There isn't much to say about this game that can't also be said about Red & Blue. It's practically the exact same game. Because I made pretty in-depth reviews of Red & Blue which you can read, I'll be pretty brief here and just add a few extra thoughts I had about the Generation 1 games.
I like how little hand-holding there is in these games. The player has to figure out how to get through the story entirely on their own. I can imagine lots of kids getting completely lost and being unable to progress through the game for days on end because of how much the game wants them to search around the region for things that will help them progress to the next checkpoint. In addition, the player has so much more freedom in these games than in the newer ones because of how non-linear these games are. It's possible to access almost the entire mainland region with only 2 badges. The player also isn't constantly bombarded with unskippable cut scenes that bog the gameplay down.
On the other hand, I dislike how a lot of Pokemon completely suck in these games. Certain Pokemon aren't anywhere near as good as they should be because of their terrible level-up learnsets. A good example of this is Hitmonchan. Hitmonchan mainly learns elemental punches through level-up, and they're all special attacks instead of physical attacks, even though Hitmonchan is a better physical attacker than a special attacker. It also can't learn any good fighting moves that benefit from STAB (same type attack bonus). As a result, it really sucks to use in this generation but becomes much better in the next generations.
Because of bad AI and programming, these games are WAY easier than they should be. The Elite Four members in the remakes essentially have the same Pokemon at slightly lower levels with (almost) the same movesets. Despite that, though, they're much more difficult to beat due to them not being complete morons when battling the protagonist.
I would say the minor changes between this game and Red & Blue do SOMEWHAT improve the overall experience (e.g. the sprites are much better), but the differences are so minute that this game is practically a carbon-copy of the first two games. Having Pikachu follow you around is pretty charming, but let's be real here: it adds nothing to the overall gameplay, and the novelty wears off in a few hours.
It's honestly impressive how Pokemon managed to make 3 games out of 1 and make a shit ton of extra money as a result of it. Slimy, but brilliant.
I like how little hand-holding there is in these games. The player has to figure out how to get through the story entirely on their own. I can imagine lots of kids getting completely lost and being unable to progress through the game for days on end because of how much the game wants them to search around the region for things that will help them progress to the next checkpoint. In addition, the player has so much more freedom in these games than in the newer ones because of how non-linear these games are. It's possible to access almost the entire mainland region with only 2 badges. The player also isn't constantly bombarded with unskippable cut scenes that bog the gameplay down.
On the other hand, I dislike how a lot of Pokemon completely suck in these games. Certain Pokemon aren't anywhere near as good as they should be because of their terrible level-up learnsets. A good example of this is Hitmonchan. Hitmonchan mainly learns elemental punches through level-up, and they're all special attacks instead of physical attacks, even though Hitmonchan is a better physical attacker than a special attacker. It also can't learn any good fighting moves that benefit from STAB (same type attack bonus). As a result, it really sucks to use in this generation but becomes much better in the next generations.
Because of bad AI and programming, these games are WAY easier than they should be. The Elite Four members in the remakes essentially have the same Pokemon at slightly lower levels with (almost) the same movesets. Despite that, though, they're much more difficult to beat due to them not being complete morons when battling the protagonist.
I would say the minor changes between this game and Red & Blue do SOMEWHAT improve the overall experience (e.g. the sprites are much better), but the differences are so minute that this game is practically a carbon-copy of the first two games. Having Pikachu follow you around is pretty charming, but let's be real here: it adds nothing to the overall gameplay, and the novelty wears off in a few hours.
It's honestly impressive how Pokemon managed to make 3 games out of 1 and make a shit ton of extra money as a result of it. Slimy, but brilliant.