Generation 1

Generation 1 is the first installment to the core pokemon franchise. This generation includes Pokémon Red, Blue, Green (Japan release) and Yellow. These games were first released in Japan on February 26th 1996 with the release of Pokémon Red and Green on the aging handheld, the Gameboy (original). These games were developed by Creatures Inc. along with Gamefreak and was published by Nintendo. This generation features 151 Pokemon, the second most Pokémon introduced in a generation. There are 8 Gyms with each having a gym where players must fight to earn badges. Once the player has earned all 8 badges, they are allowed to compete in the Pokémon league where they challenge the Elite 4, 4 of the most strongest trainers in the region followed by the champion. Gen 1 was later remade into Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green on the Gameboy Advance.

Mechanics
Because they were the first instalments to the franchise, Gen 1 is infamously known for being very broken. There were many glitches that made some Pokémon very powerful especially the normal and psychic types dominating the early meta. During this time there was no special attack and special defence stats but rather a single stat known as special. This was used to calculate special attacks and defence together.

Development
Originally conceptualised by Game Freak Director Satoshi Tajiri. As a child Satoshi loved collecting small bugs around his neighbourhood. This was where he got the original idea of pokemon. One day he saw two children playing with their gameboys together using the link cables. He imagined the possibility of trading Pokémon between games using this feature. Satoshi pitched the idea to Nintendo, despite being sceptical and unsure about what he meant, they let it slide and got Shigeru Miyamoto to help mentor him through the game development process. It was originally going to be named Capsule Monsters (Capumon for short) however it was taken already and changed to Pocket Monsters (Pokemon for short) as it’s known today. Ken Sugimori did the artwork and Junichi Masuda Composed the Music.

Trivia

 * Originally there were going to be more than 151 Pokémon in the Kanto Pokédex with code showing 190 different Pokémon species, However due to the Gameboy’s limited power prevented this. They later became Gen 2 Pokemon
 * As the game released, Nintendo thought there were going to be 150 Pokémon however Gamefreak added one extra Pokémon’s which was Mew. This was very risky as it could have many glitches and was never checked
 * The Kanto region is based off a region in Japan with of the same name