New Pokemon Release Takes You Back to the Kanto Region

A new Pokemon project brings players back to the Kanto region, and lets them see it in a whole new way. The exciting Pokemon release brings players into the world of the Gen 1 games in a manner that’s never been done before.

Pokemon games have come a long way graphically over the years, moving from 8-bit pixel art to full 3D graphics. Many gamers still find the original titles to still have their charm, though, and this project breathes some new life into those visuals while still maintaining their original look.

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Pokemon Project Turns The Original Games Into a 3D Experience

Now, a new Pokemon project called Gen1Recomp is converting Pokemon Red, Blue, or Yellow into a fully three-dimensional experience. The fan-created project, Gen1Recomp, and a mod built for it, Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod, can be combined to explore the game in full 3D while still maintaining the original visuals in all their pixel art glory. Clips shared by multiple fans have shown them exploring the world of the game in first-person. While the original artwork is completely preserved, players can change things like the camera angle and time of day, influencing the lighting and shadows in ways that the original games couldn’t come close to.

In addition to being playable in 3D, Pokemon fans who own virtual reality headsets can also utilize them while exploring the world. Players can use their own virtual reality controllers to do things like walk and toggle things, while a user moving their head naturally changes what they’re looking at. The mod should work with any virtual reality headset that works with OpenXR on Windows. Those who prefer to play the game on a standard screen also have the ability to switch to a third-person camera, if they prefer. Both the base Gen1Recomp project and the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod are actively under development, so new additions and tweaks will be arriving regularly.

Pokemon fan game enthusiasts may already feel concerned regarding the future of this project, given Nintendo’s historically litigious nature. It remains to be seen if The Pokemon Company or Nintendo will take action and force these projects to be taken offline. However, one thing potentially working in the base mod’s favor is that the project doesn’t provide the actual game contents that are required. The mod requires a user-supplied ROM for either Pokemon Red, Blue, or Yellow and reads it to import the files that it needs. Since it seems that no official Pokemon files are included within the mod, it’s possible that it might survive unscathed.

Accordingly, players who want to try out this mod will need a ROM of one of the original three Pokemon games. Getting a ROM from a physical copy of the game can be done by using a device like the GB Operator, which lets players insert an original game cartridge and back up the contents of it to their PC. This allows gamers to play original Game Boy titles on their computers, and also protects save files, which can be lost due to dying internal batteries in Game Boy cartridges.