Who would pay $17 for a 20-year-old game just to scratch that nostalgic itch? Me.

20 years ago this year, the first Pokemon games came out on Gameboy.

To celebrate Nintendo has re-released Red, Blue and Yellow versions of the game onto Nintendo 3DS.

The first generation of Pokemon games takes place in the land of Kanto where animals known as Pokemon live. You play as a young boy who sets off to catch them all and battle against other trainers. The Pokemon have various elemental types with each type have strengths and weaknesses. Think rock, paper, scissors with fire, grass and water.

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On this journey, you use your Pokemon to brutally attack and seriously injure others until they faint. It’s kinda messed up.

Nintendo has changed nothing. The graphics are pixelated (especially on the new larger screens), the music is arcade retro, the Pokemon battle cries sound like a fax machine falling on its own sword. Even the secret glitch that allows you to get the legendary Mew Pokemon that I always thought was a myth has been left in there. It is everything I hoped it would be.

When I first downloaded it I found myself coming up with strategies of how I could do better than I did the first time all those years ago. Patiently grinding my way through weaker Pokemon to level mine up and not leaving an area until I had caught all I could at that location. Before I knew it I was 8 hours into the game, my eyes bloodshot from the tiny backlit screen and a pulsating pain in my thumbs.

I quickly got in contact with the old Pokemon crew from primary school and many had already downloaded the game. We jointly discussed strategies of which Pokemon we would trade to each other in order to complete the Pokedex (The in-game encyclopedia).

This game brings back memories of the golden age of handheld gaming. The $17 price tag really isn’t so bad compared to modern games and you cannot put a price on childhood memories. The graphics are horrible, the story is barely there, the gameplay is incredibly repetitive. It is the perfect game.

10/10 cannot recommend enough, hope they release more classic games.

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