1st Gen Pikachu

[VisionofMilotic]

Pokemon Yellow revamped generation 1 to make it resemble the first season of the anime. Your rival, the gym leaders and many other characters were all redesigned to look and seem more like The Brock, Gary, Misty, Nurse Joy etc from the Indigo league. There is a side quest or two where you encounter and battle Jesse, James and Meowth from the Team Rocket of the show, and have to put a stop to their mischief. You even can acquire all three Kanto starters, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle in the game, like Ash did.

The biggest change to Pokemon Yellow was receiving Pikachu as your starter Pokemon, Ash Ketchum's first Pokemon, best friend, constant traveling companion, and the mascot of the series. The addition of Pikachu also changed the mechanics of Pokemon games going forward, by introducing friendship as a feature, and Pokemon following you. While exclusive to Pikachu at the time, it would later be expanded to include all Pokemon in the Johto games.

So, you used Pikachu in your party, and let it follow you and in Pokemon Yellow, right?

To me it's not Pokemon Yellow without Pikachu, I wouldn't try to complete the game without mine, even if I wanted to do a gen 1 challenge run with a specific theme, I would try to find a way to incorporate Pikachu too, like an electric mono type run, or Ash's team run.

I've only boxed Pikachu for two reasons, one time out of curiosity just to see what would happen, since he refuses to use the thunderstone and evolve, or stay inside of a pokeball, I tbought he might also not go in the box. I was kinda surprised that he did, but I felt genuinely bad hearing Pikachu whimper in distress about being boxed, and tried to remedy the situation by withdrawing mine right away, and giving him rare candy and things that might make him happy again. The other times I have put Pikachu in the PC is to transfer it to gen 7 from the virtual console to Pokemon Bank, so Pikachu can continue to accompany me on my journey.

I lloved how personal they make the Pikachu experience in Yellow, being able to say it's own name, and say it in a variety of ways. It not only walked behind you, but little details like being able to walk at different speeds, depending on how attached it was to you. You could check on it, and there would be a menu where it made all kinds of facial expressions to reflect the mood it was in, and how high or low the friendship was. There were events, places and actions that would trigger special animations and reactions from Pikachu. Pikachu even had it's own surfing mini game.

What are some of your favorite things that Pikachu did?

I think seeing it fall in love with clefairy at the Pokémon fan club in Vermillion city is sweet, his curiosity and wonder when you stumble over to Bill's house is pretty funny too. My favorite Pikachu interaction might be the one when you interact with Pikachu right after teaching it the Thunderbolt TM, seeing it light up the screen, and test out it's new move by generating a bolt of lightning.

 

[XNaut]

My favorite moments with Pikachu are the face expressions it makes when you talk to it, Pikachu falling in love with Clefairy, Pikachu's face expression when it sees Bill, Pikachu winning battles, in Silph Co Pikachu spinning on those spinners with your character.

 

[Sheep]

I loved Yellow a lot. Pikachu was an important part of my childhood and I adored playing the game even if he was really weak and fainted often... and even if I did try evolving him & failed aha. It was just super cute to be able to interact with him in the overworld and watch as he grew more fond of you over time, just like Ash's. That's part of why I loved Let's Go so much when that remake came out too!

 

[Sweet Serenity]

I actually never really used Pikachu when playing Pokémon Yellow. In the past, I viewed Pikachu as an overrated Pokémon that constantly received special treatment from the developers for serving as the mascot for the Pokémon franchise. Specifically in Pokémon Yellow, I disliked Pikachu's inability to evolve, considering that I considered Raichu to be the better Pokémon because of its much better stats. I also hated how Pikachu would cry when boxed, which made it seem like boxing your Pokémon was a horrible experience for them despite the fact that boxing your Pokémon is a necessary aspect of Pokémon gameplay. I understand that the game wants you to use Pikachu, but they shouldn't have attempted to guilt trip you into not boxing him. However, looking back, I actually regret not using Pikachu during my Pokémon Yellow play-throughs. Albeit I wasn't a fan of Pikachu in game, I always liked Ash's Pikachu and, over the years, I grew to like Pikachu more as a Pokémon. In fact, I've grown to like Pikachu so much that I included Pikachu with a Light Ball on some of my more fun teams, and even bought Pokémon Let's Go: Pikachu specifically to play with Pikachu to make up for every time I never used it in game. Unfortunately, the game was a huge disappointment to me for various reasons not related to Pikachu at all and I never finished the game after the first gym. One day, I hope to experience another Pokémon Yellow play-through with Pikachu. However, I might do so on an emulator because I currently use my Virtual Console version of Pokémon Yellow to transfer old Pokémon to my newer games and I don't want to start a new game.

 

[ReKoil]

I only played through Yellow once and kept the thing on my team for most of it.
Then pretty late into the game I learned I couldn't evolve it and shoved it into a box....

I don't remember any interactions other than just talking to it and the heart thingy popping up in a text box.

 

[Lucifer]

Pikachu is the one Pokemon that I did NOT mass trade from Yellow to Silver because of the relationship sentiment despite that I started anew after the mass trade.

The starter Pikachu has always remained on my teams in every file, it's the main reason to play Yellow at all and I loved its sprite following you.
The closest I ever came to transferring it is when I used it on the Stadiums which if I recall correctly didn't actually remove Pokemon from your cartridges but rather made copies because I kind of remember still being able to use Pokemon from cartridges when the cartridges were not connected.

 

[moon]

I was mostly annoyed with Pikachu never evolving haha, but it was charming that it could be interacted with. In later playthroughs I preferred Jolteon or Magneton though and actually boxed my starter ;;

 

[virtualpet]

I always end up using the hybrid glitch on it so I can get an overpowered Mewtwo hybrid Pikachu or sometimes a surfing Pikachu/Pikablue with a donor Lapras haha

 

[forg]

During high school a good friend of mine discovered a nice emulator that allowed me to play Pokémon Yellow on my android. He set it up for me and I got to playing it; I got really addicted to it, I admit. And like many, I got very sentimentally attached to the game to the point that I may have shed a tear when I lost my cell.

What I adored the most were the facial expressions upon talking to my beloved companion. I'd abuse the heck out of the feature and talk to Pikachu for minutes at a time making up conversations in my head while going in circles.

I miss you homie.

 

[ShadowLugia111]

I did not play Yellow in my childhood... I wasn't even born yet when the game was released, lol.

But I did briefly play it on an emulator once. It is a really charming game. Follower Pokémon will never lose their wonder for me. I remember reading a glitch where you could use a Potion on Pikachu repeatedly when he was at full health so that you could max out his happiness near the start. xD

 

[Son Goshin]

Yellow is where my true allegiance lies tis true. Lot's of good times there. Now just recently getting into Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu feels very nostalgic. Well besides the throwing Poke ball thing.