Since then it has gone on to become by far the biggest franchise in the already spectacular Nintendo stable, selling over a hundred million units of the various titles in the series and more than its fair share of Nintendo hardware along the way.

That's the past. This is the future - well, more accurately, the present. FireRed and LeafGreen are, as opposed to all-new games, remakes of the original Game Boy classics. In addition to a return to the Kanto region in all-new high resolution and glorious colour, FireRed and LeafGreen bring with them a further-enhanced version of the upgraded fighting system seen in last year's Ruby and Sapphire, along with an all-new wireless multiplayer adapter included right in the box.

What's it all about? Pokémon is an RPG which is accessible for all ages. Kids love it and there's plenty of depth to keep us adult gamers smiling and battling too. The only group that won't find anything here for them (despite its core "it's about fighting" aspect) is the "desperately trying to be cool" teenager - there's no gore, there's no sex and there's no death.

The idea is that you, as an up and coming trainer, take on board your first pokémon (the alternative world in which the games are set is litterred with these little critters) and set about becoming the greatest trainer in the land. To get there, you'll need to battle and capture numerous pokémon in the wild, train them up (mostly by battling other such pokémon) and then battle gym leaders in each town to earn badges, all so you can ultimately compete in a tournament to become the most respected trainer of all.

Each pokémon is from one of 14 base "classes": water, fire, ghost, electric, dragon, fighting, etc. Each class of pokémon has different moves available to it, along with a number of base moves which can be learned by any pokémon, and each is both vulnerable to a certain kind of attack and particularly strong against a certain kind of pokémon. It's in the finding and exploiting of these traits that the core Pokémon gameplay really lies - the best trainers in the world will leverage heavily off these differences whilst the least successful will ignore them.

Something which might not be immediately obvious to those new to Pokémon is the answer to the question: Why two games at the same time? The two games are essentially identical - the only difference is the exact makeup of the pokémon available in each version. There is a handful of pokémon which are unique to each version - the only way to collect-'em-all is to trade with a friend, unless you shell out for a second GBA and the other version of the game for yourself, of course. This encouragement to trade is further enhanced by the fact that traded pokémon actually earn considerably more experience when battling, a serious incentive for those trying to get their critters up to a high level at speed.

The wireless adapter allows players to participate with up to 40 other people (yes, forty!) in various multiplayer activities, including the all-new two-on-two battles (not just two pokémon vs two pokémon - there are four trainers in there as well). It's innovative and it doesn't require the use of an expensive extra. The inclusion in the box is a brilliant move by Nintendo, especially as we haven't seen the devices available seperately in this country.

Another bonus that might not be immediately apparent is that FireRed and LeafGreen are compatible with Pokémon Colosseum. What this means is that, in addition to being able to bring your classic pokémon to the 3D battlefield for the first time, you can now trade between FireRed, LeafGreen, Colosseum, Ruby and Sapphire! So, for the first time, you could use any (or all) of the existing pokémon in any of those games - a huge benefit for those more serious pokémaniacs out there.

So. The gameplay then. It hasn't really changed very much over the years but to be fair to the clever developers at Game Freak, that's very much to the series' credit. With such incredible success, the temptation for big-wig businessmen to get in there and mix it up must be phenomenal. Yet instead, what we have here is a natural, gradual evolution of the original games which improves on various aspects (2-on-2 battles being a highlight extension to the battle system, the improved map assisting a great deal when finding one's way around) whilst leaving the already perfect aspects (the core exploration gameplay) well alone.