(This review is for Sacred Gold)

This hack takes what is arguably the best game in the franchise, adds actual teambuilding options + really fun difficulty. No better way to say how good this is.

10/10
Game #23 of 2024, April 12th

Simply amazing this is the definitive way to play Pokemon heart gold and soul silver, drayano fixed all the annoying issues of the original remake like the bad level curve and the lack of Pokemon diversity that really hurt team building.
Dray Also made new events not ONLY for team rocket but he also created new Battles against trainers that would have never challenged you before.
The difficulty is Higher but the game is never unfair,many people received some kind of buff so you can use whatever you want and still sucessed.
The Pokédex and the game post game were Also expanded there are some good surprises waiting for you.

If you want to revist johto just play this hack you won't be disappointed.

I'm a huge fan of this game. I've been playing through the game with hardcore Nuzlocke rules, and it's a pretty stellar time. I think Heart Gold is, while not my personal favorite, one of the single best Pokemon games. It's brought down by the weird level curve mostly, but otherwise this is some of the most content, fun map design, encounters variety, and best superficial add-ons like Pokemon following you or Pokeathalon. However, the level curve as well as some of the pacing makes it a little wack. And the difficulty curve, while fairly normal in the beginning, gets weird and bad by late game. That's why this game is so great. I wouldn't call it a "difficulty hack", but the gyms are significantly harder and more fleshed out. The encounter variety is even better than before, with a fun solid mix of types and strengths on a solid curve. The story has been made linear, the Rockets are expanded upon, and overall the pacing and level curve are excellent. This is, in many ways, a more definitive version of Heart Gold to fans of the series.

Buuuut...

I know I said this isn't a difficulty hack, but I still find the difficulty a bit confusing. You know in Kanto games, when you get to Vermilion City and you can catch a Diglett right next door to the electric type gym and sweep it with no problem? There's kind of a lot of that in this game. And in general, a lot of sweeping opportunity. Jolteon, Magnemite, Luxio, Flaafy, Geodude, and more are all obtained incredibly close to Falkner and make his fight trivial. You get a free Spiritomb right before Whitney, and half her Pokemon have no way to hit it. There's a Shadow Claw TM in Ecruteak, only a city after getting access to unlimited Swords Dance TMs. So on so fourth. Which means that sometimes, in practice, fights are only marginally more interesting than base game. What's the difference between spamming Surf on Blaine's 3 Pokemon vs pressing Swords Dance once and spamming Shadow Claw on Morty's 8? Very little. This is only frustrating because it doesn't have to be this way, even with the exact same encounters. More varied movepools and use of dual types would make these gyms take a lot more thought without spiking the difficulty. Give Falkner a Gligar for example. Bugsy is a spike in difficulty because her team has STAB U-Turn as a very strong option, Rain Dance to counter fire types, rock moves for flying types, Swords Dance Scyther, etc, to make this not a sweepable fight. All the Rockets get a lot more freedom in their teams and it makes them super interesting to fight. I'm not asking for Kaizo difficulty, I don't think I'd want that, but these teams are more expressive and fleshed out versions of the same one note teams of base game, instead of more varied thoughtful teams.

That all said, this game is still insanely good and any Pokemon fan should play it. Great work Drayano :)

Overall, just likes the other Drayano hacks, the biggest appeal is the overall increased Trainer/Boss difficulty and significantly wider selection of catchable mons. The latter of which was always my least favourite part of GSC/HGSS - just how low the mon variety is (including several Johto lines!). Well, this fixed that. Thank You Drayano!

Though the level curve still raises my eyebrows. There were multiple times where I had to grind mons 10levels below my team for 10+mins, to keep up with some of the harder gym leaders (as well as a tricky fight with Giovanni).

I dropped this mainly bc Clair's Kingdra completely decimates my mono Rock team. Even my higher Sp Def. mons like Tyranitar and Omastar get 2 hit KO'd. My only solution was to bring Lileep and Shuckle out and grind them. But I didn't feel like doing that.

Whenever I want to experience Johto again, it'll be through this hack for sure. But maybe with a better rounded team lmao.

pretty dang fine hack

the difficulty curve's fixed, Team Rocket members has more unique Pokémon, a few extra story moments to spice things up, Johto Pokémon like Misdreavus and Larvitar not being locked to the very end of the post-game, and even a bunch of returning Sinnoh characters to fuel that Sinnoh nostalgia!

that said there's still a few minor nitpicks I have. it's very easy to cheese some parts of the game with the right set ups, early in the story some characters say you're destined to be some "Legendary Trainer" that doesn't really go anywhere, and there's this weird robot girl in the Olivine Poké Center who breaks the fourth wall and disappears like a ghost totally broke my immersion 0/10

I wouldn't say this is the definitive Johto experience, but it's a lot better than the official experience, I don't think I can ever return to base HG/SS after playing this. if you've never played a Johto game before, play this instead, have a good time :^)