802+ Pokemon Retrospective - Gen 1 (Part 1)

Something that isn't a let's play? Blasphemy.

But in all seriousness, I decided to do this after I realized it was still the 20th Anniversary for Pokemon. Let me just open this retrospective up with this - Pokemon, man... what a fuckin' game.

I've never seen a game series touch the hearts of people around the world and/or last this long with the same kind of towering loyalty as when it started. It's honestly impressive because you wouldn't expect a series about catching monsters in your pocket (let alone a JRPG, which tend to be inaccessible to people outside of the niche just for being giant time-sinks) to have this kind of influence, but here we are. If anything, Pokemania is stronger than ever and I'm happy to see where it goes in the future.

To celebrate, I've decided to cover my thoughts on all 802+ Pokemon. Yes, I am crazy enough to do it and honestly? Making let's play chapters are harder, so I'll take this any day. To make things easier on both me and you guys, Pokemon are split up by the generations and I'm covering the members of a family as a single entry (like Charmander-Charmeleon-Charizard, for example) to smooth it out. I will also rate the various Pokemon species based on how I feel about them personally combined with their lore and overall effectiveness in battle.

Rating scale:

Excellent (9-10 stars - is a 10/10 rating)
Good (7-8 stars)
Servicable (5-6 stars)
Not A Fan (3-4 stars)
Hate (1-2 stars - don't worry about this one. I actually don't hate that many Pokemon.)

With that said, let's rock out.



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[Theme for this part: Pewter City]

Games:

• Red, Blue, Yellow, Green (February 27th, 1996 / September 12th, 1998)
• FireRed, Leafgreen (January 29th, 2004)

Where it all started and the foundation for the series as a whole. I'll admit, I'm not going to try to say new things about Gen 1 because everyone else has done it already, but here's my bit: thinking about the original Gameboy games gets me nostalgic and all (due to them being the first ones I played), but they have not aged well. Granted, for the original Gameboy, they were crazy adventures with a lot to offer, especially when compared to most of its competition.

Today, though, they're painfully basic and kind of backwards when compared to the more modern games. Psychic being overpowered was one of the biggest offenders, there were tons of glitches (whether people think they add to the game or not) and other bits that would be better discussed somewhere else. (Firered and Leafgreen helped remedy a lot of the problems of the original game, though)

Since this is the first generation, its lineup of Pokemon generally erred on the simple side due to the creators not having a solid grasp of things yet. I can tell because a fair amount of them are real-world animals or living items with an exaggerated feature... and that's about it.

This doesn't mean that I don't like them - hell, I can't say I even really dislike any generation of Pokemon in particular. It's just not in me. Despite this, I have noticed that a fair amount of this generation involves genetic engineering - Eevee and the Mew duo in particular stand out the most when it comes to this. I think that's cool.