Reflecting on Pokemon Red.

[ShadeStrider 392]

Compared to a lot of first entries in old franchises, Pokemon Red has aged surprisingly well.

 

This was the game that introduced and popularized the Monster Collection genre in the west, right? 

 

It was essentially Nintendo's kid-friendly (until the gambling laws changed) version of Shin Megami Tensei.

 

Except... I had more fun playing Pokemon Red than I did the SNES Translation of Shin Megami Tensei 1. The Overworld didn't feel like a pain to navigate. The battles weren't just "Spam Zio to win". (Seriously, You could win more than half the battles in the game using electric spells. Zio-locks were really broken, and I don't know why they felt the need to program that into the game.)

 

In a sense, Shin Megami Tensei might have been responsible for Pokemon's success in Japan. But Pokemon Red was definitely the better game.

 

I do consider this game better than X and Y, mainly because it didn't hold your hand the whole way through.