1st Gen Did Yellow Follow the Anime Enough?

[Lunar]

* Did Pokemon Yellow Follow the Indigo League Anime Enough?*

Pokemon Yellow was created to to pay homage to the anime and give players an experience more like Ash's. The game had many references to the show such as obtaining all three starter Pokemon, Pikachu being your starter and following you and Jessie and James appearing numerous times throughout your battle with Team Rocket - those just being a few.

Do you guys think there was enough references to the anime? Should Brock and Misty have followed the player throughout their journey? Should the Pokemon league have been a knockout tournament to resemble the anime?

Share your thoughts :)​

 

[Imperator161]

I think Yellow did a pretty good job of following the anime initially, but really fell off as the game progressed. Pikachu following you was a nice touch (though I'm still not entirely sure why the rival started with Eevee, rather than one of the standard starters like in the TV show), and they did pretty well with giving you the other starters (Bulbasaur from a girl in a house, sort of like the Hidden Village episode, Charmander from a guy at the top of Route 24, and Squirtle from a police officer). They could have incorporated longer plotlines for getting the starters, I guess, to make it more like the anime, but I think what they did there worked well enough.

Having Jessie and James show up at random points worked well at first, but it didn't mirror the anime as well as I would have liked. I would have preferred to encounter them more frequently, and I would have liked to see more of their personalities like in the TV show. Also, they seemed to disappear partway through the game, never to be seen or heard from again. It would have been nice to have them play a more integral role in the game, especially in the late game. They also could have had Meowth follow them (kind of like Pikachu follows your character).

I don't think it would have been practical to have Brock and Misty follow you throughout the game, but it would have been nice to have them have more unique dialogue in Yellow. Perhaps they could have been trainers you returned to for advice later in the game, or maybe they could have been tied into some sort of side quest.

As for the Elite Four, I guess they could have used a format like the PWT in gen V. You could still have battled the same trainers each time (they could have put in trainers to match the ones Ash faced in each round, with Richie as the champion, so to speak). But the issue is, at the end of the day, Ash never wins a league tournament, and that conflicts with what most players want to see in a video game. Most players ultimately want to win, and conquer the Elite Four/whatever then "final boss" is, and doing that would have meant diverging from the path the anime followed. So perhaps a tournament would have been a nice idea, but it could never have realistically stayed true to the anime in terms of having the same outcome as the TV show.

Ultimately, Yellow feels more like R/B with an anime flavor, rather than a true imitation of the anime. As an anime-tinted version of the original games, it does pretty well, as there are a lot of anime elements that would have been difficult to incorporate into the game while keeping the same basic mechanics and structure. A fully anime-based game would have been cool, but that would have taken a lot more work on the part of GameFreak, and I get the sense they mainly wanted to capitalize on the momentum of the Pokemon craze in the most time-efficient and cost-effective way possible.

 

[Itcheeee]

I'd of loved for a Leauge to be included, but it would be too big a diffrence from the regular games. :/
It was more of "lightly based" on the anime, with some neat refrences included. Like a refrence to characters of the day such as AJ, and I thnk Gisele was refrences if I remember right :D
Plus, instead of following the anime perfectly, it allowed you to create your own adventure/story instead of directly playing out Ash's. Yellow is a special kind of game that the Pokemon initial boom could only create, but it's even more nostalgic if you loved the original anime :)

 

[jjc927]

I remember being a little disappointed that there wasn't more connection to the show, like having Brock and Misty with you and more Team Rocket appearances, but there was enough to make it somewhat like the show. The main attraction for the game was having Pikachu by your side and interact with you which is what the main connection with the show was. There were also some other elements that were like the show, such as Chancey being in the Pokecenters with Nurse Joy and being able to get Bulbasaur Charmander and Squirtle. The character and Pokemon designs were closer to how they looked in the show also.

 

[Del]

I think Yellow is more cooler then the anime, a badass playable character, alone, crushing everything in his way without even looking at them, no need to establish good connections in every single place you visit, it is true it was short, but that how it was back then for a video game.
I believe Anime should've followed Yellow instead, but Pokemon Origins done it, & IT WAS SOOO AWESOME!!!!!!!!

 

[donavannj]

I remember being a little disappointed that there wasn't more connection to the show, like having Brock and Misty with you and more Team Rocket appearances, but there was enough to make it somewhat like the show. The main attraction for the game was having Pikachu by your side and interact with you which is what the main connection with the show was. There were also some other elements that were like the show, such as Chancey being in the Pokecenters with Nurse Joy and being able to get Bulbasaur Charmander and Squirtle. The character and Pokemon designs were closer to how they looked in the show also.

The reason it wasn't closer to the anime than it was is probably due to the tight timeline they had for releasing the game. That and there probably wasn't much in the way of communication between the anime team and the Yellow dev team.

I think it follows well enough considering all the constraints the game had.