When
Pokémon Red and Green (internationally Red and Blue) released to Japanese audiences on February 27th, 1996, the team that developed the games had no idea exactly what would happen next. How could they ever expect their little Game Boy experience to become a global phenomenon worthy of having its release marked and remembered by its fans over two decades later? But this fanbase is in a bit of a mess at the moment. Its original fanbase has begun to age away from it in favor of more complex and large scale games; its second wave audience is dissatisfied with the franchise’s development direction; and for the actual target audience, the competition is both extremely different and larger than ever.