If you grew up throughout the 90s, chances are you played at least one Pokemon game on Game Boy, namely Pokemon Red or Blue. Released in America in September of 1998, and throughout Europe and other countries shortly after, these two colored cartridges took the gaming world by storm. What many didn’t know at the time, though, was that Pokemon Red had already been released in Japan two years before, along with another title that would never be sold outside the country: Pokemon Green.
In the decades since then, with the advent of high-speed internet and accessible international travel, Pokemon Green is no longer a land-locked title, and copies can be found for sale online and in person in many parts of the world. But why was this game never released internationally? And more importantly, what’s different about it?
Where It All Began
Before the trading card game and the anime series that I used to watch in the mornings before catching the bus to school, Pokemon was originally a video game developed by Game Freak for the Nintendo Game Boy. Released in Japan in February of 1996, there were two options to choose from: Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green, starring Charizard and Venasaur on the box art, respectively. For titles that are now 30 years old and designed to run on systems you could hold in the palm of your hand, these games were incredibly ambitious for their day. With 151 Pokemon to catch, a storyline that took more than 20 hours to complete on average and the ability to trade Pokemon with other people that owned the game, it did a lot. But this level of ambition didn’t come without its problems, particularly for the green version.
From crashes to character sprites loading incorrectly, Pokemon Green was rife with programming inconsistencies that would cause the game to, at times, behave erratically or stop working entirely. So infamous are the many glitches of this particular title that entire video series have been created to document the many ways in which these errors can be replicated and exploited to achieve strange and often hilarious results.
Blue to the Rescue
Realizing that their game needed some polish, Game Freak got back to work and in October of 1996, Pokemon Blue was ready in Japan, essentially as a new and improved version of its predecessors with better graphics and the bugs ironed out. Interestingly though, customers couldn’t just wander down to their local games store and pick up a copy. At least, not at first. Initially, Pokemon Blue was made available only via mail order through CoroCoro Comic, a monthly magazine for children that relied on an honor system by which customers would pay after they received the game in the mail.
With the glitches of the first two games sorted out and the graphics improved, Game Freak then set about developing the international versions of the game. By combining the data sets of the Japanese Pokemon Red and Green (in-game narrative, Pokemon spawn rates, etc) with the new and improved programming and graphics of the Japanese Pokemon Blue, along with translations and dialogue adjustments to appeal to international audiences, the English versions of Pokemon Red and Blue that we know today were then released in America and the rest of the world. But the changes weren’t just limited to the game’s programming.
In Japan, the original Pokemon game cartridges were released in an understated matte gray with a colored sticker on the front, while the international versions were far more eye-catching, with the entire cartridge being colored to match whichever version of the game was inside.
But Why No Green?
From the outside looking in, there doesn’t appear to be any reason why an updated version of Pokemon Green couldn’t have been released alongside either Pokemon Red or Blue internationally. But thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can see that in a post on Game Freak’s website back in 1999, the decision to proceed with red and blue as opposed to green may have been a marketing tactic to appeal further to the American consumer, with the colors designed to match that of the American flag. Whether or not this played into the success of the franchise with Western audiences, though, we may never know, as this decision is scarcely elaborated on anywhere else.
Looking back, even with all of its problems, it’s safe to say that Pokemon Green walked so that its international counterparts could run. For anyone interested in trying out the somewhat janky predecessor to some of the most influential titles in gaming history, copies of Pokemon Green can still be found relatively easily. If you’re in Japan, most retro gaming stores will have a used copy either with the box or without, and there are just as many to be found online if you’re shopping from overseas. Just be aware that all genuine copies of the game are in Japanese, which makes it perfect for brushing up on your language skills while doing your best to catch ‘em all (without any glitches, hopefully).
