It's time to catch 'em allŠagain. Pokémon, easily Nintendo's biggest property ever to hit the Game Boy shows up again in a special edition for Pikachu fans. This game is essentially a re-issue of the two original Pokémongames (Red Edition and Blue Edition) that showed up in the US around this time last year. And just like PokémonRed and Blue, there are about a dozen Pokémonyou'll never be able to find in Yellow.

Features

• Updated Pokémonadventure using the existing
• PokémonRed/Blue engine
• New Pikachu-related elements
• Follows the cartoon story
• Game Boy Printer Support
• Works with PokémonRed and Blue
• For Game Boy and Game Boy Color

What does PokémonYellow: Special Pikachu Edition bring to the table?

First of all, the story of PokémonRed and Blue has been altered slightly to mirror the cartoon. In PokémonRed and Blue, you had your choice of

three Pokémonat the start of the game. In PokémonYellow, Professor Oak captures and hands you Pikachu as your first Pokémon. Because Pikachu is a rather rare and powerful Pokémonin the game, PokémonYellow is slightly easier to play since battles are a lot easier to win -- but during the first big battle with Brock, Pikachu is useless, so you're best to capture as many other Pokémonand train them before the first Badge battle. And like the cartoon, Pikachu doesn't like being housed in a Pokéball -- so he follows you around like a companion. He cannot be traded, or let go, and he will never evolve. You can check out how well you're treating your Pikachu by "talking" to it -- this will bring up a window showing its mood. Take pride in knowing you're taking care of it.

Because the game somewhat mirrors the cartoon, the graphics have been altered a bit. It's nothing major -- Brock looks like Brock in the cartoon, and Jesse and James from Team Rocket now make an appearance. Other small tidbits have been added, like Jigglypuff showing up to sing the Jigglypuff song (putting Pikachu to sleep in the process).

Speech has been added -- when you use or talk to Pikachu, it'll say its trademark "Pika!" "Pi!" or "Pikachu!" in crappy, low quality digitized audio. It's obvious the existing game engine was never meant to have speech -- and the sound quality shows.

Game Boy Color support has been improved a bit, but it's still not the most colorful portable game out there. In PokémonRed and Blue, when you played the game on a Game Boy Color each game had a blue or red hue throughout the adventure. In PokémonYellow, the color palette changes depending on what screen you're on -- battle sequences are slightly more colorful, and you'll notice the color change as you walk from town to town -- the color switch is pretty obvious. PokémonYellow will most likely be the last game from Nintendo to not feature true Game Boy Color support.

Finally, PokémonYellow features Game Boy Printer support so you can create stickers of the creatures you've seen or caught. Essentially, this is simply a screen dump of the Pokédex, including text that describes the Pokémonyou printed out. It's not a big deal, but it's a cool little feature.

From IGN.com