Pokémon Red, Green, Blue Versions

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Pokémon Red and Green (Japanese: ポケットモンスター 赤・緑 Pocket Monsters Aka/Midori), first released in Japan on February 27, 1996[1]) are the first games in the Pokémon franchise. These games were released for the Game Boy video game console, and will also play on most other games in the Game Boy line of consoles. These games consist of smaller version differences, including different available monsters between Red and Blue Versions.

The Pokémon are various creatures with different traits. The player can throw items (known as Poké Balls) to have a chance of catching that Pokémon. The Pokémon can then be placed in a battle between a Pokémon in the wild, or a tamer of Pokémon known as a Pokémon Trainer.

One aim of these games is to become a Pokémon Trainer and defeat the eight Gym Leaders in a fictional world called Kanto (based on the real-world Kanto region in Japan), before finally challenging a group of Trainers known as the "Elite Four" and becoming the Pokémon League Champion. Another aim of the games is to collect 150 of all 151 Pokémon in the games, and optionally the hidden 151st Pokémon (Mew) originally intended to be given away during real-world Pokémon distribution events.

On September 12, 1998 an enhanced version was released, known as Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition. However, there are still some Pokémon in this game that are unavailable without trading Pokémon using a Game Link Cable. A remake of Pokémon Red and Green was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, known as Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Versions. Inspired by Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were released for the Nintendo Switch video game console on November 16, 2018.

Box artworks[edit | edit source]

Re-releases[edit | edit source]

The games have various hidden minor revision differences in the original Japanese versions (original revisions, later revisions) with technical changes to the code, such as partial fixing of the closed menu Select button glitches in the later revisions. The Nintendo 3DS's version of the "Virtual Console" (a service for downloading older video games) also released Pokémon Red, Green and Blue. These revisions are hosted on a Game Boy emulator and have small technical details to enable wireless linking with other Nintendo 3DS consoles running same region (i.e. Japan, Americas/Oceania, Europe*) versions of the game (rather than the original Game Link Cable method).

On a later date (October 15, 1996), Japan received a special version of the game that could be purchased by mail for CoroCoro Comic subscribers, known as Pokémon Blue (Japanese: ポケットモンスター 青, Pocket Monsters Ao). The game was later available for general retail on October 10, 1999. This release included various changes to the game such as a different selection of wild Pokémon and updated sprites.

On September 28, 1998[2], the games were localised into English for North American audiences as Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version. There are also French, German, Italian and Spanish revisions of the game, with some minor code changes introduced in the Italian and Spanish revisions (i.e. partial (Surfing) fixing of the left-facing shore tile glitch but introduction of a wild Pokémon exploit for the grass/rock surfing glitch).

  • English, French, German, Italian and Spanish Versions of the game can link with no known glitches. However, Pokémon obtained during a trade from NPCs (non-playable characters) with the "TRAINER" OT name will have the "TRAINER" string replaced with its language equivalent.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

  • This game in early development was a significantly different concept, known as "Capsule Monsters". The game was reportedly inspired by Japanese kaiju franchise Ultraman and designer Satoshi Tajiri's personal fascination of bug collecting. The quest to complete the Pokédex came later in development, and it is believed that (among other large changes to the game) one of the key locations (in addition to the existing 10) was removed. This is supported by concept art (linked).
  • More Pokémon characters and monsters than the final releases were planned for the games, with 39 of 190 Pokémon data structures in the game remaining with placeholder and invalid ('glitch') data, known as "MissingNo."
  • Mew was a secret addition by one of the developers, Shigeki Morimoto, reportedly two weeks before game development of the original games had finished.

References[edit | edit source]