Pokemon Red and Blue Might Never Have Happened, Dev Says

2016 marks Pokemon's 20th anniversary, and to celebrate the occasion, Pokemon programmer and composer Junichi Masada reminisced about the early days of Pocket Monsters. You can watch it in the video below (via Kotaku).

The development of Pokemon Red and Green (released as Red and Blue outside of Japan) took six years, and Masuda says that the computers he worked on always overheated and broke down. He says he went through three or four computers by the time the original two games were finished.

"I sure am glad I fixed those computers back then," said the Pokemon programmer. "If I hadn't, the original Red and Green games might never have come out. That's a scary thought!”

Despite the difficulties that came up during the making of these games, Masuda says developing them was a lot of fun.

"I would sit in front of my computer from morning to night, programming the games and coming up with all sorts of ideas," Masuda said. "I never thought I would still be doing it 20 years later!"

Masuda said that developing each game has been hard work, but he always gets a "strong urge" to make more whenever he sees fans enjoying the games.

A new 3DS bundle with Pokemon Red and Blue pre-installed releases this month as part of the 20th anniversary celebration.