History VideoGame / PokemonRedandBlue

** Apparently, [[http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78267 the first Generation was originally supposed to have 190 Pokemon.]] Thirty-nine of them were removed and became the glitch Pokemon [[TheMissingno Missingno.]] What little is left of them is still accessible via hacking or glitching, but they are glitchy, unrecognizable and some of them even potentially {{Game Breaking Bug}}s.
** In Red/Blue, there is coherent (i.e. not glitched and apparently intentional) data for a trainer battle with Professor Oak. He was probably the game's BonusBoss after you fought your rival at the Pokémon League - his Pokémon (Tauros, Exeggutor, Arcanine, Gyarados, and one of the starters [[hottip:*:There are actually three versions of this battle programmed into the game, one with each of the starters as the fifth Pokémon on the team; presumably, you would fight the version with the starter neither you nor your rival chose]]) go up to level 70 and have really good movesets. He can be fought with a Gameshark.

** The "Psychic" element quickly became broken, and not just because the strongest Pokémon in the first generation (the legendary Mewtwo) belonged to that element. Due to a programming error, the type's intended weakness to Ghost types was instead turned into a strength. It was weak to Bug types, but there were few strong Bug-type attacks or Bug Pokémon. Furthermore, most Bug types and all Ghost types had Poison as a secondary type, which was weak to Psychic. On the subject of Poison-types, Poison was far and away the most common elemental type of Generation 1, including most Bug- and Grass-type Pokemon. On top of that, Psychics tended to have a strong Special stat back when Special was the OneStatToRuleThemAll. It was telling that one of the ''first'' things Gold/Silver did was introduce two new types specifically designed to counteract Psychics (Dark and Steel).

* OneGameForThePriceOfTwo: It's {{Pokemon}}.

* SecretCharacter: Near the end of its development, a Game Freak programmer noticed there was just enough cartridge space left for one more Pokémon species, so they created "Mew"; ''not even Nintendo'' knew about it during the game's original Japanese release. The official revelation of the secret 151st Pokémon was one of the factors contributing to the game's commercial success.
* ShoutOut: Considering how Creatures ([[{{Earthbound}} aka Ape, Inc.]]) helped make the games, it should come as no surprise to find some vaguely familiar faces in Red and Blue. The [[http://walkthrough.starmen.net/earthbound0/image/screens/36/36-2.png crowning]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:150Mewtwo.png example]]...
** A Team Rocket member also mentions that he will make the player character [[TheGodfather an offer he/she cannot refuse]].
** One that [[DummiedOut didn't quite make it]]: Red was originally going to be named [[EarthboundZero Ninten]].

* TutorialFailure: The game insists that ghost types are the best choices against psychic types. One trainer in Sabrina's gym even says "Psychics only fear ghosts and bugs!", which is, at best, a HalfTruth in the original Pokemon generation. Not only are the only ghosts in these games weak to psychic attacks due to their secondary poison type, and not only are there no strong ghost attacks, but psychic-types are outright immune to ghost attacks. Furthermore, there are no strong bug attacks, and many bug Pokemon are also part poison. Ghost and bug types are thus in many ways the worst choice against psychics.
** Remedied, of course, with the newer Pokemon species (and attacks) introduced in the series.

* [[AmericanKirbyIsHardcore American Pikachu Is Hardcore]]: From [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/1/19/PokemonYellowJapanese.png waving]] to [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/2/2b/Pokemon_Yellow_boxart.jpg attacking]].

* IconicItem: Not items, but they still count. Red has been associated with Pikachu and Blue with Eevee.

* AscendedMeme: Many new features and secrets seem to call back to the wild rumors that surrounded the original games. For instance, Bill granting you access to a new area (in this case, the [[SideQuest Sevii Islands]]) and the ability to find something by the truck near the S.S. Anne.

**** The change is less jarring if you've been to Las Vegas, where nearly all of the ads for the casinos refer to gambling as ''gaming'' and the authority over the casinos is the Las Vegas ''Gaming'' Commission.

** In the corner of Fuschia city is a young girl named "Charine", who self identifies as Koga's daughter in training. [[PokemonGoldAndSilver Janine]], you mean?

* {{Retcon}}: In the original versions, there were only 150 known Pokemon in the ''whole world''. In the GameBoy Advance remakes, this was changed to there being only 150 Pokemon known to inhabit the Kanto region.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The original [[BubbleGun BubbleBeam]] animation was accompanied by the visual turning negative and dramatic sound effects.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome: The original [[BubbleGun BubbleBeam]] animation was accompanied by the visual turning negative and dramatic sound effects.

-->"You've finally been granted your Pokémon Trainer's license. Now, it's time to head out to become the world's greatest Pokémon Trainer. It's going to take all you've got to collect 150 Pokémon in this enormous world...can you develop the ultimate Pokémon strategy to defeat the eight Gym Leaders and become the greatest Pokémon Master of all time?"
-->--'''Blurb''' on the back of the boxes of ''PokémonRedAndBlue''

* UncommonTime: In the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OO5VAKk0d8 Kanto Gym Leader Battle theme]], which first made its appearance here, the first four bars after the intro are played in 7/4 before the tune switches to CommonTime.

** The "Psychic" element quickly became broken, and not just because the strongest Pokémon in the first generation (the legendary Mewtwo) belonged to that element. Due to a programming error, the type's intended weakness to Ghost types was instead turned into a strength. It was weak to Bug types, but there were few strong Bug-type attacks or Bug Pokémon. Furthermore, most Bug types and all Ghost types had Poison as a secondary type, which was weak to Psychic. On the subject of Poison-types, Poison was far and away the most common elemental type of Generation 1, including most Bug- and Grass-type Pokemon. On top of that, Psychics tended to have a strong Special stat back when Special was the OneStatToRuleThemAll. It was telling that one of the ''first'' things Gold/Silver did was introduce a new type specifically designed to counteract Psychics.

* LostForever: After getting National Dex, Suicune, Entei and Raikou will roam the Kanto... The latter two, Entei and Raikou. They are roaming Pokémon... if they flee they will reappear somewhere else, but due to a glitch, when they use Roar (which they have in their moveset at the level you encounter them)... they disappear ''FOREVER''. Fortunately, if you picked Charmander, you gonna get Suicune which could learn Roar only in Gold and Silver.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Kanto = the Kanto region of Japan, and eastern Chubu as well, with Johto from [[PokemonGoldAndSilver Generation II]] being based on the western part of Chubu in addition to Kansai. (Kanto is the only region in the ''Pokémon'' games to share its name with the Japanese region it is based on, but the geography was still similar with later ones; Johto resembles Kansai and western Chubu, Hoenn and Sinnoh resemble Kyushu and Hokkaido, respectively, and Unova resembles [[BigApplesauce New York City]] as well as a bit of [[{{Joisey}} New Jersey]].)

* ShoutOut: When you first start the game, watch the TV in your house. [[StandByMe It shows four boys walking along railroad tracks, and based on your mom's dialogue about children leaving home...]]

In exchange for your first Pokémon, Oak wants you to run an errand for him: [[WalkingTheEarth travel around the world]] (or at least the whole region of Kanto) and [[GottaCatchEmAll collect as many different Pokémon as you can]], recording all of them in your [=PokéDex=]. Of course, along the way, you're more than welcome to challenge the eight Gyms, collect their badges, and take on the Elite Four in hopes of [[ToBeAMaster becoming the Champion]]. Then there's the emerging threat of Team Rocket, a [[CardCarryingVillain proudly evil organization]] that uses Pokémon for its own selfish ends. Somebody's gonna have to deal with ''them'', too -- and who better than an eleven-year-old and his [[FluffyTamer team of trained monsters]]?

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Kanto = the Kanto region of Japan, and eastern Chubu as well, with Johto from [[PokemonGoldAndSilver Generation II]] being based on the western part of Chubu in addition to Kansai. (Kanto is the only region in the ''Pokémon'' games to share its name with the Japanese region it is based on, but the geography was still similar with later ones; Johto resembles Kansai and western Chubu, Hoenn and Sinnoh resemble Kyushu and Hokkaido, respectively, and Unova resembles New York as well as a bit of [[{{Joisey}} New Jersey]].)

[[Characters/{{Ptitleevcce3c2}} Has a character sheet.]]

* InconsistentDub: Unusually, the error is present in the Japanese version as well: the Karate King, who was nameless in Generation I like every other Black Belt, was named Kiyo (Nobuhiko in Japanese) in Generation II, in which most Trainers gained names. In the Generation III remakes of the former, which added names to previously nameless Trainers, he's named Koichi (Takenori in Japanese); however, the Generation IV remakes of the latter went back to using the correct name.

As evidence of its incredible popularity, ''Pokémon Yellow'' hit the scene Stateside in 1999. ''Yellow'' took elements from the Anime/{{Pokemon}} TV series]] and [[RecursiveAdaptation transported them back into the games]], however loosely. Instead of picking one of the usual trio, a wild Pikachu ends up as your starter, and [[AllInARow follows you everywhere]] rather than [[PartyInMyPocket get into the usual Poké Ball]]. The familiar Team Rocket trio also show up, though not always as you know them.

** Apparently, [[http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78267 the first Generation was originally supposed to have 190 Pokemon.]] Thirty-nine of them were removed and became the glitch Pokemon [[TheMissingno Missingno., M-Block and others.]] What little is left of them is still accessible via hacking or glitching, but they are glitchy, unrecognizable and some of them even potentially {{Game Breaking Bug}}s.

* [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?~=]: The original [[BubbleGun BubbleBeam]] animation was accompanied by the visual turning negative and dramatic sound effects.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: There were many changes, but most notably, there once was a [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/7/70/Kensugiart3.png female protagonist]]. She was excluded presumably due to a lack of space for her data and reused for ''[=FireRed=]''/''[=LeafGreen=]'' as "[[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Leaf_%28game%29 Leaf]]".

* CrutchCharacter: Yellow added another mon to Route 22 to help against Brock -- the Fighting Type Mankey. The Nidorans (found on the same route) could now learn Double Kick much earlier as well.

* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: From [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/1/19/PokemonYellowJapanese.png waving]] to [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/2/2b/Pokemon_Yellow_boxart.jpg attacking]].

* UncommonTime: In the Kanto Gym Battle theme, which first made its appearance here, the first four bars after the intro are played in 7/4 before the tune switches to CommonTime.
* UpdatedRerelease: As mentioned above, the international "Red" and "Blue" versions are actually based on the updated game engine of Japan's updated rerelease, importing the version differences from the original Japanese "Red" and "Green" versions.

** A rumor has always been around that when the games were first released in Japan loads of little children got ill and committed suicide because of the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZOd_gFld9c Lavender Town music.]] Some people thought this was why the music was subtly changed to remove some of the high pitched notes in the American remakes. In reality, the music was changed because people in Japan had been getting headaches from the shrillness of it.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: There were many changes, but most notably, there once was a [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/7/70/Kensugiart3.png female protagonist]]. She was excluded presumably due to a lack of space for her data and reused for FRLG as "Leaf".

* AscendedMeme: Many new features and secrets seem to call back to the wild rumors that surrounded the original games. For instance, Bill granting you access a new area (in this case the Sevii Islands) and the ability to find something by the truck near the S.S. Anne.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Nintendo of Japan actually said this while releasing Japanese Red and Green and writing it off as a loss. It didn't top the sales charts, but it kept ''selling steady'' in a market where 80% of sales are made in the first two weeks. Nintendo made a few tweaks, released [[UpdatedRerelease Japanese Blue]] and got their cash cow.

As evidence of its incredible popularity, ''Pokémon Yellow'' hit the scene Stateside in 1999. ''Yellow'' took elements from the [[Anime/{{Ptitlei015gc004kw4}} TV series]] and [[RecursiveAdaptation transported them back into the games]], however loosely. Instead of picking one of the usual trio, a wild Pikachu ends up as your starter, and [[AllInARow follows you everywhere]] rather than [[PartyInMyPocket get into the usual Poké Ball]]. The familiar Team Rocket trio also show up, though not always as you know them.