Pokemon Red and Blue were the very first games of the Pokemon franchise to ever be sold by Game Freak and then published by Nintendo for its Game Boy console outside of Japan. They were elementary in features when compared to modern Pokemon games, yet they were incredibly sophisticated at that time. The games had a huge success, and they still remain relevant today for many reasons. One of them is that their iconic Pokemon are still among today's most recognizable monsters to be found and caught in modern games, including Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur, Pikachu, Ditto, Slowpoke, Gengar, Snorlax, and more. Another reason is that these games shaped a whole generation of fans with their merchandise and the Pokemon Trading Card Game.
Pokemon Red and Blue established a trend for the whole series to have several titles for the same generation of monsters to be up for sale simultaneously. Of course, there never were only cosmetic differences in the games, and they came with a set of similarities and differences. Some of the differences between the games were very subtle and many gamers who played Pokemon Red and Blue at the time may not be aware of them still, after all these years.
Major Differences Between Pokemon Red and Blue
Of course, the main difference in the games was which Pokemon could be caught and trained on each title, and which little monsters sadly could not. In Pokemon Red, players could catch the following naturally spawning monsters:
- Ekans, Arbok, Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Mankey, Primeape, Growlithe, Arcanine, Scyther, and Electabuzz.
In Pokemon Blue, the version-exclusive little monsters that could be trained and caught were the following:
- Sandshrew, Sandslash, Vulpix, Ninetales, Meowth, Persian, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Victreebell, Magmar, and Pinsir.
Another difference was that Pokemon Red and Blue had different Pokemon as prizes in the Rocket Game Corner found in the fancy Celadon city. For Pokemon Red, this included Abra, Clefairy, Nidorina, Dratini, Scyther, and Porygon. The Blue version had different Pokemon that could be obtained with coins, specifically Nidorino instead of Nidorina, and Pinsir instead of Scyther. That's not it, though, because these Pokemon also came in different coin requirements.
Namely, Abra cost 180 coins in Pokemon Red and 120 coins in Pokemon Blue, Clefairy cost 500 coins in Pokemon Red and 750 coins in Pokemon Blue, and Nidorina and Nidorino cost the same, despite being version-exclusive. The major deviations from one game to the other were noticed in the high-end rewards, as Dratini's cost was 2800 coins in the Red version and 4600 coins in the Blue version; Scyther and Pinsir came at 5500 and 2500 coins, respectively; and lastly, Porygon cost 9999 coins in Pokemon Red, while it only cost 6500 coins in Pokemon Blue. Most likely, these differences occurred because the Pokemon obtainable via coins in both games also came with different base levels: lower costs for lower levels, higher costs for higher levels.
Obviously as well, Pokemon Red featured a Charmander on the start screen, next to the playable character, while Blue had Squirtle in its place. This is in line with the Pokemon portrayed on each game's cartridge and box - Charizard for the Red version, Blastoise for the Blue one. These monsters were not forever standing still, and they were eventually replaced by a lot of other Pokemon in succession. This was another difference between the two titles, as the cycle's order was different for the two versions. Yet another difference was in the opening battle that players witnessed when launching the games. Pokemon Red featured Gengar and Nidorino fighting each other, while in Pokemon Blue Gengar was up against Jigglypuff, instead.
The games also came with different color palettes when played on either Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance. Pokemon Red had a pleasant light red, almost salmon pink overall color palette, and Pokemon Blue had light blue undertones that could be appreciated throughout the game. However, the games did not originally come with color palettes, and prior to 1998, they were completely in black and white.
All Similarities Between Pokemon Red and Blue
The games were very similar in many regards, and the game that actually shook things up when compared to Red and Blue was Pokemon Yellow. Pokemon Yellow changed the teams from Gym Leaders to better reflect those of the Gym Leaders in the anime, and there were no starting critters to choose from, but rather Pickachu was handed over to gamers. Furthermore, the sprites for some characters were different, and of course, the creatures that players could catch were different as well. However, there were some quite interesting similarities between Pokemon Red and Blue that could sound a lot like fun facts to long-time fans nowadays, and some of them were present in the Yellow version as well.
For starters, the setting and the plot were identical. This holds true for many of the generations that came after Pokemon Red and Blue, but these two games didn't feature version-exclusive Legendary Pokemon like almost all modern games. This was significant because, provided players had a Linking Cable and a friend willing to trade, all Pokemon could be obtained and no Legendary had to be traded away to achieve this.
Another element the two games shared was that there were only 37 unique base sounds for all 151 critters available. These sounds were edited in order to make each Pokemon have its own cry, but there were exceptions. In fact, Charizard's cry was identical to Rhyhorn's cry. Ditto, one of the most game-defining Pokemon ever, and Poliwag had cries that were one and the same as well. Other Pokemon shared an almost identical cry with simply slight variations in pitch, like Omanyte and Machop, or like Drowzee, Hypno, and Jynx.
Pokemon Red and Blue also had another funny, yet infuriating, thing in common. In both games - and in Pokemon Yellow, too - the move called Focus Energy did not correctly provide the little monster using it an improved chance to score critical hits. Instead, the move hampered the Pokemon's chance to inflict critical strikes on its opponents and virtually reduced it to 0. This is something that only very observant players would have noticed at the time because the move was never intended to guarantee a critical hit.
Lastly, the first generation of Pokemon games was also the last to have Speed as a stat affect the Pokemon's critical hit chance. As strange as it may sound, Pokemon Red and Blue made it so having critters with high Speed values would make them much more likely to inflict critical strikes on their unfortunate opponents, while slower Pokemon were less likely to ever deal critical damage. Luckily, this was later changed, as there are some naturally slow Pokemon that would end up being used less than other faster creatures, also able to score critical hits more often.
Pokemon Red and Blue are available for Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance.