AF Blog: Quick Crappy Pokemon Reviews: Generation 1 Round-Up

Generation 1 was the most iconic set of Pokémon and this was entirely because they were the only ones out when the franchise blew up into a world-wide fad of shockingly huge proportions buuuuut it was easily a strong enough generation to deserve their iconic status on their own.

They a had an exceptionally consistent level of quality it turns out. It may not seem like that with me giving out 0 and 1 scores but only one Pokémon from the original 151, from Gen 1 itself, was amongst those (Electrode). Instead the bulk of the 151 hover between the 3.5 and 5 range which, thinking about it, does reflect my feelings on them nicely. Nostalgia and familiarity undoubtedly play their part no matter how hard I tried to make sure they didn’t but there are a bunch of reasons pointing to the overall quality of Gen 1’s designs and the good feelings I have for them make a lot of sense; the first generation of Pokémon games had a LONG development time, over 5 years, not only the longest for a Pokégame but unusually long for a video game period, giving the team the most time to refine their designs and of course they’ve been around the longest, giving Game Freak the longest amount of time to tweak, buff, and improve them as well as more time to give them important roles or for (like Seaking) fans to give them important roles. The ‘mons were also all designed by a small number of people (around 4) allowing for a far more consistent feel to them all. It’s also worth noting that that these were the Pokémon around when Pokémon was at it’s biggest and most important to my generation of fans and the likes of Charizard, Mewtwo, Porygon, Jynx were important parts of that (both good and bad), I’m not talking about nostalgia but rather that these were important when Pokémon was it it’s most important so it’s not too surprising that I – and others my age – would view them as extra special, because history and the franchise tells us they are.

Or I’m talking out my arse and they’re just mostly solid cartoon animals because the designers were talented and on fire.

Now in keeping with shamelessly ripping off Bogleech we’re going to have some lists! All in sixes because that’s how many Pokémon you have in your team! Only Pokémon who debuted in Generation 1 are eligible for these 'k? good, let’s go:

My Favourites

Well this will normally be a Top 6 but I decided MissingNo’s unique nature was worth breaking the pattern before the pattern had even begun. This was exceptionally difficult by the way, Gloom and Aerodactyl feel cheated.

My Least Favourites

Wow, this won't be this difficult again, hell I don’t even dislike Ekans but I judged it the least interesting of the 3 Ballers

The Cutest

God damn there was a lot of cute Pokémon I this generation!

The Most Badass

This is an attempt at being objective, lets see how well that works in practice shall we?

The Most Creative

Clefairy may seem like an odd choice, but it's so unlike any fairy around that I feel it easily warrants inclusion here.

Most in Need of an Evolution

This was the hardest yet, given how much attention Gen 1 have gotten when it comes to cross-generational evolutions/babys. I’m only including Weepinbel and Tagenla because I've become convinced that giving them branched evolutions that lead to their cut Space World evos is now a necessity.

Most in Need of a Mega Evolution

I know Game Freak are probably done with Mega Evolutions but I don’t care, I'd love to see what Sugimori did with a huge over-the-top zombie bug, wouldn't you?

Gen 1 Pokémon I’d Most Like to Own

This is a special group based on those I’d actually want to have as pets if they were real, most of my favourties and a lot of Pokemon in general just aren’t sensible to own: some are too antisocial, some are downright terrifying while others I imagine would feel a bit gross while others still are toxic or constantly on fire - those do not fit a terrace house in Essex.

And finally a recap of the best of the best, so far: