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Born on the Game Boy, Part 5: Pokemon Changes Everything

Marcel Pflug

2 days ago

3 min read

Game Boy Pokemon - Full Set Complete in Box (CiB) — The handheld experiment that became the biggest franchise on earth

Every part of this series has argued the same thing: that the Game Boy was a birthplace, not just a smaller home. We finish with the example that makes the case beyond any doubt. One of the largest entertainment franchises the world has ever seen, worth more than film series and superhero universes, began its life as a pair of cartridges for the little grey handheld. Part five of Born on the Game Boy is about Pokemon.

It started in Japan, in 1996

The precise history matters here, because it is often blurred. Pokemon began with Pokemon Red and Green, released in Japan in February 1996 for the Game Boy. The wider world did not get its version until later; the international launch, as Pokemon Red and Blue, followed in 1998 and 1999. So for more than two years, this world-conquering phenomenon existed only as a Japanese Game Boy game. It was the work of the studio Game Freak, led by Satoshi Tajiri and with art by Ken Sugimori, a project so long and difficult in the making that the studio nearly collapsed before it was finished.

The idea at its heart was made for the machine it ran on. Tajiri wanted players to catch creatures and, crucially, to trade them with friends by connecting two Game Boys with a link cable, an echo of collecting and swapping insects as a child. Two versions existed precisely so that no single cartridge held every creature; completing the collection meant finding another player and trading. A handheld with a cable was not a limitation for Pokemon. It was the entire point.

A whole world of new characters

Then there is the sheer scale of what debuted at once. The original 151 Pokemon, the entire first generation, appeared here for the first time, Pikachu among them, a minor electric creature who would go on to become the face of the entire brand once the animated series and the later Pokemon Yellow put him front and centre. Bulbasaur, Charizard, Squirtle, Mewtwo and the rest all began as sprites on a two-inch monochrome screen.

The human cast that debuted alongside them has proved just as durable. Professor Oak, who hands you your first partner and sets you on your journey, appears here for the first time and remains the archetypal Pokemon mentor. So does your unnamed rival, Oak's own grandson, the smug counterpart whose battles punctuate the whole adventure. So does Team Rocket, the criminal syndicate stealing Pokemon for profit, and its cold, commanding boss Giovanni, who doubles as a Gym Leader. And in the darkest corner of the game hide the two most fabled creatures of all: Mew, the rare mythical Pokemon quietly slipped into the code, and Mewtwo, its engineered, vengeful clone, waiting as an optional superboss. Every one of them was born on the Game Boy.

Pikachu, Professor Oak, Team Rocket and Mewtwo, all first appearing here.
Pikachu, Professor Oak, Team Rocket and Mewtwo, all first appearing here.

What followed is history: an animated series, a trading card game, films, and a run of sequels that turned Pokemon into the highest-grossing media franchise on the planet. All of it grew from a Game Boy cartridge that almost never got finished. There is no clearer proof that the handheld was a place where things were created, not merely relocated.

Pokemon Merchandise for Game Boy (DMG-01) — Pokémon, the merchandise machine that has been running reliably for three decades

The Game Boy did not shrink Nintendo's worlds. It grew new ones.

That is where this series ends, and where it began. We are used to thinking of the Game Boy as the machine that let us take Mario and Zelda on the bus. But look at what actually first appeared on it: a princess who now stars in every Mario spin-off, a pink hero who became a company mascot, a greedy rival who earned his own franchises, an island and a girl that broke players' hearts, and a pocket full of creatures that grew into the biggest franchise in the world. Daisy, Kirby, Wario, Marin and Pikachu all became far larger than the small grey machine that first gave them life. The Game Boy did not just carry Nintendo's worlds around. It made new ones. To see the cartridges where these stories began, come and explore the Game Boy Museum.