It's mind numbing, lasts around an hour (I timed it) and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.įast forward a couple of generations and we had very few changes to that opening formula.

Finally you top all this off with a walk through Viridian Forest, which is filled with annoying poison Pokémon that you’ve no idea how to deal with, before eventually arriving at Pewter City and Brock, your Gym leader - marking the end of the tutorial and the start of the full game.

Then you go to a Pokémart, get the package, retrace your steps, get to Oak and are thrown a Pokédex.Īfter this you have to retrace your steps again - though thankfully armed with some Pokéballs this time - before wandering through Viridian city, taking a peek at the gym and realising no-one's home, and listening to a crazy old man explain how to catch Pokémon (probably after you’ve learnt it yourself). After this you’re sent on a fetch quest to get Oak’s package. You've got no Pokéballs, so you can only fight with your weak little fire lizard who only knows two moves. You have a little face time with Professor Oak, then you wake up and have a quick chat with your Mum, she tells you to go see Oak, which you do (normally after being told that the grass is too dangerous for your brittle 10 year old legs) and get your first Pokémon. It’s a sluggish tutorial, filled with busy work and very little ‘wow’ factor, even for the time. But recently, or the last time I loaded up an emulator on my smart phone at least, I realised something. Over the years I must have started that game, or emulators of it, at least 30 or 40 times. I would have been around 4 when I booted up my first copy of Pokémon Red (yes, I know Green came first but as I didn’t live in Japan I was stuck with Red or Blue, and Red has a dragon on it).

Pokemon revolution route 10