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There have been plenty of fond memories when Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow came out in 1998. My official craze over the franchise started with Pokemon Yellow, and I’ve been a fan ever since, even when I almost skipped Generation V (I fell into peer pressure at first but one late December. I ended up purchasing Pokemon Black). Anyhow, as I was saying. With the great success of the original games, Game Freak, Inc. kept on producing more games for the main series. Some of the previous games were even remade using resources from a modern Generation such as Pokemon Firered and Leafgreen and Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver during the Gen III and Gen IV runs respectively.

I actually still have my Pokémon Yellow game (yes, it´s intact and functional).

And as Nintendo, Game Freak, and the Pokemon Company continued to release new games (with spinoffs in between). Players from the original Generation wanted to use their favorite Pokemon for the sake of either bringing them to Generation VI for battles, or to save them before the save battery gives up the ghost. There is at the moment a lengthy process to do this, which uses several apps and hardware to take them from Generation I to the Pokemon Bank.

How to Trade Gen 1-2Pokemon into Gen 3 and UP

And with the upcoming Pokémon games (Pokémon GO and Pokémon Z), Virtual Consoles may solve some tensions and save time. Even so, there will of course still be fans who use the method mentioned to bring their classic Pokemon to X/Y (or ORAS) into the game. As they still can recreate their parties on the Virtual Consoles like it was the 90s. And with the addition of using the 3DS’ Wireless Communication System, players won’t have to get tangled up with issues that the Link Cable would usually cause. You know, problems such as finding compatible ends on third-party cables made for every unit type of the Game Boy family, accidental disconnections, or unwanted close quarter combat.

There may be some things that the fans would be disappointed in with the upcoming Virtual Consoles, however. As it´s rather unlikely that the Pokemon Bank will incorporate Generation I compatibility, since the original game(s) only has 151 species to collect. Even so, I still believe that the biggest issue for fans would be the lack of WiFi connectivity, since the Link Cable’s replacement is just the Wireless Communications.

I wonder if Jim Carrey is a part of that club as well? (“Cable Guy” reference).

I’m sure along with the desires of having Pokemon Bank and WiFi trading/battling there are other wishes to improve on the games (I’m sure one of which to be able to legitimately catch Mew) but personal I think just having the incorporation of Wireless connectivity is enough of an update for Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow. For games that are being re-released with intention of keeping them close to the originals as possible I personally believe that they shouldn’t have extra content for the sake of modernizing and expectations.

As classics, I think they should be played as is without some fancy add-on to bring in the audience, much like how you would see gems such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Divine Divinity on GOG or Steam. While mods (or in Pokemon’s case rom hacks) can improve the game with new content, it is sometimes better to leave things as they are.

Nowadays, there exists so many different Pokémon´s, that it´s hard to remember them all.

Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong to ask for a bit more. And in my opinion, it is amazing that in this day of age. That we can buy these classic games from a digital retailer and play them as they were originally released. So we can either feel the nostalgia from when we initially played the games, or experience them like it was the first time that we played them (if we have missed out on them for one reason or another). As I look forward to the next installment of the main Pokemon series, I’ll be doing some old-school training on Pokemon Yellow while testing my luck with WiFi battles with my Generation VI teams. And even with a limited range I’m sure you can find some friends to share the nostalgia with, while burning their entire team to a crisp with your Charizard.

David Lucas
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @GamerFoxem