June 23, 1999 - What you've just clicked on, boys and girls, is the review to easily the most popular videogame ever to hit Nintendo's little black-and-white portable. The game has been available in the states since the end of 1998, but the original Red and Blue editions of Pok¿mon continue to sell like gangbusters. And there's a reason for that ¿ the game isn't just a fad. It's an awesome game worthy of any gamer's Game Boy library.

Features

• 151 Creatures to Capture
• Mini-quests
• Link cable support for two players
• For Game Boy and Game Boy Color

Here's the deal in Pok¿mon: you're a kid named Ash (which can be changed within the game, but for now, you'll be known as Ash), who dreams of being a Pok¿mon master. So, you leave home to fulfill your dream. You'll travel from town to town, defeating each town's Gym master with the Pok¿mon you've captured and trained, until you earn all the badges necessary to be considered a Pok¿mon Master.

Pok¿mon is a very traditional oriented Japanese RPG ¿ overhead view, super deformed characters, tile-based dungeons, random creature encounters...the works. The appeal of Pok¿mon, however, is the sheer amount of personality in the game. There are literally more than 150 Pok¿mon to uncover and capture, and your collection becomes a status symbol ¿ how many Pok¿mon have you found? Or, more importantly, how many Pok¿mon have you captured?

See, when you encounter a wild Pok¿mon, you must do battle with it ¿ and the only way to do battle with a Pok¿mon is with another Pok¿mon. Each of the game's Pok¿mon has its own strength and weakness, its own attack and defense capabilities. All Pok¿mon belong to one of fifteen categories, and some types of Pok¿mon can utterly destroy Pok¿mon in other categories ¿ Fire to Water, Water to Rock, and so on. It literally becomes a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors as you try and discover which Pok¿mon works best against others.

And the Pok¿mon you've caught can be traded between your friends ¿ in fact, that's the only real way you're going to be able to catch every single one. Between red and blue, there are about a dozen Pok¿mon you'll never be able to find in each version. You'll have to find someone with the other color version of Pok¿mon to trade and catch all the Pok¿mon in the series.

The quest is not extremely difficult, and in some cases it's very straightforward. Still, you'll have to learn strategies in battle to progress through the game, and which Pok¿mon you choose to train and evolve may affect your progress throughout the quest. Pok¿mon will literally take you at least 30-40 hours to get through, but that's just to finish the game. Even if you finish the quest, you still might not have all the Pok¿mon in the game. The challenge to catch 'em all is truly the game's biggest draw.

Closing Comments
Pok¿mon really is worthy of being one of the Game Boy system's greatest games ¿ it's not just a fad, a craze, or trend. If you don't have this game in your library, pick one up ¿ it doesn't matter if you pick Blue or Red, they're both the same game. You'll just have to make sure you've got a friend with the other version if you want to catch 'em all.

Rating	Description
out of 10	click here for ratings guide
10 Masterful	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)