Pokémon Red and Blue just got the HD-2D PC port I've dreamed about for years

Published Aug 5, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Ever since HD-2D visuals started to take off a few years ago, I've thought Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Game Freak should revisit the Pokémon series' earliest entries with the unique throwback art style. It just makes sense, and given how the series has struggled recently, it would be a great reset moment for Pokémon games. While it doesn't seem like we'll get an official HD-2D Pokémon title anytime soon (or likely ever given the franchise's history), all three Gen 1 classics, including Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, are now unofficially playable on Android, PC, iOS, Linux, and more thanks to Gen1Recomp created by bryanthaboi. Though the base version of Gen1Recomp offers a solid port of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, enabling the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod is where things start to get more interesting, giving the classic titles a super-sleek 3D voxel makeover that looks very 2D-HD (more on this later). This native LÖVE2D recreation of the Gen 1 Pokémon era is decoded directly from ROMs supplied by the player — which, of course, must be dumped from an official cartridge you already own — while the engine and map behavior are "hand-written Lua." Technically, this means that Gen1Recomp isn't a recompilation in the traditional sense since it's a recreation of the game's original code in a native cross-platform engine. On the other hand, since the project requires users to provide their own ROMs rather than distributing Nintendo's copyrighted assets, this should protect it from Nintendo's army of lawyers, similar to other more traditional retro video game recompilation projects. It's worth noting that, as is often the case with retro game recompilations, there's controversy surrounding Gen1Recomp's potential use of undisclosed AI-generated code. Updates for Gen1Recomp have dropped very quickly over the past several days, leading some to believe that at least some aspects of the OG Pokémon PC port have been coded with the help of AI. On the project's Bois Club Games Discord, bryanthaboi has denied these claims. So how do I get Gen1Recomp running on my Android device? It only takes a few simple steps Getting Gen1Recomp working on any device is relatively straightforward. In my case, I've been playing the game on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 because the phone's unique 5.5-inch outer screen and 7.6-inch inner screen are ideal for a game like this. It looks absolutely stunning running on Samsung's unique foldable, especially when you flip its inner screen to the side. First off, you'll need to download three key things: the Gen1Recomp app, the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod (both files are available on dedicated GitHub pages), and a Pokémon Red, Blue, or Yellow ROM. Open your go-to Android file manager and install the Gen1Recomp APK. Download the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod. Move it to a folder you're familiar with (I have a dedicated ROMs folder where I keep all emulation-related stuff). Don't extract the file. Now that you've installed Gen1Recomp, open it. Add the Pokémon ROM you want to play to the app (you'll need to know exactly where the ROM is located on your phone). Head to the Mods section of the app (it looks like an app-drawer icon), and import the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod. Go back to Gen1Recomp's main menu and select Play. Once everything is set up, you can keep both Gen1Recomp and the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod up to date through the app (sometimes you'll need to reimport the ROM after an update). New features, like an experimental first-person Voxel Mod mode and various stability updates, are released frequently, so staying on top of updates is key right now, especially since the Android version of Gen1Recomp with the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod lags quite a bit on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 I'm using. It's gotten better over the past few days, but it still isn't great. Once you have the game running, you'll notice a variety of in-game settings you can change to customize the experience under Options in the Start Menu. For example, you can change the entire look of Pokémon Red, Blue, or Yellow, opting for the OG Game Boy green, SGB, OG Red, or my favorite, Advanced, which makes the game look a lot like a native Game Boy Color game. You can change the Voxel look here, too, including shifting the zoom all the way up to first-person. While this fulfills a childhood dream of mine and is undeniably cool, it's really just not very playable (I find 35-50 is the Voxel sweet spot). This is also where you can add a pixel grid to the game with V-Grid, and turn down the depth-of-field effect with T-Shift (I've turned T-Shift down to 2 and turned off V-Grid). You can even turn off Water effects and add a V-Curve to the world so it curves at the edges. The other notable options are Daytime, which adds a day-and-night cycle to the game, and 3D-BTL, which creates 3D battles directly in the Voxel world. The three-dimensional battles still look a little wonky, but it's a fun addition that makes Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow's battles feel a bit more modern. Lastly, you can also access a lot of these options under the Mods section in the main menu. It'll be interesting to see where this project goes As it stands right now, Gen1Recomp doesn't run great on Android when the Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod is enabled. There are small bouts of lag when walking through towns and areas with lots of trees. It also takes a few seconds for the Voxel Mod to load when you enter a new area — at first, everything is 2D before flipping to the 3D Voxel look again. To reduce the lag, I've turned off Water (IGN would be proud) and turned down the Voxel effect. This makes Gen1Recomp more playable, but it's still far from perfect. While I haven't tried the Gen1Recomp on my Mac or gaming PC yet, based on what I've seen on Reddit, the experience is far smoother. There's a specific version of Gen1Recomp for Anbernic's Game Boy Advance-like RG 34XXSP that reportedly has a lot of frame rate problems, which is a bummer because the handheld would be perfect for the game. When it comes to Gen1Recomp's Android issues, it's likely just a matter of optimization, and over the past few days, updates have improved the frame rate issues a bit. I imagine the issues will be ironed out relatively soon. Over on the Bois Club Games Discord, there are several mods listed that I haven't seen many people highlight yet. For example, there's a high-resolution, more modern UI mod, an animated sprites mod, and even a mod that adds roaming Pokémon to the overworld, similar to recent Pokémon titles like Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, and Scarlet and Violet. I haven't tried any of these mods yet myself, so I can't speak to how well they work. However, similar to my experience with Ship of Harkinian and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, they have the potential to modernize Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow in meaningful ways while still allowing the games to maintain their retro charm. It's still really early days for Gen1Recomp given it only launched recently, but things are already looking very promising. Once the game's Voxel Mod is more stable and additional mods drop (I'd also love to play the game on the RG 34XXSP), I'm looking forward to truly revisiting Pokémon Red for the first time in roughly 20 years. Gen1Recomp