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We’ve got some fantastic news for children of the ’90s who once made it (and still make it) their quest to catch ’em all: The original first-generation Pokémon games are coming to the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console early next year!

The Virtual Console for the 3DS is a special service found on the Nintendo eShop where old-school games from earlier gaming systems can be downloaded. Until now, fans have long wondered why the classic games of the main Pokémon series weren’t included on the list of available games to download, but that’s all about to change because the games are to be released for the 3DS Virtual Console on February 27, 2016 — exactly 20 years after the very first Pokémon games were released in Japan.

▼ An announcement for the upcoming release

In Japan, Pokémon Red & Green were originally released for the Game Boy on February 27, 1996, followed by an updated Pokémon Blue version later that year. The Japanese Blue version then became the basis for the international versions of Pokémon Red & Blue starting in 1998. Around the same time, Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition, which more closely followed the events of the Pokémon TV anime, was also released for the Game Boy Color.

It appears that the four original Japanese games will be coming to the Japanese 3DS Virtual Console eShop, while the three original international versions will be released on international 3DS Virtual Console eShops, following the original release pattern of the games. Each game will retail for 1,111 yen (about US$9.00), while special “package versions” of each game (which includes a box and a download card) will also retail for 1,389 yen (about $11.30).

While the gameplay and graphics themselves will be identical to the original Game Boy games, long-time players will probably let out a sigh of relief to hear that the games’ trading capabilities have been updated so that you can now trade pokémon between friends wirelessly without needing to use a link cable. Phew!

Source/Featured image: Twitter/pokemon_memo