th of October 1999, and in Europe on the 16th of June 2000. For the occasion, Volkswagen and Nintendo built a yellow New Beetle with Pikachu-inspired features.

  Critics were divided on how much was new. GameSpot's Cameron Davis called it a "stopgap" until Gold and Silver. The Daily Telegraph's Steve Boxer was harsher, saying Yellow "marks the point where Pokémon ceases to become a game and becomes a marketing exercise/obsession-satisfier." RPGFan called the game "so revoltingly addictive that any player of it has no choice but to 'catch 'em all'" while also calling the small additions "insulting." IGN's Craig Harris gave a perfect score and thought Yellow was the best of the three to start with. Its aggregate score was 85% on GameRankings, which made it the fifth highest-rated Game Boy game there.

  Shoppers did not wait for verdicts. North America saw roughly 150,000 pre-orders, and the standard cartridge sold over 600,000 units in its first week. It reached one million in ten days, the fastest start for a handheld game at that time. Nintendo had expected 75 million dollars from the 1999 holiday season. USA Today compared the demand to Furby and Tickle Me Elmo. Target apologized for failing to meet "unprecedented demand." Game Boy sales climbed from 3.5 million in 1998 to 8 million in 1999. In Europe, 2 million units shipped in June 2000, including 500,000 to the United Kingdom.

  6472959775

• 8. Records and Legacy

  ›

  In Japan, Red, Green, and Blue sold 1.04 million units in 1996 and another 3.65 million in 1997. That second year made Pokémon the country's best-selling game, ahead of Final Fantasy VII. The trio finished with 10.23 million copies, the best-selling video games in Japan until November 2022.

  The United States saw the fastest-selling Game Boy game up to that point, with 200,000 copies in two weeks and 4 million by the end of 1998. Another 6.1 million sold in 1999, making it that year's best-selling game there. France passed 2.5 million copies within a year. In Germany, the games earned two Special Prize awards for sales above 2 million. The United Kingdom awarded two Platinum awards for sales above 600,000.

  Worldwide sales went beyond 31 million copies. In 2017, Guinness World Records named the games the best-selling videogame, excluding bundle sales.

  Critics were warm. IGN's Craig Harris awarded 10 out of 10 and wrote, "Even if you finish the quest, you still might not have all the Pokémon in the game. The challenge to catch 'em all is truly the game's biggest draw." GameSpot's Peter Bartholow gave 8.8 out of 10, calling the graphics and audio somewhat primitive. The Guardian praised the "superlative gameplay" that made players overlook the "cutesy 8-bit graphics." At the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the games won "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development."

  Their standing has lasted. The site 1UP.com ranked Red and Blue first among games that arrived late in a console's life, calling them Nintendo's "secret weapon" for reviving the Game Boy. IGN placed them 72nd on its 2003 Top 100 list and 70th two years later.

  Remakes followed. FireRed and LeafGreen reached the Game Boy Advance in 2004 and sold around 12 million copies. Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! arrived on the Nintendo Switch in 2018, with over 13 million. In February 2016, the originals returned on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console with simulated link-cable trading, selling 1.5 million by the 31st of March 2016.

  On the 12th of February 2014, an anonymous Australian programmer launched Twitch Plays Pokémon. Viewers typed commands in chat to steer a modified Pokémon Red, with about 50,000 people taking part at once. The game was finished on the 1st of March 2014 after 390 hours of continuous play.

  In 2017, the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Pokémon Red and Green. For the 25th anniversary, the Japan Sumo Association partnered with The Pokémon Company, and in January 2022 the referees at a tournament wore Poké Ball-themed kimono.

  975238583