Bonjour!
I am le writer of this post.
I forgot how much I like the S.S. Anne segment at the beginning of 1st gen. It’s a bunch of crotchety old dudes, kids running everywhere, and drunk sailors. This is precisely how I imagine a cruise in real life to be, except without all of the S.S. Anne charm.
Anyway, now it’s time to write about my experience so far in FireRed; I’m about 10 hours into the game at this point, with three gym badges (out of eight total, before I face the ‘final boss,’ the Elite Four).
Today, on the Metro ride home, I finally emerged from Rock Tunnel into Lavender town in FireRed. I recently defeated Lieutenant Surge to cinch the third gym badge. One thing I didn’t forget is how truly weird of a character Lt. Surge is. Not only is he referred to as the “Lightning American,” which, as far as I know, is the only reference to a real-world place outside of Japan ever in a Pokemon game; he also talks about his time “in the war” (see picture below).
To me, this actually fits in with the weirdness of 1st gen in a way I can’t explain. There’s Lt. Surge, or the profoundly sepulchral feeling of Lavender town, or the strange and detached dialogue of many of the characters you meet on the way, or the low-bit audio and aesthetic in general. There’s a gritty and almost dystopian anxiety in this game that I don’t see reflected in the later games (although I can’t really speak to 2nd gen, since I’ve spent such little time with it). I think, in part, that the strange and clouded aesthetics of this generation were just the nature of older games–the very same feeling of 4-bit sharpness and gloom that Undertale masterfully captured in 2015.
My team has grown to a full six-Pokemon party, but the composition hasn’t changed much during that growth. Below is a picture of my team at around 3.5 hours in, which three badges.
Now, with three badges and around 10 hours in, I’ve swapped out Lagavulin the Abra for Prowler the Meowth (not pictured), but otherwise my team is the same. I will likely be swapping out Prowler and Smidge the Pidgeotto sometime soon; I’d really like to get a Growlithe/Arcanine on my team.
1st gen set the course for the Pokemon series’ long tradition of having some of the coolest names in the history of video games. The towns are named after colors in this game–Cerulean, Vermilion, Fuchsia–and I find these names alone to lend a substantial philosophical weight to the world. They are longingly beautiful, like the names of lost cities from an ancient civilization. Cerulean City’s slogan is A Mysterious, Blue Aura Surrounds It.
But at the end of the day, FireRed is not a generation to which I feel remarkably attached, despite it being one of the earliest Pokemon games I played. As I operate on the principle that 3rd through 5th gens were ‘peak Pokemon,’ from that vantage point, the series was really in the process of finding its footing in 1st gen–it hadn’t already found it.
I don’t think it’s a worse game, and I do believe there is something uniquely beautiful and haunting about this generation. But I would probably put it in the upper-middle of the pack, if I ranked the games by my own love for them. 3rd and 5th gens in particular found me at two of the most formative periods of my life, and had a profound impact on my personal experiences and beliefs. Because I played it first as a remake, 1st gen/FireRed always felt like someone else’s beloved game–as it has every right to be–but just not mine.
I’m enjoying myself, though, and I’m also enjoying the looks I get on the Metro when people see the Game Boy Advance SP in my hands. I think it’s a pretty rare sight.
Side note: I’m not quite sure how or if I’ll structure this series. I’m considering writing at set intervals, for example, 1: before I start the game, 2: after the third gym, 3: sixth gym, and 4: after the Elite Four/Champion of every generation as I play through. I also considered after the 4th and 8th gyms, but that may leave two long of a gap between. Or maybe–and this is frequently my approach to things–I’ll just write whenever I feel like it.
See you next time.
midnightstatic 