Pokémon Red / Blue

Few games have reshaped the entertainment industry as deeply as the pair Pokémon Red and Blue. What began as a modest project on an aging Game Boy grew into one of the planet's biggest entertainment phenomena. And yet the whole avalanche sprang from the simple childhood passion of creator Satoshi Tajiri, who collected insects as a boy.

Under Nintendo's publishing baton, Game Freak bet on a brilliantly simple idea. Roughly 150 creatures roam the game world, you catch them in Poké Balls, train them, and send them into turn-based battles. The key to the whole game, however, is the Link Cable. You can obtain certain Pokémon only by trading with a friend, which is precisely why two versions exist with different rosters of creatures. The game thus cleverly pushed children to cooperate and trade rather than sit alone.

Battles are turn-based and built on a type system where water beats fire, fire beats grass, and so on. This transparent logic is shallow enough for complete newcomers yet deep enough for competitive players who still dissect optimal teams today. Add to that the collector's obsession with completing the Pokédex all the way, which keeps adults and children alike glued to the screen.

The success exceeded all expectations. Pokémon Red and Blue became some of the best-selling games in history, launching a TV series, films, collectible cards, and an endless string of sequels. From today's perspective, Pokémon is one of the most commercially successful brands of all time, and it all grew from this pair of Game Boy cartridges.

Legendary too is the community's hunt for the hidden Pokémon Mew and the bugs players discovered, such as the fabled MissingNo. These oddities became part of the folklore and only underscored how firmly the game won the hearts of players around the world.

Why play: The birth of a worldwide phenomenon and a still-playable handheld RPG whose catching, training, and trading of creatures works to this day.