Note: This review is based on the Virtual Console release of Pokémon: Yellow, played on a New Nintendo 3DS XL console.

Pokémon: Yellow was originally released in 1999 and is the first case in the west of a third entry into a Pokémon generation. With the exponential growth in popularity with the Pokémon anime, Pokémon: Yellow aims to capitalise on this. As a result, Pokémon: Yellow is a hybrid game, taking the gameplay and main game narrative from Pokémon: Red & Blue, however certain story beats follow closer to the adventures of Ash Ketchum from the anime.

The key changes present in Yellow are fairly small in number, however the ways in which the affect and improve the player experience makes Yellow the definitive way to play the first generation of Pokémon.

The first, and key marketing change for Pokémon: Yellow is that, as opposed to Red &…