Pokémon Yellow Legacy Fixes Everything You Hate About Gen 1

While we all have boundless nostalgia for the Kanto region, Pokémon’s original generation is a busted mess. However, a team of ROM hackers have fixed almost every issue with the new Pokémon Yellow Legacy fan game.

An extensive hack of the original Game Boy’s Pokémon Yellow, this new ROM hack aims to make the original Kanto region more balanced and fulfilling overall while also still playing on the original Game Boy.

Developed by the same team behind Pokémon Crystal Legacy, including YouTuber SmithPlays Pokémon, this ROM hack is available to download and patch onto your existing ROM of Pokémon Yellow. For more intonation on how to do that, click here.

But what does Yellow Legacy actually do? Well, for starters, this amazing ROM hack fixes a lot of balancing issues with the original Kanto generation. For example, the extremely overpowered psychic type is now actually weak to Ghost types which wasn’t actually the case in Gen 1. (Hilariously, the original anime did have Ghosts being strong against psychic types.)

This balancing rework also affects every single Pokémon with level up move sets changing for nearly every creature, allowing your party to learn more useful moves without relying on TMs. Moves have also had their stats changed to be more balanced with game destroying moves like Blizzard seeing nerfs in accuracy.

However, alongside these stat changes, Pokémon Yellow Legacy also improves everything else with the original Pokémon region. For example, the inventory size has been massively expanded, there’s now an XP bar to see your next level up, enemy AI has been reworked, dynamic level scaling makes gym battles and bosses more challenging, trade evolutions have been replaced with high level ups and Safari Zone has been massively retooled.

New story events have also been added to the ROM hack including fights against Professor Oak and a reworked Mewtwo story. A tonne of effort has gone into making this the best Kanto experience possible.

All-in-all, Pokémon Yellow Legacy is the ultimate Gen 1 experience. For years now, professional Pokémon players have moaned about the broken nature of the original Game Boy games, and they aren’t wrong. Gen 1 is a beautifully broken mess, and one that is still loved by millions, but Yellow Legacy actually makes those original games more fun to play.

For those who have been hankering for a return to the original Kanto, we highly recommend giving Yellow Legacy a go.

For more amazing fanmade Pokémon content, check out the brilliant Pokémon Roguelike game PokeRogue here.