Which two Pokémon games were first released in Japan in 1996?

The two Pokémon games first released in Japan in 1996 were Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green.

They launched for the Game Boy on February 27, 1996, beginning the Pokémon video-game series. Their version-exclusive Pokémon encouraged players to connect two systems with a link cable and trade creatures that could not be obtained in their own version.

International players often remember the first pair as Red and Blue because those were the familiar English releases. Japan received Blue later, first as a special mail-order edition and then as a general retail release. The overseas Red and Blue games were based on the revised Japanese Blue version rather than being direct translations of the original Japanese Red and Green code.

This distinction is especially relevant during the franchise's 30th anniversary. The anniversary commemorates the Japanese Red and Green launch, not the later international release dates or the subsequent Pokémon Blue version.