While it started out originally as a manga by Satoshi Tajiri in 1975 that was entitled Capsule Monsters. The series was discontinued due to it being unsuccessful, but around 1991, Tajiri began pitching the project to Nintendo for the Gameboy without much success. The game was finally picked up by Nintendo with some help from a new friend of Tajiri's, Shigeru Miyamoto, and was initially released in Japan as Pocket Monsters in 1996. Since then, the phenomenon known today as Pokemon has exploded across the planet, drawing children and adults alike.

The premise of the series is similar to children catching lightning bugs in a bottle, but the lightning bugs are instead little monsters and you train them to battle each other in competitions. Trading pokemon with other players of the series is encouraged and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game along with battling with your friends and the computer alike. Testing your skill as a trainer and as a fair sport is one of the main draws of the series.

The series has had a number of different titles in it for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and Nintendo DS. Most of the games have a suffix of either a color, precious metal, or precious gem, such as Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow for the Game Boy.

Later, Gold, Silver, and Crystal were developed for the Game Boy Color.

The third generation of games have come in the form of Ruby, Sapphire. These games introduced a number of new features, including more detailed weather conditions, the new villains of Team Magma and Team Aqua, contests, and new abilities for each pokemon. Also introduced was the concept of natures for each. Shortly after that, Emerald was released, which introduced the ability to rebattle gym leaders, animations for all pokemon (like in Crystal).

Next, the first two games in the first generation, Red and Green, were remade as FireRed and LeafGreen for the Game Boy Advance. The main features were enhanced graphics, gameplay, and a new area called the Sevii Islands.

The fourth generation of games consists of Diamond and Pearl, both of which have already been subject to a worldwide release by 2007. One of the noticeable additions to both of these games is the difference between Pokemon genders.

Although games with the Pokemon namesake are on all Nintendo systems, the classics will always be on the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance.