Original Pokemon Red and Green codebase was so incredibly unoptimized and messy that the late Satoru Iwata had to step in and compress it himself so they could fit the second region into Pokemon Gold and Silver.

HERE’S THE INTERESTING PART

From the Stacky collection1 min read

A closer look

Original Pokemon Red and Green codebase was so incredibly unoptimized and messy that the late Satoru Iwata had to step in and compress it himself so they could fit the second region into Pokemon Gold and Silver. Game Freak basically duct-taped their flagship game together with digital spit and prayers, completely unaware they were launching the most profitable multimedia franchise in human history. It is genuinely hilarious to realize that an IP worth billions of dollars started with a spaghetti codebase so disastrous it required an executive to descend from the heavens just to clean up their garbage. Truly an inspiring lesson for all mediocre developers hoping their chaotic, barely functional code will one day miraculously spawn a global entertainment empire

Topics in this factpokemoncoding

One discovery leads to another.

Keep exploring facts in this topic.

Games →

ONE MORE DISCOVERY?

Keep exploring

All in this topic →

Games

Pokémon once planned for Gold and Silver to be the finale

It’s hard to imagine willingly pulling the plug on a multi-billion dollar money printer. Tsunekazu Ishihara, the president of The Pokémon Company, stated that…

Discover more

Games

Pokemon's in-game currency is heavily based on the Japanese Yen, which is why a single bottle of water costs 200 Pokedollars and a bicycle is famously priced at a completely absurd 1 million Pokedollars.

Pokemon's in-game currency is heavily based on the Japanese Yen, which is why a single bottle of water costs 200 Pokedollars and a bicycle is famously priced…

Discover more

Games

The childhood bug hunt behind Pokémon

A multi-billion dollar multimedia empire is entirely based on a neurodivergent kid's love for bugs. Growing up in rural Japan, Satoshi Tajiri spent all his…

Discover more

Games

The 40 Pokémon cut from the original games

Before you complain about the modern games lacking polish, realize you were spared dozens of extra hours of grinding purely by a technical memory limit. The…

Discover more

Games

With over 1,000 creatures in the Pokémon universe, fans heavily debate its origins. What was the absolute first design?

Discover more

Games

Pikachu was inspired by a squirrel, not a mouse

The entire 'Electric Mouse Pokémon' classification is a biological lie propagated by the Pokédex. When Nishida was designing the chubby yellow icon, she was…

Discover more

Original Pokemon Red and Green codebase was so incredibly unoptimized and messy that the late Satoru Iwata had to step in and compress it himself so they could fit the second region into Pokemon Gold and Silver.

A closer look

A bigger world.One discoveryat a time.

Keep exploring

Pokémon once planned for Gold and Silver to be the finale

Pokemon's in-game currency is heavily based on the Japanese Yen, which is why a single bottle of water costs 200 Pokedollars and a bicycle is famously priced at a completely absurd 1 million Pokedollars.

The childhood bug hunt behind Pokémon

The 40 Pokémon cut from the original games

With over 1,000 creatures in the Pokémon universe, fans heavily debate its origins. What was the absolute first design?

Pikachu was inspired by a squirrel, not a mouse

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.