Replaying Red today it's a beautifully paced game that makes you feel like you've gone on the adventure of a lifetime in just a dozen hours or so. Attempting to denigrate it by posting gigantic lists of bugs or comparing it to its successors is an effort that undermines what the experience of actually playing the game is like. No one seriously thinks or cares about the fact that swift has a 1/256 chance of missing when they're racing down cycling road, hunting for rare catches in the Safari Zone or about to do battle for another badge, nor should they.

Red/Blue feature some of the more interesting dungeons in the series like the towering teleport maze that is Silph Co. or the haunting Pokemon Tower. And I particularly appreciate how the game begins in linear fashion and slowly opens up, giving the player more freedom in how they want to explore the world during the middle segment before narrowing down yet again for the finale at the League.

There are nitpicks I can levy against the game like the fact that a lot of Pokemon really seem to lack interesting learnsets which makes the process of leveling less exciting, or that enemy AI is a little too eager to give you free wins at times, but these are minor bumps in the road of what is a great and fun experience that's still worth playing for anyone.

I think it's particularly noteworthy that this is one of few RPGs I can think of in which your motivations are primarily proactive. While there is something of a villain that's more of a sidestory compared to the real motivator of becoming champion. The lack of world-ending stakes gives the adventure a sense of purity and makes it truly feel your own.