Pokemon Blue: Inglorious beginnings (a.k.a. The Blastoise Solo Run)

The Pokemon rampage is still going on full force, to my wonderment and delight; and after my run of White, I decided to make an audacious jump to the monochromous roots of the series. I wanted to see at long last where and how it all started, and so I dug up my Blue cartridge bought two years ago, my silver GBA and dove into yet another playthrough of a Pokemon game. And the result... Well, the result was unlike anything I'd have expected. In a good and bad way.

I'll be blunt: from what I've played of Blue so far, I totally and utterly fail to understand how that game could single-handedly drag the Gameboy out of its early retirement and sell millions of cartridges around the world. I fail even more to understand how it could take Gamefreak nearly six years to come up with that game— notwithstanding that the development phase was an on-and-off process. Because what I'm seeing and playing right now is nothing more than a half-baked, clunky and overall barely decent RPG. For all the praise nostalgic players lavish upon it, the first Pokemon generation is shockingly unpolished compared to later generations and to other Gameboy RPGs—and here's how:

—It takes but a glance to realize that Blue's graphics are shockingly primitive, even by Gameboy standards. Such over-simplistic graphics would have been acceptable in the early stages of the console's lifetime; but in 1995, they were horribly dated. This is worsened by the fact that Tajiri and his team obviously didn't put a lot of effort into embellishing their game world; voluntarily or not, they did only the bare minimum in that regard and left it at that. Trees look like boulders, tall grass looks like sprouts and so on. Good thing that I knew beforehand that Tajiri intended to channel the lushness of untamed nature in Blue/Red, because I certainly wouldn't have guessed it from seeing Blue's graphics.

—The pacing is quite terrible. Blue feels like a long plodding trudge for the most part: tension and excitement are absent, goals are embarrassingly vague and there is very little incentive to move on to the next spot in line. Had I not known the Pokemon formula inside out, I'm not sure I would have been able to spell out what I was precisely supposed to achieve in that game. This impotent pacing is considerably worsened by the fake longevity-friendly bane of old-school RPGs, i.e. regular obstructions that require talking to every single NPC, scouring the whole game world and generally performing ludicrous actions to be overcome. I admit it: I resorted to internet wisdom more than once during my run of Blue. I didn't feel like fine-combing every town to find a beverage for the gate guards, nor could I bring myself to try to get my paws on a bike. And let's not even talk about the game actually forcing me to capture ten different 'Mons in order to get a mandatory item. To my dismay, there were also all too many occurrences of another annoying old-school RPG trope, the dreaded "Where do I go next?" For all their twisted retro charm, these hindrances gave me the unpleasant feeling of progressing by fits and starts without ever managing to find a flowing playing rhythm. Granted, it's a first-playthrough-only issue—but an aggravating one nonetheless.

—The inventory is absolutely horrendous. I found myself staring at the thing in disbelief and wondering if this was a bad joke of sorts. Twenty spots only in the bag? And fifty more only in the PC? No subcategories? No automatic sortering? Seriously, this is a pure ergonomic nightmare. It's nearly as bad as FFL2—except that FFL2 has the excuse of having been released five years before Blue.

—While the inventory is horrendous, the move management is nothing short of calamitous. I just cannot believe the fact that there is absolutely no way to check the elemental nature of moves, their base strength and, last but not least, their effects. What were they thinking, seriously? Were players supposed to test moves at random and reload their save files if they were not happy with the results? Heck, I guess that's exactly what they were supposed to do. It's pretty obvious that elemental complementaries and strategy as a whole were but an afterthought in the first generation and that the meat and potatoes of Red/Blue was the completion of the Pokedex.

—The narrative is weak, superficial and childish to a fault. Take resident rival Red: why does this guy even challenge me in the first place and why does he resent me so vehemently? Sure, I guess I wouldn't be happy either if my own grandfather couldn't remember my name and if he offered the kid next door a 'Mon before offering me one; but honestly, Red's dislike is fickle at best and totally baseless at worst. You can also forget about the gentle holistic vibe introduced by latter entries of the series, with their emphasis on human/pokemon collaboration: pretty much everybody in Kantoh is an immature prick whose sole joy in life is to use their 'Mons as mere tools to challenge random passerby to glorified rooster fights. Jeez, now I understand why the series was initially accused of promoting animal abuse. Also, I don't know if this is specific to the french traduction I'm playing, but the language used by NPCs is pretty sloppy and aggressive, with abbreviations that shouldn't be seen in written text, invasive slang and insults thrown at my face on a regular basis. Bloody obnoxious Red routinely calls me a punk and a loser—despite the fact that I pulverize him every time we fight, which is quite laughable—and random people rebuff me way too often for my taste and comfort. I could have done without all that callousness, thank you very much. Dialogues are also incredibly vapid compared to latter entries, in which even the most insignificant NPC is granted interesting and instructive lines that give a better understanding of the local region.

—The level design is quite poor. Wild areas between towns sport an uncanny amount of empty space whose monotony is broken solely by the rows of Trainers standing around idly. Towns, on the other hand, are annoyingly labyrinthine, with a ridiculously high number of ledges, fences, bushes and other obstacles whose sole purpose seems to be to force the player into detours. (I'm looking murderously at you, Fuschia City.)

Let's wrap this up: I'm not impressed by the early stages of the Pokemon series. I'm so totally not impressed that Blue can now claim the dubious honour of being my least favourite Pokemon entry. While this game obviously delights the retro gamer in me with its old-school trappings, it leaves the Poke aficionado in me pretty unsated. Without nostalgia to make the heart grow fonder, the first generation is nothing more than a passable try with a lot of room for improvement. And boy, was there indeed improvement! Playing Blue made me fully realize the extent of the vertiginous progress that took place throughout the series. The Pokemon formula has been beautifully and cleverly refined over time; and with all due respect to nostalgic players who discovered the series with Blue/Red, the latest Pokemon instalments are the pinnacle of sophistication compared to these coarse beginnings. With that, dear fellow gamers, I rest my case. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!