it's no surprise that pokemon was an instant classic, this game is brimming with creativity. cool semi-real setting, cool sports storyline, cool monster sprites. very much a descendant of saga, from limited movesets, limited use of moves, learning new moves on level up, recruiting monster species to your party, an unorthodox opaque leveling system in EVs, and even the style of the little monster sprites in the menu.
the biggest problem with this of course is that the rpg mechanics are stretched pretty thin over 25 hours. i like the way that types are roughly analogous to classic rpg classes, rather than how later games try to balance the types. but a lot of the game is mindless fights against easy enemies. PP makes the dungeons more about resource management, and the dungeons do have clever layouts that keep them interesting to navigate despite endless zubat fights. i think that the game is not too grindy just sticking to the main story, but it takes too long to bring new underleveled pokemon up to speed, and it takes too long for pokemon to learn new moves. type advantage completely overwhelms all other mechanics, so there's not much reason to engage in buffs or debuffs over just hitting them with a super effective attack. this can be mitigated by staying a bit underleveled, coming to the elite four like that made it a genuinely interesting challenge. these problems would be easier to forgive in a lean 10 hour game, but at least pokemon red provides a great canvas for romhacks.
the biggest problem with this of course is that the rpg mechanics are stretched pretty thin over 25 hours. i like the way that types are roughly analogous to classic rpg classes, rather than how later games try to balance the types. but a lot of the game is mindless fights against easy enemies. PP makes the dungeons more about resource management, and the dungeons do have clever layouts that keep them interesting to navigate despite endless zubat fights. i think that the game is not too grindy just sticking to the main story, but it takes too long to bring new underleveled pokemon up to speed, and it takes too long for pokemon to learn new moves. type advantage completely overwhelms all other mechanics, so there's not much reason to engage in buffs or debuffs over just hitting them with a super effective attack. this can be mitigated by staying a bit underleveled, coming to the elite four like that made it a genuinely interesting challenge. these problems would be easier to forgive in a lean 10 hour game, but at least pokemon red provides a great canvas for romhacks.