492 Words About: Route 22 in Pokemon Blue…and Red
Screenshot from playthrough by Vari Primedus
Game designers approaching the task of generating a world that’s more than just a series of roads with a handful of conflict situations need to consider how small interactions can and should help establish the aesthetic of the world they're making, and how it contributes to the overall aesthetic goal.
To wit.
Route 22 was an early lesson about the pitfalls of exploration. Another way of saying that is that Pokemon Blue screwed me over on Route 22 because I played it in a haze of excitement (and secondhand cigarette smoke from my grandmother’s pack of Camels) on a roadtrip to Pasadena, Texas to see my other grandparents (one of whom also smoked).
Once the player has gotten their starter pokemon, retrieved a package for Professor Oak, and then inevitably caught a Pidgey, they are free to progress through Viridian Forest on to Pewter Town to get their first badge. There’s a second option however, because to the West of Viridian City is the entrance to the Elite Four headquarters. When I first played the game I didn’t know what the road was, why it was there, or, most importantly that since I hadn’t reached Pewter Town the game’s programming had situated my rival Gary to stop me and challenge me to a fight.
Because I hadn’t caught any Pokemon besides the Charmander I had started with (I learned many hard lessons on this playthrough), and because I hadn’t visited a Pokemon center to heal them since my last fight, my reader can probably guess how this fight went.
I lost.
Badly.
Horribly.
And quickly.
These adverbs go a long way to demonstrate my initial reaction to getting my butt handed to me on Route 22, but they also provide me with an insight to Pokemon’s design as a videogame.
The world of Kanto was new to me, and thus I wanted to explore every corner of it that I could because I loved the world of Pokemon. There was a genuine curiosity to see what I could find. That desire for exploration has ebbed whenever I play the game today, but that’s because I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing Pokemon Blue (and Red), so there’s little of the map left that’s unexplored.
Screenshot from playthrough by Vari Primedus
Gary is programmed to trigger on Route 22 to test players' progress in mastering in-game mechanics, and also to provide narrative clues in the form of Gym Leaders. The end goal of Pokemon is the Elite Four and the final confrontation with Gary. The fight taught me to be careful as I explore new places in Kanto, gave me knowledge of the final bosses that I would eventually fight, and provided another opportunity to master the menu-interface system of Pokemon’s battle sequences.
It also taught the importance of saving my game regularly, less I lose and have to Gary the money I was going to spend on antidotes.
Viridian Forest is full of Bug Catchers, and Weedle’s sting…a lot.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
6.15.2026
The cover and top image of this essay were provided by the YouTube Playthrough of Pokemon Blue which was done by the host Vari Primedus who has played the game and assembled a playlist for content creators wanting to write or vlog about the original Pokemon Games. I cannot express how helpful this playthrough his given the fact I can’t get the saves in my Gameboy emulator to work, not to mention the fact that I don’t have enough free-time to playthrough Pokemon again at this stage of my life. So, to Vari Primedus I say thank you. You can watch his playthrough by following the link below.
Go check it out, if not for nostalgia, but because Vari totally owns.
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