History VideoGame / PokemonRedandBlue

* UniqueEnemy: Outside of the wild, the Dratini line is encountered exactly one time; when you fight Lance.

* WouldHurtAChild: One of the Team Rocket grunts threaten to punch you at Celadon City.

* BossOnlyLevel: The event-exclusive Navel Rock and Birth Island have no wild Pokémon, save for the OlympusMons residing on them. They also devoid of Trainers and items, except for Sacred Ash (which is hidden in the spot where Ho-Oh stood).

* ObviousBeta: There are numerous glitches ([[GameBreakingBug game-breaking and otherwise]]), the type chart is unbalanced, and some moves flat-out don't work properly, such as Focus Energy ''lowering'' the chance of getting a critical hit instead of raising it.

** The Bulbasaur line learns the status-inflicting Powder moves much sooner, and later on, get stronger STAB options like Giga Drain and Sludge Bomb, as well as Earthquake for coverage. Plus, Venusaur is one of the few Pokémon that had a 100 or higher Special stat in the Gen 1 games that didn't get one of its Special stats nerfed in the Gen 2 Special split (with both Special stats remaining 100), making its stats relatively better compared to other Pokémon, especially compared to the competing Victreebel and Exeggutor lines, who had their Special Defense drastically nerfed from the Special split.

* CharacterSelectForcing: Zigzagged from the originals when it comes to Charmander. Brock's Mons now get actual Rock and Ground type moves, but Charmander in turn has access to Metal Claw to even things out.

* CompetitiveBalance: Improved in comparison to the Gen. I games, but the Psychic type still has a tremendous advantage owing in large part due to the sheer lack of Dark- and Steel-type mons. Further, while more and better Ghost-type moves are present, the only Ghost-type line (Gastly) is part-Poison and thus weak to Psychic type moves. A good Psychic-type Pokémon can still run roughshod over most of the game, with only the odd Dark or Ghost-type ''move'' being used to worry about. Even then, this was before the physical/special split, so the aforementioned Gastly line couldn't really take advantage of either of their [=STABs=] due to being special attackers, and Psychic types could tank the few offensive Dark-type moves easily since they still ran off the Special Attack stat (most Psychic types have high Special Defense).

* GuideDangit:

* LastDiscMagic: These games started a trend of including a late-game move tutor who will teach your fully evolved starter (and ''only'' your fully evolved starter) an elemental version of Hyper Beam depending on your starter's type. In ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'', the tutor in question is located on the Sevii Islands which are inaccessible until you defeat Blaine, the 7th gym leader.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: In ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'', Professor Oak claims to be 50 years old, and the resulting FridgeLogic has implications for this game. Factoring in the three year TimeSkip, Oak would've been 47 years old at the time of ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]''. At the same time, it's AllThereInTheManual of the first generation games that his grandson, TheRival, is eleven years old. Assuming these ages are constant for each VideoGameRemake, Professor Oak must've been a mere thirty-six years of age when his grandson was born and even younger when the rival's older sister was. This means the Oak family has managed to squeeze two whole generations into about thirty years.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Inverted. In ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'', Professor Oak claims to be 50 years old, and the resulting FridgeLogic has implications for this game. Factoring in the three year TimeSkip, Oak would've been 47 years old at the time of ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]''. At the same time, it's AllThereInTheManual of the first generation games that his grandson, TheRival, is eleven years old.\\
\\
Assuming these ages are constant for each VideoGameRemake, Professor Oak must've been a mere thirty-six years of age when his grandson was born and even younger when the rival's older sister was. This means the Oak family has managed to squeeze two whole generations into about thirty years.

** Losing any Pokémon battle no longer penalizes you by taking away half your money. Instead, you now lose a set amount of money based on your number of Gym Badges multipled by the level of your highest-level Pokémon. Though the original penalty for losing remains in ''Emerald'', this new system becomes standard starting in Gen IV.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In these games (and ''only'' these games[[note]]though it can still get it through breeding[[/note]]), Charmander learns Metal Claw at level 13, giving players who chose it an easier time against Brock.

** The PlayerCharacter is named Red, and TheRival is named Blue (Green in the original Japanese release).

As evidence of its incredible popularity, ''Pokémon Yellow'' was later released as a fourth version in Japan in 1998, and as a third international version in 1999. ''Yellow'' took elements from the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]] 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 getting into the usual Poké Ball]]. The familiar Team Rocket trio also show up, although Meowth acts as a normal mon as opposed to an equal member to Jessie and James, acting as the third member in their party alongside Ekans/Arbok and Koffing/Weezing.

These games have received two animated adaptations. The first one is the first season of the main ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime. The second one is the anime special MiniSeries titled ''Anime/PokemonOrigins'', which aired on October 2, 2013 in Japan (10 days prior to the release of the tie-in games ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'') and November 2013 in the United States. This miniseries essentially serves as a more accurate depiction of the plot of ''Red'' and ''Blue'', being a TruerToTheText AnimeOfTheGame in comparison to the main ''Pokémon'' anime.

* CanonImmigrant: A handful of characters are more or less obviously based on characters from the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime. Because of the relatively primitive engine, sometimes the only clues to a character's identity are in their pokémon lineup and character dialogue.

* MythologyGag: Due to being a RecursiveAdaptation of the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]], references to it are everywhere.

** The second fight with your rival near the start of the game, on Route 22, is this too. You likely don't have any fighting-ready Pokémon at this point other than your starter, while his starter has been levelled high enough that it has learned Bubble (Squirtle) or Ember (Charmander), giving him a type advantage over you. You can't buy Potions in Viridian City, either, so you have to make do with the few freebies available to you (one in the PC in your bedroom, one from an NPC on Roue 1, and a hidden one in the tree by the old man in Viridian City). Just to make matters worse, your rival's Pidgey knows Sand-Attack too, which can be a real headache this early on.

** Played straight in single-player, where it's possible to take your Pokémon up to level 100, but you'll beat the game with a team in the 50s or 60s[[note]]Or even less if taking advantage of broken CompetitiveBalance and AIBreaker exploits.[[/note]]

* CompetitiveBalance: Broken in a number of ways:
** Psychic effectively has no weaknesses, as nothing resists or is immune to it, its supposed weakness to Ghost is an immunity thanks to a coding error,[[labelnote:*]]And even if it wasn't, the only Ghost moves that do damage are the [[FixedDamageAttack level-based Night Shade]] and the weaksauce Lick[[/labelnote]] and damaging Bug-type moves are both low in number and very weak (the strongest being Pin Missile that hits up to five times for 14 power each). Even worse, many Bugs and ''every'' Ghost-type also have a Poison-type, meaning they're ''weak'' against the things they're meant to shut down.
** The Dragon-type was supposed to have two weaknesses; Ice-types, and itself. However, that latter weakness never comes into play because the only Dragon-type move is Dragon Rage, [[FixedDamageAttack which does 40 points of damage no matter what]].
** Normal-types are supposed to be at a disadvantage against Fighting, Rock, and Ghost types, and held back by having no real resistances (only having an immunity to damaging Ghost moves, which practically means just Lick). However, the one type super-effective against them, Fighting, is uncommon, countered hard by the aformentioned Psychic-type, and only has a few poor moves available; the best one, High Jump Kick, is exclusive to the awful Hitmonlee, and the next-best and only widely-distributed Fighting move, Submission, is an inaccurate move that deals recoil damage to the user and only has 80 power for such significant drawbacks. Rock-types resist Normal moves and Ghosts are immune, but Normal types tend to be able to learn a large variety of [=TMs=], and many can get Water or Ice moves to take down Rock- and Ground-types that could withstand their Normal moves, and many get Earthquake and/or Dig to hit both Rock-types and Ghost-types hard (with the latter all being part Poison as covered prior). Then, while most types tend to have lackluster and/or limited options for STAB in Gen 1, Normal types have a lot of good moves to use, most notably the 85 power 100% accurate Body Slam that inflicts Paralysis 30% of the time (except to other Normal-types, another significant advantage for the Normal-type), and the terrifying 150 power Hyper Beam that skips the recharge turn in this Gen if the opponent is knocked out by it. In competitive play, Normal-types ended up even more prevalent than Psychic-types, with three omnipresent GameBreaker Pokémon that are on nearly all teams being Normals (Tauros, Snorlax, and Chansey).
** About half the types in the game were woefully treated, as besides the questionable direct type advantage/disadvantage balancing, many types only have a few mons with the typing available while Water and Poison Pokémon together consist of nearly half the entire Gen 1 roster, and most types have few moves of their typing available, while nearly half the types don't even get a no-drawbacks move of at least 80 power, significantly weakening their damage output. The TierInducedScrappy section on the YMMV page goes more in-depth on the types that got shortchanged during the balancing.
** Whereas physical Attack and Defense are separate stats, their special counterparts are one stat. This means that any intended SquishyWizard also receives a high resistance to special attacks, unlike their physical counterparts (this is another reason why the aforementioned Psychic-type is so game-breaking in Gen I).

[[FakeBalance While the game's balance is undeniably broken]], and [[ObviousBeta glitches]] abound...it's ''Pokémon''.

** Played straight in single-player, where it's possible to take your Pokémon up to level 100, but you'll beat the game with a team in the 50s or 60s[[note]]Or even less if taking advantage of various FakeBalance and AIBreaker exploits.[[/note]]

* FakeBalance:
** Psychic effectively has no weaknesses, as nothing resists or is immune to it, its supposed weakness to Ghost is an immunity thanks to a coding error,[[labelnote:*]]And even if it wasn't, the only Ghost moves that do damage are the [[FixedDamageAttack level-based Night Shade]] and the weaksauce Lick[[/labelnote]] and damaging Bug-type moves are both low in number and very weak (the strongest being Pin Missile that hits up to five times for 14 power each). Even worse, many Bugs and ''every'' Ghost-type also have a Poison-type, meaning they're ''weak'' against the things they're meant to shut down.
** The Dragon-type was supposed to have two weaknesses; Ice-types, and itself. However, that latter weakness never comes into play because the only Dragon-type move is Dragon Rage, [[FixedDamageAttack which does 40 points of damage no matter what]].
** Normal-types are supposed to be at a disadvantage against Fighting, Rock, and Ghost types, and held back by having no real resistances (only having an immunity to damaging Ghost moves, which practically means just Lick). However, the one type super-effective against them, Fighting, is uncommon, countered hard by the aformentioned Psychic-type, and only has a few poor moves available; the best one, High Jump Kick, is exclusive to the awful Hitmonlee, and the next-best and only widely-distributed Fighting move, Submission, is an inaccurate move that deals recoil damage to the user and only has 80 power for such significant drawbacks. Rock-types resist Normal moves and Ghosts are immune, but Normal types tend to be able to learn a large variety of [=TMs=], and many can get Water or Ice moves to take down Rock- and Ground-types that could withstand their Normal moves, and many get Earthquake and/or Dig to hit both Rock-types and Ghost-types hard (with the latter all being part Poison as covered prior). Then, while most types tend to have lackluster and/or limited options for STAB in Gen 1, Normal types have a lot of good moves to use, most notably the 85 power 100% accurate Body Slam that inflicts Paralysis 30% of the time (except to other Normal-types, another significant advantage for the Normal-type), and the terrifying 150 power Hyper Beam that skips the recharge turn in this Gen if the opponent is knocked out by it. In competitive play, Normal-types ended up even more prevalent than Psychic-types, with three omnipresent GameBreaker Pokémon that are on nearly all teams being Normals (Tauros, Snorlax, and Chansey).
** About half the types in the game were woefully treated, as besides the questionable direct type advantage/disadvantage balancing, many types only have a few mons with the typing available while Water and Poison Pokémon together consist of nearly half the entire Gen 1 roster, and most types have few moves of their typing available, while nearly half the types don't even get a no-drawbacks move of at least 80 power, significantly weakening their damage output. The TierInducedScrappy section on the YMMV page goes more in-depth on the types that got shortchanged during the balancing.
** Whereas physical Attack and Defense are separate stats, their special counterparts are one stat. This means that any intended SquishyWizard also receives a high resistance to special attacks, unlike their physical counterparts (this is another reason why the aforementioned Psychic-type is so game-breaking in Gen I).

** The Psychic-type has no meaningful weaknesses due to [[FakeBalance bad balancing]], nothing resists it except itself, and it has a type advantage against Poison, the most common type in the game.

* FakeBalance: Downplayed in comparison to the Gen. I games, but the Psychic type still has a tremendous advantage owing in large part due to the sheer lack of Dark- and Steel-type mons. Further, while more and better Ghost-type moves are present, the only Ghost-type line (Gastly) is part-Poison and thus weak to Psychic type moves. A good Psychic-type Pokémon can still run roughshod over most of the game, with only the odd Dark or Ghost-type ''move'' being used to worry about. Even then, this was before the physical/special split, so the aforementioned Gastly line couldn't really take advantage of either of their [=STABs=] due to being special attackers, and Psychic types could tank the few offensive Dark-type moves easily since they still ran off the Special Attack stat (most Psychic types have high Special Defense).

** Blaine is programmed to use Super Potions as if they were a battle item. This means he'll often randomly use them in situations where his Pokémon don't need the healing, or may even try using a Super Potion when his Pokémon aren't damaged at all. Never mind that a Super Potion heals too little to be useful for this point of the game when it wouldn't even recover half his Pokémon's health.

* AcrophobicBird: Despite having Flying as a secondary type, neither Charizard nor Dragonite can learn the move Fly. Charizard would gain this ability in ''Yellow'', while Dragonite would get it in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Gold and Silver]]''.

** Tail Whip. The name suggests that the user would smack the enemy with their tail to lower their Defense, but it is actually far less hardcore then that. It's original name is actually "Tail Wag", which is apparently used cutely to lower the enemy's guard. Later games would support the original depiction more in its description and animation.

* SleepyEnemy: The games introduce Snorlax, which often appears in the series as a sleeping BrokenBridge that requires special means to wake up. Once you've done so, it proves to be a MightyGlacier that likes to use "Rest" to restore its health. Later generation games give it additional moves like Belly Drum (maxes out it's attack at the cost of half of its HP, which it restores easily with Rest) and moves it can use while asleep like Snore and Sleep Talk.

* SupportPartyMember: Many of the best "status spreaders" fall into this role, as they lack the power and defenses to hang around late in the game. However, having a Pokémon in your party that can reliably put wild Pokémon to sleep (or, less effectively but better than nothing, paralyze them) makes it far easier to fill up your Pokédex and acquire all of the items from Prof. Oak's aides. Butterfree is the [[CrutchCharacter earliest available and comes with the widest variety of status-inflicting moves]], but falls well behind the power curve by mid-game. A Haunter or, if you can manage a trade, Gengar with Hypnosis and Night Shade is a solid late game option as it can both put wild Pokémon to sleep and, since Night Shade [[FixedDamageAttack deals damage equal to the user's level]], gives you more control in whittling its health down while being immune to the very common Normal-type attacks. Its part Poison-typing makes it vulnerable to the broken Psychic-types, however. Going the full CripplingOverspecialization route, you can raise a Parasect until it gets the 100% sleep-inducing Spore attack at level 30. It's low Attack and weak movepool allows you to carefully whittle away a wild Pokémon's health while being able to put it back to sleep at any time. It's typing leaves it with several major weaknesses, however, so it won't last against Fire or Flyers.

* TheArtifact: One NPC still says her old line from the originals, wondering what Pokémon would look like if they had distinct genders.....despite them having them since the second generation.

** Elements introduced in Gen II such as the Dark- and Steel-types and Pokémon Eggs are now retconned to have always existed. These retcons also carry over to [=HeartGold=] and [=SoulSilver=].

* DynamicDifficulty: Subtle example in the form of what your Rival evolves his Eevee into depending on how you do in your first two battles against him. Win both, and he evolves it into a Jolteon, which is resistant to your Pikachu's electric attacks. Win one, and he evolves it into a Flareon, which is neutral to your Pikachu's electric attacks. Lose both, and he evolves it into Vaporeon, which is weak against your Pikachu's electric attacks.

** The interaction with the Old Man in Viridian City who shows you how to catch Pokémon is changed. He can no longer be used to trigger the Missingno glitch.

* FunWithPalindromes: The passwords for the Rocket Headquarters on Five Island are "GOLDEEN need log" and "Yes, nah, CHANSEY".

* {{Retcon}}: In the original versions, there were only 151 known Pokémon in the ''whole world''. In the remakes, this was changed to there being only 151 Pokémon known to inhabit the Kanto region.

[[GameBreaker While the game's balance is undeniably broken]], and [[ObviousBeta glitches]] abound...it's ''Pokémon''.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Players who rushed to the top floor of the Celadon Department Store to buy drinks for the thirsty guards will be disappointed since the guards in ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'' accept hot tea instead, which is obtained from an old lady in the building next to the Pokémon Center.

* GuideDangit: Certain hidden items, like the Leftovers a defeated Snorlax drops, can only be found by using the Itemfinder while standing on the ''exact'' tile the item is on. The game will say there's no response if you're even one tile off, and it never tells you about this odd mechanic.

** The Pokédex gives "Shellfish" as Blastoise's species, even though it's a sea turtle. This is a mistranslation of the Japanese original, in which its species was "Shell" instead.

* ForcedLevelGrinding: There is a major level jump between the eighth gym leader [[spoiler:(Giovanni)]], whose strongest Pokémon is a level 50 Rhydon (with four others at level 45 or less,) and the first Elite Four member, Lorelei, who has a team of five all at level 53 or above, while the levels go up to the 60s when you fight the champion. You don't actually need to grind in a normal playthrough despite this big level jump, due to extreme deficiencies with the AI and their teams, as well as Stat EXP and the badge boosts more than making up for any level deficieny with the player's Pokémon (you can be over ten levels lower and still have better stats). However when doing challenge runs, particularl solo Pokémon runs, this often proves to be a point in the game where the player will have to grind up to progress.

* ForcedLevelGrinding: There is a major level jump between the eighth gym leader [[spoiler:(Giovanni)]], whose strongest Pokémon is a level 50 Rhydon (with four others at level 45 or less,) and the first Elite Four member, Lorelei, who has a team of five all at level 53 or above. With proper typing, you can easily defeat [[spoiler:Giovanni]] with a team in the low-mid 40s, meaning you'll want to grind each of your Mons about 8-10 levels before even attempting the Elite Four (who only get ''stronger'' after Lorelei and must all be faced one after the other.)