You can now play Pokemon Blue, Red, and Yellow directly on Android (unofficially)

Pokémon games are among the most popular titles to emulate on Android, as the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance entries in particular can run on just about any device. That hasn’t stopped someone from unofficially porting the first few Pokémon games to Android, though.

Developer bryanthaboi recently released Gen1Recomp on GitHub, which is an unofficial port of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow to various platforms. In addition to Windows, Linux, and Mac ports, the developer has also ported the games to Android and ANBERNIC‘s Linux platform.

The developer wrote the game engine and map behavior, but a game ROM is required to extract graphics and game data. Needless to say, you have to supply this ROM yourself. Installation is pretty easy on Android, as you install Gen1Recomp, then use the app’s file picker to find the game ROM on your device.

You’ll find plenty of settings to play with once you have the game up and running. These include various color palettes, frame rate options, and more. The port also has on-screen virtual controls but supports physical controllers.

Gen1Recomp even comes with an integrated mod manager. You don’t have to worry about dropping mods into a specific folder, either, as you simply use the app’s file picker to select the relevant .zip file. In fact, I’ve been using the Dramatic Shape Voxel mod, which delivers 3D, voxel-style visuals. The mod isn’t perfect, owing to obvious 2D/3D transitions when walking through environments, and some judder, but it’s still a mighty impressive feat.

Either way, I’d definitely recommend you give this a try if you’ve got even a passing interest in the Pokémon games. Best of all, this doesn’t appear to be a vibecoded mess, as the creator is a veteran developer with a track record of game releases.