Pokemon Kanto Hit or Miss? (Part 2: The review Pokemon Blue)

Pokemon Gen 1 has its fair share of problems however (specifically the original releases of Red, Green, and Blue.) There were numerous glitches and overall balance problems that can hinder your enjoyment or (if you take advantage of them) can lead to a better experience.

Since there are too many to mention the graphic

< there is a compilation of some of the glitches and bugs in gen 1.

Additionally, the Psychic type is immensely overpowered for a few reasons. First off in gen 1 there were very few good bug types (really only Pinsir and Scyther.) Secondly, the only Ghost types in gen 1 were the Gengar line which are also part poison which is weak to psychic. Thirdly, there were no good bug or ghost type attacks that do damage (the best bug attack is a toss-up between twineedle and pin missile and the ONLY damaging Ghost move is lick because Night shade deals fixed damage based on level.) Fourthly, in gen 1 the pokemon's offensive and defensive stats are divided differently. Pokemon attacks can be either physical or special which pull offensive power from either a pokemon's physical or special attack respectively and take damage based of that pokemon's physical or special defense. In gen 1 however, there was no special defense stat instead there was a special stat that was BOTH special attack and special defense so, psychic pokemon (who specialize in special attacks) had high special attack and defense. Finally, (and this is something that i didn't even know until researching this) there is a glitch in the game where Ghost type damaging attacks(which to be fair is only Lick), that are supposed to be super effective, DO NOT effect Psychic types. This was so bad that Gen 2 had to introduce two new types (Dark and Steel) that would check Psychic types and make them more balanced.

So with all that in mind here was my team of champions:

From first hand experience I can now say the psychic types are overpowered as fuck. Scryfish came to the rescue multiple times when another one of the party fell and could tank hits like no other pokemon on the team could. 

As a Pokemon fan going back to gen 1 to relive the roots of the franchise was super fun and gave me a lot of nostalgia moments of when first playing gen 1 back when it released. I do however recognize that a rpg fan jumping into Pokemon Red, Blue, or Green with no prior knowledge would probably have a generally miserable time as the glitches and general failing of balancing could just turn off general rpg fanatics.

So I've been generally pretty mixed here mentioning a lot of negatives and a couple of positives and that generally sums up my feelings on Pokemon Red/Green/Blue. While I still love them as Pokemon games because of how thankful I am to them for introducing me to video games I do recognize that the games has aged really poorly and has many flaws to the point where i would only recommend them IF AND ONLY IF you are a fan of Pokemon and want to see how the franchise began. Otherwise i would strongly recommend that instead of Red/Gren/Blue you play Fire Red or Leaf Green instead as your first Pokemon game.

Since there really isn't much story to all of the games outside of just going on a Pokemon journey and occasionally getting stopped by team rocket its not much of a draw. To me the draw of Pokemon is trying different compositions of Pokemon  teams to see which combination work well together and which don't. This is why I play so much Pokemon. Because of how many Pokemon there are that leads to so many different team compositions that even 20 years after release this is the first time I've used a Starmie in a playthorugh of a Pokemon game.

Even though these games have aged really poorly, I'm sure this won't be the last time I play gen 1 of Pokemon. Even through all of the glitches and broken balancing I had a really good time reliving gen 1.