Pokemon, a multi-billion dollar media franchise (the highest grossing one ever in fact), apparently couldn't afford to give their fans a proper adaptation of their most iconic game. Instead, they settled with this 4 episode mess whose entire purpose is to answer the question: "What if mega evolution was a thing in gen 1 lol?". This would've been better answered in a quick cute drawing posted on twitter or a short animation on Youtube. However, this is what we got, so this is what I'm talking about.
Even if you haven't played the first Pokemon game (or its 2 remakes), you'll probably realize what's going on during the start of the second episode, where the MC has to narrate a bunch of things he did off-screen (about a fifth of the game). Yes, this adaptation fast forwards through most of its source material. Even worse, these fast forwards aren't interesting at all and can be summarized as "I went to gym X, beat gym leader Y and got gym badge Z". No effort put in, not even a joke about some of the game's dumber moments, no references to appeal to fans, nothing. The conversations that get shown are at a glacial pace, not allowing the few fights that are shown to have any breathing room.
They even dare to let the more important fights of the game happen off-screen. I shit you not, they skip the entire Elite Four and show only one sixth of the fight with the champion. After which we are delighted with our protagonist finishing his pokedex by catching Mewtwo thanks to his starter mega evolving. It has a somewhat serviceable art style, even the soundtrack is somewhat interesting at times, that's it though. It doesn't make everything else salvageable.
