I definitely did not have the intended experience with this game given that I played with cheated in rare candies and on constant 4x speed in order to finish it on time, so my opinions are not as developed as they were for red/blue. Despite this, I think this game was a fucking MASSIVE improvement on red blue. The world felt infinitely more alive and interesting which made it a lot more fun to explore. The game also improves massively on dungeons as they are typically pretty fun, but I will say that at times it could feel like an overcorrection where my team was never really in any danger at all. The problem with red/blue's dungeons was the puzzles combined with the length and encounter rate, but it feels like to "fix" these problems all three of those were toned down. This just leads to a more boring experience where you aren't really feeling challenged. Though I will say of my issues with this game this one is likely the most exacerbated by how I played, so I'm not going to hold it against the game much. The cities felt like they had taken on a definite theme, which at times felt missing or at least not as present in red/blue. That was a huge improvement that made the world a lot more fun. Additionally, Kanto being added as a bonus area was a very nice touch that added a really good feeling of connectedness in the world. However, I will say that some progressions in Kanto felt very obtuse. For example, needing to know that you have to go to the power center to get to Misty, and knowing to go next to Bill's house to interrupt her date is insane. Maybe I just missed out on the npc that gives you a hint but these felt like pointlessly weird things to need to infer. Maybe the point was to just encourage you to explore, but exploring for a goal that is nowhere in sight isn't fun for me. The QOL changes in this game are incredible though. The inventory system having tabs and being large enough to actually hold things is very smart and helpful. Additionally, being able to be prompted to use HM moves was very nice and made exploring have a lot less friction. However, on the topic of HMs, although I think they are a great way to interact with the world, maybe tone it down to below fucking 7 of them lmao. Due to the sheer amount of HMs I inevitably missed one of them, which causes the wiki trip where you find out it was some item box or person in some random area multiple hours ago, so then you have to backtrack to go retrieve it. This often takes a minimal amount of time, but it is a layer of friction that is largely unneeded and can be improved by either having less hms or making them more obvious or guaranteed to obtain. Despite my complaints, I think this game is a very huge step forward and was a pretty enjoyable.
Improved on the first generation in every way but still has flaws of its own within its poor pacing and scaling and weak regional dex. I still absolutely adore the GBC style.
I've always felt like I haven't heard a rearrangement of this game's soundtrack that quite matches what it sounds like in my head. For as luxurious as HGSS's are, I'd say that Gold and Silver's soundtrack remind me most of 80s sophistipop and city pop-isms - the careful decoration of its backing jingles so pleasantly bouncing off the optimistic lead melodies. I swear I can just hear exactly where the strings and gentle acoustic guitar would go in some of these tracks. Love how evocatively the Surf Theme captures multiple instruments playfully riffing off each other.
In general, it's just a very beautiful Gameboy game. Been thinkin about Viridian Forest being "cut down" in your revisit of GSC; despite being due to a memory shortage, it feels so in line with what it wants you to feel by returning to Kanto. For every landmark that has expanded, there's also just a little something lost, sometimes to an even spiteful extent; the graveyard in Lavender being replaced by a radio station is fucking cynical lol.
It's pretty well-known that Pokemon as a series was inspired by Tajiri's reaction to the places he hunted for bugs as a child being paved over by buildings - and I think there's a lot of beauty to how in that sense, Red & Blue's existence as an immortal pop culture icon has in a sense immortalized those dead forests. But by immortalizing the moment of returning to something, and seeing exactly what's lost, GSC has immortalized something more true to our adult lives, I think. Set to a soundtrack built from the melodic bones of 80s pop's collective melancholic yearning to return to the 60s, its feelings reached me with ease.
That being said...as a whole, GSC is indifferent to becoming wholly nihilistic about what's lost to the past - Neo-Team Rocket are essentially an insurgence group unable to get over their own disbandment.
Pokemon under Satoshi Tajiri's rule has a very 'roll with the bads and the goods' mindset to modernity; despite everything I've said, the game is still adorably in love with the aesthetics of mundane modern urban life as well. The trend of every Pokemon game having a mechanically integrated cell phone - one that looks exactly like whatever the average person walked around with in the streets at the time - started here. This was only enforced further looking at cutting-room-floor content, and seeing they were originally gonna reskin the bike to a skateboard in this one...
And as someone who grew up at the tail-end of this part of the series, it's neat to see how things that felt regular to me at a time now feel like Time Capsules. In particular, the male protagonist's backwards cap, wristwatch, and yellow on black pants strike me as sooooo transitional between 90s and 2000s. And honestly, ever since I saw this Sugimori illustration of Kris, I've been feeling like this game needs to be in the conversation surrounding games w/ cool Y2K aesthetics.
Anyways this post was secretly an underground recruitment page and i want you to DESTROY YOUTUBERS. i recently had a "used to play video games but now they only play league of legends" friend say that they liked this game but thought it was "objectively bad" and i feel comfortable moving forward to call the whole level curve discussion a form of widely accepted propaganda.
At the very least, diversify the wording! "level curve" is referring to like three contrastingly diff things at once that nobody even completely agrees on, other than it being a problem. I've seen people say the level curve makes it too easy, and the level curve makes it too hard. Replaying it, there's a lot of genuinely neat boss fights in here. The mid-game is weak, but the wild Pokemon are weaker - encouraging you to see how far you can push your new guys; I love how rough Jasmine's Steelix can get if you picked the Water-type starter, but don't wanna rely on them. In a way, I sympathize with people who assume that old beloved JRPGs are just broken - levels make it hard to tell whether it's your fault, or the game's - but it's a little frustrating to read false "you need to grind" allegations against a game, especially due to how ppl seem to validate each other on this subject. Like, yes, this game does jump from level 26 boss fights to level 50 ones in like three hours, but also that's just a balancing choice centered around how good the tools mid lvl-30 pokemon are given in this one. I beat half the Fighting-type elite four member with a level 29 Ursaring! Something tells me this belief descends from the level curve's relationship with how people plan Nuzlockes, and level caps. I'm just not interested in discarding the whole game due to it bringing out the flaws in one particular playstyle, like some negative steam review with 1000 hours. You can't catch Sneasel until post-game, ❌ NOT RECOMMENDED.
Pokemon's obsession with connecting real human beings to each other is something that has brought so much joy to me. Though...playing a game like this, where all of its pros and cons are rooted in that design, I can understand why it just doesn't hit for some people. For every feature such as the real-time clock: the sun setting keeping you in touch with the outside world, no matter how many layers of blanket you are cozily under - there is a Pokemon whose encounter requirement is so specific, you'd need to know a dealer who passes around Prima guides in the school bathroom. And I can't help but think that Pokemon games are kind of a deeply lonely experience the moment the newest game stops being the one everyone around you is playing - or worse, you could've gotten into this series so young, you didn't even have friends yet. I'm pretty sure that being an only child that loves Pokemon just automatically routes you into depression from birth. Interfacing with Bulbapedia to remember how you evolve Growlithe feels like a supplement to an actual experience that is as dead as Satoshi Tajiri's childhood forests itself. But..sorry to grandma post on god's chosen list-making blogsite again, but I'm thinking this is close to being my favourite Pokemon game these days. And this is basically all to say this can be your favourite Pokemon game too, as long as you find the right group of friends who are just strange enough to play it alongside. So much quaintly childish excitement; so excited for the bug catching contest tomorrow yalls!!! don't forget about mt moon monday girlies :D
In general, it's just a very beautiful Gameboy game. Been thinkin about Viridian Forest being "cut down" in your revisit of GSC; despite being due to a memory shortage, it feels so in line with what it wants you to feel by returning to Kanto. For every landmark that has expanded, there's also just a little something lost, sometimes to an even spiteful extent; the graveyard in Lavender being replaced by a radio station is fucking cynical lol.
It's pretty well-known that Pokemon as a series was inspired by Tajiri's reaction to the places he hunted for bugs as a child being paved over by buildings - and I think there's a lot of beauty to how in that sense, Red & Blue's existence as an immortal pop culture icon has in a sense immortalized those dead forests. But by immortalizing the moment of returning to something, and seeing exactly what's lost, GSC has immortalized something more true to our adult lives, I think. Set to a soundtrack built from the melodic bones of 80s pop's collective melancholic yearning to return to the 60s, its feelings reached me with ease.
That being said...as a whole, GSC is indifferent to becoming wholly nihilistic about what's lost to the past - Neo-Team Rocket are essentially an insurgence group unable to get over their own disbandment.
Pokemon under Satoshi Tajiri's rule has a very 'roll with the bads and the goods' mindset to modernity; despite everything I've said, the game is still adorably in love with the aesthetics of mundane modern urban life as well. The trend of every Pokemon game having a mechanically integrated cell phone - one that looks exactly like whatever the average person walked around with in the streets at the time - started here. This was only enforced further looking at cutting-room-floor content, and seeing they were originally gonna reskin the bike to a skateboard in this one...
And as someone who grew up at the tail-end of this part of the series, it's neat to see how things that felt regular to me at a time now feel like Time Capsules. In particular, the male protagonist's backwards cap, wristwatch, and yellow on black pants strike me as sooooo transitional between 90s and 2000s. And honestly, ever since I saw this Sugimori illustration of Kris, I've been feeling like this game needs to be in the conversation surrounding games w/ cool Y2K aesthetics.
Anyways this post was secretly an underground recruitment page and i want you to DESTROY YOUTUBERS. i recently had a "used to play video games but now they only play league of legends" friend say that they liked this game but thought it was "objectively bad" and i feel comfortable moving forward to call the whole level curve discussion a form of widely accepted propaganda.
At the very least, diversify the wording! "level curve" is referring to like three contrastingly diff things at once that nobody even completely agrees on, other than it being a problem. I've seen people say the level curve makes it too easy, and the level curve makes it too hard. Replaying it, there's a lot of genuinely neat boss fights in here. The mid-game is weak, but the wild Pokemon are weaker - encouraging you to see how far you can push your new guys; I love how rough Jasmine's Steelix can get if you picked the Water-type starter, but don't wanna rely on them. In a way, I sympathize with people who assume that old beloved JRPGs are just broken - levels make it hard to tell whether it's your fault, or the game's - but it's a little frustrating to read false "you need to grind" allegations against a game, especially due to how ppl seem to validate each other on this subject. Like, yes, this game does jump from level 26 boss fights to level 50 ones in like three hours, but also that's just a balancing choice centered around how good the tools mid lvl-30 pokemon are given in this one. I beat half the Fighting-type elite four member with a level 29 Ursaring! Something tells me this belief descends from the level curve's relationship with how people plan Nuzlockes, and level caps. I'm just not interested in discarding the whole game due to it bringing out the flaws in one particular playstyle, like some negative steam review with 1000 hours. You can't catch Sneasel until post-game, ❌ NOT RECOMMENDED.
Pokemon's obsession with connecting real human beings to each other is something that has brought so much joy to me. Though...playing a game like this, where all of its pros and cons are rooted in that design, I can understand why it just doesn't hit for some people. For every feature such as the real-time clock: the sun setting keeping you in touch with the outside world, no matter how many layers of blanket you are cozily under - there is a Pokemon whose encounter requirement is so specific, you'd need to know a dealer who passes around Prima guides in the school bathroom. And I can't help but think that Pokemon games are kind of a deeply lonely experience the moment the newest game stops being the one everyone around you is playing - or worse, you could've gotten into this series so young, you didn't even have friends yet. I'm pretty sure that being an only child that loves Pokemon just automatically routes you into depression from birth. Interfacing with Bulbapedia to remember how you evolve Growlithe feels like a supplement to an actual experience that is as dead as Satoshi Tajiri's childhood forests itself. But..sorry to grandma post on god's chosen list-making blogsite again, but I'm thinking this is close to being my favourite Pokemon game these days. And this is basically all to say this can be your favourite Pokemon game too, as long as you find the right group of friends who are just strange enough to play it alongside. So much quaintly childish excitement; so excited for the bug catching contest tomorrow yalls!!! don't forget about mt moon monday girlies :D
Best Gen 2 game
an improvement on generation 1, while also being kind of worse. Despite this games awful leveling, its just so cute and the pokemon charm has never been better.
I'm not sure why exactly I think this game deserves half a star more than Pokemon Gold, but if that game made me like gen 2 then this game made me LOVE gen 2. It still had a lot of the problems that Gold had, like the high levels and the extinction of new Pokemon in Johto, but I think knowing about all these hurdles before I played made my experience way more enjoyable. The music for these games are by far my favorite in the series, I still listen to National Park to this day. Out of all main Pokemon games i've played, this one is definitely the first I'll come back to in the future.
foi o primeiro jogo que eu joguei na minha vida, e apesar das suas imperfeiçoes e sua dex limitada, significou muito pra mim. mas é meio fraquinho comparado com os outros