Current Events > Hot take: Pokemon RBY holds up

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest lately - the Switch ports of 1 and 2 were a lot of fun, even if I needed a guide to get through them. I know for a fact that the remakes streamlined janky aspects of them, like the menu system that 1 needed for everything and the transport update for 2, but all in all they were fairly faithful adaptions of the original games with worse art.

With those under my belt, it has been outright joyous to return to Pokemon Yellow. This was my first Pokemon game, though I haven't been able to return to it without the later improvements of gen III+ like the Running Shoes.

But playing the original Pokemon Yellow, the appeal came rushing back to me. Because even without the modern updates of FR/LG, gen I holds up.

That's not to say it isn't janky to the extreme. Gen I is a huge undertaking, and the team weren't the most experienced with the tech at the time. Stuff didn't work in this game that was meant to work, and gen II had to fix a lot of it. Saying gen I holds up isn't to say that gen I was flawless.

But what gen I does accomplish is the feeling of a contemporary fantasy adventure. You're a kid in a world that reflects the mid-90's, with the only difference being that you can capture and battle Pokemon. There are no spells, no magic, no classes. You're an average civilian. Your creatures use moves that they naturally produce with their bodies - they punch, they kick, they gore each other with their horns. Plant Pokemon attack with their vines. It's based in fantasy, but it's grounded.

And furthermore - this game has cruiseships and bikes. It's an Easter egg, but there's even a truck. The Space Shuttle Columbia is in these games, and the fucking moon landing occurred in alignment with real-world dates.

So while the Pokemon aspect is unambiguously fantastical, it's grounded in modern sensibilities. At this point in the series, the only major difference between our world and the Pokemon world is that the latter has Pokemon.

Another thing this game does right is the battling. Like the gameplay might be held together with duct tape and rubber bands, but I don't care that it's not viable for competitive play. It gets the job done and it's fun. It sells this feeling that you're going through this land, training your pets to get stronger and take on the Pokemon league. Even if shit is jank and broken, it holds together well enough to sell the progression you have going throughout the game, and that in turn sells the journey you're going on.

I think gen I accomplishes everything it set out to do, and it accomplished everything it needed to. And coming from it after playing classic RPGs which are fun in their own right, it holds up remarkably well. Later gens are better, the same way that each Dragon Quest game seems to be better than the last in most regards. But taken on its own, Pokemon RBY is still a tremendous adventure and an excellent game - warts and all.

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It really doesnt hold up compared to even Gen 2 tbh.

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Nah

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The first 3 gens hold up exceptionally well with speed up but yeah sometimes less is more. I get less stressed about ev Iv and nature's in gen 1 but there are many bad qualities to it otherwise and some dummy busted.

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And some dummy busted? @inloveanddeath0

Gen 1s inventory is absolutely awful and unusable by even Gen 2 standards.

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spikethedevil posted...

And some dummy busted? @inloveanddeath0

Gen 1s inventory is absolutely awful and unusable by even Gen 2 standards.

Speed mechanic being entirely based on crit chance. 1 hit ohko moves also being better due to this and just being a higher level making it easier to hit. Psychic types being pretty much unstoppable well Mewtwo Alakazam and Slowbro mostly. The Sp stat being combined you can spam amnesia and get overpowered quickly also mewteo has barrier and recover so it's top tier

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This is a hot take?

I mean, I do think FireRed and LeafGreen are by far the best way to play Gen 1, and the best Pokemon games period, those original games are still a blast. A bit slow and janky, but fun nonetheless.
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I honestly don't understand the whole "doesn't hold up" thing. Technical issues aside, the game is still tons of fun.

Even the "story" isn't that bad. It plays enough with its setpieces to give you an idea of what the world is like, but leaves enough to the imagination to not overshadow the pokemon battles and dungeon crawling. It's a pretty well-executed blend of gameplay and story akin to other 8-bit rpgs.

Team Rocket themselves are a decent villain group. They're flexible enough to show up anywhere without it being contrived, usually pair with an interesting part of Kanto world-building, and never really overstay their welcome. They're not necessarily interestingly *written* villains, but they're perfectly solid *game* villains.

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https://youtu.be/07yzTiND30U

Genuinely some of the glitchiest games of all time. It's incredible that they worked at all.


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It really, really, really doesn't. Nostalgia is blinding anyone who says otherwise.

DavidZ2844 posted...

It really, really, really doesn't. Nostalgia is blinding anyone who says otherwise.

Randomizers completely nullify that mindset. Although with these newer gen custom form ones it's definitely more enticing to play gen 6 and above

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Even though they're obviously very dated compared to the later games, I had fun with Yellow when it was released on 3DS a few years back.
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it's pretty good

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inloveanddeath0 posted...

Randomizers completely nullify that mindset. Although with these newer gen custom form ones it's definitely more enticing to play gen 6 and above

Randomizers don't change how buggy, counterintuitive, and archaic the frustrating game mechanics of gen 1 are.

The worst part about Pokemon is how toxic the rhetoric is between fans. Genwunners may have started it - I remember seeing people complain that Pokemon was ruined by gen 3 for example, and genwunners were absolutely the most annoying dipshits in the Pokemon fandom at one point in time - but it feels like gen 1's legacy has been diminished through retaliatory mudslinging. Like let's face it, Pokemon fandom online is a shitheap 9 times out of 10 because of people arguing and tearing down each individual game in favour of propping their own favorites up.

And like of course we see gen 1 as this hot mess of archaic and barely functional variables nowadays. Frankly, that's a valid read. Gen 2 and beyond genuinely took what gen 1 started and ran with it, and every generation was better than the last up to a certain point.

For me, that was gen 4 - but the factors that led me to that conclusion stemmed from my personal taste at the time, and I think playing these remakes are going to be a great time because of that. Most people would probably point to something like XY as a sign of the franchise's decline - but anyone's favorite is valid as far as I'm concerned.

It can definitely sting to go back to gen 1 after playing the future generations. But when taken on its own merits, Pokemon RBY is still a wildly innovative, influential and fun game. The same way that you can go back to Dragon Quest 1 and 2 and see the fundamental building blocks of an all-time GOAT, even in the wake of the genre it spawned evolving beyond whatever the original games offered, Pokemon RBY are still fantastic iterations of the same game that deserve credit and love for what they did right.

For all of their flaws, of which there are many, these games hold up as good games. Far from perfect, absolutely. But good all the same.

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DavidZ2844 posted...

Randomizers don't change how buggy, counterintuitive, and archaic the frustrating game mechanics of gen 1 are.

This is really overstating things, lol. The vast majority of programming bugs don't impact the game much, or are fringe cases most players aren't going to run into. The one major one is that the game incorrectly declares critical hits on dual-type pokemon, but since the damage is still correct, anyone who knows the type match-ups won't be affected. <_<

The major QOL issues are the inventory and the PC storage system, neither of which take any effort to play around. Hell, most playthroughs of the game I don't even fill up a single PC box. Inventory space doesn't become a problem unless you're hoarding. No, you were never going to actually use that TM if you've been lugging it around until it became a problem. Just ditch it, you'll be fine. >_>

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Nope. Gen 1 aged VERY badly.

There's no reason to play it nowadays except for nostalgia.

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I like RBY. It's comfy and easy to play.

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Pokemon has been the same game for 20+ years. Of course it holds up.

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One more bump for the sake of it

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Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee are the best variants of Gen 1

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I gotta disagree too. Playing Gen 1 in modern day is a fucking chore. The game is ugly and bland, there's maybe 12 music tracks total, and the pool of Pokemon you can actually use is really small. Theres virtually no story. Everything about it makes it feel like a prototype for Gen 2, which actually for age extremely well. (And I'm not even a Gen 2 fan)

That's on top of the insane amount of bugs and broken gameplay people have already mentioned.

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Red++ modernizes gen one

Agreed, but FRLG is a straight upgrade is just about every way

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DavidZ2844 posted...

Randomizers don't change how buggy, counterintuitive, and archaic the frustrating game mechanics of gen 1 are.

Unless you're going into gen 1 for competitive pvp, I don't really understand why any of this would matter.

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I love the toxic/leech seed glitch.

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On topic, if you're down for NES RPGs in general Pokemon is very playable imo. I would assume most people ITT would not be interested in playing Dragon Warrior or NES Final Fantasy either.

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DocDelicious posted...

https://youtu.be/07yzTiND30U

Genuinely some of the glitchiest games of all time. It's incredible that they worked at all.

I feel like that dude is overstating what is a glitch for effect. Saving the game on a Cut tree square and the tree being back when you reload the game is not a glitch. That's just how the game works.

I'm not sure how the Nidorino in the opening using the Nidorina cry is necessarily a glitch. Sounds more like a mistake than anything, that they bound the wrong voice clip to the pokemon when they built the opening.

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It aged better with hindsight. The menuing is clunky, but he amount of freedom you have is refreshing as heck compared to the fucking 1way railroad that is the majority of later games.

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Guide posted...

It aged better with hindsight. The menuing is clunky, but he amount of freedom you have is refreshing as heck compared to the fucking 1way railroad that is the majority of later games.

I got past Cerulean City last night, and you can actually skip Misty's gym if you do the Nugget Bridge/Bill stuff first. You have to go back and get the badge before you can face the Elite Four, but you can just outright skip the gym for the rest of the game up to that point if you so choose.

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MrMallard posted...

I got past Cerulean City last night, and you can actually skip Misty's gym if you do the Nugget Bridge/Bill stuff first. You have to go back and get the badge before you can face the Elite Four, but you can just outright skip the gym for the rest of the game up to that point if you so choose.

Thaaaat is not true unless there's some deep shit I don't know about. You need the Cascade Badge to use Cut outside of battle. You can get to Vermilion City without it, but Surge's gym is blocked by a plant. You can get into Celadon's gym, but Erika herself is blocked by plants which means you also can't use Strength.

I think you might be able to get to Fuschia City and get both Surf and the Marsh Badge without Cut and Strength. You'd have to go all the way back to Pallet Town - without Fly since you need the Thunder Badge and you can't get through Digglet Cave without Cut - to get to Cinnabar Island though.

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I thought Celadon City gym was blocked by a cut plant.

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Shit, you're right. I thought it was too, but then I looked at the map, missed the plant, and figured I was wrong.

Thinking about it now though, I guess TC is technically right in that you can make it all the way around the map and do most of the story stuff without beating Misty, it'd just be a huge pain in the ass.

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A ton of mechanics dont even work in Gen 1. The game is glitched, and even historically it is pretty ugly.

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Gen 1 holds up because it's so janky and limited, but it's really not better than Gen 3~5. Honestly though, it's a pretty well put together game because it had so much stuff outside Pokemon. I think the whole Team Rocket stuff was always great, and there's a reason people actually do remember them outside of Jessie and James. The original Pokes are also pretty fucking janky but memorable, but it also kinda has to do with just how major it was back in the days and how long this generation lasted in general. Otherwise we still have to deal with weird shit like Magnemite or Grimer/Muk or literally a fucking Seel. Who also remembers Goldeen? I think people only remember Goldeen because Misty had one.

People who say Gen 2 was good is not remembering it properly. Yes it has probably the best battle in the series in Red, and yes it's massive because of Kanto. Except Kanto was a major waste of time because all the Pokemon and trainers were weak as fuck, and half the towns had either no change or basically fun content stripped out because they're essentially beaten, aka any content related to the legendary birds or Team Rocket. Blue fight was cool only thematically but he also has shitty Pokemon. There are like no high leveled Pokemon to train on b4 E4 round 2, which IIRC was only in HGSS, which confusingly kept the horribly designed Kanto content intact. Also most of Gen 2 Pokemon were shit, and the good ones were literally not catchable til post game when you're too high leveled for Pokemon to matter til Red.

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Nah. It's not just about the glitches and questionable mechanics but rather the way the game is just not very well thought out in a lot of ways. A lot of Pokemon have barely functional movesets and major boss fights often don't even have anything to threaten you with because they're locked into level up moves. The inventory is awful, no way to check what moves do, the game actively lies in battle about move effectiveness because they didn't bother to program how to handle dual type Pokemon, etc. Lot of really shitty aspects stemming from the games just kind of being thrown together haphazardly. The world is fairly well designed and the basic Pokemon formula is a fun one so they're enjoyable overall, but their problems are pretty significant.

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I can go back and play gen 1 very easily. Is it the ultimate pokemon experience? No, but it is still fun to go back and play again. The janky looking sprites still keep some of the mystic that later gens streamlined. The inventory system is dumb and trainer moves are pretty garbage unless you're playing Yellow but it's still fun to play through every once in awhile for me. Gen 2 is superior in almost every way though.

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Jshipp24 posted...

The inventory system is dumb

Holy fucking shit I forgot about this.

Every single item in the game is kept in one Bag section. So you have to scroll through like 40 slots to get to a TM.

And on top of that, you run out of space constantly so you need to deposit items into a PC all the time.

Those games suuucked.

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LostForest posted...

Holy fucking shit I forgot about this.

Every single item in the game is kept in one Bag section. So you have to scroll through like 40 slots to get to a TM.

And on top of that, you run out of space constantly so you need to deposit items into a PC all the time.

For real. It's probably the best part about going back to this game nowadays.


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MrMallard posted...

For real. It's probably the best part about going back to this game nowadays.

"Your bag is full." is the best part about playing?

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I just finished replaying Red on the 3DS VC

There were a few frustrating things. I think what I disliked the most is that you literally don't have enough PC Space for every TM and HM, so you can't stock up on them and use them later when you have an idea of what your team will be.

koga was a pain in the ass with all of his parafusion and binding moves (erika too).

otherwise I still had fun playing.

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I never understood the complaint about Mewtwo being overpowered. By the time you get him, the game is completely done. What else is there to do or even use him for?
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The complaints about glitches don't make much sense either, seems like something that cropped up from arguing about pokemon rather than experiencing it. They don't actually get in the way of the game-- gen 1 caught on primarily with millennials, who were still in elementary school when they beat the game.

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So does FF7

Honestly, the modern inventory system is so annoyingly bloated. I hate having to scroll through like 40 different items I don't need just to get the revive I just picked up. <_<

Never played Gen 8. Did they bring back the Item PC?


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DeadBankerDream posted...

I thought Celadon City gym was blocked by a cut plant.

It is, I was mistaken. Saying that, is Celadon gym even HM-relevant?

Genuine question, I've only just gotten to Celadon City and I haven't beaten the gym yet. I know that there's at least one gym you can skip wholesale until you need to get to the Pokemon League.

LostForest posted...

"Your bag is full." is the best part about playing?

I was drunk when I made that post, I meant worst. That or I was trolling, idk.

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MrMallard posted...

It is, I was mistaken. Saying that, is Celadon gym even HM-relevant?

Genuine question, I've only just gotten to Celadon City and I haven't beaten the gym yet. I know that there's at least one gym you can skip wholesale until you need to get to the Pokemon League.

You need Erika's badge to use Strength, but the time I spent looking at various maps makes me think you don't need Strength until Victory Road. You do need it to navigate the Seafoam Islands, though, so you'd have to get to Cinnabar Island by way of Pallet Town.

I imagine the gym you're thinking of is Vermilion City since Lt. Surge's badge lets you use Fly.

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so you'd have to get to Cinnabar Island by way of Pallet Town.

Doesnt everyone do that anyway?

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spikethedevil posted...

so you'd have to get to Cinnabar Island by way of Pallet Town.

Doesnt everyone do that anyway?

When I was younger the only way I figured was Fuschia until the time I actually decided to surf up from Cinnabar

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