Topic: Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow

Officially $9.99 in North America, but 1200 yen in Japan for some reason. That's crazy, prices are normally about par in both regions (although in JP they count tax in the price, so the prices are weird numbers like 617 yen for GBC).

In México they'll cost 123.99 pesos to download, which equals to about 6.8 American dollars (according to Google). They're still considerably more expensive than every other game boy game though.

I think I'll wait a bit to buy them, I can play blue and yellow already, and I want to save to download Hyrule Warriors Legends or Twilight Princess.

I know it's digital and that Red/Blue are almost completely identical, but it is a collection thing for me as I cannot (or rather, can't be bothered to) buy new copies of the originals. Yes, they are just icons on my home menu, but my inner freak will not rest easy unless I have all 3 (plus, I think I may enjoy beating the game 3 times). I fully understand that it's irrational, but so is this silly hobby that we all enjoy. I was tempted to buy a new GBA SP with the original cartridges some time ago, but I decided to hold out on a VC release. Considering that I would at least be able to play Red/Blue in colour on GBA SP makes the original cartridges seem all the more tempting.

It seem so mind-numbingly stupid that Nintendo won't accommodate the colourised versions of Red/Blue when they are playable in colour on technically inferior hardware, including the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Super Game Boy and hell even the Nintendo 64 (with Pokémon Stadium). It seems ridiculous that they are charging as much as they are for such dated games and not giving us the definitive way to re-experience these classics.

The reason why the games are being released separately in multiple languages is due to the nature in which the originals were released (as the save data is not compatible between the different language versions, which may cause technical issues if say, an English-language save file is used in the French version of the game). Plus, multiple languages would not have been possible considering the constraints of the 1MB capacity of the Game Boy cartridges. As a gesture of goodwill, however, I think Nintendo should allow people who have bought one version of the game to download other language versions of the game at no additional cost. I strongly doubt that this will be the case though.

In the Australian eShop, only the English version appears to be available (oddly, the Louvre app is available for purchase and update in all languages), which is a bit of a letdown. It wouldn't hurt them to have the different language versions available as well.

Unless I'm mistaken, it wasn't until the release of X & Y on 3DS that the main series Pokémon games were released with multiple language versions on the same cart.

From what I heard, only Japanese was incompatible with other languages in Gen 1 and 2 (which probably wasn't much of a problem due to remoteness).
At least, might have an issue with missing font characters in names between European languages, but not enough to break the game (as the player and Pokemon name lengths are the same).

As to Australia only offering the English version: is there a large number of people there who speak other languages? I'm guessing Spanish and French are now being offered in the North American eShop because there are a large number of French and Spanish speakers (particularly Canada and Mexico, respectively). I know in Europe it was released in German and Italian but I guess those aren't being offered in NA because those aren't estimated to have a wide enough audience here. (though to be honest, how much extra resources does it need to not just put them up anyways? )

It would look even worse on the eShop. I guess I shouldn't complain that much, after all, Europe is probably getting all the usual languages

Can you imagine being an obsessive collector and feeling like you need to download all 15 (?) virtual console Pokemon games? Heh.

@Morpheel: Only $150 for basically the same game. 😀

Plus $1, for Mew.

Yes and no. It is a multicultural country, yes, but the linguistic diversity is too great for there to be a second common language. In fact, Australia doesn't have an official language at all. English is the national language by default only, so there are many businesses with foreign names (laws regarding this may have become more restrictive at some point in the last decade), and some businesses have signs and displays in other languages in order to accommodate customers who may not be able to speak English (such as Asian/Middle Eastern grocery stores). Many documents and forms (including those used at schools and elections) are generally very accommodating to foreign language speakers, and even driving tests are available in multiple languages. Of course, trailer trash in Australia (known as "bogans") will disparage such people and implore them oh so eloquently to learn some fargin' English while sporting a tattoo of the Australian flag on their bottom.

The U.S. is similar in a sense that they do not have an official language either, however, English, and to a lesser extent, Spanish, can be considered to be its national languages.

Indeed it looks horribly cluttered with all of those different versions of R/B/Y sprinkled across the eShop. The games aren't sorted by language either, which makes it look even worse. I can confirm that, judging by the EU eShop, that Australia will only be getting the English versions of the games. I was only curious because they released the Louvre app in all of its languages in the eShop (why?!) and I'd wager that the non-English versions have an almost 0% chance of selling in Australia. They'd have a better chance of selling the foreign language versions of Pokémon to profiteer from their more obsessive fans. =P

I may have been tempted to at least download one or two non-English versions if I wished to learn a new language. At least the pool of moves and Pokémon were more limited during Gen I, so I could pick up on terms and basic sentence structure more easily. The new games, while multilingual, have far too many moves/items and so forth that it would be very difficult to enhance my language skills with them. If the foreign language versions were released in Australia, and were free with any purchase of R/B/Y, I would definitely have downloaded all of them though. =P

Anyone going to train just one or two types in this game? I was thinking about it but this is one of the harder games to do so with, until your further into the game and have many more options of catching pokemon. Maybe because there's only 151 to choose from.

@Dankykong: Not if you start off with Grass. Bulbasaur rocks the beginning of these old games. The forest is pretty easy, then you have Brock, Mt. Moon, and Misty.

Oh yeah I know that haha I used Bulbasaur in my original Red version. It may use it again for nostalgia, but it feels like it's so easy to speed through the game with grass. But there's not many other grass types to use for a while except Oddish/Bellsprout and Paras. Paras & Parasect are always horribly weak imo. Maybe they were only Bug type back then anyway? I don't know now haha

@DefHalan: Grass is the first you can obtain another species. Despite that Water is one of the most common Pokemon types, it is actually the last one you can find if you don't take Squirtle.
The first non-starter Grass in gen 1 is Oddish/Bellsprout on Route 5, I believe. First Fire is Growlithe/Vulpix on Route 7/8.
Magikarp basically doesn't count, so the first obtainable non-starter real Water types are Vaporeon (if you choose) and the gift Lapras. Otherwise you can't catch any until you go fishing with the Good or Super Rods (as I recall, both of those rods become obtainable at pretty much the same time, making them redundant). In Gen 1, Old Rod can only catch Magikarp (that is again, practically useless). I think Gen 3 allowed you to catch one or two other species with the Old Rod (Tentacool and Poliwag?).

@Dankykong Paras/Parasect is the ONLY non-Poison Bug type that gets a STAB Bug move. Bug is the only thing SE on Psychic in gen 1 (which was infamously OP, and certainly why Dark was created in gen 2 to balance it).
Gen 1 had Scyther/Pinsir but neither could learn STAB moves.

As much as people hate Zubat, I didn't realize until I started a easy-mode-Nuzlocke that Zubat is actually kind of useful, since Rockets have so many Poison types. For the poison status immunity and that in gen 1 Bug (Leech Life) is SE on Poison.

@KingMike: Back in the day, I was intense about my Pokemon Training. I would have a Venusaur and Gyarados before leaving Mt. Moon. (I would buy that Magikarp in the Pokemon Center lol)

I'm probably going to train a lot of the "meh" Pokemon that I had never thought to include in my party before, such as Parasect, Sandslash, Persian, Cloyster, Kingler, Exeguttor, the fossils etc. And maybe Clefable and Wigglytuff as the cute ones never get old.

I'll most likely avoid training any Pokémon with post-gen I evolutions though.

As a kid I used to train mostly water and ice Pokemon.

Maybe I could try that again.

You're not the only one who would buy that Magikarp. Magikarp was pretty weak, but I loved Gyarados.

@sillygostly: That's what I kind of want to do as well. I've been planning on catching a Jigglypuff outside of Mt Moon and trying to keep it through the whole game. I'm rather fond of Normal types, mostly because people find them meh but they can have hidden potential. I have used a Kingler and Cloyster in RBY before, they're quite strong, Cloyster especially once you teach it the pseudo-ice moves.

Liking Jigglypuff can be a bit sad, because Clefairy is available at the same time and can simply do the same things, but better... I think they should've been version exclusives, and a bit more equal in terms of power.

Poor Jiggs. At least it stole clefairies spotlight in the anime. And smash.

Whatever happened to Jigglypuff in the cartoon?