/vr/ - Retro Games

Pokemon Blue (Blue because it has Meowth, but Red is fine too). Don't play Yellow unless you're a total pikafag, it's slightly slower than R/B.
After you finish Blue, play Pokemon Stadium, don't stop until you beat the final boss of the game on Round 2.
Then, play Gold or Silver, then Stadium 2 and again don't stop until you complete R2.
Additional spinoffs: Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Pinball.

>>5498841
Only gen 1 is retro and it's pretty loose if you're into that. Fire Red/Leaf Green are the games that still "feel" retro while being mechanically solid.

>>5498849
>>5498856
>>5498841
CRINGE

Series are shit, Freak is a shit game developer. It's all a cash grab barely disguised as a franchise. Play Monster Rancher instead

What's your platform OP?

>>5498874
I would assume PC is the best choice.
But if after playing some on PC if I fall in love with it I can buy any console that helps me fulfill my addiction

>>5498863
Calm down, man

>>5498841
Crystal is probably your best bet as a starting point. Beautifully retro, while introducing much of what the modern series has carried on today.

>>5498863
>It's all a cash grab barely disguised as a franchise

Yet you don't have to spend a dime to enjoy the entire series if you have a computer. Retro or not.

>>5498881
Showdown

>>5498849
This is good advice. No reason to play it after gen 2 desu.

>>5498849
Yeah, this. But also
>>5498841
If you want to do it the most authentic way for a North American...
1: don't play the games yet
2: watch the anime first, up til the Exeggutor episode
3: Play Blue or Red.
4: Beat it, and then look up the secrets/glitches of the games and do the missingno trick (don't look this up yet)
6: read the entire Electric Tale of Pikachu manga
5: finish the first season of the anime
7: play Pokémon Snap
8: play Gold or Silver
9: you can lose most interest after this

>>5498927
>6: read the entire Electric Tale of Pikachu manga
Based.

>>5498849
>it's slightly slower than R/B

What did he mean by this?

>>5498961
In actual performance. Speedrunners found out about it.

desu, Pokemon is barely /vr/. The bulk of the series is post-retro: Stadium 1 and Gold/Silver were JP 1999 releases, 2000 worldwide.

As for R/B/Y, they're honestly not well-programmed games, and even with the battling system, future generations would trounce it. Red and Blue are only really good for nostalgia and speedrunning as opposed to legit modern playing.

>>5498889
Pokemon games are actually funded by showing ads. You're supporting the franchise in a financial capacity simply by playing the game.
The ads are the pokemon. What they're selling is Pokemon merchandise.

This is gonna be a controversial take, but your first Pokemon game should ALWAYS be from the current generation regardless of the quality. The social aspect is a big part of what makes the games what they are. You're really not getting the full experience if you don't have people to trade and battle with, even online. If you want to go back and play the older games later, go ahead.

>>5498994
>Stadium 1 and Gold/Silver were JP 1999 releases, 2000 worldwide.
Original release is what's usually important, and anyway they're on /vr/ systems.
>they're honestly not well-programmed games
Stadium fixes most of the battle glitches, like Focus Energy. And still, most of these complaints about gen 1 are nitpicks, most people didn't even notice that.

>>5499002
This is actually not entirely wrong although if OP has the opportunity to share Pokemon with friends, a SO or whatever, I do recommend playing gen 1 first. Get 2 gameboys, red and blue, and a link cable.
Modern day Pokemon is all done through wi-fi, it lacks the mystique of actually doing a physical Link Cable pokemon trade or battle.
Alternatively, use Stadium to play multiplayer and trade, although you'll need 2 transfer paks.

Well you have two choices - originals or the remakes which people love (albeit loses the original charm.)

Regardless, Blue (or LG) > Crystal (or HG) > whatever you want, preferably Snap or Stadium series. Gen 2 intertwines with gen 1 and doesn't make sense to do it in reverse order, whichever one you choose.

>>5499002
Nibba do you think everyone lives near the local poké-community to play and battle with fellow trainers in the school playground? Pokémon (the video game specifically) isn't the social phenomena it was in the late 90s and even when/if it was, most people aren't children who coincidentally live near tons of other pokémon players walking round with their nintendos.

>>5499015
The first couple of months after a new generation drops is about as close as you can get these days, even if your interactions are entirely online. It's still a period of discovery, randoms in threads on /vp/ frantically haggling for Pokemon, active wi-fi that isn't completely consumed by people with full legendary teams, and everyone getting together to talk about the games. It's definitely not late 90s Pokemon, but that's kind of what someone's first exposure to Pokemon should be. Otherwise, you're just playing a mediocre RPG with mechanics balanced for PVP and a literally impossible collection goal.

>>5499032
Although I am personally okay with the comfy singleplayer pokémon experience your reasoning is satisfactory.

What ever you do, use an emulator to play these games. They are unplayable without the emulation speed set to at least 500%.

>>5498881
PC is fine, I was just wondering cause you can play Gens 1-3 on most anything these days. As per topic my suggestion is Yellow, then Crystal. If you need ROMS check out /vp/'s funmon general, it has all the handhelds to Gen V.
not-/vr/ suggests: Ruby and Mystery Dungeon are pretty fun

>>5499071
stupid zoomer

>>5499071
The real reason to play them on an emulator is so that you can send your Pokemon forward into later games if you end up playing them. You can't do that with the cart versions of RBY or GSC, but thanks to the Virtual Console re-release gen 7 and 8 will now recognize them as legal if you transfer them from an emulated save.

>>5499074
Played the first 2 gens when they came out as a kid and decided to replay them half a year ago and they are unplayable without speeding the game up.

You can start anywhere, the games don't really have stories that are interesting or relevant in any way so you wont be missing anything.

The gen 1 games are just incredibly broken. The gameplay mechanics aside the games are just really poorly programmed. They're fun games but you should come into them with an open mind. Most of the people that play the gen 1 games do it to find and utilize interesting glitches.

The gen 2 games are basically direct sequels to the gen 1 games but fix many of the problems that gen 1 had. New mechanics like holding items, the ability to delete moves including HM moves with a move deleter, a move tutor to reteach moves, breeding mechanics, dawn/day/night transitions with different pokemon for each time, special attack and defense are separate stats technically. Once you get far enough in the gen 2 games you can also trade with gen 1 games to a limited extent. New pokemon and moves cannot be traded back but pokemon and moves that existed in gen 1 can be traded freely

The later gens are not /vr/ but FireRed and LeafGreen are remakes of the Gen 1 games with new mechanics and HeartGold and SoulSilver are remakes of Gold and Silver.

>>5498841
I recommend you pick up Crystal as your first game, or firered/Leafgreen

I'd start with Pokemon Yellow just because you might remember the cartoon and movies and it might make the world more fun.

>>5499079
This, my dudes.

Two years ago I did a playthrough where I started at Red/Blue and ended at Sun/Moon, and I transfered all of my pokebros as I went. And there's injection tools that allow you to do it in a fair manner in roms.

>>5499087
Sounds like you have a mental disorder then or turn based games aren't for you

Part of me wonders what GameFreak would've been up to had it not been for Pokemon's success. Pulseman is probably the most "video gamey" game I've played, and sits nicely next to Ristar or Dynamite Headdy, but outside of that, they just seem to make random ass games these days.

>>5499293
Nah, pokemon is just slow as fuck

>>5499327
Assuming they survived, they'd have probably ended up like Camelot games: Doomed to making Mario spin-offs for the rest of their existence.

>>5499334
It literally runs the same as any JRPG or turn based game. They literally have items that speeds the game up by not allowing random encounters

Mental disorder it is

>>5498841
Unless you're literally 9 years old, don't bother.

>>5498841
Play Duolingo instead :-)

Honestly I would recommend you start with later games. There's a lot of basic quality of life improvements that happen starting with generation 3. Fire Red or Leaf Green and Emerald for the GBA are a nice starting point imho.

>>5498841
You can't go home again. You'll never experience the buggy first games as a 90s kid, so start with something later and get bored because Pokémon is designed for very young children so it's very easy.

>>5498841
I would say FireRed[\spoiler]
First series is really nice, but probably start with Gameboy Color titles

>>5498841
Just watch a youtube video of yellow version.

>>5499564
This. So much of my enjoyment of pokemon was experiencing it as it was happening. Staring at my gb pocket until my eyes burned, racing home from school to watch the cartoon, begging my parents to buy me any poketrinket I came across, poring over strategy guides for 'secrets', rattata vs. rattatata, the schoolyard hype surrounding the first movie etc. Zoomers are just navigating a nostalgia wasteland at this point.

>>5498994
>9+ games on /vr/ consoles
>not /vr/

>>5500176
There's also side games like pokemon snap, pokemon pinball, 2 pokemon trading card game games(2nd one was only released in japan). There was also that weird "hey you pikachu" game. There was also three stadium games but the first was never released internationally.

This is the game you should start with. It's essentially the first pokemon game (red/blue), but with slight improvements, such as color graphics even when not playing on a super gameboy, better pokemon sprites, and the ability to catch all three starter pokemon.
Either way you should start with the gen 1 gameboy classics, they are what started the pokemon craze after all, and everything else that came afterwards is just a by-product.

>>5498841
The best games in the series aren't retro.

Gen 1 is an absolute disaster and it's only appeal today is playing for nostalgia value or to glitch the ever loving shit out of the game.
Gen 2 has great retro graphics and music but the gameplay is absolutely fucked. No level curve to speak of, necessary items like evolution stones held off until after the elite four, weird Pokemon selection.
Gen 3 has a weak region and it's only strong point is the battle frontier in emerald but it's not even a unique offering.
Fire Red and Leaf Green are by the numbers remakes of the original with a criminally generic artstyle and sound. The don't let you use any knew Pokemon even if they evolve from the original 151, and so you have situations like your game telling you that Golbat can't evolve yet every time you level up for the whole playthrough. It takes away a lot of what made gen 1 enjoyable and doesn't add enough substance to make up for what was lost.
The GameCube games are both stellar. Hands down the most demanding and competently made story mode. Everything that isn't these two games is pretty much toothless until post game.
Diamond and Pearl are a broken mess.
Platinum takes a lot of drastic measures to fix diamond and Pearl and ends up in of the best games in the series for it's efforts.
Heart Gold and Soul Silver are content packed, fixed the majority of the oddities and issues of GB gen 2 and is also one of the best games in the series.
Black and White 1 is pretty fun but a weak in the selection department.
BW2 is a master class follow up to BW1.
Nothing 3D is worth playing, XY, ORAS, gen 7, or Pets Go, they're all shit.

Best games are Platinum, Heart Gold/Soul Silver, and Black/White 2.
Next tier down is the GameCube games and Black/White 1
Then Emerald, Gen 1, and Gen 2.

If you play gen 1 and/or 2 the best setup is to use an actual gameboy and real cartridges so you can transfer your teams to Pokemon stadium 1 and 2 for a post-game.

>>5498841
Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen are the best for a start.

>>5500375
>The weakest 2D gen but with none of what gives it it's unique niche
FrLg is trash.

>>5500373
I never played Diamond or Pearl put played Platinum (which was good). What does Platinum actually do to change DP (which you claim is a broken mess) into something good? All I hear is that DP was slow and Platinum sped things up (I assume text scrolling, post battle message/loading, maybe movement). That may be significant but is that it?

Usually I just assume the third game to just be identical with some more content, the ability to catch both legendaries, postgame etc (which Platinum has).

>>5498841
Play them in this order.
Pokemon Red or Green remaster, Pokemon HG/SS remaster. Then stop, everything beyond second gen is downhill from there but if you insist then just keep playing whatever the most current remaster is from the respective series.

General advice;
Skip all spin offs and just play the main line handheld games.
Collect you gym badges and beat the elite 4 and then move on to the next game. Avoid all the time wasting gimmicky shit the later DS versions had and don't bother trying to complete a pokedex, just train a decent squad and steamroll the game.

When it comes to pokemon, saying anyone should start with anything other than the original games is retarded.

>>5500391
Drastic overhauls to Pokemon selection, region layout, gym order, game speed, nd some other stuff

It's the most drastic third version in the series

>>5500373
posts like these are nice and informative but you fail to take into account the art style, soul, and music of the earlier games. Most people who play pokemon, especially getting into the series for the first time aren't looking for a super balanced rpg which seems to be what you based your criteria around

RSE. If you want a retro answer I would play the games in order as well as the N64 stadium games because they effectively make up part of the 'postgame' for the first two gens. The TCG spinoffs are fun too.

>>5500425
But my post clearly does take that into account that stuff since I say that if you're gonna play gen 1 you might as well play the original and not the remake with the personality scrubbed clean.

Even taking soul into account, those 3 DS games are still the series apex.

>>5499258
Is there a good guide for this anywhere?

>>5499032
If you have time to kill, and access to all of the 3DS games, you very much can catch everything that isn't a "Mythical" pokemon, a la arceus. Even then, SM/USUM don't even have a national dex, so a full fledged living dex isn't needed.

If you pick Charmander does Red/Blue even have a pokemon before Brock that is effective against rock/ground types?

>>5500485
Mankey
Nidoran can get double kick I think.

The real big brain move is Butterfree's confusion

>>5500447
If you're using a 3DS and the official VC releases, and have purchased access to Pokemon Bank, Gen 1/2 pokemon can be transferred using the poketransporter. Gen 3 games will require a DS lite or original DS for transferring, and can only be moved to your gen 4 games. Gen 4 games can be directly transferred to gen 5 after you beat those games, though you need two DS models in order to do so. From Gen 5, you can once again use the poketransporter to send them in to the 3DS games.

If you're not using a 3DS/DS for all of this, Gen 1 can be moved up to Gen 2 in the original games, and if you're emulating, save editing through things like PKHex will allow you to move them forward. You can technically use PKHex for transferring most of your pokemon, you'll just end up losing out on the data being attached to them that shows it's been transferred.

>>5498841
How old are you?

>>5500485
Misty is probably more likely to be a hold-up than Brock. It's basically just a result of Gamefreak deciding to make most of the unevolved gen 1 mons at the start of the game nearly or literally useless before they evolve into something which can attack. Even something that would be a boss like Abra can't do anything except teleport, unless you acquire HMs/TMs (which are only obtainable after brock/misty and the bug shittmons surrounding them).

>>5500498
My thought was Butterfree as well but Onix and Geodude are apparently resistant to Psychic so you'd still have to bruteforce the fight.

In Red/Blue Nidoran learn double kick at level 43 apparently and Mankey is only found in another area and only in Red. It looks like it may have been an oversight. Because Yellow and added Mankey to route 22 and Nidoran learn double kick at level 12

>>5500524
What? They have no psychic resistance dude. Confusion demolishes them

>>5498841
Emerald or Platinum.

>>5500521
Furthermore most of the bugmons are still shit even when they do evolve, with 40 power moves like tackle or 15 power multi-attacks like Fury attack.

>>5500527
I was wrong. Onix and Geodude also have pathetically weak special stats it looks like most special attacks should be pretty strong against them even despite the "effectiveness".

>>5500236
I was including Stadium and Snap, but you're 100% right I forgot about the GB card games.

>>5498863
Stop trying to make Monster Rancher fans look bad, falseflagger. They aren't even the same genre

>>5500373
you can tell this person plays pokemon, he is 100% correct as far as game quality. but i have to say, stadium 1 and stadium 2 are a shitton of fun when you get to play them with the pokemon you raise in gen 1 and 2 cartridge games and that alone makes them worth a play for me. they are also pretty difficult, especially round two master levels, which can get downright ridiculous.

Play Shin megami Tensei IV instead

>>5498841
Pokemon Crystal and then Pokemon Prism.

>>5501015
He might as well play Demikids.

>>5498863
Monster Rancher sucks ass though, dude

>>5498841
I'd play firered/leafgreen, then emerald, platinum, heartgold/soulsilver, black/white, black2/white2. Then move onto 3ds games, but most aren't that amazing imo. Mystery dungeon games are pretty fun too

>>5498849
A lot of people sleep on the Stadium games, and to me they're like the other 50% of the game. Makes me sad most zoomers only emulate RBY at 10x speed, read online that the game has glitches, and ditch it as an old worthless game.

>>5498841
Start with Blue

>>5498841
>I will become absolutely addicted to it. And I'm succumbing to it
Worst case scenario you get hooked and want to complete 151 pokedex, it will take you 50-70 hours so don't worry. Also gen 1 and 2 are great games but not packed with a shitton of content so you won't spend a lot of time on these. If you're going for gen IV tho... well you're in for a ride...

>>5498841
Just play through Blue or Red. If you like it a lot then go for Silver / Gold.

>>5498927
>how the developers intended

>>5498841
Why did you have to summon the autism? You will rip the universe in half if you keep on doing this

>>5500498
That's always bothered me with how obtuse it is. There's no way to know something as random as Caterpie would eventually learn an anti-Brock attack if you power level it enough. Especially in Red version, where Caterpie is fairly rare.

>>5502740
I mean it literally learns it upon evolution and Weedle and Caterpie take no time to fully evolve

>>5502726
Just look at this thread
>everyone discussing the games and pokemon nostalgia
>civilized discussion about the differences between entries in the series, remakes, etc but still respecting the general /vr/ rules and not going overboard about Go and other modern stuff
>no porn
/vr/ has the best pokemon threads, it's ridiculous.

>>5502745
In Red and Blue you had to level it a few levels before it learned Confusion. It was Yellow version that dropped the level where it learns confusion to make it easier to figure out.

>>5502740
I brute forced through Brock grinding until I got Charmeleon.

>>5500542
no, you were wrong in that they don't resist psychic

>>5502867
Isn't that what I said? In my original comment I said they resist psychic which was wrong, they have no specific resistance to psychic attacks. In addition to that they're also not even particularly strong to special attacks anyway so most things should hurt them quite a bit, except electric attacks.

>>5501017
>Pokemon Prism.
Underrated game, it was long but they included the best Pokemon of later gens, moves and mechanisms and combined it perfectly with the old gens style, ost and sense of exploration.

Maybe someone who is more knowledgable about the game can answer this. Why were the back sprites in gen 1 scaled up graphics? To my knowledge the GB cannot scale up graphics in software, and these must have been drawn at twice the resolution while occupying the same space. Was it perhaps they were intending on the back sprites to be smaller, but overhauling them would take too long so they just upscaled them?

>>5498841
Any pokefags play pokemon uranium? It's a pc version with fan made mons. Looked interesting but not sure if it's worth tracking down.

>>5502748
it's still level 12 i think. that's not too bad but i agree that it would still be basically chance that got you there if you went in blind. you can brute force brock with charmander though if you're patient and have a potion or two. ember does some damage since his mons have awful special defense

>>5503612
essentials games run like absolute garbage and it keeps me from playing them. uranium is supposedly "decent" but it introduces a new type that is completely busted and a lot of people have very mixed feelings about fakemon (they don't bother me unless they're ridiculous)

start with:
>fr/lg, gen 1 except it doesn't suck arse balance-wise and not full of shitty glitches, keep in mind though you'll be missing out on the rad gb aesthetic
or
>emerald, combines the best elements of old-school pokemon with more content and great designs
then play crystal (or hg/ss if you can find a physical copy, keep in mind though they've shot up hard in price), either the rescue team or explorers mystery dungeon games, then platinum
then go back and play any of the gen 1/2 games that still interest you
the problem is with this series it's either:
>bad mechanics, but good world design and pacing
>good mechanics, but fucking terrible world design and pacing

>>5503601
i'm assuming for some sense of perspective

>>5500640
>>5501076
t. shills

>>5503601
They did it to save space.

OP I know you’ve gotten a shitload of recommendations already but there is ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THING TO TELL YOU

Use your repels. Shitmons are often not worth the trouble and these games aren’t hard. People always stock up on repels and don’t bother using them and the game becomes way more of a chore for no good reason, at a certain point the exp crumbs you get from zubats aren’t going to make a real difference.

As for the games themselves, I think the most interesting route to take to ‘get’ Pokemon is to play a gen 1 game (red, blue or yellow) then play one of the gen 2 remakes with all the modern features and mechanics (heartgold or soul silver).

You get to see the series gameplay ‘arc’ in a direct sequel to the gen one games you just played, and you can see it in just two games instead of playing through like ten.

You can always go back to the old games to get a more thorough look at how the series changed, but if you want to get a good idea of the series quickly this is the fastest way to do it and would probably be very enjoyable.

>>5498994
>>5499240
Only Green version is incredibly broken; you are unlikely to encounter Missingno or any similar glitch by a casual playthrough, and it's rather impressive the games are as stable as they are considering how "hacky" the programming tricks are. There are only a small number of game ending glitches, such as Lorelei's Dugong forever using Rest if you're Poison or Fighting and you choose to use Rage, and the battle will never end outside of turning the game off. No one would have ever discovered that leech seed and toxic stack on one another because leech seed is a move only four pokemon would ever learn and no one would bother keeping it since most non-attacking moves were absolutely worthless in gen 1. Same thing with Psywave desyncing link battles, it's a fucking worthless move.

>>5498917
You can skip gen 3 but the gameplay got significantly better in gen 4

It's the same game 20+ times over.
Just pick one.

OP which did you pick?
>Game
>Starter

>>5498841
OP I'm just like you thanks for the question.

>>5505095
Heartgold & Soulsilver are the best points from what I heard.

I'll recommend red++ and polished crystal to anyone who wants updated versions of gen 1 and 2.