Ozzy's Game Corner - Pokemon Yellow
In my previous review, I said I would review Pokemon Yellow, so here it is!
Pokemon Yellow is the third version from generation one and surprisingly enough it sold well, possibly due to the fact it stuck a little more to the anime side of things than Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue. Pokemon Yellow came out near the end of the Game Boy's life span, and surprisingly, it managed to secure second place in the best selling Game Boy games, losing out only to Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue.
How is Pokemon Yellow any different, I hear you say? Well, it actually is quite different in various ways, so I will highlight them now.
When you first start your journey in Pokemon Yellow, like in the anime, you start out with Pikachu instead of getting the choice between Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle. Worry not though, if you want one of these (or all three) you complete certain tasks and as a reward you will be able to get each, again a little like the anime. You still have your rival though, and this time he gets an Eevee as his starting Pokemon. I'm not too sure why, but there's nothing that can be done about it.
Again typically from the anime, Pikachu doesn't like to go inside its Pokeball, so it follows you around. I believe if you traded the Pikachu then traded it back, it would no longer follow you anymore.
The start of the game can seem a little long in Pokemon Yellow, you are going to want to catch some more Pokemon as Pikachu is going to prove ineffective against Brock and his rock-type Pokémon; you won't get the original three starter Pokemon until later on in the game. Just to note, Brock and Misty will not come with you on your journey, it is still just you on your own but you still have Pikachu!
Same as before, you start from Pallet Town, working your way to all the places you went to in the other games (if you played those ones). Again, you can't access Viridian City Gym, so just move on up to Pewter City for your first Gym Leader, hopefully you have a strong team to take down Brock's rock Pokemon. Brock doesn't come with you as I said before, so after you beat him, make your way to Cerulean City, going through the real annoying Mt. Moon to get there. With any luck, Pikachu will be happy by now, but don't let him faint because once you enter Cerulean City, look out for a girl as she will give you a Bulbasaur. To see if he is happy, you can talk and see what his reaction is, if he has a smile then you know he is happy and safe for you to speak to the girl with Bulbasaur. Carry on to battle Misty, this should be a breeze with your Pikachu as of course, electric-type Pokemon are super effective against her water-types.
North of Cerulean is a bridge, dubbed Nugget Bridge, because after you defeat a group of about five trainers in singular battles (including a disguised Team Rocket member), you receive a Nugget. This bridge leads to Route 24. Here in Pokemon Yellow, a trainer will give you Charmander. So that's two of the original starting Pokemon down. I also believe the order you are receiving them is the order Ash received them in the anime. Continue to Vermilion City via the SS. Anne, where you come up against Lt. Surge for the Thunder Badge. Upon beating him, you can now go find Officer Jenny and she will give you Squirtle. That's all three of the starters obtained in the same game. However be aware, these Pokemon will behave just like traded Pokemon, so they will get boosted EXP as explained in my previous review, and if they exceed a significant level, they will begin to lose respect and ignore you. Note, that's kind of like Charmeleon and Charizard in the anime with Ash. Personally, I love having all three starters in my team, I find them to be strong fighters and rarely finish a game without them in my party. Pikachu, not so much in Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, but I may be tempted to have him in my team in Pokemon Yellow.
The game as a whole from now on is not that different from its predecessors in terms of gameplay, although I will now note some other changes.
For a start, the Pokemon sprites and even the people have changed, now looking more like Pokemon and characters from the games a little more. Red and Blue now resemble Ash and Gary a little more. Kanto as a whole has had some minor changes to it, with different designs for doors and signposts for example. Victory Road (later called Cerulean Cave) has had a huge overhaul from its Red and Blue days, so yay, more confusion! Note, you can't reach Cerulean Cave until you beat the Elite Four!
No other Pikachus can be caught, if you want another one for any reason (perhaps to evolve into Raichu?) you will need to transfer one over using the link cable and two cables, two versions of Pokemon. Pikachus that aren't your own original Pikachu will act like other Pokemon and stay in Pokeballs, they will not follow you around.
Gary (or Blue, but for the sake of sticking nearer to the anime, I will call him Gary) will evolve his Eevee in to a certain Eeveelution depending on circumstances, which will affect the type of Pokemon in his team come the end of the game.
If you beat Gary at the Pokemon Lab at the start of the game and at the battle at Route 22 (this Route is next to Viridian City) then Gary will evolve Eevee into Jolteon. If you lose one of the battles or avoid the Route 22 battle, Gary will evolve Eevee into Flareon. Lastly, if you lose both battles Gary will evolve Eevee into Vaporeon.
In game Pokemon trades are different from Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue trades. The moves Pokemon can learn changes slightly. For example Charizard can learn the HM move, Fly in this game. The Gym Leader's teams change, some changing to match those that are the anime. A lot of the glitches that were found in the previous games have been fixed. The locations and Pokemon also match those of the anime, as Ash caught Caterpie and Pidgeotto in Virdian Forest, you are now able to catch Caterpie and Pidgeotto there too. This is the only time you can catch Pidgeotto at a lower level than its actual evolution level.
Also worth noting, you still come across Team Rocket throughout the game but now after them you actually come across the anime's Team Rocket, Jessie and James. You can not catch Meowth, Koffing or Ekans from Pokemon Yellow as Ash in the anime would be very unlikely to want to have similar Pokemon to Team Rocket.
You also can not catch the following in this version of Pokemon:
Weedle and its evolution line
Ekans and Arbok
Raichu
Meowth and Persian
Koffing and Weezing
Jynx, Electabuzz and Magmar.
If you had a Nintendo 64 with Pokemon Stadium, you were able to connect all three versions with the game, a GamePak came with Pokemon Stadium as far as I can remember. But with Pokemon Yellow if you connected it, you could teach your Pikachu Surf, the only way for Pikachu to learn this move and that would enable Pikachu's Beach that is installed on Pokemon Yellow.
I unfortunately had a fake version of Pokemon Yellow, me and my brother saw it at the local market and saw it was pretty cheap so we insisted my dad buy it for us, which he did. However upon further inspection at home, we noticed that it didn't have the proper logo along the top like this:
http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/th...ow_Version.jpg
It was just blank, so unfortunately I was unable to play the Pikachu's Beach or teach Pikachu Surf.
Something I forgot to touch upon during the previous review was actually the soundtrack in the game. I have to say, most areas I loved the music. Back then, I would play my games at a quieter volume but not Pokemon, I loved hearing it. Although, Lavender Town is still a little bit bizarre for me.
So having reviewed all versions of this generation, I will say Pokemon Blue was actually my favourite version because it was the first one I played, however I did like how Pokemon Yellow was loosely based on the Pokemon TV series. I loved that you could get all the starting Pokemon in a similar fashion to how Ash obtained his. Remember, I still at this point thought that Blue and Red were called Gary and Ash respectfully, so Yellow just seemed to fit my vision of Pokemon just that little bit better.
However, I do feel Pokemon Yellow was just a slightly updated version of Pokemon, so it was still lacking in some ways, things that Nintendo and GameFreak would go on to improve in later games in the series. There were things that I loved, like Pikachu following you around, something that would later be implimented into Pokemon to allow the first Pokemon in your team to do. As a whole though, I can honestly say these were great games in their own right, in their own time. You very rarely can make a game perfect at the first attempt, but boy did they come close with this game.
Because I loved Pokemon Blue that little bit more, I am going to give this an 8.5.
I would love to hear from you guys.
Until we meet again in generation two, Pokemon!
