As I (think) I stated in the last Rare Candy, I’m not going to try to cover every single Pokémon game. Instead, I’m only going to cover most of the North American releases. That said, I’m not going to go into details about the games in other countries. Anything I write is going to be purely from a North American standpoint.

Anywho, we begin our foray into the Pokémon game timeline with the first entries in the series, Pokémon Red and Blue. Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue were released in September, 1998, for Nintendo’s handheld console, the Game Boy.

Red Version box art

Red/Blue take place in a region known as Kanto, both named and modeled after the Kantō region of Japan. This is a trait that would become commonplace in the handheld (or “main”) Pokémon games. We’ll touch more on that when the time comes. You take the role of Red (though this name is optional), a young boy who is just starting his Pokémon journey.

Blue Version box art

At the beginning of the game, you meet your town’s Pokémon expert, Professor Oak. Oak is the one who will give you your very first Pokémon. You are free to choose between Bulbasaur, a grass type, Charmander, a fire type, or Squirtle, a water type. After you have chosen your partner, your rival, Blue (again, optional name), decides to take the Pokémon that has a type advantage over your own. For example, if you chose the fire type, Charmander, Blue will choose the water type, Squirtle. After you both get your Pokémon, your rival challenges you to a battle. However, both of your Pokémon are at very low levels, and neither of them know any elemental attacks. As such, Blue has absolutely no advantage over your own Pokémon during your first battle. This changes later on, however.

After your rival has been thoroughly spanked, it’s time to begin your personal Pokémon journey. The point of this journey is to travel across Kanto, capturing as many kinds of Pokémon as possible, battling other Pokémon Trainers to become stronger, and collecting badges from each of the eight Pokémon Gyms in the region. Once a Trainer has collected a badge from each of the eight Gyms, they become eligible to participate in the Pokémon League. While the anime depicts the Pokémon League as a tournament between hundreds of Trainers, the games depict it as a group of extremely talented Trainers known as the Elite Four.

With all eight badges in hand, it’s time to face your final challenge–the Elite Four. Members of the Elite Four can be considered “Gym Leaders on steroids.” You must battle each of the Elite Four one after the other. You may use items during and inbetween battles with each of the Four, but you do not have access to a Pokémon Center during this challenge. After you have beaten the Elite Four, you must face the Pokémon League Champion. In Red and Blue, the Champion is none other than your rival, who has just recently defeated the Elite Four himself.

After you have defeated your rival and usurped the title of Pokémon League Champion from him, you are inducted into the Hall of Fame and treated to the credits. That’s great and all, but it’s likely your task isn’t over yet. One of the most addictive elements of the Pokémon games (the first ones, anyway) was actually trying to “catch ‘em all.” Pokémon Red and Blue contained 150 unique Pokémon (151 counting Mew, who was only attainable with a Game Shark), all of which had to be captured in order to truly complete the game. Each game had a number of Pokémon exclusive only to that version. Therefore, in order to capture all 150 Pokémon, you had to link up with someone who had a different version than you and trade Pokémon with them via the Game Boy Link Cable.

Every “main” Pokémon game has followed suit, having more than one version for each generation. Each version always has its own unique Pokémon, making the task of “catching ‘em all” impossible without A) the help of other players or B) lots of money on your part. Ah, marketing is a lovely thing, no?

I’ll wrap things up here. Next up is one of my favorite entries in the series, Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition!

Until then…

First up on our little tour of the Pokémon game time line are, naturally, the first entries in the series–Red, Green, and Blue. These three titles have sparked a little confusion in their time (particularly in the Pokémon manga) due to version release conflicts.

The games made their debut in Japan 1996 with the launch of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green. The games would find their way to North America in 1998 and to Europe in 1999, with one major change–Pokémon Green had been replaced with Pokémon Blue. Pokémon Blue was not excluded from Japan, however. Several months after the launch of Red and Green in Japan, Blue was released, sporting improved graphics and a few layout changes. These updates were incorporated into the English releases, Red and Blue.

"The Rival", Green... Or is it Blue?

There was never really any confusion until the Pokémon manga, Pokémon Special, was licensed for English distribution by VIZ, under the name of Pokémon Adventures. Since the Japanese games had been Red and Green, the main character in the Pokémon Special manga was named Red, and his rival was named Green. A third, female trainer would later be introduced under the name of Blue.

When VIZ translated the manga into Pokémon Adventures, they went along with the English game releases and named the male “Rival” character Blue, and the female trainer was now named Green. Fans still debate to this day who the names “Blue” and “Green” belong to.

…Well, in hindsight, that sidetracked quite a bit from the introduction. Now that I’ve got the game introductions and all of that translation business cleared up, I’m free to cover the games themselves in the next post. I’m going to focus on Red and Blue specifically, though, rather than try to cover Green and explain all of the differences between them.

Welcome to yet another segment on DRE:ID2, Rare Candy! Like my fellow DRE writers before me, I’ve chosen to cover a specific franchise’s time line during this segment. “Wait! Who are you?” you ask? I’m Dan, the latest addition to the DRE:ID2 crew. If you’re coming from The Backloggery, you might already know me as Dystorce. Anyway, let’s get this show on the road.

If the title didn’t totally give it away, the franchise I’ve chosen to write about is one that’s devoured far more of my time than I’d ever admit, Pokémon!

A series like Pokémon should need no introduction. Since its debut, Pokémon has become the second best selling video game-based franchise in the world, second only to the ever-famous Mario series. Rest assured: If there’s a form of media, Pokémon has probably broken into its territory at some point. Video games, video game consoles, anime, manga, trading cards, books, toys, movies, Boeing 747s, parade balloons, science… The list goes on.

The special Pikachu edition of the Nintendo 64

As I said earlier, Pokémon hardly needs any semblance of an introduction. Regardless of whether or not you still play or ever have played the games, collected the cards, watched the anime, etc., you know the basic concepts which the series revolves around: catching, trading, and battling.

Since there are several different forms of Pokémon, I’m not going to try to cover them all. Instead, I’m going to run through a sort of time line of no doubt the most popular form of Pokémon, the games. I’ll be covering several of them, though, not just the “main” entries in the series. As this is basically just an introduction post, I’ll start the real coverage next time. We’ll begin with the debut games for the Game Boy, Pokémon Red, Pokémon Green, and Pokémon Blue.

Until then…