Pokemon Red & Blue

The game in itself isn't bad at all, and I can only recommend it if you just can't think of anything better to do in train or in equivalently boring place.

The game is basically a CRPG that follows the player's journey from Pallet Town to the epic final battle for true mastery.

The game has only one main character, and there are never fights between more than one opponent, and even the most fiercest and evil NPCs refuse to do physical harm to the player character. Instead, all fights are Pokémon fights; Both use up to six Pokémons each and fights last until all Pokémons from either side have fainted. The only risk is that if you lose fights, you lose money...

The main "topics" of the game:

• Catching wild Pokémons. You don't need to catch 'em all to win the game, but it helps.
• Trading Pokémon. The game uses GB Link cable, and in order to get all Pokémon, you need to trade with someone who has a game cart of different color. (The games are otherwise identical.) Also, some Pokémon can only evolve when traded, and the traded Pokémon get XP much faster, too.
• Solving puzzles and adventuring. This is what keeps CRPGs interesting.
• Training the Pokémon "team". It isn't necessarily that easy to get the team to the level where it can beat the Elite Four and your opponent...

In addition to the single-player game, the game also features a link cable-based fight arena.

Some bad sides, then: The junk management is annoying. Keeping the backpack, your own item storage and your Pokémon storage boxes in good order is just impossible. For this, I suggest Pokémon Stadium for N64 - by using Transfer Pack, you can arrange the stuff on the GB cartridge. (Fortunately, Pokemon Gold & Silver has a much better junk management scheme...) Also, the fight start animation takes too long considering the frequency of fights in wilderness, but that's minor.

The game was followed by Pokemon Yellow (basically same game with plot fine-tuned after the TV series) and later by Pokemon Gold & Silver.