Pokémon Red and Blue Versions/Connectivity

Players may trade Pokémon between two cartridges or battle with another cartridge using a Game Boy Game Link Cable. To take full advantage of this feature, several Pokémon are exclusive to each game of the pair and others require trading to evolve, making trading necessary to complete the Pokédex. The games can trade and battle with Western versions of Red, Blue, and. They can also trade with Western versions of via the Time Capsule. Red and Blue are completely incompatible with games from Generation III onward.

Trades between Pokémon games in different languages are possible; however, a Japanese game cannot connect with a non-Japanese game without causing corruption. This is due to the fact that the games cannot automatically translate the Pokémon data from Japanese to a different language or vice versa, since neither game fully encodes both and the  (only encoding one fully and the other partially). If a battle between a Japanese game and a non-Japanese game is attempted, the battle simply does not work, with the save files left unharmed.

Red and Blue are compatible with 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and. While link battles are not possible directly between Pokémon Red and Blue and the Generation II games, a player may challenge a Generation II game using Pokémon Stadium 2.