Pokémon Crystal is the step-up the franchise needed, in technical terms it is worlds ahead than the Gen I games, introducing so many features and mechanics that make it so much more easier to pick up and play compared to its predecessor, and it makes for probably one of the best games of the (short) Game Boy Color's legacy. Adding in new ways of evolving Pokémon, shinies, expanded and way more smarter storage, day and night cycle (this is kinda important for Pokémon and it's kinda sad that they don't bring it back until Gen IV), and so much more nifty things like being able to change the order of your moves or the very first appearance of Pokémon eggs.

But sadly this does mean that while it stands on its own, it doesn't do a lot but get compared to the Gen I games and that makes it hard to make out the actual substantial differences between this and that game, and the generation itself doesn't help either since it's pretty lackluster and Johto is mostly filled with Kanto creatures with some of the 100 new ones sprinkled in here and there, and even the story is a bit more sub-dued and dulled out with the region feeling like things are simply closer to one another, and the post-game is literally just going through Kanto--or at least a very abridged version of it.

It's weird to criticize this game just because of how hard the shadow it casts, and at the same time how hard its overshadowed by later things in the franchise, but I like to think Gen II Pokémon took the bullet for the rest of the series going forward and in return we just got a decent game with loads of better gameplay than the first, but nothing more.