ROM Edit Adds Playable Girl Trainer to Original Pokemon
Revisiting the 1st gen Pokemon Games can be a jarring experience now that so many of us are used to the later games’ 3D creatures and refined gameplay. It doesn’t make it any easier that up until Pokemon: Crystal, the only character choice players had was choosing the name of their boy trainer. That’s no longer the case, thanks to the Pokemon Red/ Blue (+Green) ROM edit.
Rose Valle (@mahoushoujorose on Twitter) created the non-profit (+Green) hack, which adds sprites for the female trainer as well as small edits to dialogue that reference her gender.
Although the original games focused on Red and his rival, Blue, early images from a Japanese guide book and other concept art depicted a female trainer with her own starter Pokemon. The common theory is that this third character was planned for the games but scrapped due to development restrictions. This would explain why a third Pokeball, the one neither you or your rival choose, is left sitting on Professor Oak’s table for the entire game.
Pictured above posing stylishly with a Blastoise, there’s no arguing that Green is an absolute boss. The most fun to come out of this new ROM edit, aside from the game itself, is Twitter choosing to portray Valle’s version of Green as an unapologetic badass.
Valle’s Green sprites seem to most accurately resemble the early concept art, but another fan edit released in January offers its own take on how Green would look in the gen 1 games. Don’t forget that you can support the official release of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow by grabbing downloadable versions on the Nintendo eShop.
Check out some more screenshots from Pokemon Red / Blue (+ Green):
