The first Pokémon games originally played on the Game Boy.
Pocket Monsters Red and Green were released for Nintendo’s monochrome handheld in Japan in 1996. The hardware’s link cable was especially important because it allowed players to trade Pokémon and battle another player’s team.
The original games were designed around communication between two Game Boy systems. Version differences encouraged trading: some species appeared in one version but not the other, so completing the Pokédex required connecting with another player or using another game version.
Pokémon later appeared on the Game Boy Color through releases such as Pokémon Yellow and the second-generation games Pokémon Gold and Silver. The original Red, Green, and Blue games could also run on the Game Boy Color because of backward compatibility. Despite later moving to more powerful Nintendo systems, the Game Boy remains the platform that launched the franchise.