Pok�mon may seem a simple RPG game, but it is much more. The player starts out by traveling through the long grass to the next town until Dr. Oak, an expert on Pok�mon, stops him. "Hey! Don't go in the grass! There are wild Pok�mon living in there. They can be very dangerous. If you possess trained Pok�mon you can let them fight against wild ones." Dr. Oak exclaims before the player can travel any further. The player is taken to Dr. Oak's house where he is given the choice of three starter Pok�mon, a Bulbasaur, a Squirtle, and a Charmander. The Pok�mon picked determines the game's difficulty, with Bulbasaur being the easy
setting and Charmander being the hardest.
With the player's first Pok�mon, the player goes traveling from city to city in search of more Pok�mon to catch, train, and battle. The goal of the game is simple: collect as many Pok�mon as you can, train them to be great fighters by fighting other Wild Pok�mon, Pok�mon Trainers, and Pok�mon Gym Leaders to become a Pok�mon Master. There are eight gyms; each has a Leader whom is adept at certain types of Pok�mon. The player must gain experience with his Pok�mon and put together a good team to battle the Gym Leaders to obtain Pok�mon League Badges. To do this, the player buys Pokeballs in which to catch Pok�mon. To use them correctly, the player must weaken the wild Pok�mon with their own Pok�mon and then catch them with the Pokeballs. Unfortunately, the player cannot catch other Pok�mon Trainers' Pok�mon during battles.
The player trains the Pok�mon which may evolve into larger and more powerful forms. There are three types of evolution: Natural Evolution evolving by getting the Pok�mon to a certain level of experience, Forced Evolution, evolving by special stones that work on certain types of Pok�mon, and Non-Evolution, which is basically
what you see is what you get. There are different types of Pok�mon: Normal, Fire, Water, Grass, Poison, Flying, Ghost, Psychic, Dragon, Ground, Rock, Electric, Ice, Fighting, and Bug. Some Pok�mon can be combinations of two of any of the above Pok�mon types such as a Bulbasaur, which is a Grass/Poison Pok�mon.
In order to be a true Pok�mon Master, the player must determine which Pok�mon are stronger against other types of Pok�mon and vice-versa. For example, a Fire type like Charmander is strong against Grass or Water Pok�mon. Basically, the game works as nature works, the trick is knowing what Pok�mon to use against enemies in order to win battles. There are different items that can help a Pok�mon Trainer through this difficult endeavor, such as Hidden Machines (HMs) which have certain Techniques to teach Pok�mon to do things like Fly, Cut, Surf, Flash, and Dig. There are also Technique Machines (TMs) which are a one-time only teaching tool to teach Pok�mon certain attacks.
As like other RPGs, there are many Items to be found and bought in the game. There are Mystery Items (Stones and Fossils), Recovery Items (Healing Potions), Pok�mon Power-Ups, Field Moving (Travel Helpers), Special Items, and Miscellaneous Items. Unlike other RPGs, the player can play against other players via a link cable. Also unlike other RPGs, the player can trade their Pok�mon with other players much like a trading card game. It is what makes this game so unique, the player can only catch a maximum of 139 Pok�mon in either the Red or the Blue version. The Red and the Blue version have the same exact story, but just have different Pok�mon in each one. The Red version may have some monsters that the Blue version does not, so the player must trade with other players to collect all 150 Pok�mon.
Ekans, Arbok, Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Mankey, Primeape, Growlithe, Arcanine, Scyther & Electabuzz can only be found in the Red version.
Sandshrew, Sandslash, Vulpix, Ninetales, Meowth, Persian, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Victreebel,
