Pokémon Crystal Version (2000)

At long last, I have finished my review of Pokémon Crystal Version. Last week, I posted a status sharing my site at the suggestion of my beloved Octjillery. Some of you said you'd be interested in what I do with it going forward, so here's my first post containing a content update.

With 18,212 words from November 10 until today, this is by far the longest review I've ever written. I'm sure that's daunting to many people, but feel free to absorb it in chunks if you'd prefer. Spend time with it. Let it stew. Take it for walks. Teach it tricks. Whatever you do, I appreciate any and all of anyone's time.

I believe this article more than any other most closely reflects my goals in writing. It's equal parts personal retrospective and review, and in not wanting to sacrifice thoroughness for either I've written something appropriately dense. Like all of my pages, I consider this to be a living document that I may update from time to time with more information or revised opinions. Regardless, I'd say the main thrust of my experience and impressions with the game are present right now, and I'm not worried about losing any immediate post-completion thoughts.

I'll stop blabbering now! Feedback, questions, comments — anything at all — I'm happy to hear. I hope you find it a pleasurable if not insightful read. Take care.

https://noahsb1c7c15d6d.wordpress.com/video-game-reviews/pokemon-crystal/

4/5

Played on a modded OLED Gameboy colour on original cartridge.

Great Pokemon game. I think in particular the animated front sprites do a lot for the games charm. The new pokemon added in Johto are some of my favourites and the world itself also has a cool vibe. The art-style might be my favourite of the Pokemon games, along with generation 5. The level curve and grinding requirements of this generation however is pretty whack.

It’s been nice going back to Gen 2. I haven’t played the GBC versions since I was a kid, but I’m glad I opted to play this instead of HGSS, which I’ve played much more recently.

My child brain definitely filled in a lot of the story and the epic quests I remember though: the extra Suicune content for Crystal is basically a whole load of nothing, and the dramatic raid on Team Rocket side by side with Lance is actually just a series of battles punctuated by a little dialogue. Still, it’s a lot of fun, and the core battle mechanics are pretty timeless.

The Kanto reveal blew my mind at the time, but in retrospect it’s quite lifeless. While probably unintentional, Gen 2 Kanto really captures the spirit of a region in decline. The forest has gone, a volcano destroyed a town, and all the attractions are closed. It’s all a bit sad. It remains one hell of a generous postgame though, probably still unmatched in the series.

Gen 2 is definitely my favourite in terms of art style and monster design. The sprites are still limited to (I think) four colours, but they really make the most of what they have, and they look glorious on the Analogue Pocket.

The only thing I have left to do now is beat Red, and I’m still undecided whether I will. I have solid type advantages, but my team are all around level 50, and I’m not sure I can be bothered to get them all to 60-65. I’ll see how that goes.

I was hoping to never have to openly talk about this, but I feel like I trust you people pretty well at this point. Still, I hope you don't judge me or look at me any differently because of it.

I love Pokemon. As any kid who grew up in the 90s, it was an enormous part of my childhood, and still the sole reason I bought a 3DS a few years back. I've played basically every mainline title up to whatever is on the Switch and only because I don't have a Switch, but my fondest memories by far - and likely a lot of people would say the same - are the ones associated with the Game Boy titles. Sure I played Red and Blue and Yellow, and Silver is maybe my all time favorite title in the franchise outright. I even love the more modern ones like Moon and Black and X. But one title in particular sticks out to me more than others, and that would be Pokemon Crystal.

Perhaps because it was for the Game Boy Color, perhaps because it was just a solid game, and perhaps because it introduced a lot of the cooler new gen stuff, but Crystal sticks out to me for a very specific reason. One that, maybe, a lot of other people also identify with.

The game was released in 2001. I was in the 5th grade, and I had just come out of a major dental surgery, so I was spending a lot of time at home. Because of this, someone gave me a copy of Pokemon Crystal as a gift, knowing I'd have plenty of time to play it. Upon loading the game, you're, as usual, presented to the world of Pokemon by our favorite trustworthy scientist, Professor Elm, as he explains to us the ins and outs of this universe, the mechanics of it all, and then proceeds to ask us to inform him about ourselves. See, this is the first time in the franchise that you were able to pick a gender for your character. It was actually sort of the talking point of the game when it released, if I recall correctly, outside of the new Pokemon of course. But this question, Professor Elm asking me directly whether I was a boy or a girl, had a profound impact on me.

You see...

...I wasn't born either one.

As open as people seem to be these days, I have kept this a shameful secret my entire life. My parents chose for me to be a girl, and it was not the wrong decision. It's who I am. I have lived my entire life this way, and I can't imagine identifying as anything else. It was the one good choice they made in regards to their child, so I guess I owe them that much. And yet, I can't shake this weird icky feeling I have of having people know, having people know what I could've been, almost was, genetically sort of am, and have them think less of me for it. But that's the thing, my parents chose. And while they made the right choice, I didn't make that choice. But now, here comes Professor Elm, and he's asking me. I'm making the choice now. I made the same choice, because like I said it's who I am, but the fact that I got to make it means a lot to me, even if it was in a fucking Pokemon game.

When my mother remarried, my stepfather knew, and always silently judged me for it. He always treated me like less of a girl than his own daughter, and as a result my identity suffered from it. I became afraid to show interest in femininity, I wouldn't wear dresses, I was scared to openly like girl things. I didn't start dressing well until I was in my late teens early twenties, after my stepfather finally walked out on us, and even then I felt weird about it. These days I'm fairly secure in who I am, and I want nothing more than be seen as that. I feel bad for feeling ashamed of something I couldn't even control, something that genetics did to me, but I do. I have plenty of trans and gender non conforming friends, and yet I still feel bad. I likely always will. It was hammered into me to do so. Or maybe not...maybe one day I'll feel better about it, and accept it.

Because that's the thing.

Pokemon is all about growth. About evolution. About changing forms and becoming more powerful. I started out as a repressed little scared girl and now I'm a grown ass woman who, okay I admit it is still scared most of the time, is happy with who she is in regards to herself. And maybe one day I'll evolve enough to be able to accept that part of me too. Being intersex is complicated for me, as it likely must be for many others, and it's why I never wanted to talk about this. But this community has given me so much, has accepted me so wholly, that I had no choice but to let you guys know me in full without going into super medical specifics. I thank you all from the bottom of my queer, intersex, brain damaged little heart that you like me the way I am, because not many people in my life have. And I thank my parents despite their overwhelming abuse for making the right choice.

But most of all, I thank Professor Elm.

After all, he's the only person to ever ask me outright who I was. And it helped me figure that out once and for all.

My name is Maggie. I write & make art for a living. If you like this review, you might also like my newest novel here, reading my media blog here and you can tip me for my work at Ko-Fi.

I’m enjoying going back to this. For the first 90 mins or so I was worried I’d made the wrong choice, and that I should have started HeartGold instead. But, it’s been easily 15+ years since I properly played Gen II, and I think I made the right choice.

It’s missing some QoL stuff from newer games, but not nearly as bad as I’d feared, and I love the original Gen II art style and spritework. More detail and colour than Gen I (which looks especially good on the Analogue Pocket), but still keeping the character that I feel we slowly lost in the transition into polygonal models. The little animations in Crystal are a nice touch too.

I probably will flip my intended play order for the next games around though; I’d intended to move onto LeafGreen and then Emerald, but I think double-Kanto is likely to burn me out. Not to mention, I’ve never actually played Emerald (only Ruby, and only once), so there should be a good mix of stuff I’d forgotten and stuff new to me.

Lana: Honestly such a good game. Showing it to someone who has never played it before really showed how great of a game this is. Was also really fun to catch some of those legendaries (shoutout to onionfaeri the celebi and f*cker the suicune) and actually exploring post-game kanto together was so much fun! The secret boss battle was actually hard even though we were levelled pretty equally! 9/10

Rodrigo: really GOOD game!! and also has the best postgame i have ever played. was really hard to beat that damn SNORLAX. so hard that we had to use our OWN snorlax LMFAO 9/10

Just finished Crystal for first the first time and here are my thoughts:

Pro:

• authentic world (some unique city designs, good to navigate too)
• most of the core features (I like the most) are present
  (e.g. hatching, berries, choice of gender)
• animated Pokémon sprites
• the world feels so dynamic because of the day and nighttime cycle, the daily events and various radio shows
• nice and fitting music
• most the new Pokémon aren't great fighters, but make the world more lively and realistic

Contra:

• Post game could be more challenging (except for RED)
• Chikorita is so much weaker then the other starter
• the placement of some important items and persons are sometimes arbitrary (e.g. Exp. Share, Poké Flute)
• the distribution of the Pokémon before the LEAGUE leaves you with too few options for a viable team
• no proper training area for higher levels after the LEAGUE
• very tedious Team Rocket hideouts

Much of my Pokémon Yellow review would apply just as well to this game. It's still surprising how much of the core Pokémon DNA was present this early. The Elite Four difficulty spike is still a thing, and while I had more fun with it this time, beating the final post-game challenge was a slog.

That's not to say it isn't better overall. I find Johto's layout easier to navigate than Kanto's, and seeing the two regions connect makes the game world feel astoundingly large for the time period. The expanded Pokédex also gives the game a feeling of being bigger than its cartridge could possibly allow.

I'm also impressed by how much the artwork has improved. Given the same number of pixels (but a greater amount of colors), the designers made each creature feel so much more polished and alive than before.

Those improvements and expansions on an already solid foundation make it easy to see why this generation is so loved by Pokémon fans.

(But gosh is that cell phone feature annoying!)

Great game that still mostly holds up in 2018. Much like I remember from Pokemon Yellow, the color palette still looks like it was shoehorned on top of a black & white game... but it's not terrible.

Coming from FireRed on the GBA, this adds Pokemon sprite animations, breeding, and legendaries. You can have your character's mom take a cut of all the money you win from trainer battles, but this seemed fairly useless during my playthrough; since all she did with that money was buy a couple potions and some decorations for my room. For people who enjoyed getting calls from Cousin Roman to go bowling, you can share your phone number with select NPCs you meet. Also, playing on a 3DS makes it easy to migrate your Pokemon to Sun/Moon with the Pokemon Bank.

The difficulty also seems reduced from FireRed. Not once did all of my Pokemon get knocked out in this playthrough. I didn't particularly spend much time grinding at all, and was around level 40 with my main party of Meganium, Suicine, Machoke, Dragonair, Pidgeotto, and Gyarados when I hit the Elite Four. I actually forgot to buy Revives and only had 2 in my inventory, yet I still was able to beat the Elite Four in one try (maybe because Suicine is a bit overpowered).

And now I can apparently replay the entire Red/Blue/Yellow map again. So, that's pretty cool.

History:

So this is frustrating... I was right in the middle of Pokemania in the late 90's. I played the crap out of Generation One and I'll get more into that when I actually play Red/Blue later in the list. I remember seeing the movie in theaters with my brother, and all the hype surrounding Gold and Silver prior to their release. I remember when they introduced Togepi and Wobbuffet to the anime. I remember the games coming out and I swear we got them because I remember tracking down Ho-oh... Still, aside from that specific event, I really don't remember spending any time with these games! I can't remember a thing about them!

Expectations:

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been looking forward to playing this for a while now. I'm not going to be catching them all, but you can expect me to finish this one out and have a good time doing it!

Day 1:

I choose... Crystal!

I have all three versions, so I figured Crystal was the easy choice for which game to actually play. As for starter choice, since it's a tied vote, I believe Water wins by default so I'll be kicking things off with Totodile!

At least... I would have.

I popped in Crystal to set up my character before bed, saved and turned off the Gameboy. After getting a drink I thought it would be a good idea to start the game back up to confirm the battery was good.

There was no save file.

Well crap! So much for playing the version I wanted to play. That's fine, I'll just grab Gold. Dead battery. Silver. Dead battery. All three of my Generation 2 Pokemon games had dead batteries!!! I can't complain too much. I got them for free from my brother who "procured" them from an ex, but still... I mean my copy of Red still saves!

Day 2:

I grabbed some electrical tape, my kit, and a battery and headed off to work. When things were quiet I headed off to the break room and got cracking... literally!

I've never done a battery swap, and I can't see well enough to solder properly, but I figured I didn't have anything to lose from trying it the rough way seeing as the battery was dead anyway. I used a precision flathead to pry the battery off the contacts without removing the contacts from the PCB, then slipped in the replacement and wrapped it in electrical tape.

I then clamped it down with some pliers and worked it back in the shell. It didn't "really" fit back in the shell, but I figure if anything that should just help to keep the battery in place... or cause the shell to explode... either way.

I was happy to see the game still turned on, so I didn't break anything while manhandling the tiny PCB, but I was absolutely not expecting it to save.

YES! Now to wait for lunch time!

I have to say, my initial reaction to seeing this game is actually kind of disappointing. For such a late GBC game I was really hoping to see better use of color, though I understand they wanted this game to work with the original Gameboy as well. Nothing looks particularly visually offensive, but I was expecting a bit more.

Regardless, Pokemon is Pokemon, and color complaints are about as minor as they get here. I grabbed my Totodile and headed off on the obligatory early game missions, running into Professor Oak along the way. This section of the game feels a lot longer than in other games, but after about a half hour of play I'm finally armed with some Poke Balls and ready to head for my first gym!

Right? It's a long walk from New Bark Town to Violet Town, with tons of trainers to battle in between. I'm just ready to head to the Pokemon Center and save my game, then my phone rings. Not the phone they give you in game, like, my actual phone.

I set down the Gameboy Advance SP...

*bump cartridge*

And with a whimper, the last 20 minutes of gameplay were gone! Not a huge loss, but I think I'll be swapping out the GBA for my new GB Boy Colour for slower games like this, just to avoid this sort of thing....

"Come back any time your Pokemon have had the crap kicked out of them! Hope to see you soon!"

Anyway, I fired up the game again and returned to where I was before, this time with a few new Pokemon in tow. I completely forgot that this game introduced day/night cycles, which is pretty cool. Still, while I appreciate the feature I hope it doesn't affect my gameplay too much, considering I tend to game at odd hours. I'm not too worried.

Day 3:

After loading up again I was off to face the Violet City gym leader. Not much of a challenge, and soon the Zephyr Badge was mine! The badge allowed me to use the Flash HM once I found it, which I'd need to navigate the Dark Cave and get to the next town.

After the fight, I wandered off and caught myself a Pidgey, since I missed my chance last night as Pidgeys are only out during the day time. In every Pokemon game I've ever played I've had a high level Pidgeot in my final team. I don't know why, could be force of habit after watching the anime and playing through Red all those years ago. Doesn't hurt that he's just a downright good Pokemon either.

I also didn't expect how useful he'd be right away!

After tearing (and gusting!) my way through a tower of plant Pokemon trainers I gained the HM for Flash!

I have some ruins I want to go check out first, but soon I'll be on my way through the Dark Cave en route to getting my next badge!

Day 4:

Talk about doing things out of order...

I headed off to check out the Alph Ruins where I caught myself an Unown, then headed off to the Dark Cave to progress the game. Well, turns out not only can I not get through the cave yet, but I should have gone there FIRST to pick up a Geodude and absolutely wreck the Violet City Gym... oh well.

So it was back to the ruins, then south on the new route. Tons of trainers here, and it wasn't long before my Totodile gained a few pounds.

Croconaw, you look like a dufus, but I love ya' anyway.

The evolution made getting through Union Cave cave that much easier, being full of rock and ground types. I had wasted so much time going in circles earlier, I was only able to make it about halfway through the cave before I had to wrap it up.

Day 5:

Before I left Union Cave, I remembered to pick up a Geodude this time, as I knew I'd be needing a Rock type for teh upcoming gym. Before I could think about squashing bug, however, I had to relieve Azalea Town of its little Team Rocket problem.

This served as a great chance to get my Geodude from Lv.6 to Lv.11, as even at a low level he could absorb a ton of hits before needing to be healed up. After beating on some out-of-work gangsters and freeing a herd of Slowpoke, it was off to the gym.

Sure enough, Geodude was MVP.

When I play Pokemon games prior to XP sharing systems, I would tend to just use my starter for the entire game and power through everything. I'm trying to avoid that here, evenly leveling out my party.

Anyway, I soon had the, uh, Bug Badge(?) and saved before setting out to the forest to presumably pick up Cut.

Day 6:

Sure enough I found HM01 in the forest, allowing me to learn Cut. The problem was that the only Pokemon of mine that could actually learn the technique was Croconaw, and the older Pokemon games made it very difficult if not impossible to forget HM moves. That's how it was in Red and Blue anyway, and I didn't want to chance it in this game.

So, I backtracked to Union Cave and caught myself a Sandshrew, who was more than willing to cut down some trees for me!

Oh yeah...

...the egg hatched. Welcome to the world, Togepi! Now enjoy spending the rest of your life living in my computer...

The route to Goldenrod City was full of trainers, allowing me to get my Pidgey evolved into a Pidgeotto, and my Geodude up to Lv18. I learned today that the only way to get Geodude evolved into Golem is via trading, which sadly isn't an option, so I may have to reconsider my choice of Rock type Pokemon. This also means I probably won't have a Gengar in the final lineup either...

Upon reaching Goldenrod I finally got my bike, making the game about a thousand times more enjoyable! I wheeled around town making note of all the things I should do after clearing the local gym, then hit said gym.

I couldn't find a Fighting type for this gym, so I used the tried and true "power through with a giant blue bipedal crocodile" approach. It worked all the way up to the leader's Miltank, who I only beat thanks to a couple clutch Quick Attacks from Pidgeotto.

Badge in hand, I'm off to find a coin pouch and hit up the slots!

Day 7:

I know, slow updates lately. Chalk that up to being horribly ill and vegging out on E3 conferences.

Anyway! My next stop was the Goldenrod City "underground" in search of a coin pouch so I could participate in the Game Corner and win myself a... something. The underground was really just a small walkway from one part of the city to another, and the coin pouch was just sitting there waiting to be claimed.

I bought a 50 pack of coins and tried my luck at the slots. Nothing too exciting. I noticed I could buy an Abra with 100 coins, so I bought another 50 pack and claimed my new Psychic type.

Once I was all done in Goldenrod, I packed up and headed north, eventually looping back to that "weird tree" from the beginning of the game. After some backtracking for the squirt bottle, I was face to face with Suowoodo!

At lv20, he made a perfect replacement for my Geodude, and having Fighting type moves was just gravy!

I made it to the next town, but wasn't able to challenge the gym leader just yet...

I left and challenged all the girls at the dance house, but that still didn't open up the gym. Unfortunately it was getting late at this point, so I'd have to do some more exploring later.

Day 8:

After a run-in with my rival and some legendary Pokemon, I was finally able to take on the local gym leader. I had initially thought I was going to be up against Psychic Pokemon, but it turns out it was just a bunch of Ghosts. Luckily they share a weakness, and with Bite being a Dark type move I was easily able to tear through the place, and my Crocomaw even evolved into Feraligator in the end!

After biking through a new route I've found myself at the next town, getting ready to visit a local lighthouse and probably help out a sick Pokemon.

Later...

After battling my way to the top of said lighthouse I met with Jasmine, the local gym leader, tending to a sick Pokemon. The cure would be found in the next town across the sea, so I taught Surf to my Feraligator and set off.

It was a long trip, made all the longer with random battles and all the swimmers along the way, but I did make it. The gym was full of Fighting types which I was able to power through without much issue, until I reached the end of the gym. I had to push some boulders around, and I didn't have the Strength HM. A quick glance at Google informed me... I missed it.

I had to swim all the way back to Olivine Town...

Day 9:

Just keep swimming... I made it back Olivine and picked up the Strength HM, teaching it to a Rock/Bug type I had picked up earlier. If I were actually thinking properly I would have used my Abra to teleport back to Cinawood, but as I already visited the Olivine Pokemon Center that was no longer an option, and so it was back in the water.

Back at the fighting gym, now able to move those rocks out of the way, I was able to make quick work of the gym leader's fighting types simply by spamming Surf. After that I was giving the HM for Fly and suddenly the game became a million times better!

I flew back to Olivine and started climbing the lighthouse again. It was easier since all the trainers were defeated but...

Damnit Alan! Can't you see I'm busy!? This stupid phone is easily the worst new feature of the game...

Anyway, I gave Jasmine the potion to give to her Pokemon and with everyone finally happy I was able to battle her in her gym for the badge! It was another easy battle, simply being able to overpower all of her Steel types with my Feraligator. With only two badges to go I scanned the map for places I hadn't visited yet, and ended up in Mahogany Town. It was pretty evident that Team Rocket had the place on lockdown, even duping me out of $1,000 for taking a wrong turn at one point. Eventually I found myself at the Lake of Rage, and met this guy!

A lucky critical strike let me catch the red Gyarados on my first attempt, and when the battle was over, claim one of his red scales. Once back on shore I met up with the dragon trainer, Lance, who was investigating the strange happenings in the area. Before I met him back in Mahogany, I made a quick flight back to Mr. Pokemon, who traded me the Exp. Share in exchange for that red scale!

Later...

The Exp. Share wasn't anywhere near as good as I was hoping, having just recently played X/Y, and remembering the Exp. All from Red/Blue. Still, I got some value out of it, raising my Butterfree to lv20 without actually having to use her.

I met up with Lance back in Mahogany and together we shut down a large Team Rocket facility, which eventually allowed me into the local gym!

Ah, the obligatory sliding ice room. That's cool. I didn't have a Fire type ready, but I didn't really need one either, again being able to slash and bite my way through with my now lv41 Feraligator.

After defeating the Gym Leader I was off to claim my final badge (of this playthrough). The Ice Cave I had to work my way through was actually really fun, aside from the never ending barrage of Zubats. The sliding ice puzzles were fun and the bit where you had to push rocks into holes to navigate another ice rink was cool.

Once out, I was finally in a town, ready to face the gym leader! Surely she would be waiting for me in her gym, ready to do battle!

UGH!

Day 10:

Even more "UGH!" than that, actually. Turns out I completely missed the second half of the Team Rocket radio tower part of the game, specifically the "tower" section.

I flew all the way back to Goldenrod city and spent my entire lunch break fighting through members of Team Rocket both in the tower and in the underground warehouse. Actually, I wasn't even able to finish it all before having to head back! Should be able to snag that last badge tonight...

Day 11 & 12:

Finishing up the Team Rocket story line eventually had me heading to the Tin Tower, Clear Bell in hand, to deal with good ol' Suicune... and a bunch of meddling monks.

I actually had to reset my game after failing the first attempt catching this guy. I just... didn't have the balls for it. After stocking up on a good 30 Ultra Balls I went back for another try, this time with Butterfree at the ready.

Even asleep and at no more than 5 HP, it still took about 12 Ultra Balls before I could finally claim the Legendary Water Type. Now it was back to Blackthorne...

At this point in the game I'm basically just powering through everything with my possibly over-leveled Feraligator. Even still, Dragon Types cause a bit of an issue for me, as I never did level an Ice type, nor could I afford the TM for Ice Beam or Blizzard or whichever it is...

8 badges in hand it was finally time to swim over to Kanto! Lots of trainers out here, as well as some worthwhile wild Pokemon to catch on Victory Road. Here was my final team:

Upon reaching Indigo Plateau I stocked up on several Full Heals, Hyper Potions and Full Restores, and had a few Ethers, Elixirs and Revives I'd been holding on to. With a full stock of items, I actually didn't have much trouble with the Elite 4.

Hi Koga, I see you got a promotion! Nothing too exciting in the first four fights, aside from a clutch Pokemon swap to my Golbat when my opponent's Hitmontop used Dig to evade the attack... Lnace was a different story...

Three of his Pokemon were one hit knockouts, but his three Dragonites were cause for concern. Thunder, Thunderwave, Hyper Beam... all I could do was soak up the damage and Full Restore as needed. That's exactly what I did and after 13 hours and 150 Pokemon sighting, it was finally over.

I know all about the post game Kanto quests, and Battle Tower and all that, and the Legendary Pokemon.

I'm not doing that. Game says THE END, so it's the end.

Conclusion:

So... Hm. My feelings towards this game changed pretty drastically over the coarse of playing it. At first I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and couldn't wait to get out into the tall grass catching Pokemon. By the end of it, the end screen could not come soon enough.

For all intents and purposes it's a solid RPG. Everything handles and plays well, everything is mostly straight forward. I never felt like the game itself was making me not want to play it. I also really appreciate seeing the origin of mechanics that persist in current generation games like item holding, daycare and breeding, the Battle Tower. The problem, I feel, is that this game is very much a product of its time, and it really doesn't fit very well outside of that time.

This first became apparent when it came to Trade Evolutions. Gengar, Alakazam, Golem - These final stage Pokemon could only be acquired through trading the second stage Pokemon to a friend. Well... no one's playing Gold and Silver anymore. None of my friends have a Gameboy Color and a link cable, let alone the game itself. Believe, not a single one of my friends did NOT have these things back when this game was relevant! Everyone's playing X and Y or the new Ruby and Sapphire games, and the improvements those games bring to the franchise are astonishing when compared to the first two generations.

This is also why I feel HeartGold and SoulSilver and FireRed and LeafGreen were made. This nostalgia is one worth experiencing, but in its original context, I just don't think it holds up.

Liked:

- I mean, it's Pokemon. Throwing balls and catching 'mons felt as good 16 years ago as it does now.
- Music is till great and will take a long time to dilodge from my brain.
- I like the new little touches, coming from Generation 1, like the quick animation when you encounter Pokemon.
- This was the beginning of staple features like breeding and held items.
- The post game activities, while not particularly appealing in present times, really are a fantastic addition to the game, adding several hours of game play.

Disliked:

- That damn cell phone!
- While every Pokemon game is a powerhouse at the time of their release, their value becomes quickly overshadowed at the release of a new generation. No one is going to care what level my Feraligator is unless he's made out of polygons at this point.
- This game also marked the beginning of the "Sorry guy, but our gym leader is in another castle!" trend. This is more of a personal preference, but man, I miss just being able to visit a new town, clear out the gym, and move on.
- I don't know when this issue was resolved, I know it is in X/Y, but not being able to really distribute XP across your team always leads to having a single overpowered Pokemon, and five standbys that are hopefully relevant.

Personal Score: