The Pokémon franchise is over twenty years old now and has grown into a behemoth. Over the years we’ve seen many games, films, and anime series come out and add to the franchise's popularity. But it all started with the very polarizing first generation of games. While first entries in a franchise this huge are typically looked at fondly by the fan base, the first Generation of Pokémon games are pretty divisive; with some fans loving them dearly and others pointing out that they’re an inferior product two decades after their release.

Looking back on them now, there are a lot of things not to like about the Gen 1 games. Of course, there are still some things that redeem the first generation. The biggest problem in Gen 1 were the glitches. There’s a whole bunch of them that really ruin the game when you look at what they did – or in some cases prevented. It’s one of those things that didn’t seem like much of a problem at the time, and was only really exposed once more entries came out in later generations. Despite all the bad, there are still some things that Gen 1 gave us which we can all appreciate.

So let’s go and take a look at the 20 worst things about Pokémon Red & Blue and the 10 best.

30 Worst: Some Bad Quality Sprites

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The Pokémon games haven’t used sprites for a while now, and despite the clean, new look to the more recent games, some fans still like what the sprites brought to the table aesthetically. However, not all of the old sprites have aged that well.

There are some Gen 1 sprites that just look downright bad.

While the majority of Gen 1 Pokémon sprites were pretty solid, some have left a bad taste. When talking about awful Gen 1 sprites, those for Golbat, Mew, Poliwrath, and Machoke are just a few that instantly come to mind.

29 Worst: Multi-hit Crits

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Getting a much needed critical hit in battle can really swing the tide in your favor. On the other hand, having it happen to you can lead you one step closer to a loss. There’s a bug in Gen 1 that made those critical hits all the more annoying to deal with.

Multi-hit moves can be pretty useful at times, but in Gen 1 they weren’t always the best option in terms of damage dealt. They all used the same number for damage, meaning that if one dealt critical damage, they all did.

28 Best: The Simplicity Of It All

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We’ve focused so much on the bad, why not move on to something Gen 1 got right? As the Pokémon games have gone on, Game Freak has tried different features, both adding and subtracting mechanics with each individual generation.

Sometimes things are better the simpler they are.

But one thing you had to appreciate about the original games was how fun they managed to be while remaining an incredibly simple adventure. It seems fairly bare bones when you go back to those games today, but it definitely worked out great in its time.

27 Worst: Rest Doesn’t Reset Stats

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Rest is an annoying move to deal with if you’re not the one using it. At the cost of putting the user to sleep for a few turns, Rest replenishes HP and even restores status. Sounds pretty good, yeah? But a glitch made it so Rest wasn’t as effective as it should have been in Gen 1.

When utilized by a Pokémon that was either burned or paralyzed, Rest would keep the stat reductions associated with these conditions, despite relieving the user of their effects. This essentially only made it half as useful as it should’ve been.

26 Worst: Hyper Beam Glitch

via wikia.nocookie.net

Hyper Beam was an incredibly intimidating move in the earlier games and remains one of the most iconic moves in the entire franchise. Suffice to say, you didn’t want an opponent to hit you with one of these. You especially didn’t want one to knock you out with it.

Due to a glitch, Hyper Beam – which typically requires the user to recharge the turn after using it – doesn’t require its usual cool down period if it completely knocks the opposing Pokémon out. That can get really annoying, especially against the Elite Four and Champ.

25 Best: The Iconic Soundtrack

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One of the most memorable things about the Gen 1 games was the soundtrack that played over your adventure throughout Kanto. The 8-bit themes might be a far cry from what we have now, but still have an irresistible charm to them all these years later.

The battle music was intense; the various themes were catchy enough to get stuck in your head early on into your playthrough and some pretty iconic songs came out of it. There’s always a bit nostalgia to factor in when you’re discussing things this old, but the Red/Blue & Yellow soundtrack was undoubtedly one of the best things about Gen 1.

24 Worst: Leech Seed Stack

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Games are almost always going to have some glitches that certain players will discover and take advantage of. There were quite a few glitches and problems in Gen 1, with the Leech Seed & Toxic stack being one of the more notable.

It turns out that when stacked together, Leech Seed and Toxic would use the same damage calculator. This meant that Leech Seed would drain twice as much damage as Toxic dealt and vice versa. You could’ve been doing this by accident for years and not have known.

23 Worst: Critical Hits And The Speed Stat

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Whether or not you manage to get a critical hit is pretty much a luck of the draw situation in most RPG’s, but in Gen 1 there was one stat that helped better the odds a little.

In Gen 1, critical hits were highly dependent on a Pokémon’s speed stat. That meant that the faster the Pokémon, the higher the possibility it would land a critical hit was. This also meant that fast Pokémon would get crits more frequently than others as well.

22 Best: Pokémania

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From the mid 90s onward, Pokémania helped establish the Pokémon franchise as a juggernaut in not only the video game, but the entertainment industry in both the East and the West. For those who grew up around this time, it was a time of fond memories and an unrelenting fascination with anything and everything Pokémon.

Though the original games are dated in many ways, fans can always look back to them and what they meant for so many kids of their generation. The excitement, enthusiasm and lifelong fanaticism is something many fans will always remember fondly.

21 Worst: Tricky To Fight Psychic-types

via wikia.nocookie.net

One huge criticism directed towards the Gen 1 games involved Psychic-types. There was a pretty noticeable balancing issue that made them some of the strongest in the game, and didn’t give players all that much opportunity to counter them as easily as they would any other type.

You heard it right, Psychic-types were even tougher to handle than Dragon-types in Gen 1.

The Psychic-types dominated Gen 1 so badly that starting with Gen 2 changes were made in order to balance things out. Steel and Dark-type Pokémon were added along with moves strong against Psychic-types as well as a weakness to Ghost-type moves.

20 Worst: The Annoying Sleep Strategy

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Out of all the different status effects in the Pokémon games, Sleep is the most annoying by far. Sure it doesn’t hurt your Pokémon, but it leaves you absolutely open to attacks for a handful of turns.

There’s a pretty annoying oversight involving Sleep that can really ruin battles in Gen 1. Waking up from sleep takes up its own turn. At that point, your opponent has already figured this out and can very easily put your Pokémon back to bed.

19 Best: Iconic Designs

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Though some of the sprites looked downright awful, the original artwork for the first generation of Pokémon was beautiful. Ken Sugimori’s art perfectly captured Satoshi Tajiri’s vision of a childhood and adventure.

The original artwork has a certain charm to it – which very well may be nostalgia for older fans. But you can’t discount the designs of what would go on to be many long-lasting fan-favorite Pokémon. Sugimori’s art has certainly evolved over the years, and while we’ve seen plenty of new designs the older artwork still holds a special place in many fans’ hearts.

18 Worst: No Point In Struggling

via wikia.nocookie.net

There were some Pokémon types in Gen 1 that gave players headaches – one of them being Ghost-types. With its only weakness being Ghost-type moves, and only three Ghost-types available in Gen 1, they were a pain to handle – especially for those using Fighting or Normal-types.

One annoying thing that came from their invulnerability to Normal-types was the fact that it made Struggle – the move used when a Pokémon was out of PP during battle – utterly useless. Since it was a Normal-type move at the time, this essentially made it that any Pokémon that ran out of PP versus a Ghost-type was a sitting duck.

17 Worst: A Full PC

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We’ve already discussed this a little bit, but the PC system in the original games just wasn’t very intuitive. It greatly affected the flow of the game and limited how much you could collect and catch throughout your adventure.

PC boxes weren’t hard to fill, as they each took 20 Pokémon. But having to keep track of that was incredibly annoying. It could’ve seriously sucked if you happened to catch a Pokémon you really wanted only to have a full PC box.

16 Best: Interesting Plot Twists

via wikia.nocookie.net

When you look back at the Gen 1 games there’s not all that much going on in terms of narrative and the whole thing is a pretty straightforward game and adventure. Yet it does have a few moments that were genuinely surprising.

Things like Giovanni being the Viridian Gym leader, and Blue being crowned champion before the player were fairly interesting plot developments that help the first games stand out. The narratives in following games have certainly painted taller tales, but Gen 1’s simple adventure isn’t without its charm.

15 Worst: Substitute Mishap

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Substitute can be a pretty useful move when used right, but for some reason, there’s a weird glitch in the first Gen games that makes it absolutely useless at a certain point in battle. Granted, the likelihood of this happening is pretty low, but it’s still a pain to deal with.

Should a Pokémon use Substitute with exactly 25% HP, it’ll automatically faint. There’s nothing you can do about it. On the plus side, those are some pretty specific conditions that need to be met. So while annoying, it shouldn’t have been all that common of an occurrence for your average player.

14 Worst: Too Many Poké-Gains

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Trainers are always trying to either make the Pokémon they have tougher or catch stronger ones along their journey. Well in Gen 1 it was possible to make your Pokémon too strong by going overboard with stat buffs.

Increasing a Pokémon’s stats during or outside of battle can be incredibly beneficial, especially in the case of the former. But raising your stats too high in Gen 1 would have the opposite effect. Instead of increasing they would just decrease to pathetically low numbers.

13 Best: Legendary Hunting

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Catching Legendary Pokémon was way more fulfilling in the early games – mainly due to just how few of them there were. As the years have gone on, every generation has introduced its fair share of new Legendary Pokémon. Now, it just feels as though they’re being handed to you.

Tracking down a Legendary Pokémon in Gen 1 felt incredibly rewarding, and catching them was a different challenge altogether.

Finding Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos – then catching them was a memorable experience. Looking around the map for the rumored Mew gave the games new life. The Mewtwo encounter is still one of the most memorable moments in franchise history. For all the flaws, the Gen 1 got legendaries right.

12 Worst: The Uselessness Of OHKO Moves

via wikia.nocookie.net

There aren’t that many of them out there but OHKO (One Hit Knockout) Moves, can be annoying to deal with on both sides – especially in the first gen. Three OHKO moves were introduced in Red/Blue; Horn Drill, Fissure, and Guillotine.

The problem here is that in Gen 1, the effectiveness of these moves revolved around the speed stat. If the user’s speed stat was lower than its targets then the move wouldn’t connect. This was a problem as most of the Gen 1 Pokémon who learned OHKO moves were typically slower bruisers.

11 Worst: The Most Broken Pokémon in the Entire Game

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Also one of the hardest to catch in the game; Mewtwo has been one of the most popular Pokémon since the games first came out. Aside from being notoriously tough to grab hold of, Mewtwo also has a reputation for being tough – and this was never more prevalent than in Gen 1.

Mewtwo had ridiculous stats as far as the first generation of Pokémon are concerned. It being a Psychic-type pretty much assured that it would be tough to take down. It just outclassed anything it went up against.