Pokémon proves blast from the past
It turns out sometimes games do improve with age.
Published Aug. 28, 2009
My best friend returned from Spring Break with a prize he had rescued from his home: his old Game Boy Color. Inside it was his copy of the original Pokémon Blue Version.
I was immediately jealous. To fix this, I called my mother and asked for an emergency care package with my own Pokémon essentials to be sent ASAP. I cited mid-semester stress from my classes and work at the paper as the reason for such hurry. I opened that box within seconds of it arriving, and I had a new adventure on the Red Version started within minutes.
The number of people excited to see me reliving one of the greatest fads of our youth was encouraging, but those same school-related duties I had alluded to took up all my time. Now at home and with a wonderful amount of free time to myself, I've chosen to devote those hours to leveling up and barreling my way through the eight gyms and countless trainers, unaware of the can of whoop-ass they have coming for them.
So, why did I choose to go back to my roots, especially right after the much-lauded Pokémon Platinum was just released?
I'll be blunt: I hate the way the Pokémon franchise is evolving. All the new features and strategies and ways to evolve Pokémon have done is make my life more complicated. I, for one, would like a game I have even the slightest hope of coming close to completing.
The best thing about the Red and Blue experience is it takes you back to a time when things were simpler. After all, is this not the essence of childhood? This is also why all of my friends keep their N64s alongside their newfangled Xbox 360s and Playstation 3s. Why not indulge that nostalgia a bit?
These first generation games are the quintessence of this. Pokémon are your friends and partners, not your great-great-great-ancestor or the creators of time and space. Team Rocket is evil just for the hell of it, not on some grand mission to reshape the world in their image. Pokémon evolve in one of two ways -- you level them up, or you zap 'em with an elemental stone. Piece of cake!
The original 150 are also the most inventive and charming of all of the Pokémon generations by far. The second set was great, too, because it introduced an entirely new set of Pokémon that complimented the first, yet was still unique. Now, the newest Pokémon seem like cheap imitations — they do not challenge our imaginations at all. You know what your starter Pokémon is going to look like when it evolves: the same, but bigger and with more baubles and doodads hanging off of it.
As for actually playing the game: some, spoiled by recent advances for handheld systems, may complain that the sub-par, old time graphics and controls would be simply unbearable. I beg to differ. While going through two menus to get on my bicycle was incredibly frustrating at first, the feeling quickly passed. The speakers on my Game Boy Color have also gone kaput since I first bought it over 10 years ago, but a pair of headphones solves that problem with relative ease. Both 'A' and 'B' might stick a little, but all that has done is help me to realize my button-mashing tendencies will not get me anywhere in life.
Making your way through the game is also more enjoyable because the original versions give you a lot more freedom. Keeping all of the types straight is a lot simpler, and you're much less likely to find yourself struck dumb when one of your Pokémon is KO'd by a surprise super-effective move. No, you don't have to balance battle moves with those you need to do well in contests, nor do you have to worry about how much your Pokémon will dislike you after it faints. It takes you back to the essence of the game — raising your rascally little creatures to kick butt and go in for the kill.
The game also has a certain cheesy, campy charm that will never cease to make me smile. For instance, I'm not sure when "I like wearing shorts!" became an invitation to battle, but hey, if it works. Also, your rival's salutation of "Smell ya later!" is the best sort of motivator to level up and kick his scrawny little butt the next time you cross paths.
I know most, if not all of you have an old copy of either Red of Blue lying around somewhere, so do yourselves a favor and dust it off and spend a few hours in a simpler place.