Could Pokemon be made in the 80s?

TheJeffers · February 17

What do you mean by this question? Could Pokémon games have been developed and released in the 80s? Or do you mean to ask whether we could have a Pokémon game set in the Pokémon world's equivalent of the 80s? Because I feel the answer to the latter is obviously yes.

Perhaps it is a little late for 80s nostalgia, though, as I would say the current culture is more interested in 90s nostalgia, and we are probably moving into an era of early 2000s nostalgia, if we are not there already.

If you are asking whether it would have been possible for the Pokémon games to have been released in the 80s from a technological standpoint, I would also say yes.

Pokémon took a lot of its inspiration from Japanese RPG games on the NES or even earlier consoles. Dragon Quest is often brought up as a key inspiration. SMT might be cited as an earlier example of a lot of the systems Pokémon would later emulate, but recruiting demons through conversation rather than catching monsters in devices.

The Game Boy was technically released in the 80s, but quite late in the decade, being a 1989 release. However, it was considered quite outdated technologically for the time compared to even other handhelds. The Game Boy's great strength came from utilising proven, reliable and cheaper technology and making it accessible, rather than trying to sell expensive cutting edge tech. So I think Pokémon could easily have run on 80s consoles, either handheld or a home console like the NES.

As for whether the people who made the games could have been positioned to release the game, I believe Game Freak only pivoted from being a gaming magazine to a games developer in 1989. Tajiri is said to have had the initial idea for Pokémon in 1990, but I think he did study computer science and engineering before that, so it is possible he could have had the skills to develop a game like Pokémon during the 80s, if he had been so inclined.

But in short, I do not think there is anything in Red and Green that would have prevented them releasing in some form in the 80s, if someone had the desire and inspiration to develop them. If they were not made for the Game Boy, the only thing that would potentially be missing would be the trading aspect, but obviously the Game Boy is not the first example of two computers being networked together, so it could have been achieved on other hardware, albeit less intuitively.