History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / PokemonRedAndBlue

* The Safari Zone in ''Red'', ''Blue'', and ''Yellow'' allows the player to throw rocks at Pokemon to make them angry. Future generations would never again allow the player character to directly commit violence against Pokemon, though this specific mechanic is retained in the remakes ''[=FireRed=]'' and '[='LeafGreen=]'', presumably due to the GrandfatherClause.

** On the Japanese side, one gets the feeling they weren't even trying with some of the Generation I names (such as the legendary birds being called "Freezer,"[[note]]Articuno[[/note]] "Thunder,"[[note]]Zapdos[[/note]] and "Fire"[[note]]Moltres[[/note]]) and it was only from Gen II onward that this changed and effort consistently happened. Though the English translators changed those names, that didn't stop the translators from coming up with new names that were just [[MyNaymeIs creatively spelled]] variations of common English words, and sometimes not even that, such as "Persian", "Abra", "Kadabra", "Alakazam", "Golem", "Slowpoke", "Krabby", "Electrode", "Koffing", "Weezing", and "Ditto", in addition to some names which were just two words put together without making a {{portmanteau}} out of them, such as "Beedrill", "Ninetales", "Sandshrew", "Sandslash", "Vileplume", "Bellsprout", "Geodude", "Voltorb", "Marowak",[[note]]"marrow" and "whack"[[/note]] "Seaking", and "Magikarp".[[note]]"magic" and "carp"[[/note]]. This style is also somewhat in Gen 2, with names such as "Bayleef", "Ledyba", "Hoothoot", "Unown", and "Lanturn". Later generations avoid using regular or misspelled English words, though with a few exceptions.[[note]]Gen 5 has a few, such as Timburr (timber), and Klink, which are deliberate call-backs to Gen I.[[/note]] Portmanteau names seem to have become the norm.

** On the Japanese side, one gets the feeling they weren't even trying with some of the Generation I names (such as the legendary birds being called "Freezer,"[[note]]Articuno[[/note]] "Thunder,"[[note]]Zapdos[[/note]] and "Fire"[[note]]Moltres[[/note]]) and it was only from Gen II onward that this changed and effort consistently happened. Though the English translators changed those names, that didn't stop the translators from coming up with new names that were just [[MyNaymeIs creatively spelled]] variations of common English words, and sometimes not even that, such as "Persian", "Abra", "Kadabra", "Alakazam", "Golem", "Slowpoke", "Krabby", "Electrode", "Koffing", "Weezing", and "Ditto", in addition to some names which were just two words put together without making a {{portmanteau}} out of them, such as "Beedrill", "Ninetales", "Sandshrew", "Sandslash", "Vileplume", "Bellsprout", "Geodude", "Voltorb", "Marowak",[[note]]"marrow" and "whack"[[/note]] "Seaking", and "Magikarp".[[note]]"magic" and "carp"[[/note]] Later generations avoided using regular or misspelled English words, though with a few exceptions.[[note]]Gen 5 has a few, such as Timburr (timber), and Klink, which are deliberate call-backs to Gen I.[[/note]] Portmanteau names seem to have become the norm.

** A few Gen I Pokémon are named after specific celebrities: For example, Hitmonlee's English name is based on Creator/BruceLee and its Japanese name (Sawamular) is named after Tadashi Sawamura, a famous Japanese kickboxer. Hitmonchan's English name is derived from Creator/JackieChan and its Japanese name (Ebiwalar) comes from World Champion Boxer Hiroyuki Ebihara. Gen II continued this practice when it came to Wobbuffet, whose Japanese name "Sonansu" and habit of raising its arm to its head recalled the ActorCatchphrase and signature gesture of the deceased celebrity Hayashiya Sanpei. It was probably the legal debacle involving Kadabra and Uri Geller (Kadabra's Japanese name, Yungerer, and its spoon-bending shtick was based on him and he promptly sued for defamation) and the general EarthDrift that took place early on that led to this naming convention no longer being practiced.

** A few Gen I Pokémon are named after specific celebrities: For example, Hitmonlee's English name is based on Creator/BruceLee and its Japanese name (Sawamular) is named after Tadashi Sawamura, a famous Japanese kickboxer. Hitmonchan's English name is derived from Creator/JackieChan and its Japanese name (Ebiwalar) comes from World Champion Boxer Hiroyuki Ebihara. It was probably the legal debacle involving Kadabra and Uri Geller (Kadabra's Japanese name, Yungerer, and its spoon-bending shtick was based on him and he promptly sued for defamation) and the general EarthDrift that took place early on that led to this naming convention no longer being practiced.

* Kanto is laid out in an odd way compared to later regions. Immediately after Mt. Moon is a one way gate, stopping the player from returning to earlier locations until beating Misty and it's possible to easily bypass the Seafoam Islands by flying back to Pallet Town and surfing South. It also gives a a choice of two routes to reach Fuchsia City. Later Generations never lock the player out of previous areas and are laid out so visiting all routes is necessary for progression.

* Gen I is the only generation with no female protagonist. Starting with Kris in Gen II's ''Crystal Version'', every game has had both a male and female option. Early official art shows a female character hanging out with Red and Blue, but said character was never intended to be playable (Satoshi Tajiri claims he just felt the PowerTrio imagery looked neat), while Capsule Monsters era artwork show a different female character who went far enough to have sprites done before ultimatley being scrapped. Her design would see use in the spin-off material like ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' before seeing use in the GBA remakes as female player option (Leaf), and in ''Let's Go'' as an NPC (Green).

* {{Signature Move}}s in most future generations tend to be abnormally powerful or at least fairly unique, if not the primary selling point of its user. That's the case for ''some'' first-generation signature moves (Spore, Super Fang, Hi Jump Kick), but just as many of them are weirdly underpowered. Barrage, the signature move of the Exeggcute line, for instance, is just a nameswap of the useless-outside-of-the-earlygame Fury Attack--Exeggcute doesn't even get STAB on it. Alakazam's signature move of Kinesis is a single-stage accuracy drop that has only 80% accuracy itself. Hitmonlee gets ''three'' signature moves, with one being a worse version of the other. Even some stronger ones, like Raticate's Hyper Fang, Seaking's Waterfall (newer players are likely shocked Waterfall is a signature move at all), and Kangaskhan's Dizzy Punch, are strictly inferior to moves they can already learn by TM or level-up. And then there's the case of Softboiled, which is traditionally the Chansey line's signature move--except it's a TM, and Chansey can't learn it by level-up, meaning that the TM essentially exists just for Chansey and Mew. In general, it seems like the assumption was that signature moves were more for fluff than actual power.

** In Generation I and their remakes, they are completely detached from the game's plot and are there solely as extras. Even Mewtwo is relegated to journal entries in the Pokémon Mansion that you don't have to read. ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon Crystal]]'' was the first to actually incorporate them into the story, and even then they weren't the main focus.[[note]]It's also the only case where the box legendaries lacked a "secret" third Pokémon that formed a trio, ala Rayquaza or Kyurem. Instead, ''Crystal'' used Suicune -- a "lesser-tier" legendary with a small connection to Ho-Oh -- for its mascot.[[/note]] From the third generation on, Legendary Pokémon became a major plot element, being at the core of the antagonists' plans and/or required to resolve the situation.

* Held items, Abilities, and Natures do not exist yet. Held items were introduced in Gen II, while Abilities and Natures were introduced in Gen III, with every mainline entry since making use of these mechanics (with the exception of ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus''.)

* Counter has a lot of quirks. It only works from being hit by a Normal- or Fighting-type attack, can hit Ghost-types despite being a Fighting-type move, is capable of countering moves that hit a Substitute, and works based on the last time damage was dealt rather than if the opponent did a damage-dealing move that turn (meaning it can be used multiple times off a single hit, and can even be successfully used off an attack that just KOed an ally after switching the replacement in).

* Unlike future installments, the Pokémon League Champion is not established as the leader of the Elite Four. Instead, the Elite Four is led by the member who faces the challenger last, namely Lance. Generation I and their remakes were also the only generation until [[VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet Generation IX]] where the League Champion is TheRival; and even then, they aren't the ''Top'' Champion you need to defeat in order to receive the rank yourself, as you need to defeat the chairwoman of that region's Pokémon League instead.[[note]]Though Professor Kukui and Hau take the place of the Champion battle in the Gen VII games, you're fighting them to retain your position as the first Alola League Champion, not dethroning them. Ge[[/note]]

* The likelihood of getting a CriticalHit is based on the Pokémon's base Speed stat. In addition, moves with an increased critical hit ratio (such as Slash) increase the chance of one by ''eightfold'' instead of just doubling it. The end result of both these things is that the fastest Pokémon in the game are nigh-guaranteed to land critical hits when using said moves, and even when not using them, have [[CriticalHitClass base critical rates of 20% or more]]. Critical hit rates are also much higher in general, with even the slowest Mons having critical hit rates around 10%, when later generations would go on to make critical hits a base 6.25% chance for all Pokémon (Gen VII onwards would reduce it farther to 4.17%).\\

* In ''Red'' and ''Blue'', when the Bike is in use, the music is always playing on the overworld, even when moving to a new area. ''Yellow'' changed this so this music doesn't play on Route 23 or in Victory Road, but its usage is otherwise the same in that game.

* Unlike future installments, the Pokémon League Champion is not established as the leader of the Elite Four. Instead, the Elite Four is led by the member who faces the challenger last, namely Lance. Generation I and their remakes were also the only generation until [[VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet Generation IX]] where the League Champion is TheRival.[[note]]Though Professor Kukui and Hau take the place of the Champion battle in the Gen VII games, you're fighting them to retain your position as the first Alola League Champion, not dethroning them.[[/note]]

* Unlike future installments, the Pokémon League Champion is not established as the leader of the Elite Four. Instead, the Elite Four is led by the member who faces the challenger last, namely Lance. Generation I and their remakes are also the only generation until [[VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet Generation IX]] where the League Champion is TheRival.[[note]]Though Professor Kukui and Hau take the place of the Champion battle in the Gen VII games, you're fighting them to retain your position as the first Alola League Champion, not dethroning them.[[/note]]

* Unlike future installments, the Pokémon League Champion is not established as the leader of the Elite Four. Instead, the Elite Four is led by the member who faces the challenger last, namely Lance. Generation I and their remakes are also the only generation where the League Champion is TheRival.[[note]]Though Professor Kukui and Hau take the place of the Champion battle in the Gen VII games, you're fighting them to retain your position as the first Alola League Champion, not dethroning them.[[/note]]

* Counter has a lot of quirks. It only works from being hit by a Normal- or Fighting-type attack, can hit Ghost-types despite being a Fighting-type move, is capable of countering moves that hit a Substitute, and works based on the last time damage was dealt rather than if the opponent did a damage-dealing move that turn (meaning it can be used multiple times off a single hit).

* There are a handful of trainers throughout the game that use the starter Pokémon families. After Gen 1 the starters don't appear anywhere else outside of your rival(s).

* For a long time, these games remained the only installment in the series in which it is possible to migrate Pokémon ''back'' from their sequels, though you'd have to delete moves that didn't yet exist. From Gen III onward, until the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch era, transferring Pokémon forward to the next generation is a one-way trip.

* No Pokémon except for Nidoran have a defined gender. Most of these Pokémon will have a gender assigned to it if traded to Generation II (or transferred to Pokémon Bank in the case of the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole releases); in later generations, only certain Pokémon, such as most (but not all) Legendary and Mythical Pokémon, are genderless. In addition, male Nidoran and female Nidoran were classified as different species. Pokémon introduced later, after genders were introduced, would classify male and female Pokémon with the same name as the same species, even if they have [[BizarreSexualDimorphism drastically different appearances and gameplay traits]]. Meowstic and Indeedee, for instance, have their males and females considered the same species, even though they have differences comparable to male and female Nidoran.

* There was only one Gym Leader, Misty, who explicitly wasn't an adult.[[note]]Brock was interpreted as young in the anime, albeit significantly older than Ash & Misty, but in the games his age was [[VagueAge pretty ambiguous]],[[/note]], while later generations would tend to have equal numbers of both teenage and adult Gym Leaders. Gym Leaders also tended to be a lot ruder in Generations I and II, as opposed to be more amicable ones of latter generations.

** None of the legendaries have their own unique battle music. Instead, it's just the regular wild Pokémon theme. While Gen II gave the legendary beasts their own themes, it wouldn't be until Gen III that ''all'' legendary Mons would have distinct battle music. [[note]]''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'' gave each legendary remixed versions of the wild battle theme, however. The only exception was Mystery Gift exclusive Deoxys, who retained its battle theme from ''Emerald''.[[note]]

In addition, a bug causes critical hits in Gen I to ignore ''all'' stat modifiers, positive or negative, for both the user and opponent. Meaning that if you use Swords Dance twice and then get a critical hit, you'll actually do ''less'' damage than you didn't get one.

* X Accuracies in Gen I and II allow your Pokémon to ignore accuracy checks entirely, making even OneHitKill moves always hit. This was severely nerfed in future games, instead increasing accuracy by one or two stages, and OHKO moves would ignore the accuracy boost entirely.

* OneHitKill attacks will always fail if the user is slower than the target, whereas from Generation II onwards, such attacks will always fail if the user is at a lower level than the target. The user also does not get an accuracy bonus based off the difference between the user's and target's level like in later games.

* The Pokémon used by all trainers, including important trainers such as Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, and the Rival, will have the four latest moves that said Pokémon would learn at their level, just like a wild Pokémon would.[[note]]Though the last Pokémon of a Leader will at least also know the TM move said Leader would give you as a reward.[[/note]] When combined with the generally barren natural learnsets of Gen I, you get some ridiculous and rather ineffective movesets, even with endgame trainers. This includes Giovanni's Rhydon only knowing a single damaging move in Stomp (which was Normal type at that), and ''two'' OneHitKill moves; Lorelei's Slowbro not only still having Water Gun, but also being its ''only'' damaging move; Lance's Aerodactyl and Dragonite only having Normal-type moves, meaning that they'd be unable to harm a Ghost-type Pokémon; and Champion Blue's Exeggutor only knowing ''three'' moves, with both of its only damaging moves again being Normal type (Stomp and Barrage). In later games, Pokémon used by Gym Leaders and other important trainers would either have customized moves involving plenty of [=TMs=] and Egg Moves that follow a specific strategy[[note]]for example, [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Flannery]]'s Slugmas know both Sunny Day and Light Screen to set up her Torkoal to sweep your team with Sunny Day-empowered Overheats while Sunny Day and Light Screen protect it from Water-type moves[[/note]] or at least have an assortment of varied damage dealing moves with type coverage in mind[[note]]For example, [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Cynthia]]'s Roserade knows Shadow Ball in case you want to bring it down with a Psychic Pokémon, and her Garchomp knows Brick Break in the likely case you want to send an Ice-type[[/note]]. In fact, this was changed as soon as ''Yellow'': Giovanni's Rhydon knows Rock Slide and Earthquake, two powerful STAB moves, same with Lorelei's Slowbro knowing both Psychic and Surf, while Lance's Aerodactyl knows Flying-type moves and his Dragonite has the terrifying combo of [[FireIceLightning Fire Blast, Thunder and Blizzard]].

** Steel, Dark, and Fairy don't yet exist as typings. Steel and Dark were added in Gen II to nerf Psychic-type Pokémon (the former resists Psychic damage, while the latter is immune) and buff Fighting types. Fairy would be added in Gen VI to nerf Dragon and buff Poison.