Pokémon Yellow

Japanese Release Date: September 12, 1998

American Release Date: October 1, 1999

Pokémon Yellow/Special Pikachu Edition was the third game released on American soil that pertains to the 1st Generation of Pokémon games. It's main inspiration, the Pokémon anime, has multiple elements present in-game. For example, the mascot of the franchise, Pikachu, is not only your starter Pokémon, but he also follows you around as you traverse the lands of Kanto. This means you and your Pikachu are able to walk freely around the overworld and you're able to talk to your Pikachu in order to see how he feels about you, the trainer. In addition to this new anime based element, Team Rocket makes an appearance with (you guessed it) the famous trio of Jessie, James and Meowth that's right!

As previously mentioned, your starter Pokémon is none othat than Pikachu himself. In order to maintain an anime feel, your Pikachu will even refuse to evolve into a Raichu, just as Ash Ketchum's Pikachu refuses to do in the anime series. Your rival sports a new starter as well: Eevee, which may evolve into either Flareon, Jolteon, or Vaporeon, depending on how you go through the game. But where does this leave the three starters from the previous games? Well, throughout the course of Pokémon Yellow, there are oppurtunities to gather Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle into your team.

Many changes from the original Red and Blue games were made to Pokémon Yellow, most noticeably the radical new change of sprites (updated to look like the current art style of Ken Sugimori's drawings). The back sprites, however, remained the same. Some trainers also changed sprites, including Brock, Misty, your rival (to look like Gary Oak), and even the main character's art (which was changed to look more like Ash Ketchum). In addition to these changes, some minor changes were also made, including Gym Leaders having different teams (to resemble their anime teams), as well as in-game trade differences.

Various new features were also added to this game, thus making it a more interesting experience. Still, there are very few storyline changes that were added to Pokémon Yellow, aside from Cerulean Cave having a redesign, and an awesome Surfing Pikachu mini-game. The first happiness system (later used in future generations) was also implemented in Pokémon Yellow, with Pikachu showing his feelings towards you if you turned around to speak to him! The mechanic of a Pokémon following you was also revisited in the Generation IV games, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver.

If the only reason you were interested in this game was to have Pikachu follow you around, you'll still fall in love with the extras that were added in.

Page was last modified on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:25:57