The original Pokémon games released in 1996 were hosted on the Game Boy.
Pocket Monsters Red and Green were role-playing games developed for Nintendo's monochrome handheld. Their success helped make Pokémon a major Nintendo property and demonstrated how link-cable trading could turn a single-player adventure into a social experience.
The original games did not require the later Game Boy Color, although they could be played on that backward-compatible system. Pokémon Yellow was later designed with stronger visual ties to the anime and used the Game Boy Color's expanded palette.
The Game Boy's link cable was central to the early Pokémon experience. Certain species were version-exclusive, so completing the Pokédex required trading with another player or using another game version. This hardware feature became part of Pokémon's identity.