Pokemon Red and Blue first debuted over 30 years ago in North America. During that time we have not only seen many Pokemon evolve within the games, but the games own evolution as well. And every now and again we like to go back and revisit the classic first-generation titles featuring the Kanto region, only to discover it still holds up in all its simplicity.
Of course, Kanto has been redone many times over during newer versions of the Pokemon games, from appearing as a bonus region at the end of Gen II, to getting remade in Fire Red and Leaf Green, and then remade once more in the Let’s Go! series of games. However, there is something truly spectacular, dare we say whimsical, about the original sprites. And it would seem that Reddit user Red_O_Zone agrees with us.
Earlier this week, Red_O_Zone posted an image of all 151 original Pokemon in their original Red and Blue sprite forms, all completely colorized with their original colors, a feat that took him (or her) over two months to conquer. Here is a closer look at a select few:
Over time, many of these Pokemon underwent drastic changes, some even lost many of their key designs. This was mostly due in part to having better and more advanced technology that would allow for more detail, which brought more attention to various parts of the designs. Flareon, for instance, looked like it didn’t have any back legs, or that was what 10-year-old me thought back then. But if you look at Dratini, much of its design changed with the belly stripes being removed, the ear fins changing shape, and then some.
Let’s get a better look at this amazing work with all the original 151 Kanto Pokemon, shall we?
Red_O_Zone stated in their Reddit Post that they almost quit right around Arbok, which makes sense when you are colorizing all of these sprites, “pixel for pixel” non-stop for months on end. But hey, we are glad he (or she) didn’t give up. This is one impressive piece of fan art that we love very much. Now if only we were good at something…
