Japanese Games!

[Slix]

Has anyone played the Japanese Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow games? I recently got Green and Red and started playing through Green a little this week. It's fascinating knowing so much about the games and region that I can mostly play without reading the language.

[PoisonIvey1998]

Well I've never even played the English version of these games but I would like to actually play either Yellow or Blue. And that's actually pretty cool getting to play these games without even reading the dialogue since you've played them enough times in English that you know what to do already xD

[Local_Lombre]

Personally, Pokémon yellow is my favourite!

[sentientprism]

The Japanese versions are really interesting! A lot of the front sprites are much sloppier than later releases, which really shows how small and indie it was at the time. It’s really cool
(I’ve done the same thing btw, playing without knowing the language. it’s a cool feeling!)

[SharKing]

I've recently gotten to play a bit of Green, and I've played up to the クチバジム - sorry, Vermilion Gym. I kinda had to stop there because, yeesh, that original Thunderbolt animation is gnarly; I don't blame 'em one bit for toning that down. Dunno if I'll pick it up again, but if I do, I ain't running Thunderbolt in my team, that's for sure. Even one of the best moves in the game ain't worth that kind of eye damage!

But yeah, those original scuffed sprites are pretty charming in their own way. And I'd argue that a few of 'em are actually pretty good; Clefairy's sprite is okay, and Koffing's sprite is honestly way better than in RBY.

I can only somewhat relate to playing the Japanese games blind because I did that with HeartGold and Black about 15 years ago, but being able to actually read the text (to an extent, anyway) has been pretty interesting to me, seeing the little differences from the localized script. I know not everyone feels they have the time or whatever to study a whole other language, especially one so wildly different from English, but I can tell ya, it feels rewarding when you actually understand things.

[momoapplegirl]

I have played green and the Japanese version of Platinum. Obviously Green is pretty different from the International releases of the gen 1 games with sprite changes and stuff (plus Green feels a bit more broken, which is saying a lot for gen 1 games), but Platinum isn't too noticeably different besides the language obviously.

[SharKing]

Welp, I played the Japanese versions of Blue and Yellow lately, and I learned a couple of interesting differences from the international games.

First off, JP Blue still has Red and Green's obnoxious Thunderbolt animation, but Yellow uses the toned-down version. That tells me Thunderbolt was specifically toned down in the international releases of Red and Blue. Confusion and Psychic's animations were also apparently sped up a bit in those versions.

Also, you know how Yellow on the Game Boy Color has multiple color palettes for different locations and Pokémon? Not so for JP Yellow - it uses one yellow-and-red color palette for the whole game, clearly taken from Pikachu's body and cheeks. I gotta be honest, I really don't like how it looks, especially on certain 'mons.