Pokémon Blue Version

The Good
Great combat system. Using the right type of move and the Pokémon with the right type(s) is very rewarding. Nice variety of Pokémon. The three starter Pokémon have great designs, evolutions, and a clever way on making your difficulty level with the 8 Gym Leaders depending on its type. You can thankfully save anywhere. It's always funny to name your rival something like asshole or retard.

The Bad
Absolutely hideous front sprites for the Pokémon and even worse back sprites that were not changed from the Japanese Red and Green versions.

Some types are terribly unbalanced. Psychics have access to Amnesia which double their special stat and the move Psychic is a powerful move that has a 1/3 chance to lower the foe's special stat. Also, 33 Pokémon are Poison-Types which are weak to Psychic-Type moves. Due to a glitch, Psychic-Type Pokémon are immune to Ghost-Type moves since in the anime Ash had to find a Ghost-Type Pokémon to defeat Sabrina, the Psychic-Type Gym Leader. It wouldn't matter so much because there are only 3 Ghost-Type moves, 2 of which cause damage and Lick is a very weak move with the other move Night Shade only doing damage equal to the user's level like Dragon Rage which funnily enough is the only Dragon-Type move. Psychic-Type Pokémon are weak to Bug-Type moves, but Bug-Type Pokémon suck in Gen I and Bug-Type moves are very weak.

Some Pokémon have very few moves to learn which diminishes their usefulness and not very varied when it comes to different types. For example, most Rock-Type Pokémon know only 2 Rock-type moves because there are only 2 Rock-Type moves in the game! Also, some moves don't work as intended such as Focus Energy cuts the chance of critical hits instead of quadrupling it.

Limited inventory which sucks. You're forced to go to your PC to store items and you can only do that at a Pokémon Center. TMs can only be used once and only a few can be bought at stores (unless you use the MissingNo. glitch to duplicate your items). HMs suck because they take up valuable move slots and cannot be forgotten. You also have to pause the game and select what Pokémon to use and then use the specific move in the overworld.

Some Pokémon require trading to evolve which now seems impossible to do since nobody is going to use a link cable to trade with you which also means you won't be able to complete your Pokédex.

The Bottom Line
Even though I listed a lot of flaws and probably some that I've forgotten to add, I recommend playing this just to see how far later Pokémon games have changed for the better. You'll still have fun with it, especially if you're a fan of JRPGs. Look up a guide if you need to find out Pokémon's movesets, because you'll be surprised by which Pokémon are borderline useless during your playthrough.

The Good
It's really fun to play this unique RPG, it's so cool that you can train Pokemon, the puzzles are mostly to get things to give to people, the best part is defeating team rocket, you'll find them in different cities, and you'll have to defeat their leader twice (he has very strong Pokemon) in order to succeed in the game, I have now finished the Pokemon league 18 times,sounds easy huh?You're downright wrong, it's terribly tough the first 3 times, after that your Pokemon will become very strong. Currently my strongest Pokemon is Blastoise, level 100 (the last level). The puzzles are not very difficult, so it's not really a puzzle-solving game, although (thank god) does not have a lot of action like Zelda games, it's not really an up-down game either, it's mostly an adventurous RPG, with a touch of action.

The Bad
The animations of the attacks didn't match the magical animations of the animated series.

The Bottom Line
I give Nintendo a 5 out of 5 for this delightful mix of RPG/ Adventure/ Mild Action!

The Good
What Pokemon ultimately was back in 1996 was a game completely unlike anything the medium had seen up to that point. Here was a game that used its multiplayer component not solely as a way for people to prove how much better they were than each other, but designed so that players could work together for that 100% completion goal that's been hanging over games since the invention of saving. Truly it was a moment of genius deciding to release two versions of the game, with no single copy allowing access to the complete package.

And the game is certainly constructed well enough to hold up that significance. This was the point when Sugimori and co had just enough ideas to give us a variety of colourful creatures to catalogue but not so many that it unbalances the game. An admirable feature is the restriction of each pokemon to 4 attacks which (in theory, anyway) should give the player plenty to consider when putting their team together. Of course, the limited resolution of the Game Boy screen meant that Tajiri-san needed to design an interface for the battle screen that was straight-forward and had no real learning curve, freeing up the player's time to mull over their attack plan while Junichi Masuda underscored the tension.

The Bad
The ultimate problem with this game, and the series as a whole, is that it just doesn't know what to focus on. There's this plot about an organised criminal gang running around abducting other people's pokemon, but the team of four writers considered that to be a diversion. The end credits only roll when you win a tournament up on a mountain. Throughout the game, it feels like actually interesting events are happening when you're not around. It is entirely possible for a game like this to have a clear and present narrative and still be a good time sink, so it feels like a missed opportunity.

The Bottom Line
You can't help but admire what this first set of games ultimately were. A uniquely socially-oriented phenomenon that, while somewhat lacking in overall direction, is spot-on in terms of design and complex enough to make for an engaging experience.