I mean it's already established, that GF wanted for the first games to contain more stuff than they ended up with and it seems kind of logical to me that they would want to make the remakes what the originals should have been.
Then, why didn't they give us the 60 Gen 2 Pokémon that were originally planned for Gen 1? As I pointed out earlier, Crobat's cry even still exists in Red and Blue's data, so there's literally no excuse for excluding it.
I'm glad they ignored Yellow. The first generation is composed by Red/Green (Blue being the special edition of that generation and used as the basis for the international release). Yellow was a cheap anime tie-in, nothing more.
As for the remakes: the faithfulness is one of its greatest strenghts. I've started with Red/Blue and FR/LG are still the versions I go to the most to play that storyline and region.
This, I'm not so much on board with. If you really think about it, Yellow was the one and only anime tie-in they've ever done in the main series, and even then the differences between Yellow and RB were pretty miniscule.
I think it's important to view Yellow as having *specifically Pikachu* following you, not *your starter following you*. Remember, Pikachu counts as a character throughout Yellow, reacting to things in the overworld and some people comment on it.
TLDR; I don't think Yellow introduced enough content to warrant its features being in FRLG.
I'm going to say it right here--I hate Yellow bashing. Most of it comes from the exact same argument, too, "the anime sucks," or "it's not canon." (Bonus points if the person saying it is a huge Adventures fan and thinks that it's either A) game canon or that B) GF should make a game based on it, not even recognizing the hypocrisy of their statements.)
Even if it was only Pikachu, it was still the very first following Pokémon ever. And, I enjoyed Pikachu's Beach, even if you needed to
jump through some hoops to be able to play it. I also liked seeing Jessie and James, and I think they would've been a
fantastic way to introduce double battles into FRLG.
And, did I mention that the Gym Leaders were all harder, and that Yellow gave most of them better movesets? Or, that Yellow's sprites are
way better than Red and Blue's? Or, that Yellow fixed many of Red and Blue's bugs? Or, that the starter Pikachu was the very first implementation of a happiness system in the games? Or, that Red's canon team is based on Yellow?
Yellow's a part of Gen 1, whether you like it or not.
I gotta agree with you there. After GSC had the PokéGear and RS had the PokéNav, it would've been nice for them to modernise the world of Kanto with some similar communications device. Instead, we got a damn Teachy TV. I hadn't thought about it before, but you definitely have a point when it comes to 'kiddifying' Pokémon. I don't so much mind that the newer Pokémon weren't immediately available, but certain 'mon like Espeon, Umbreon, Crobat, Blissey, etc should absolutely have been available, and simply weren't.
I agree. (Especially, on the phone part.) It's like the games were made specifically for preschoolers who had never played any of the previous ones instead of veterans who you would think would've been the target audience for a remake. Thank goodness GF learned their lesson with HGSS and ORAS.
Still, I for one was pleased by the presence of the Sevii Islands. I liked that they had remixed Johto music, and they let us have some Johto Pokémon, and I thought the extended Team Rocket storyline was pretty good. Basically, the Sevii Island post-game was good, but everything was a bit too half-hearted. There's small references to the radio-evolution experiment they conduct in GSC. And an even bigger deal? "No, your not Giovanni's kid, his kid has red hair."
Everything about the Sevii Islands was half-hearted. It's like GF used those islands as a dumping ground for things they were too cheap to give us in Kanto, such as Gen 2 Pokémon, Berries, a battle facility (however poor Sevii's Trainer Tower was), a Day Care, and trading compatibility with RSE.
And, screw Johto music, I would've rather seen Johto,
itself. Same goes for Silver. And, those Rocket Admins didn't even have different sprites from the Grunts (like in GSC), let alone actual names (like in HGSS). Laaaazy! :rolleyes2:
Amusingly, the Sevii Islands completely vanished after FRLG. They were never seen or even heard from in any other game. (Not even HGSS bothered to acknowledge them, let alone
include them.) Something tells me that even GF is ashamed of those islands...
I think, all in all, it's important to remember a couple things when discussing FRLG. Firstly, players had a long, long time to get used to Kanto Pokémon, because they were present throughout the first and second generations of games. 3rd gen arrives, and suddenly it's all these new Pokémon. A lot of Pokémon that were (arguably) considered favourites weren't available, like the original fossils, the likes of Arcanine, Gastly's line, and a lot of others. RS were seen as a bit of a reboot to the franchise. It's hard to say, but maybe they really did approach FRLG as a bit of an expansion to RSE rather than their own games. They wanted to stay faithful to the originals, so they really just left out a lot of potentially new material: for example, once I discovered there was now a female Player character, I fully expected them to go the RSE route and have her as at least a secondary character in-game, as an opponent or otherwise. But nope, she doesn't exist if you play as a boy, and vice versa.
Basically, because of the lack of connectivity between 2nd and 3rd gen (something they thankfully never let happen again), FRLG served only to reintroduce the Kanto (and a verrrrry select few Johto) Pokémon to help players fill up their Pokédexes. Colosseum, Gale of Darkness and Emerald later filled in the remaining gaps.
This is
exactly why RSE should've included a second postgame region for the Pokémon missing in the Hoenn Dex (if the GB/C carts had room for two regions, then the GBA carts sure as hell did). I know a lot of people expected to return to Johto after beating Hoenn, and most of the "missing" Pokémon could've easily been put there (as they were all from Gens 1 and 2). Plus, May/Brendan, themselves, moved to Hoenn from Johto, so it's not like they don't have family there and thus, a reason to visit. I think having Johto as a postgame region might have also softened the blow from RSE's compatibility cut.
The remakes of GSC and RSE have both significantly added to the features available within their generations; in fact, I think it's pretty fair to say the HGSS and ORAS are the best games of their generations. The same can't be said for FRLG, definitely not, because of... well, all that they're lacking. I think it's safe to say that Game Freak have sinced learned from their mistake, and have managed to retain nostalgia in their remakes without ruining things by keeping them too close to the originals. Unfortunately in most cases of things being remade, staying "faithful" to the originals usually means sticking with something that is old, dated, and basically.. in need of renewal.
Which is
exactly why Gen 1 could use a new remake, one that was made with the same level of care and quality as HGSS and ORAS. The Generation that started it all deserves
so much better than FRLG.
