Last time on Pokemon Blue, the opening, a lecture from Oak, and the naming of names.

Our adventure begins!

I really did spend the opening few seconds being amazed at how I could control the little figure. This wasn’t the first videogame I’d ever played, but it was one of maybe half a dozen and the first one I owned or played for any length of time.

I didn’t even know what a SNES is, so the product placement failed. But I really like the chatty nature of a lot of the text in this. The protagonist is actually less of a complete blank slate than people usually assume, and as you’ll see, there’s no sign he’s mute.

As you can see, you can get a potion from your PC. I guess you’ve always been hoping to one day have a pokemon you could use that on, or possibly it works on humans as well and this is just a basic first aid kit in the pokeworld. This was one of the things that used to get listed as a “cheat” back then, because if you got it, you would be able to win against your rival even if you screwed up.

Between my complete inexperience with games and the terrible, terrible graphics, just navigating the house was a trial. I managed to get down the stairs just because the corner looked weird and I walked onto it in the process of investigating.

In my defense, it doesn’t look all that much like stairs, particularly not on the tiny gameboy screen. It’s easier to see when you’re on a lower floor.

Mom, as you can see, is inured to her status as the mother of a protagonist. I always had the sense she was a bit of an absent-minded parent off in her own tv-world. Still, perhaps she’s a wiser woman than she seems, as we’ll be leaving home without needing to be orphaned or have our village burned to the ground. She goes on to tell us Oak is looking for us, although in fine RPG tradition, it’s going to be impossible to find the guy ourself.

I feel there’s a sort of melancholy tone throughout this – everything’s suddenly saying you should go although they can’t articulate quite why, and there isn’t the clear sense of excitement you’d expect.

As we’ll see, everyone’s obsessed with everything pokemon. Works well, because it’s why you’re here playing in the first place.

I then couldn’t find the door, like all young stupid players. This was the great rite of passage in my day. In our defense, that’s a pretty huge carpet for a doorway. Also in our defense, at least we managed all this without a big arrow popping up to tell us it was the way out like later generations.

And we’re outside! I actually made it a point throughout the game to always pay attention to where I had entered from so I wouldn’t get trapped again.

This dialogue actually doesn’t  quite work as the first thing you hear, because of course you don’t have a pokemon yet. Soon it will, though. She talks about her pokemon being there to protect her, which will be the main thing pokemon seem to be used for. The NPCs of this will also be good for some other fun due to their coding.

Later, we’ll get to see the disappearing Lavender NPC. For the record, I really like that they do this kind of thing and regret the changes to NPCs in the later games.

The flower animation is weird.

Also, they label the houses, which always seemed really weird to me. There’s only two anyway, so it’s not like you’re at risk of getting too confused. The town itself is also labeled: Pallet Town. Shades of your journey await! The original game was in greyscale, remember. I really liked the theme naming each region had and still resent it being given up on.

This sort of thing is why kids would find it hilarious to name the rival ASSHOLE or something. Myself, I once stuck an exclamation mark at the end of my name because everyone uses exclamation marks everywhere so I would get stuff like FARLA!! like I was more important. Also, it’d show up on the gym winner lists.

Anyway. Let’s check out Gary’s house.

This kind of thing where the idea Gary has no parents comes from, though the fact his grandfather can barely recall his name is a good counterpoint. Sure, there’s no sign of anyone else here, but there’s no sign of a second story or any other rooms in his house, and there’s multiple NPCs wandering around that don’t even have houses. Anyway, this is his sister, and on the table is a town map. We’ll be getting this in a minute.

If you want to actually see the map, though, you have to check out the one she has up.

The town map will display routes in the order you’re intended to go through them in the game, so early on you can scroll around and get hints of the cool places you’ll get to go.

Anyway, she says our hated Gary rival is at the lab, and Mom said to go find Oak too. Time to check out the third and final building.

The other aide says the same thing, and there’s also a girl hanging around to tell us Prof. Oak is a pokemon authority for anyone who slept through the opening.

Heading up, we see Gary but no Prof. Oak.

Let’s see if there’s anything else.

As you can see, the original idea of the pokedex was literally an encyclopedia. The anime introduces the idea of a machine. Presumably, you take a picture or draw pokemon based on what you see, then take the actual measurements and write the text upon examining the pokemon after capture.

The elite trainers of POKéMON LEAGUE are ready to take all comers! Bring your best POKéMON and see how you rate as a trainer!
POKéMON LEAGUE HQ INDIGO PLATEAU
PS: PROF. OAK, please visit us!

Anyway, no sign of Oak, so back to exploring Pallet.

It seems that the PC technology is quite new, although personally I really like the idea of someone just being in awe of technology because wow it’s cool. I’ve since annoyed my extended family every year by saying I’m thankful for electricity each Thanksgiving. Electricity is incredible.

As always in the early stages of a videogame, water is a barrier.

For some reason, they use those weird crystal drum things to block areas off at a lot of points, starting in Pallet. Beyond them, as you can see, is tall grass, which is impossible to access without a walk-through-walls cheat. This grass was once the focus of intense speculation. What might live in it? Mew, obviously. Mew lived everywhere that was just out of reach, because the game designers hated you.

Since then, the designers learned to just fill the whole area in with trees. A wise decision aesthetically, though like so much of the roughness in this game, poor decisions makes something more fun to consider as a player.

And that’s everywhere in Pallet. Where could Oak be?

(While there’s a lot to explore in Pallet, bear in mind nothing so far was mandatory. It’s entirely possible to walk right from your house over to the town’s exit without a word to anyone.

Ah, those were the days.)