Despite having been released a long time ago, the original Game Boy versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, and Pokémon Yellow remain some of the most beloved entries in the successful franchise. With Nintendo having no intention of releasing any of its exclusive games on PC, chances of the games developed by Game Freak ever hitting the platform are non-existent, but it is now possible to enjoy native versions of these classic games on PC with a slew of improvements, including stunning 3D voxel visuals that make these games feel likeHD-2D remakes of the original.
The Gen1Recomp recompilation project developed by bryanthaboi is a “native LÖVE2D recreation of Poke Red, Blue and Yellow. The engine and map behavior are hand-written Lua; game data and graphics are decoded from a ROM supplied by the player.” As such, ROM files for all three games are required to play them natively on PC.
As we have seen in other similar PC recompilation projects, these new “versions” of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, and Pokémon Yellow come with plenty of additional features, including the ability to alter game speed, use Game Boy Color visuals, save and load from anywhere, and a tilt option – which can be enabled by pressing the 3 key during gameplay – that delivers the aforementioned 3D voxel visuals.
While these visuals may not sound that impressive on paper, seeing them in action shows how much they improve the experience. Looking at the gameplay videos shared by Video Game Esoterica and Retro Dando, the new visuals are just one step away from matching the HD-2D visual style made popular by Square Enix with the Octopath Traveler series.
Although Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, and Pokémon Yellow have been remade as FireRed and LeafGreen on the Game Boy Advance and as Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! on Nintendo Switch, these unofficial remakes are still quite impressive, and are set to become the best way to enjoy the classic entries in the series as they were originally released.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack.
After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi “Suda51” Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA’s president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3.
When he’s not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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