One thing I remember when I played yellow back then, was that the developers made sure to let Charizard use Fly in the game, but they forgot to let Dragonite use Fly.
But Rattata can learn BubbleBeam, Water Gun and Blizzard…😂 If there’s ONE thing I wish I could edit in these old games, even Yellow, it is going over the moves and TMs, and fix basically every pokemons moves. Gen 2 is also all over the place
I remember spending an unreasonable amount of time as a kid looking for an electabuzz in power plant with my Yellow Version because a friend of mine had got one there in his version. I also was convinced I could get my Kadabra to evolve if I just leveled him up enough. I think he was in the 70's before it dawned on me that it wasn't going to happen. Oh, the days before easily accessible internet were something else. Funnily enough, a friend told me that there was a glitch involving a trainer with a slowpoke and catching Mew. I dismissed that one, turns out, he was right though.
I remember the day the mew glitch was widely discovered. None of us believed it at first either! The Pokemon community on the game FAQs message boards was the first "big site" to find it, someone linked this tiny geocities esque site that looked like it was made by a 10 year old with "I promise guys this is a real mew glitch" but we had seen dozens by that point, wasn't until the resident mechanics nerd (jolt 135) confirmed "IT WORKS!" that it was believed. Was so nuts to hear fake mew glitches for 4 years then around 2002 it's found. Wish I knew who the absolute original was but none of the big sites at the time had it up before game FAQs did
I actually had Kadabra as one of my Cinnabar Island glitch Pokemon. It's weird using a Rare Candy to put it over level 200 and it *still* won't evolve.
Yellows designed to be frustrating as you're playing through the eyes of Ash Ketchum; a frustrated 10 year old who can't even earn his first two badges.
You do know he would have earned the first two badges if brock's siblings didn't convince him to stop hurting onix when it was weaken by the sprinklers and misty if team rocket didn't interfere.
@@tilltheendoftime-adventure8441pikachu is my favorite. I love crystal version because i have my pikachu I sent over from yellow. With the Lightball he mows everything. He would never beat a charizard though. Much less a charizard with fire blast. Diamond blast!
Something to keep in mind is back when these games came out there were a lot more people playing the different versions. I completed my Pokemon Red Pokedex because between my cousins and friends we had all of the versions so trading was a big thing for us and we worked together to catch extras of the Pokemon we knew other people couldnt get in their version.
The sprites were drawn first and then the watercolor illustrations were painted based on those (with the artist making improvements to the design as he saw fit. He particularly didn't like the original fetus-like Mew). The later improved sprites were made to more closely match his illustrations.
For those who who want to do a Yellow Living Dex, use Crystal as it’s partner. Crystal fills in all Yellows missing species and because breeding is on the table you only have to reset Yellow once, though you do have to get Surf to get to Cinabar to revive the Mt Moon Fossil. This is because since a Gen 2 game is involved, you can just breed the Gen 1 starters you get from the second Yellow run, as well as both fossils.
Actually came to post this. Crystal and Yellow can complete Yellow easily and you can use two plays of Yellow to complete everything in Crystal minus Girafarig, Mareep line, and Remoraid line. Though I’m unsure if you need to use Stadium 2 for item based trades like Slowking, Scizor, and Steelix; but I know that those do work Crystal to Yellow back to Crystal on Stadium 2.
You can't evolve it but you can trade it? That completely misses the point of the bound between Pikachu and the player. Well Gen1 is full with oversights anyway.
@@jondo7680 it shouldnt be tradable but hey thats gen 1 for ya,i wanted a raichu but didnt wanna train another pikachu so i was like "maybe we can trade it" and lo and behold when i tried trading with my copy of Red....it worked,i traded the pikachu back to yellow and now the game reads it as a regular pikachu instead of the special pikachu,then used a thunderstone and boom...got a raichu in yellow,i think that works with the surfing pikachu from stadium as well
I’m not sure that is entirely correct. I’ve traded mine between stadium and red and blue and when it gets back to Yellow, as long as it still has the same Trainer ID (ie, you haven’t restated the game) it registers that it’s the same Pikachu. I traded to blue to level up my pikachu quickly, but back to yellow to get the surfing Pikachu in stadium and it worked fine. You can, however, trade it, evolve it in say Blue, the trade it back again, then it will no longer recognise it as the same Pikachu as it is now Raichu.
@@user-rh2sg3fw2f if you send it to stadium then yeah because that game is programmed to read the special pikachu But i sent mine directly to red then back to yellow and it no longer read it as the special pikachu. Thats how i got my raichu in yellow but its up to you if you believe me or not Try it without transfering through stadium,just do a regular link cable trade Maybe you're right tho,its been a while and i mightve forgotten some details
I never had a problem getting the three starters in yellow every time I played it to the point I didn't even know you needed to increase friendship to get them
That means you were probably just good at the game. If you just play the game normally and don’t let your Pokémon faint a bunch your Mons happiness will go to max naturally
@@tomahawkinc5971 yellow is one of the harder pokemon games in general, but it’s designed for children, meaning that, *especially if you’re an adult,* its shameful to fail in this regard
@@tomahawkinc5971 yeah Brock was always a cruel barrier, but Mankey and Butterfree are available (sand attack spam is super viable too.) by the time the game gets truly mean (after Koga) the game opens up in such a way that Blaine, Erika, and Sabrina can be tackled in any order. And the increased trainer encounters, combine with three accessible powerful starters, means the game should be within people’s grasps. If you’re whiting out to the point happiness is a problem, that’s just being stubborn. Especially in the internet age when a bazillion guides are available
I find the eevee evolution of your rival somewhat interesting, as it seems to become something more difficult for your pikachu to handle if you fare better against him, with him getting a Pokémon WEAK to pikachu if you lose the first time and having jolteon who will resist pikachu if you won both, and flareon sandwiched between with neutral damage
I like to think of it as kind of a hidden narrative. If you beat the rival both times, he is more concerned about countering you and thus chooses the one that resists your Pikachu. If you win first but lose second, he isn't that concerned but still doesn't want to be weak to Pikachu, choosing Flareon. If you just lose to him, he sees you as no threat and goes for Vaporeon.
It's a difficulty adaptation if you know how to play he will make it harder by making it resist your electric attacks, if you suck he will make your electric attacks super effective
You can give Pikachu a potion at full health over and over and it will increase it's friendship, making Bulbasaur basically free besides the walk there
I just kind of realized something, the way Gary bases his Eveelution off of how he wins or loses against you kind of fits his personality. If he gets defeated by a Pikachu twice he goes "Fine then I'll have a powerful electric type as well!" and gets a Jolteon. However, if he wins the first one against you then he assumes it's to easy and evolves his Evee into something weaker than Pikachu. If he wins loses one and then wins one then he feels no need to flex on the player character or to try to make up for any short comings so he evolves Evee into what he wants, a Flareon.
It's just difficulty modulation, I really doubt there's character motivation. If you win 2, he has a resistant ace to your ace. If you lose 2, his ace is weak to your ace. 1/1 and he gets a neutral ace.
Small thing of note - while October 15, 1996 is the "official" release of Japanese Blue, it was basically a collector's item at the time. There would be two more special giveaways, before it finally reached retail... about a month before Gold and Silver's release in Japan. Also most of its encounters were taken from either Red or Green, but there were some changes (like wild Jynx in Seafoam Islands, Clefable in Game Corner or different in-game trades).
Blue had different sprites and fixed most of the bugs from the og red and green even though gen 1 is just all buggy we got the better versions as red and blue here which based based off their blue, super intresting that it was giveaway event at first
I completed the pokedex in Yellow. I did it for the reason of getting a pdf of the gameboy printer pokedex pages. It took a long time! I really liked the experience.
Agreed I did the same just need a game boy printer now! Lol all on original hardware! I though yellow made the catch em all experience easier because it changes some 1% encounter rates to 4% and sometimes even higher. Also all 3 starters...
Hearing it all broken down this thoroughly, I kinda start to understand why I never became a 100% completion kind of person with video games. I remember as a kid, I kinda wanted to Catch Em' All, but Yellow was the only version I had and nobody at school even knew what a Link Cable was. It took a moment to fully sink in, but once it did, I would never be interested in Pokedex completion from that point onward. Even to this day, Yellow really grinds my gears on some of those baffling exclusions made. Most specifically, the whole Raichu debackle. Raichu may not be my #1 favorite Pokemon, but he's the only one that's floated somewhere in the top 10 for all of my life alongside Gengar. Learning that my Pikachu would refuse me the Raichu I so desparately wanted was a heartbreaking betrayal that I would never live down. Much like my becoming disillusioned to the concept of Catching Em' All, this trauma would permanently sear a grudge against Pikachu in my head that I still hold onto to this day in all of my infinite pettiness.
"Learning that my Pikachu would refuse me the Raichu I so desperately wanted was a betrayal that I would never live down." Damn, now I know how my parents feel like
Due to being able to trade back from Gen 2, you actually CAN complete the Pokedex in Yellow with just one other game. All of the Pokemon you can't get in Yellow can be found in Crystal. You can do the same thing with Red+Silver or Blue+Gold. In case you're wondering about getting all the Pokemon in Gen 2, you just need to add another Gen 2 game to any of the cross-generation pairs listed above, since no Gen 2 game has access to all of the Johto Pokemon (and you wouldn't be able to get more than 1 Johto starter, since you can't trade that back to Gen 1 and restart your game).
@@musio3438 You do need to restart your game for those, but you can easily store one in Gen 2 when you do. Same goes for the other starters if you're using Red or Blue and a Gen 2 game.
Some of the red and blue sprites were god damn epic. Charizard never looked better in any other version in my eyes. Zapdos and Mewtwo looked fucking dangerous. the whole Gengar line comes to mind, Nidoking, Venusaur, Blastoise, Gyarados, Arbok, Alakazam. The sprites in red and blue were often pieces of art. Who gives a shit if they often don't look exactly like the later designs.
@@marcodaddario3965 AKSHULLY, the Red/Blue back sprites don't quite match - they are based on the original Red/Green sprites, which always confused me as a kid. I'd be like "I know that that Pokemon doesn't have its arms in that position..." when looking at the back sprite. Once I found out about Red/Green original sprites, it all made sense. But yeah, it's silly that Yellow didn't remake back sprites too. I know it would have been a lot of extra work but I think it would've been worthwhile.
That was kind of the point of Gen 1. The design philosophy of the game was was to trade with friends in order to complete your Pokédex. It was a social game before internet connectivity in video games. Since Red/Blue came out first, those two games depended on each other. Since Yellow came out later, it was designed to require the other two version to complete their Pokédex. Kinda makes sense taking the design philosophy into account. Also, encounter rates in Nidoran(m) and Weedle were lower in Blue and the same goes for Nidoran(f) and Caterpie in Red to encourage players to trade Pokemon early. As someone who was 10 when the games first came out, its as kind of the norm for Pokemon at the time.
yeah when I hear the complaint "you have to play all three games" my head was like "...or just play with your friends?" the idea of completing your Pokédex all by yourself when this came out would be really sad
@@monkeydreams pretty much back when this game was fresh it was easy to find someone with another version..... all you had to do was go to school, church. any type of center for kids, the library, books a million, mcdonalds, literally anywhere outside lol. And before someone says it I never owned a link cable but that's the beautiful thing about life.... someone else did finding a trade was always easy lol
3:52....YO.... green's eevee evolution is literally a difficulty setting lol; You WIN both fights his main is uneffected by yours (hard mode), you LOSE both fights his main is weak to yours (easy mode), you lose one and win one he just has a flareon (basically normal mode)
The concept is cute but in reality it's not a difficulty setting at all because he still has a water electric and fire on his team. Just a neat little Easter egg sort of
@@David-ln8qh Don't you know that names are exempt from spelling rules? Or are you really st.p.d enough to believe that anyone would use 0 and 7 in spelling a word?
I remember in my first playthrough skipping the second rival fight entirely and he ended up having a Vaporeon. Can't remember if I lost the first fight though. Guess I'll start a new game and see.
I didn’t make the connection that it was my “friendship” witch Pikachu. And I was 7 so not all that good at the game, so I was frustrated with this part.
Being a kid, you would not have realized you could basically abuse a broken mechanic to constantly beat your Pikachu with potions and vitamins... so some found it hard, I'd imagine, to get Bulbasaur right away, I am one of those kids.
All I did was use Pikachu as often as made sense in battle. He was happy enough. Nothing special. I could infer that happiness of my pokemon was related to being allowed to adopt pokemon. -shrug- guess I was lucky
i was 9 and I mass used pikachu. I wasn't allowed to play play red and blue because my brother got them it was my first play though and I was nostalgic. I did play red and blue a bit but I wasn't allowed to save so I play for a bit pop off come back I have to deal with my brothers were. I remember watching them play in Pokemon stadium I never had much of an issue getting Pokemon in yellow because both of my brothers had the opposite colors.
Since you're gonna have to reach Cinnabar Island no less than 4 times because of the fossils, I'd say it's worth it. Play Yellow -> Get all 120-ish you can -> Play Red until Cinnabar and get Electabuzz -> Play Blue until Cinnabar for Magmar -> Play either one for the fourth and final fossil and Eevee -> Quickly reset for the final starters. And the process can be made even more efficient: evolve the Kanto startes once in Yellow, get them fully evolved from playing Red and Blue, then just reset for the first forms. And that's not even factoring in the experience boost traded Pokémon get.
Yeah, with your method, Yellow only has to be played once to completion, then Red, Blue and Yellow until Surf is usable, and then one reset on Red or Blue for the final starter. A lot more manageable for sure.
That's exactly what I did. Plus, the fact that you get all 3 starters as well as some other quality of life features makes it way easier this way. I don't know why he sounds so apalled in the video, lol
To make this even more optimized, one could even opt to not go through catching 120+ Pokemon in Yellow because the encounter rates are stupidly low for a number of rares. One could just get about 80+ in Yellow then gather those with the unaltered, better rates in Red and Blue making the game of luck more favorable.
Just to add onto a point, Pikachu is technically evolvable! You just have to trade it away and trade it back to you, as if it functioned like a Machop, Geodude, etc.!
I personally don't care about living Dex (or even the normal Dex) so I do find yellow to be the definitive version of gen 1 for people like me who don't care about catching them all
re: red+blue needed to complete pokedex (gen1 only). it's not 'dumb', it's marketing. and the point was to keep sales of the first two games going. it worked.
I imagine Jynx was removed because the house where you traded for her became the one where you got Bulbasaur, as I think that was before the Controversy. Electabuzz was likely removed to incentivize using Pikachu, as the only other electric types available, iirc, were Zapdos and the Voltorb line. The former is iconic as a legendary, and the latter can't learn any electric moves by level up. I feel like Magmar was removed because Blaine used one in the anime, but (again iirc) he didn't even use it in the game. Either that or it would be awkward to only have one of the "trio".
I think the magmar part was before they reach Blaine in the anime think about it pokemon yellow was released in 1998 before its North American release in 1999
@@thenewjord50 I'm not sure how far into the anime Japan was in 1998, so you very well could be right. That said, I suppose it would still make sense to omit Magmar solely because the other two were.
@@drascia when I played in in 99/00 when I was 9/10 I was surprised too not even Rhydon which was weird considered the fact it was ground type but this is before i got a bit older and understanding anime shows and some games came out before we got our hands on it and you right I haven't seen what period in Japan when the cinnabar island episodes aired considered the fact we witnessed the greatest pokemon battles with Magar and Charizard
5:21 Electabuzz is a Red exclusive, Magmar is a Green exclusive and Jynx, while available via ingame trade in the original games, only appears in the wild in (japanese) Blue.
@@leaffinite2001so it's not exclusive than is it? Jesus can't believe some people have such monumental stupidity that they reply sO? to an obvious comment. Go back to school because you obviously failed at trying to be a smug know it all. 😊
Yes, but trading might have been difficult or out of reach for some kids. None of my friends had a link cable at first (and neither had I), it took months till we could trade. So the version exclusives were a huge deal, let alone the trade evolutions.
Yellow and Silver were my first Pokémon games back in the early 2000s. I was always so exited encountering a new Pokemon that I didn't know yet. During that time we had no internet at home so every step was self-"taught" by trail and error.
I won't stand for this slander against the Blue version sprites, let alone the Japanese Red/Green ones. Always remember: The first Pokemon games are the only games that they designed without knowing they were making a Pokemon game. They were allowed complete free reign and there were no limits. There is a beauty and art to that that cannot be replicated, because as soon as those games were released, they were codified, finalized, and anything new would be judged against the standard that it set.
I like to compare it to magi-nation, another card game and video game that I believe came out far later. There just wasn't 'depth' in the combat (for the game, no idea about the cards, as I never played it) and while the monsters looked amazing as cards, didn't translate well to the game. Pokemon was amazing in size, scope, adventure, mechanics, moves, and accessibility. (games like dragon warrior 3 were great, but often just shut down when you hit an impossible puzzle) For an original Gameboy game. The original Red and Blue actually quite amazing what they were able to pull off, especially compared to everything else at the time.
The thing to remember is that they didn't intend for one player to play all 3 games to complete their Pokedex. No doubt having missing Pokemon from both Red and Blue was intended to let/make the Yellow player interact with both Blue and Red players for trades.
I never finished this game because my sister traded Pikachu for a Machop. She also traded my Charizard card for a Voltorb, and she was the "smartest" in the family.
I'm like rabid for the silver video now 🤣The intro music for Silver still hypes me up. It was my wakeup ringtone for many years even...and it just became that again lol. Amazing video(s)!
@@inconemay1441 They're supposed to be. That's literally the point of Pokemon games and always has been. You can never complete the pokedex with just one game.
The "issues" of Pokémon being exclusive to certain versions isn't even an issue than it is Satoshi Tajiri wanting kids (and adults) who play the games to physically interact and trade Pokémon to "Catch (collect) Them All!". That's the whole point. Yes, to some like myself who are loners, it's annoying, but a simple fix: Either go mingle with people who play Pokémon or buy a second system so you can trade with yourself to complete the PokéDex.
@@MLPIceberg sorry but no, it's so people buy two fucking versions. there used to be an argument for this, but now the internet is extremely widespread. It's just introducing artificial conflict so certain desperate fans spend extra time and money completing the pokedex
While they definitely upgraded SOME of the artwork, they also downgraded some. There are some monsters in Red/Green that perfectly resemble the official handdrawn artwork, and then got changed into something strange for Blue, and then again for Pikachu Version.
It wasn't too difficult in the heyday of red & blue this is why trading other players was encouraged to get Pokemon others didn't know about, it was the whole point of the game the internet wasn't as widely available to everyone at the time but I do enjoy these vids very thorough keep em up and man those early machop sprites hit me with some little dangly leg nostalgia 🤣
I made a living dex in Yellow, but using the Mew glitch to get pokemon that I couldn't otherwise obtain. It was fun routing it to encounter the necessary trainers as I progressed through the story
I found your website before this video and I was just telling myself man if I ever meet the person who made this I’ll buy them a dinner cause man it’s so well done and perfectly organized!
The other reason for the design changes was the compatibility with GB Colour which wasn't out when blue/red came out. While not a colour exclusive, the game was more enhanced through that system too
You know I found it hilarious how the game play designers wouldnt even let you evolve Pikachu yet they still programmed you being able to put your Pikachu in the PC and you can just straight up keep him there the entire game Its honestly really odd.
This was a great video and this game introduced how a generation would be full circle. It enhanced on the first two games and made more people wanna buy them too to complete this game. It was hard to get every Pokémon but that’s the point if you just had red and blue and you evolve your Eevee into one thing in one game and another in a different game than you still need to get another Eevee. It was hard to get every Pokémon in challenging but that’s why these games were fun later games were easier because of eggs and other factors. I loved the challenge
I remember you can weirdly catch a pigeotto in viridian forest that was below the level it normally evolves at. I don't think this is a thing in any of the other games. I always thought it was super weird as a kid, like it broke a rule or something. Wonder what would happened if you transferred it into the new games by using the 3ds release of yellow 🤔
Essentially, he gets the Jolteon when you win both the first two battles with him because it resists Pikachu's typing. Meanwhile he gets Vaporeon when you lose both, and Flareon if you win once.
That's something I bet a lot of people never learn. Most people will go out of their way not to save after losing a battle in Pokémon because you lose half your money, and money is a limited resource in those games anyway. I think your rival might be the exception, but it's easy to forget that and just reset if you lose. And that's really only if you are unprepared enough to lose in the first place, which is fairly avoidable anyway. That means most people will never see the result of losing a battle with him, because they either just prepared themselves and steamrolled him, or else they reset until they won the battle like you would do with any other difficult trainer.
You forgot the most important thing about having played these games on the actual Gameboy device: You had to have a Link Cable and a friend or a second Gameboy device with either Pokemon game in order to trade them over to you and complete the Pokedex. So either you got lucky and had such friends or you had to have your parents willing to spend extra just for you to complete the Pokedex. Luckily for me it was the former.
man as a kid I had two Gameboy colors, a link cable, and red blue and yellow(All 151 on each, used game genie for mew only). I was the 4th grade Pokemon king! about 6 months ago on my DS, I completed Pokemon yellow dex again, using the ditto glitch. wish I knew about that glitch 23ish years ago lol
@@Facade953 yeah man, when gold silver and crystal came out, I had those, got GBA and GBA SP later on, and sometime around gen 3 I stopped playing the series and got back into it around black and white.
11:55 this is a pokemon staple though, zero surprises here. If you want to complete Emerald dex, completing Ruby will leave you without Lunatone and completing Sapphire will leave you without Zangoose. Additionally, if you want a national dex, you still need Emerald to get the post game safari pokemon because they were too lazy to release them to the Altered cave
completing emerald dex also gives you a choice of the 3 johto starters (200 entries not 386), I have 3 versions of emerald that I can play on the My Boy emulator on the phone.
@@bvd_vlvd yeah it's mainly those like feebas that are the biggest headache, finding the right tiles, then needing the right nature to gain the most out of feeding poke blocks for the beauty stat, generally modest is the best, I know there are 3 similar natures too, and your best berry for the blocks is the Kelpsey berry. Also, if you have fire red/leaf green, it's somewhat easier to get items like the dragon scale and metal coat.
@@Talos2kX Feebas fishing became simple once I figured out it was optimal to fish once per tile. Although the fact that Feebas exists in this gen makes the dex a lot more awful
@@bvd_vlvd thankfully on emulator, if you do a quick save when it says: *"oh, a bite!!"*, you can just reload the quick save if you don't find feebas. Generally I try 5-6 times per tile before I move to the next. Same with pokeballs, quick save and if it fails just reload. In gen 1 you can abuse this too, if it's a pokemon that causes the ball to completely miss, quick save/reload and it'll be a 100% catch rate with any ball.
That was a great video with your explanation. I'm looking forward to seeing you completing the next generation of games. I bet you won't choose Crystal because of the sand reasons as Yellow? At least in Crystal Suicune can be caught. And actually... you hsvd no choice but to choose Crystal, since Celebi is exclusive to that game now. 😊
Ahah, you're way ahead of me there! I started making the Gen 2 database, checked a couple of things out... and you are absolutely correct! I was originally planning on skipping Crystal for the same reasons I skipped Yellow, but Celebi is indeed exclusive. Actually, there's a good chance I'll include Crystal in my Gen 2 video, hope you'll enjoy it :')
I know this old, but increasing Pikachu's happiness is super easy, barely an inconvenience. If you try to give a Potion at full health to Pikachu it's happiness will still go up allowing you to max it out at the very beginning of the game.
If you want some variation to this, you can complete this challenge with a copy of red, a copy of yellow and a copy of crystal. I think it only really needs one save file on each game as well, since you can breed eggs on crystal.
It's the consistency too. They match way more than the high quality Yellow ones to the funky low quality Green sprites. But they do have just way more charm to them.
My grandma was at a yard sale and bought me a gameboy brick and some games including Yellow, so it was one of my first games ever. The back sprites were so confusing that I thought if you caught a pokemon it turned into something else. I literally cried because of what my favorite pokemon pidgey turned into.
The games were missing Pokemon because you are supposed to trade with your friends for the missing ones. This was explicitly the design choice, just like the trade only evolutions. The cynical perspective that the developers wanted players to own 2 copies of the game, 2 gameboys, and a link cable in the 90's is downright hilarious.
@@Shark-hn4mv I disagree. When Pokemon Red and Blue came out, it was during a massive Chip-shortage in the 90's. It was so bad the SNES was delayed 6-months. There is no way their marketing strategy was 'let's limit the Pokemon available so they have to be 2x of a product that we can't even supply'. Also the head developer has gone on record saying Pokemon was based on the Japanese hobby of bug collecting, which involves a lot of trading. My point is the exclusivity wasn't to increase sales, it was the spirit of the game itself. Heck, the NPCs in the game itself want to trade exclusive Pokemon with you! They just never imagined a world where 20-years later the games would be so prized, valued, and desired.
@@Spartan9095 The exclusivity WAS to increase sales, just not to the same person. Your friend group would still have to have all 3 games between them to "catch 'em all." Version exclusivity was a terrible limitation then. It's less terrible with online trading now, although there are still d!ckbags who clog up the online trade market with glitched Pokemon that crash the game (at least in XY and SMUSUM)
@@encycl07pedia- Oh yea, it also increased sales to get your friends on-board. But the original point in the video is he implied Nintendo did it this way to incentize everyone buying both games, 2 gameboys, and a link cable.
Interesting to see the way they adapted yellow from red/blue and then how yellow was adapted into let's go. Really cute games and fun ideas, though I still really wish partners could evolve. Rip on the living dex struggles as well... Especially the golbats. I can't even imagine that many golbats... They seem to really, really want you to trade with other players.
Great work with all your videos. Nicely researched and put together and everything. I feel that you cover some of the underreported aspects of Gens 1 and 2. Your subs are climbing up, congratulations that your effort is paying off.
I actually did get all 151 in yellow back in the day, even got the surfing pikachu from stadium on n64. The battery in the gb cart died 24 hours later.
As a kid there was a theory after the ghastly episode from the original series. Kid's started saying if you have an ivysaur and wartortle both on lvl 49 and if you level them up at the same time they'll evolve then fuse to make venastoise from the ghastly episode lmao and as kids we believed it
Completing the 151 TCG in 2023 is as hard as completing living dex in 1999 on Pokémon yellow. I’ve been completing my Pokédex since I was a little kid, and I remember yellow being soooo much more difficult, I wasn’t able to do it with my friends, didn’t have the resources to know what wasn’t obtainable, the coordination between parents and play dates, holy crap. A tall task for a 6 year old.
Omg the changes from red and blue to yellow blew my mind. I had never played yellow since I had red and didn't want to be forced to use Pikachu. I would have never known about all those changes had you not shown me. Wow decades later this series still amazes me.
You didn't really miss out it was too hard and alot of the codes we're not able t use including rare candy cheats and gym leaders after Erika get really hard including the pokemon league being at around level 60ish its really hard
I smiler when i heard the silver theme and saw the lugia That was my childhood. I remember playing until i fell asleep and waking up to my gameboy still playing the music of the route i was on or the battle i was in. Oh how i miss it
That's not the point though, the point is you have to play multiple versions for longer and spend more time searching for certain Pokemon, the game didn't improve anything in terms of catching Pokemon
I still remember the cheat for increasing Pikachu's friendship before Cerulean City.... Right after you get him and beat your rival, use the potion from your PC at the start of the game to heal Pikachu, even though it won't do anything, but it raises Pikachu's friendship level every time you try to heal him at full heath
Game Freak really be telling Rockstar and Bethesda to hold their beers on the "I'mma gunna sell the same game multiple times" thing. With the 1st gen alone, 6 in gen One, 2 remakes in gen three, 3 virtual console 3DS games, the Let's Go games, and you could argue that a 3rd of Gen Two was recycled gen One, and those were released 8 times.
I remember the thrill of nearly completing my Yellow Dex back in 5th grade. Had people with copies of Red and Blue helping me out. But then the save file corrupted itself about 130 in.
What I will never understand to this day is that I did find another pikachu in Viridian forest when I was a kid and I was always confused because it told me it couldn’t be found on the Pokédex. This only happened to me the one time and it’s always confused me to this day.
Since you would be forced to use both red and blue version you could transfer starters from it as well saving you from having to start the yellow 9 times or so.
One thing I remember when I played yellow back then, was that the developers made sure to let Charizard use Fly in the game, but they forgot to let Dragonite use Fly.
But Rattata can learn BubbleBeam, Water Gun and Blizzard…😂 If there’s ONE thing I wish I could edit in these old games, even Yellow, it is going over the moves and TMs, and fix basically every pokemons moves. Gen 2 is also all over the place
@@olavjorvik94 îf rattata frustatrates you so, then think about nidoking... a ground pokemon, being able to learn ice beam, blizzard and surf
if you teach those moves in gen 2, you can back trade them to gen 1.
@@alexanderzack3720 and thunderbolt
@@alexanderzack3720 basically, Nidoking is a jack of all trades.
I remember spending an unreasonable amount of time as a kid looking for an electabuzz in power plant with my Yellow Version because a friend of mine had got one there in his version.
I also was convinced I could get my Kadabra to evolve if I just leveled him up enough. I think he was in the 70's before it dawned on me that it wasn't going to happen. Oh, the days before easily accessible internet were something else.
Funnily enough, a friend told me that there was a glitch involving a trainer with a slowpoke and catching Mew. I dismissed that one, turns out, he was right though.
Electabuzz is only available in red
I remember the day the mew glitch was widely discovered. None of us believed it at first either!
The Pokemon community on the game FAQs message boards was the first "big site" to find it, someone linked this tiny geocities esque site that looked like it was made by a 10 year old with "I promise guys this is a real mew glitch" but we had seen dozens by that point, wasn't until the resident mechanics nerd (jolt 135) confirmed "IT WORKS!" that it was believed. Was so nuts to hear fake mew glitches for 4 years then around 2002 it's found. Wish I knew who the absolute original was but none of the big sites at the time had it up before game FAQs did
My first playthrough was of yellow, my Graveler reached level 50 before the SS Anne for the exact reason of "not aware how evolution works"
@@Valientlink yes we just watched the same video
I actually had Kadabra as one of my Cinnabar Island glitch Pokemon. It's weird using a Rare Candy to put it over level 200 and it *still* won't evolve.
Yellows designed to be frustrating as you're playing through the eyes of Ash Ketchum; a frustrated 10 year old who can't even earn his first two badges.
You do know he would have earned the first two badges if brock's siblings didn't convince him to stop hurting onix when it was weaken by the sprinklers and misty if team rocket didn't interfere.
He's the world champion now. He beat the previous best trainer in the world, Leon.
@@tilltheendoftime-adventure8441pikachu is my favorite. I love crystal version because i have my pikachu I sent over from yellow. With the Lightball he mows everything. He would never beat a charizard though. Much less a charizard with fire blast. Diamond blast!
@@SuperTDSmith the comment is about the first two gyms, not Sabrina.
@@secredeath crickets
Something to keep in mind is back when these games came out there were a lot more people playing the different versions. I completed my Pokemon Red Pokedex because between my cousins and friends we had all of the versions so trading was a big thing for us and we worked together to catch extras of the Pokemon we knew other people couldnt get in their version.
The sprites were drawn first and then the watercolor illustrations were painted based on those (with the artist making improvements to the design as he saw fit. He particularly didn't like the original fetus-like Mew). The later improved sprites were made to more closely match his illustrations.
I love the fetus like mew the most, i don't know why, he looks so out of this world, like an alien.
There's no way that's true. The sprites are directly based off of Sugimori's watercolor designs
@@PapaLuigi9003 ...In Yellow, not Red/Green
Those watercolor illustration went so hard. The shading was amazing
For those who who want to do a Yellow Living Dex, use Crystal as it’s partner. Crystal fills in all Yellows missing species and because breeding is on the table you only have to reset Yellow once, though you do have to get Surf to get to Cinabar to revive the Mt Moon Fossil. This is because since a Gen 2 game is involved, you can just breed the Gen 1 starters you get from the second Yellow run, as well as both fossils.
Silver will also work. Gold doesn't have Meowth or Persian.
Or you can just use the ditto glitch in yellow to get every pokemon without having to do any trading at all.
They aren’t using glitches
Actually came to post this. Crystal and Yellow can complete Yellow easily and you can use two plays of Yellow to complete everything in Crystal minus Girafarig, Mareep line, and Remoraid line. Though I’m unsure if you need to use Stadium 2 for item based trades like Slowking, Scizor, and Steelix; but I know that those do work Crystal to Yellow back to Crystal on Stadium 2.
You can "evolve" the special pikachu in yellow by trading it to red/blue then back to yellow as that causes the game to read it as a regular pikachu
Did that back in the day.
You can't evolve it but you can trade it? That completely misses the point of the bound between Pikachu and the player. Well Gen1 is full with oversights anyway.
@@jondo7680 it shouldnt be tradable but hey thats gen 1 for ya,i wanted a raichu but didnt wanna train another pikachu so i was like "maybe we can trade it" and lo and behold when i tried trading with my copy of Red....it worked,i traded the pikachu back to yellow and now the game reads it as a regular pikachu instead of the special pikachu,then used a thunderstone and boom...got a raichu in yellow,i think that works with the surfing pikachu from stadium as well
I’m not sure that is entirely correct. I’ve traded mine between stadium and red and blue and when it gets back to Yellow, as long as it still has the same Trainer ID (ie, you haven’t restated the game) it registers that it’s the same Pikachu. I traded to blue to level up my pikachu quickly, but back to yellow to get the surfing Pikachu in stadium and it worked fine. You can, however, trade it, evolve it in say Blue, the trade it back again, then it will no longer recognise it as the same Pikachu as it is now Raichu.
@@user-rh2sg3fw2f if you send it to stadium then yeah because that game is programmed to read the special pikachu
But i sent mine directly to red then back to yellow and it no longer read it as the special pikachu.
Thats how i got my raichu in yellow but its up to you if you believe me or not
Try it without transfering through stadium,just do a regular link cable trade
Maybe you're right tho,its been a while and i mightve forgotten some details
I never had a problem getting the three starters in yellow every time I played it to the point I didn't even know you needed to increase friendship to get them
Yeah how do you suck so bad you can’t get them?
That means you were probably just good at the game. If you just play the game normally and don’t let your Pokémon faint a bunch your Mons happiness will go to max naturally
@@tomahawkinc5971 yellow is one of the harder pokemon games in general, but it’s designed for children, meaning that, *especially if you’re an adult,* its shameful to fail in this regard
@@DarranKern I was assuming that he was talking about when he was a kid. he was speaking in the past tense, but I do agree with you though.
@@tomahawkinc5971 yeah Brock was always a cruel barrier, but Mankey and Butterfree are available (sand attack spam is super viable too.) by the time the game gets truly mean (after Koga) the game opens up in such a way that Blaine, Erika, and Sabrina can be tackled in any order. And the increased trainer encounters, combine with three accessible powerful starters, means the game should be within people’s grasps. If you’re whiting out to the point happiness is a problem, that’s just being stubborn. Especially in the internet age when a bazillion guides are available
I find the eevee evolution of your rival somewhat interesting, as it seems to become something more difficult for your pikachu to handle if you fare better against him, with him getting a Pokémon WEAK to pikachu if you lose the first time and having jolteon who will resist pikachu if you won both, and flareon sandwiched between with neutral damage
Yeah, that is the intention behind it.
Also Jolteon is the superior master race eeveelution
I like to think of it as kind of a hidden narrative. If you beat the rival both times, he is more concerned about countering you and thus chooses the one that resists your Pikachu. If you win first but lose second, he isn't that concerned but still doesn't want to be weak to Pikachu, choosing Flareon. If you just lose to him, he sees you as no threat and goes for Vaporeon.
@@ZeroStrikerBlue I disagree Sylveon is the ultimate evelution
Umbreon has something to say to both of you.
Today I learned that the rival can have something other than Jolteon… I always thought that he had him because it would match Pikachu's electric type
It's a difficulty adaptation if you know how to play he will make it harder by making it resist your electric attacks, if you suck he will make your electric attacks super effective
You never lost to the Rival, did you?
No I'm a pro
@@bradlauk1419 a “pro” would intentionally lose to the Rival once to see if it changes the experience of the game.
@@RedDragonForce2 what?? what kind of logic is that
thats just messing around and having preference of play
You can give Pikachu a potion at full health over and over and it will increase it's friendship, making Bulbasaur basically free besides the walk there
Pikachu has a crippling potion addiction
You can work on that as soon as you get Pikachu as well, since you can grab a potion from your PC at the start of the game.
Never knew this :0
@@callmemako3510it works great! Just keep doing it till you see hearts over its head
eple
I just kind of realized something, the way Gary bases his Eveelution off of how he wins or loses against you kind of fits his personality. If he gets defeated by a Pikachu twice he goes "Fine then I'll have a powerful electric type as well!" and gets a Jolteon. However, if he wins the first one against you then he assumes it's to easy and evolves his Evee into something weaker than Pikachu. If he wins loses one and then wins one then he feels no need to flex on the player character or to try to make up for any short comings so he evolves Evee into what he wants, a Flareon.
So we can say that flareon is Gary's/Blue's/Green's favorite eevolution
@@reneflores5976 idk about green, I fell like she would like sylveon more
@@davedog0984 nono, it's that the japanese name for Blue is Green
It's just difficulty modulation, I really doubt there's character motivation. If you win 2, he has a resistant ace to your ace. If you lose 2, his ace is weak to your ace. 1/1 and he gets a neutral ace.
I did not know that
Small thing of note - while October 15, 1996 is the "official" release of Japanese Blue, it was basically a collector's item at the time. There would be two more special giveaways, before it finally reached retail... about a month before Gold and Silver's release in Japan.
Also most of its encounters were taken from either Red or Green, but there were some changes (like wild Jynx in Seafoam Islands, Clefable in Game Corner or different in-game trades).
that's crazy, what a horrible time to be excited for a game.
Blue had different sprites and fixed most of the bugs from the og red and green even though gen 1 is just all buggy we got the better versions as red and blue here which based based off their blue, super intresting that it was giveaway event at first
On the box it doesn't say "Gotta catch'em all" but "special Pikachu edition", this is telling haha
I completed the pokedex in Yellow. I did it for the reason of getting a pdf of the gameboy printer pokedex pages. It took a long time! I really liked the experience.
Agreed I did the same just need a game boy printer now! Lol all on original hardware!
I though yellow made the catch em all experience easier because it changes some 1% encounter rates to 4% and sometimes even higher. Also all 3 starters...
Hearing it all broken down this thoroughly, I kinda start to understand why I never became a 100% completion kind of person with video games. I remember as a kid, I kinda wanted to Catch Em' All, but Yellow was the only version I had and nobody at school even knew what a Link Cable was. It took a moment to fully sink in, but once it did, I would never be interested in Pokedex completion from that point onward. Even to this day, Yellow really grinds my gears on some of those baffling exclusions made. Most specifically, the whole Raichu debackle. Raichu may not be my #1 favorite Pokemon, but he's the only one that's floated somewhere in the top 10 for all of my life alongside Gengar. Learning that my Pikachu would refuse me the Raichu I so desparately wanted was a heartbreaking betrayal that I would never live down. Much like my becoming disillusioned to the concept of Catching Em' All, this trauma would permanently sear a grudge against Pikachu in my head that I still hold onto to this day in all of my infinite pettiness.
it isn't pettiness, i genuinely think game freak despises raichu at this point with how often they shaft it for buffing their precious yellow rat.
@@THE_TOASTi mean we got regional raichu?
Your school was trash. My 4th grade class had everything you would want. We were like the Pokémon cartel
"Learning that my Pikachu would refuse me the Raichu I so desperately wanted was a betrayal that I would never live down."
Damn, now I know how my parents feel like
Growing up I was always frustrated my Charizard could not learn fly in red and blue but my level seven Pidgey could. Until yellow fixed it
Due to being able to trade back from Gen 2, you actually CAN complete the Pokedex in Yellow with just one other game. All of the Pokemon you can't get in Yellow can be found in Crystal. You can do the same thing with Red+Silver or Blue+Gold.
In case you're wondering about getting all the Pokemon in Gen 2, you just need to add another Gen 2 game to any of the cross-generation pairs listed above, since no Gen 2 game has access to all of the Johto Pokemon (and you wouldn't be able to get more than 1 Johto starter, since you can't trade that back to Gen 1 and restart your game).
What about the other fossil pokemon
@@musio3438 You do need to restart your game for those, but you can easily store one in Gen 2 when you do. Same goes for the other starters if you're using Red or Blue and a Gen 2 game.
I weirdly love the old red and blue sprites it had an uncanny charm to it
They are Chonky (and they match with the back sprites)
I thought I was the only one I said the sane thing a while ago yellow sprites look overwhelming and just handpicked together
Some of the red and blue sprites were god damn epic. Charizard never looked better in any other version in my eyes. Zapdos and Mewtwo looked fucking dangerous. the whole Gengar line comes to mind, Nidoking, Venusaur, Blastoise, Gyarados, Arbok, Alakazam.
The sprites in red and blue were often pieces of art. Who gives a shit if they often don't look exactly like the later designs.
@@marcodaddario3965 AKSHULLY, the Red/Blue back sprites don't quite match - they are based on the original Red/Green sprites, which always confused me as a kid. I'd be like "I know that that Pokemon doesn't have its arms in that position..." when looking at the back sprite. Once I found out about Red/Green original sprites, it all made sense.
But yeah, it's silly that Yellow didn't remake back sprites too. I know it would have been a lot of extra work but I think it would've been worthwhile.
I thought i was the only one x'D. I think it may be nostalgia more than anything else, though
That was kind of the point of Gen 1. The design philosophy of the game was was to trade with friends in order to complete your Pokédex. It was a social game before internet connectivity in video games. Since Red/Blue came out first, those two games depended on each other. Since Yellow came out later, it was designed to require the other two version to complete their Pokédex. Kinda makes sense taking the design philosophy into account. Also, encounter rates in Nidoran(m) and Weedle were lower in Blue and the same goes for Nidoran(f) and Caterpie in Red to encourage players to trade Pokemon early. As someone who was 10 when the games first came out, its as kind of the norm for Pokemon at the time.
yeah when I hear the complaint "you have to play all three games" my head was like "...or just play with your friends?" the idea of completing your Pokédex all by yourself when this came out would be really sad
@@monkeydreams pretty much back when this game was fresh it was easy to find someone with another version..... all you had to do was go to school, church. any type of center for kids, the library, books a million, mcdonalds, literally anywhere outside lol. And before someone says it I never owned a link cable but that's the beautiful thing about life.... someone else did finding a trade was always easy lol
3:52....YO.... green's eevee evolution is literally a difficulty setting lol; You WIN both fights his main is uneffected by yours (hard mode), you LOSE both fights his main is weak to yours (easy mode), you lose one and win one he just has a flareon (basically normal mode)
The concept is cute but in reality it's not a difficulty setting at all because he still has a water electric and fire on his team. Just a neat little Easter egg sort of
unaffected*
@@encycl07pedia- encyclopedia*
@@David-ln8qh Don't you know that names are exempt from spelling rules? Or are you really st.p.d enough to believe that anyone would use 0 and 7 in spelling a word?
I remember in my first playthrough skipping the second rival fight entirely and he ended up having a Vaporeon. Can't remember if I lost the first fight though. Guess I'll start a new game and see.
A normal playthrough should easily make you able to get bulbasaur without trying. I had no idea anybody considered this to be hard.
And you can use Potions on Pikachu while it's at full health to just increase Friendship if you aren't meeting the threshold naturally
I didn’t make the connection that it was my “friendship” witch Pikachu. And I was 7 so not all that good at the game, so I was frustrated with this part.
Being a kid, you would not have realized you could basically abuse a broken mechanic to constantly beat your Pikachu with potions and vitamins... so some found it hard, I'd imagine, to get Bulbasaur right away, I am one of those kids.
All I did was use Pikachu as often as made sense in battle. He was happy enough. Nothing special. I could infer that happiness of my pokemon was related to being allowed to adopt pokemon. -shrug- guess I was lucky
i was 9 and I mass used pikachu. I wasn't allowed to play play red and blue because my brother got them it was my first play though and I was nostalgic. I did play red and blue a bit but I wasn't allowed to save so I play for a bit pop off come back I have to deal with my brothers were. I remember watching them play in Pokemon stadium I never had much of an issue getting Pokemon in yellow because both of my brothers had the opposite colors.
Since you're gonna have to reach Cinnabar Island no less than 4 times because of the fossils, I'd say it's worth it.
Play Yellow -> Get all 120-ish you can -> Play Red until Cinnabar and get Electabuzz -> Play Blue until Cinnabar for Magmar -> Play either one for the fourth and final fossil and Eevee -> Quickly reset for the final starters.
And the process can be made even more efficient: evolve the Kanto startes once in Yellow, get them fully evolved from playing Red and Blue, then just reset for the first forms. And that's not even factoring in the experience boost traded Pokémon get.
Yeah, with your method, Yellow only has to be played once to completion, then Red, Blue and Yellow until Surf is usable, and then one reset on Red or Blue for the final starter. A lot more manageable for sure.
That's exactly what I did. Plus, the fact that you get all 3 starters as well as some other quality of life features makes it way easier this way. I don't know why he sounds so apalled in the video, lol
To make this even more optimized, one could even opt to not go through catching 120+ Pokemon in Yellow because the encounter rates are stupidly low for a number of rares. One could just get about 80+ in Yellow then gather those with the unaltered, better rates in Red and Blue making the game of luck more favorable.
Just to add onto a point, Pikachu is technically evolvable! You just have to trade it away and trade it back to you, as if it functioned like a Machop, Geodude, etc.!
Nope. If the trainer ID matches yours, it's like a new starter. Even if you Trainer-Fly Glitch a new Pikachu, it behaves like your starter.
@@Carlitonsp1 Bulbapedia is a big fat liar then in this case because it says it can function like normal
I never thought I'd see the day raichu is a trade evolution
That’s still pretty wacky though how it’s practically a bug
Jokes on you, I got my living pokedex with the trainer fly glitch. caught all 151 in 1 game.
There's a couple of GDQ runs of catching all 151 using glitches, it's *hilarious*. They use some really crazy stuff.
2:29 I want the Chonky Pikachu Sprite back!!
I personally don't care about living Dex (or even the normal Dex) so I do find yellow to be the definitive version of gen 1 for people like me who don't care about catching them all
I always just thought it was epic that I could play the anime as a kid
I don't care about a living dex but I do care about the pokedex itself and I feel the same way about both Yellow and Crystal.
FR/LG are probably the best way to play gen 1. I've never cared about completing a dex in any mon game though
@@bezoticallyyours83 Especially since charmander is actually viable in FRLG
re: red+blue needed to complete pokedex (gen1 only). it's not 'dumb', it's marketing. and the point was to keep sales of the first two games going. it worked.
This...
I imagine Jynx was removed because the house where you traded for her became the one where you got Bulbasaur, as I think that was before the Controversy.
Electabuzz was likely removed to incentivize using Pikachu, as the only other electric types available, iirc, were Zapdos and the Voltorb line. The former is iconic as a legendary, and the latter can't learn any electric moves by level up.
I feel like Magmar was removed because Blaine used one in the anime, but (again iirc) he didn't even use it in the game. Either that or it would be awkward to only have one of the "trio".
I think the magmar part was before they reach Blaine in the anime think about it pokemon yellow was released in 1998 before its North American release in 1999
@@thenewjord50 I'm not sure how far into the anime Japan was in 1998, so you very well could be right. That said, I suppose it would still make sense to omit Magmar solely because the other two were.
@@drascia when I played in in 99/00 when I was 9/10 I was surprised too not even Rhydon which was weird considered the fact it was ground type but this is before i got a bit older and understanding anime shows and some games came out before we got our hands on it and you right I haven't seen what period in Japan when the cinnabar island episodes aired considered the fact we witnessed the greatest pokemon battles with Magar and Charizard
All three of those got baby forms in Gen 2, right? Maybe that had something to do with it?
You forgot about magnemite
nothing was worse than growing up in the 90’s with raichu as you fave and having a copy of pokémon yellow
I can say I did catch that lv 15 dragonair! Definitely a call back to the banned episode
I think I just realized where Lance got the three Dragonite from for his Gen 2 team...
Look at that gorgeous Raichu’s sprite from Yellow, at 4:45!
That’s the most beautiful Raichu’s sprite ever released on a Pokémon game, in my opinion.
5:21 Electabuzz is a Red exclusive, Magmar is a Green exclusive and Jynx, while available via ingame trade in the original games, only appears in the wild in (japanese) Blue.
You can get Magmar in Red by doing the Mew glitch.
@@jontolar6838 so?
@@leaffinite2001so it's not exclusive than is it? Jesus can't believe some people have such monumental stupidity that they reply sO? to an obvious comment. Go back to school because you obviously failed at trying to be a smug know it all. 😊
you can make pikachu love you in the first 2 min by spamming potion on him while its full hp. it gains friendship each attempt
Not being able to catch a Meowth was always a dealbreaker for me back in the day and why I just played Blue instead lol.
Ummm ok? Was it really that big of a deal?
@@BankaiFeveryes
@@BankaiFeverit was almost 30 years ago brother they were probably a kid, kids care abt that kinda thing
@@cassiopeia_mori no but trading existed that was the whole point of version exclusives
Yes, but trading might have been difficult or out of reach for some kids. None of my friends had a link cable at first (and neither had I), it took months till we could trade. So the version exclusives were a huge deal, let alone the trade evolutions.
Yellow and Silver were my first Pokémon games back in the early 2000s. I was always so exited encountering a new Pokemon that I didn't know yet. During that time we had no internet at home so every step was self-"taught" by trail and error.
It wasn't designed to make you buy and play all three versions, you were supposed to trade version exclusives from actual other people.
I won't stand for this slander against the Blue version sprites, let alone the Japanese Red/Green ones.
Always remember: The first Pokemon games are the only games that they designed without knowing they were making a Pokemon game. They were allowed complete free reign and there were no limits. There is a beauty and art to that that cannot be replicated, because as soon as those games were released, they were codified, finalized, and anything new would be judged against the standard that it set.
I like to compare it to magi-nation, another card game and video game that I believe came out far later. There just wasn't 'depth' in the combat (for the game, no idea about the cards, as I never played it) and while the monsters looked amazing as cards, didn't translate well to the game. Pokemon was amazing in size, scope, adventure, mechanics, moves, and accessibility. (games like dragon warrior 3 were great, but often just shut down when you hit an impossible puzzle) For an original Gameboy game. The original Red and Blue actually quite amazing what they were able to pull off, especially compared to everything else at the time.
Mew and Ditto glitch almost got me a living pokedex, I think I was missing one at the end.
The thing to remember is that they didn't intend for one player to play all 3 games to complete their Pokedex. No doubt having missing Pokemon from both Red and Blue was intended to let/make the Yellow player interact with both Blue and Red players for trades.
I never finished this game because my sister traded Pikachu for a Machop. She also traded my Charizard card for a Voltorb, and she was the "smartest" in the family.
Lol
Women are designed to make men's live harder.
Hard disagree on the surfing pikachu thing; i spent so many hours with pokemon stadium trying to get it. i thought it was really cool personally.
How's mASSudas boot taste?
@@pyroflare7774 it's better boiled, but can't complain really
6:17 bro really just said "💀"
I'm like rabid for the silver video now 🤣The intro music for Silver still hypes me up. It was my wakeup ringtone for many years even...and it just became that again lol.
Amazing video(s)!
Some of the issues pointed out can be applied to Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum as well.
That's because they're not issues. They're the game functioning as intended.
@@NearEDGE but they're still missing version exclusives and such, especially platinum
@@inconemay1441 They're supposed to be. That's literally the point of Pokemon games and always has been. You can never complete the pokedex with just one game.
The "issues" of Pokémon being exclusive to certain versions isn't even an issue than it is Satoshi Tajiri wanting kids (and adults) who play the games to physically interact and trade Pokémon to "Catch (collect) Them All!". That's the whole point. Yes, to some like myself who are loners, it's annoying, but a simple fix: Either go mingle with people who play Pokémon or buy a second system so you can trade with yourself to complete the PokéDex.
@@MLPIceberg sorry but no, it's so people buy two fucking versions. there used to be an argument for this, but now the internet is extremely widespread. It's just introducing artificial conflict so certain desperate fans spend extra time and money completing the pokedex
While they definitely upgraded SOME of the artwork, they also downgraded some. There are some monsters in Red/Green that perfectly resemble the official handdrawn artwork, and then got changed into something strange for Blue, and then again for Pikachu Version.
Porygon is the main example there. It's Yellow sprite is what even
Scrolling through all of them I got to the conclusion that the majority of the RB sprites are actually worse than the RG ones somehow
@@chocolixo Yeah, they fixed the atrocities, but then changed all the good ones too. And most were good, I'd say.
It wasn't too difficult in the heyday of red & blue this is why trading other players was encouraged to get Pokemon others didn't know about, it was the whole point of the game the internet wasn't as widely available to everyone at the time but I do enjoy these vids very thorough keep em up and man those early machop sprites hit me with some little dangly leg nostalgia 🤣
Cool vid! I love Gen 2 so I'm looking forward to more!
Was my favorite gen in my opinion it was fun and had alot to do in the game but had some glitches
I'm not sure if you already know, but when my pikachu learned thunder, I clicked on pikachu to check on him and he showed a cool thunder animation!
I made a living dex in Yellow, but using the Mew glitch to get pokemon that I couldn't otherwise obtain. It was fun routing it to encounter the necessary trainers as I progressed through the story
I found your website before this video and I was just telling myself man if I ever meet the person who made this I’ll buy them a dinner cause man it’s so well done and perfectly organized!
The other reason for the design changes was the compatibility with GB Colour which wasn't out when blue/red came out. While not a colour exclusive, the game was more enhanced through that system too
As someone who actually enjoys the act of catching, not just completing, Yellow is awesome.
You actually put together a really good comparison of Red/Blue vs Yellow here, nice work!
You know I found it hilarious how the game play designers wouldnt even let you evolve Pikachu yet they still programmed you being able to put your Pikachu in the PC and you can just straight up keep him there the entire game
Its honestly really odd.
This was a great video and this game introduced how a generation would be full circle. It enhanced on the first two games and made more people wanna buy them too to complete this game. It was hard to get every Pokémon but that’s the point if you just had red and blue and you evolve your Eevee into one thing in one game and another in a different game than you still need to get another Eevee. It was hard to get every Pokémon in challenging but that’s why these games were fun later games were easier because of eggs and other factors. I loved the challenge
It was a nightmare when I only had Pikachu to fight against Onix in the very first gym......
gotta Gusthim with Pidgeotto
I just seriously started on this journey since I never did it when I was a kid. I'll find your website useful!
If you don’t know about it yet, check out the Mew glitch
I remember you can weirdly catch a pigeotto in viridian forest that was below the level it normally evolves at. I don't think this is a thing in any of the other games. I always thought it was super weird as a kid, like it broke a rule or something.
Wonder what would happened if you transferred it into the new games by using the 3ds release of yellow 🤔
The fact that there's a level 9 Pidgeotto there means it was a reference to the anime where Ash was able to catch one early on.
Nothing happens. You can have a Level 9 Pigeotto in Sun and Moon.
I was today years old that i learned blue could have a flareon or a vaporeon... finished the game several times so it was surprising to learn
Essentially, he gets the Jolteon when you win both the first two battles with him because it resists Pikachu's typing. Meanwhile he gets Vaporeon when you lose both, and Flareon if you win once.
That's something I bet a lot of people never learn. Most people will go out of their way not to save after losing a battle in Pokémon because you lose half your money, and money is a limited resource in those games anyway. I think your rival might be the exception, but it's easy to forget that and just reset if you lose. And that's really only if you are unprepared enough to lose in the first place, which is fairly avoidable anyway. That means most people will never see the result of losing a battle with him, because they either just prepared themselves and steamrolled him, or else they reset until they won the battle like you would do with any other difficult trainer.
You forgot the most important thing about having played these games on the actual Gameboy device:
You had to have a Link Cable and a friend or a second Gameboy device with either Pokemon game in order to trade them over to you and complete the Pokedex. So either you got lucky and had such friends or you had to have your parents willing to spend extra just for you to complete the Pokedex. Luckily for me it was the former.
I still think its worth it just for the starters.
It cuts down the ammount of playthroughs to 5.
Yellow was my first Pokemon game, I was forged on the flames of frustration
I've completed Yellow's Pokedex twice! The first time with a link cable and the second with the Ditto/Special Stat/Trainer Missingno glitch.
man as a kid I had two Gameboy colors, a link cable, and red blue and yellow(All 151 on each, used game genie for mew only). I was the 4th grade Pokemon king! about 6 months ago on my DS, I completed Pokemon yellow dex again, using the ditto glitch. wish I knew about that glitch 23ish years ago lol
@@RabbiKrieg I had a link cable, a GBC, a GBA and Pokemon Yellow, Blue and Silver.
@@Facade953 yeah man, when gold silver and crystal came out, I had those, got GBA and GBA SP later on, and sometime around gen 3 I stopped playing the series and got back into it around black and white.
Honest to God I had no idea pikachu could be mad at you
11:55 this is a pokemon staple though, zero surprises here. If you want to complete Emerald dex, completing Ruby will leave you without Lunatone and completing Sapphire will leave you without Zangoose. Additionally, if you want a national dex, you still need Emerald to get the post game safari pokemon because they were too lazy to release them to the Altered cave
completing emerald dex also gives you a choice of the 3 johto starters (200 entries not 386), I have 3 versions of emerald that I can play on the My Boy emulator on the phone.
@@Talos2kX Oh Neptune, I suppressed the memory of that for a good reason. Gen 3 Natdex is paaaain
@@bvd_vlvd yeah it's mainly those like feebas that are the biggest headache, finding the right tiles, then needing the right nature to gain the most out of feeding poke blocks for the beauty stat, generally modest is the best, I know there are 3 similar natures too, and your best berry for the blocks is the Kelpsey berry. Also, if you have fire red/leaf green, it's somewhat easier to get items like the dragon scale and metal coat.
@@Talos2kX Feebas fishing became simple once I figured out it was optimal to fish once per tile.
Although the fact that Feebas exists in this gen makes the dex a lot more awful
@@bvd_vlvd thankfully on emulator, if you do a quick save when it says: *"oh, a bite!!"*, you can just reload the quick save if you don't find feebas. Generally I try 5-6 times per tile before I move to the next. Same with pokeballs, quick save and if it fails just reload.
In gen 1 you can abuse this too, if it's a pokemon that causes the ball to completely miss, quick save/reload and it'll be a 100% catch rate with any ball.
the ending of this video has no right to be as epic as it is
That was a great video with your explanation. I'm looking forward to seeing you completing the next generation of games. I bet you won't choose Crystal because of the sand reasons as Yellow? At least in Crystal Suicune can be caught. And actually... you hsvd no choice but to choose Crystal, since Celebi is exclusive to that game now. 😊
Ahah, you're way ahead of me there! I started making the Gen 2 database, checked a couple of things out... and you are absolutely correct! I was originally planning on skipping Crystal for the same reasons I skipped Yellow, but Celebi is indeed exclusive. Actually, there's a good chance I'll include Crystal in my Gen 2 video, hope you'll enjoy it :')
Suicune can be caught in Gold and Silver, and I'm fairly certain Crystal is not based on the anime like Yellow is.
@@robinthemoregod6586 Trololol much?
@@InitialPC Yes, indeed. But Celebi cannot be caught in Virtual Console Gold and Silver, not without glitches.
@@robinthemoregod6586 The troll keeps on trolololing?
I know this old, but increasing Pikachu's happiness is super easy, barely an inconvenience. If you try to give a Potion at full health to Pikachu it's happiness will still go up allowing you to max it out at the very beginning of the game.
Wow wow wow.... wow
If you want some variation to this, you can complete this challenge with a copy of red, a copy of yellow and a copy of crystal. I think it only really needs one save file on each game as well, since you can breed eggs on crystal.
I caught them in Yellow , was a miserable experience , but in the end , It felt good , I still treasure that save file
Yellow was really a great challenge and upgrade to the original two. Same with the third game of future series like crystal, emerald, and platinum.
I only played Yellow so I had no idea how much it was changed vs Red & Blue... my mind got blown
I've always like the sprites from Red, Blue and Green more than the Yellow sprites. There was something that was more fun about them.
It's the consistency too. They match way more than the high quality Yellow ones to the funky low quality Green sprites.
But they do have just way more charm to them.
@@imperialguard5599 the yellow sprites were just overwhelming it was a little too much they could have designed them a little better
My grandma was at a yard sale and bought me a gameboy brick and some games including Yellow, so it was one of my first games ever. The back sprites were so confusing that I thought if you caught a pokemon it turned into something else. I literally cried because of what my favorite pokemon pidgey turned into.
The games were missing Pokemon because you are supposed to trade with your friends for the missing ones. This was explicitly the design choice, just like the trade only evolutions.
The cynical perspective that the developers wanted players to own 2 copies of the game, 2 gameboys, and a link cable in the 90's is downright hilarious.
They hoped a decent amount would go that far for sure.
@@Shark-hn4mv I disagree. When Pokemon Red and Blue came out, it was during a massive Chip-shortage in the 90's. It was so bad the SNES was delayed 6-months. There is no way their marketing strategy was 'let's limit the Pokemon available so they have to be 2x of a product that we can't even supply'.
Also the head developer has gone on record saying Pokemon was based on the Japanese hobby of bug collecting, which involves a lot of trading.
My point is the exclusivity wasn't to increase sales, it was the spirit of the game itself. Heck, the NPCs in the game itself want to trade exclusive Pokemon with you! They just never imagined a world where 20-years later the games would be so prized, valued, and desired.
@@Spartan9095 The exclusivity WAS to increase sales, just not to the same person. Your friend group would still have to have all 3 games between them to "catch 'em all."
Version exclusivity was a terrible limitation then. It's less terrible with online trading now, although there are still d!ckbags who clog up the online trade market with glitched Pokemon that crash the game (at least in XY and SMUSUM)
@@encycl07pedia- Oh yea, it also increased sales to get your friends on-board. But the original point in the video is he implied Nintendo did it this way to incentize everyone buying both games, 2 gameboys, and a link cable.
Interesting to see the way they adapted yellow from red/blue and then how yellow was adapted into let's go. Really cute games and fun ideas, though I still really wish partners could evolve.
Rip on the living dex struggles as well... Especially the golbats. I can't even imagine that many golbats... They seem to really, really want you to trade with other players.
Great work with all your videos. Nicely researched and put together and everything. I feel that you cover some of the underreported aspects of Gens 1 and 2. Your subs are climbing up, congratulations that your effort is paying off.
I actually did get all 151 in yellow back in the day, even got the surfing pikachu from stadium on n64.
The battery in the gb cart died 24 hours later.
I like how today this is considered a challenge while back then this was what we considered "beating pokemon" 😅
As a kid there was a theory after the ghastly episode from the original series. Kid's started saying if you have an ivysaur and wartortle both on lvl 49 and if you level them up at the same time they'll evolve then fuse to make venastoise from the ghastly episode lmao and as kids we believed it
You could definitely turn the website into an app and update it for every Pokémon game if you wanted, that’s so cool!
Completing the 151 TCG in 2023 is as hard as completing living dex in 1999 on Pokémon yellow.
I’ve been completing my Pokédex since I was a little kid, and I remember yellow being soooo much more difficult, I wasn’t able to do it with my friends, didn’t have the resources to know what wasn’t obtainable, the coordination between parents and play dates, holy crap. A tall task for a 6 year old.
Yellow is great for a Gen II living Dex because everything can be obtained with just Crystal, Yellow, and Silver.
Red and blues version of Machop looks like a gingerbread man
Omg the changes from red and blue to yellow blew my mind. I had never played yellow since I had red and didn't want to be forced to use Pikachu. I would have never known about all those changes had you not shown me. Wow decades later this series still amazes me.
You didn't really miss out it was too hard and alot of the codes we're not able t use including rare candy cheats and gym leaders after Erika get really hard including the pokemon league being at around level 60ish its really hard
6:14 This always used to scare me as a kid
The big selling point of first gen was the use of the link cable for trades/battling. 20ish years ago you'd get your electabuzz during recess 😉
Real talk I still have my cable and I had my ganeboy and games but the file got corrupted so I gave up
I smiler when i heard the silver theme and saw the lugia
That was my childhood. I remember playing until i fell asleep and waking up to my gameboy still playing the music of the route i was on or the battle i was in.
Oh how i miss it
"They didn't obsolete either of the older titles!" is the strangest thing to whine about... The games were designed to make you trade with friends.
That's not the point though, the point is you have to play multiple versions for longer and spend more time searching for certain Pokemon, the game didn't improve anything in terms of catching Pokemon
I still remember the cheat for increasing Pikachu's friendship before Cerulean City.... Right after you get him and beat your rival, use the potion from your PC at the start of the game to heal Pikachu, even though it won't do anything, but it raises Pikachu's friendship level every time you try to heal him at full heath
You can do the mew glitch to obtain pokemon that aren't available in Yellow
That angry pikachu scream was so out of left field 😂
Game Freak really be telling Rockstar and Bethesda to hold their beers on the "I'mma gunna sell the same game multiple times" thing.
With the 1st gen alone, 6 in gen One, 2 remakes in gen three, 3 virtual console 3DS games, the Let's Go games, and you could argue that a 3rd of Gen Two was recycled gen One, and those were released 8 times.
I remember the thrill of nearly completing my Yellow Dex back in 5th grade. Had people with copies of Red and Blue helping me out. But then the save file corrupted itself about 130 in.
#1 Saddest moment in gaming history
What I will never understand to this day is that I did find another pikachu in Viridian forest when I was a kid and I was always confused because it told me it couldn’t be found on the Pokédex. This only happened to me the one time and it’s always confused me to this day.
It was either another version or you’re misremembering. They programmed the game without Pikachu to exist except your buddy Pikachu.
I was today years old when I learned about the starters in yellow.
And I bought this game in 2001.
Since you would be forced to use both red and blue version you could transfer starters from it as well saving you from having to start the yellow 9 times or so.
I remember how proud I was to make my Pikachu with Surf through Pokemon Stadium and then doing the Minigame. Those times back then were truly magical
0:20 aged exceptionally well? The game has more glitches and game breaking bugs then superman 64.
It still aged? And continued to make WAY more games?
There's tons of glitches as long as you look up how to do all of them lmao