4/5 ★ – gumgy's review of Pokémon Red.

classic game, unfortunately hasn't aged super well but the game is good for what it is pros: - pretty much the same as any other pokemon game, it's (relatively) open-world and compelling, building your own team and experimenting with pokemon you haven't used before is fun cons: mostly just QoL stuff, I don't have much in the way of issues with the gameplay itself, but some QoL issues include: - inventory is WAY too small, nor separated into categories like future generations - having to enter pokemon menu to use HMs out of combat - being able to miss pokemon when throwing pokeballs at them (why was this ever a thing?) - lack of a run button and having to enter menu every time you wanted to use the bicycle I understand that most of these are just limitations of the game being on GameBoy Color, but it's definitely rough to play ~25 years after its initial creation - postgame content is unfortunately a little shallow - aside from catching the 3 legendary birds + mewtwo, there isn't much to do not sure if it's possible to 100% the game (i.e complete the pokedex) with only one version of this generation, due to version exclusives and such. would need a second copy and a link cable to trade over from Blue/Yellow to complete it, which is pretty lame. took me around 21 hours to beat the game and get to credits. beat the E4+champion, caught a few legendary pokemon, and stopped because I realized I couldn't complete the pokdex. probably could have shaved a few off if I grinded levels a bit less, could've fought the E4 + champ with a few levels less and would've been fine. would recommend it to anyone who wants to feel the nostalgia of an original pokemon game (especially if you played one previously), but if you haven't played this generation for some reason OR find the QoL problems to be too much then i'd just skip to the FireRed/LeafGreen remakes.