POKÉMON VERSION COMPARISON / GEN 1

Pokémon Red vs Blue vs Yellow: Which Gen 1 Version Should You Buy?

The cartridge that started it all shipped in three flavors. Here's what actually separates them.

Version Exclusives

Red and Blue split the original 151 down the middle at several key points — Ekans/Arbok and Sandshrew/Sandslash appear in Red but not Blue, while Meowth/Persian, Bellsprout's line, and Oddish's line run the other way (exact splits vary slightly by region). Yellow, released later, was designed as a loose retelling of the anime and pulled in exclusives from both Red and Blue, making it noticeably closer to a "complete" single-cartridge experience than either original version.

What Makes Yellow Different

Yellow's headline feature is that your starter Pikachu follows you around the overworld instead of staying in its Poké Ball — a small touch that made a real impression at the time and still gives it a distinct identity. It also adjusted some early trainer battles to be slightly more balanced and included small sprite and cutscene nods to the anime's first season.

Which to Buy in 2026

For a single nostalgia purchase, Yellow is the easy recommendation: more complete Pokédex access on one cartridge, the Pikachu gimmick, and generally comparable or lower prices than Red on the secondhand market since it wasn't the flagship release. If you're specifically chasing the version you or a sibling owned as a kid, that memory should win over any of these technical differences — and if you're buying to trade with a friend running a different version, any pairing works.

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