I think this game mostly fit with the anime at that time. Think of it: Pikachu refusing the stone in order to evolve reflected the will of Ash's Pikachu not to evolve in order to defeat Lt Surge and his Raichu. Alakazam was a hell of a pokemon when Sabrina showed up (I can still remember my poker face when Mewtwo easily curved Alakazam's spoon in the movie). The metagame was ugly compared to those of today's pokemon games, not to speak of the fact you couldn't assign an instrument (hours to open the bike), and pokemons weren't catchable if the box in the pc was full. Unfortunately I discovered it myself when I was catching Mewtwo.
Plus: the Kanto region was poor, not so difficult to explore and not so damn wide as Unova may be or Kanto+Johto in G/S/C wich (in my opinion) are the best games ever published by Game Freak for the Pokemon series.
You could catch Bulbasaur, Charmender and Squirtle (not that bad) and you could catch Mew (not that DAMN bad). Btw yellow was way better than R/G/B but GSC kidnapped my heart. Probably because I was in the right age and probably because it was a bi step up from the previous chapters.