It has been many, many weeks since I last posted anything and while I would like to attribute that to me being swamped at work I’m sure the fact that I have been getting a new PS3 game every week since buying the console has ataken up alot of my spare time. Last week I did something different and wiped the dust of my DS and started playing the newly released Pokémon Heart Gold and what great fun it has been. Instead of writing a review (though I’m sure it’ll come at a later date) the release of Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver has made me remember why the decade old Gold and Silver are still the greatest additions to the series. So here are my reasons as to why Pokémon Gold and Silver are still the best in the series.
1. New Pokémon
Ask any old school Pokémon fan and they will most likely tell you that the original 151 are the only Pokémon that matter and any of the new ones don’t exist. However opinion is usually split when it comes the new Pokémon introduced by G&S. By the time the games were about to be released fans had already gotten many hints at the possibilities of new Pokémon thanks to the release of the first two movies and the completion of the first anime series. This had gotten people really excited to see what the developers had come up with and were open to some of the more weirder additions.
After G&S though introducing new Pokémon into the series wasn’t really that exciting anymore. The developers seemed like they had either run out of imagination and just started going through an animal encyclopedia to look for an animal that could have a household item attached to it or tried to come up with something as wierd and impossible looking as they could so as to make it look original. The new 100 Pokémon that were added in G&S were exactly what the series needed to breathe new life into it however every iteration afterwards just kept adding more and more unnecessary new Pokémon just for the sake of adding new Pokémon.
2. Gameplay Additions
G&S introduced a massive amount of new features into the series which then became standard for every game since. The most obvious of these features was the internal clock that kept track of the current time and day of the week which influenced a lot of things in the game such as nocturnal Pokémon. Pokémon were now able to hold items that would influence their power in battle and also how they evolved.The Pokédex had a massive overhaul which included new features such as full explanations of every ability taking out the guess-work to determine which ability is stronger. The new Pokédex was also now more than just an encyclopedia for Pokémon but was also a radio receiver that allowed you to listen to in game radio stations while exploring. A mobile phone was also introduced as a new way for important characters to get in touch with you and allowed trainers you had previously fought against call you up for a rematch against their newer and stronger Pokémon. Yes all of these features have appeared in other games since but very little has changed since G&S all of these features are either exactly the same or even been removed altogether.
3. Allowed travel back to the “old world”
While it is noticeably smaller due to the hardware limits of Gameboy cartridges the ability to travel back to the Kanto region of the first games and battle the original gym leaders was by far the best part of G&S. Since G&S was set 3 years after the events of R&B the region of Kanto had dramatically changed and while a lot of it was very familiar it was just different enough to make the player feel they were in an entirely new area. Many of the old Gym leaders are still there waiting to be battled, some are off exploring exotic locations while another was replaced entirely with a familiar face.
4. Storyline
Pokémon games have never been much for story beyond go defeat the Gym Leaders then try to “Catch ‘em All” but they still managed to have some degree of story telling in them such as Mewtwo’s escape or the player single-handedly taking down Team Rocket and it’s leader. G&S continues on with these kinds of stories by reintroducing Team Rocket not just as obstacles but as a fledgling organisation struggling to make their way back into power. The moment I turned on the radio and heard Team Rocket broadcasting over every station I knew shit was getting serious.
On top of all this G&S are very solid games in their own right not straying to far from the traditional Pokémon formula. They don’t need to rely on the laurels of its predecessor to be succesful. So even with the release of new games and new Pokémon Gold & Silver will always be number one for me.
