Pokemon Johto Hit or Miss? (Part 1) Gold/Silver/Crystal

Gen 2 is the generation that I spent the most time in as a kid. Most of my gaming back then was playing Pokemon and gen 2 (specifically Crystal) was what most of that time was spent on. So as best as I can, I will try and remove those rose colored glasses to be as objective as possible. I once again use Emulators so i could capture Screen caps of my teams.

Pokemon Gold/Silver box art

Let's start with some mechanical changes an balance fixes that gen 2 applies to the Pokemon formula. First, the busted special stat has been split into special attack and special defense. Meaning special sweepers are no longer also special tanks. This also means that Pokemon who specialize in physical attacks are no longer super weak to special attacks by default. Second, two new types are introduced that make psychic types more balanced. Steel types resist psychic attacks and Dark types are entirely immune to psychic attacks. This plus the new damage dealing ghost move Shadow Ball nerfs psychic types from god tier status to manageable threats. These or 3 gens were the only new types ever added until gen 6 added Fairy types. Finally, as with all generations, 100 new Pokemon to take into account when building your team. As each new generation comes out and more Pokemon get introduced teams your options get more and more expansive making team building more complex.

Pokemon Crystal box art

I've played gen 2 so often that making a team for it with Pokemon I don't use often was pretty difficult but, I took the liberty of making a swift change after having already thought up my team. I originally wanted to use an Espeon as one of my special sweepers but, it wasn't until after I was in goldenrod that I remembered that the Eevee gift from Bill is only in Heartgold/SoulSilver so i had to change up my team composition. Thankfully it was early enough that I only had 2 Pokemon at that point and hadn't caught any Pokemon that I was gonna shuffle out when making the team change. My Pokemon choices didn't affect what version I was picking for the gen 2 version and I stuck with Crystal (Check out Gold/Silver version exclusives here. Crystal doesn't have exclusives and instead has some exclusives from each of gold and silver you can find which Pokemon isn't in Crystal here.)

I picked Crystal because it's the first of the third versions that keeps the starter choice and it has extra features that would latter become standard. First, Pokemon Crystal introduced the choice of being a female trainer (while not super significant it's a neat touch for those who  want to play as a she.) Second, the drop down sign signifying entering a different area. Thirdly, animated Pokemon sprites made it's first appearance in Crystal (this would become standard Emerald onwards.) Finally there were some small storyline changes regarding Suicune (The box art above shows Suicune.)

The story is your standard Pokemon fare. You travel the region on your quest to become the very best that no one ever was, collect 8 badges, beat down the underpowered Team Rocket, and defeat the Elite 4 to prove you're superiority. I could (and probably will) copy paste this to most Pokemon reviews as the story really shouldn't be why you're playing Pokemon.

The 100 new Pokemon, as usual, range from as bad as the Noctowl line to as good as the Ampharos line (my favorite evolution line from gen 2.) Some of those 100 Pokemon are include some baby Pokemon (Elekid, Magby, Smoochem, and Pichu) which are pre-evolutions to some of the gen 1 Pokemon.

I didn't make much if any mention to the Pokemon of gen 1 during it's review mostly to avoid the internet douche bags of the Pokemon community the genwunners (and yes I'm aware that just by mentioning their name I have somehow, summoned one, or a troll, to somehow find this tiny blog and call me a traitor or something else retarded.) Genwunners (for whatever reason) only believe that the original Red/Blue/Green/Yellow are masterpieces and that every other Pokemon games released afterwards are unplayable garbage. They are (obviously) massively incorrect (otherwise Pokemon wouln't be the massive franchise it is today) and should be laughed at whenever they try to pry their nonsense.

The reason these reviews have been taking as long as they have are two fold:
1. My Grandpa recently passed and that completely halted all progress on writing and playing these games.
2. Both the Gen 2 games and the remakes do something that hasn't been done since. They include the region from gen 1 (Kanto) as a post game REGION to explore complete with all of the gyms there for you to battle with revamped gym leaders.

So after conquering all 16 gyms you gain access to Mount Silver which has one final challenge the BLEW MY MIND as a kid. On the top of Mount Silver is Trainer RED. Yes the past you is now fighting the present you to see if you really are the best. It's an epic fight that even in speed running goes wrong more than it goes right. That and the revisit to Kanto was an amazing touch and still have not been bested in terms of post game content.

So with all that said here is my team for Pokemon Crystal:

There is however two small gripes I have with Gold/Silver/Crystal. They're really only problems when you've played the later games and get spoiled rotten by them but, I thought I would mention them here anyway as a sort of balance to all the praise I've been lobbing at Gold/Silver/Crystal. First, as I've mentioned before, this is before gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) so there is no Physical/Special split yet. Which means that all attacks of a type are either Physical or Special depending on the type (Click the links to see the lists of types that are Physical and Special.) This is slightly annoying but, can be abused to make some Pokemon better but, also inherently make some Pokemon worse. For example, Gengar is a Ghost Poison type with high speed and special attack however, both Ghost and Poison (Gengar's STAB, Same Type Attack Bonus, types) are both physical meaning that what would be Gengar's best moves, in gen 4 and beyond, in Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb pull their damage from Gengar's garbage Physical attack stat. The other small problem is that this is before gen 5, Black/White 1 and 2, so Tms are one time use. So you have to really choose carefully which TMs you use on which Pokemon. These are again, small gripes compared to the massive amount of praise i coul sing all day for these games.

So, if I haven't been smashing you over the head with this enough, I had a great time going back and playing Gen 2 again. Nowadays, there really isn't a reason to go back and play the Gen 2 games since HeartGold and SoulSilver exist but, going back and playing these and remembering the much simpler times to a Pokemon fan, I feel at least, is well worth the majorly small issues I have with them. You can buy a Physical cartridge for the Gameboy Color or using the Gameboy player extension on a Gamecube on Amazon or ebay (prices range from around $28 to $35 for Gold or Silver and $45 to almost $60 for Crystal which has never been re-released) or on September 22 Pokemon Gold an Silver are coming to the 3DS eshop (Which will be $9.99 for either version.)

Next up will be part 2 which will cover HeartGold/SoulSilver and all of the changes there.