Recently, some friends of mine have been playing (or replaying) through a bunch of old Pokemon games, and it really got me in the mood to play some myself~. They had been talking a lot about how generation 2 in particular was a really weak generation with a lot of really annoying design decisions. It’s been at least 15 or more years since I last played through Gold or Silver myself, and I certainly didn’t remember it being that bad when I was a kid, so Pokemon Gold seemed like a great fit to scratch the Pokemon itch I’d been feeling. It took me about 25 hours to beat the Elite Four and the Champion, and then it was around the 36 hour mark that I beat Red at Mt. Silver. I played the Japanese version of the game on real hardware via my Super GameBoy (with my team being composed of Golem, Typhlosion, Magneton, Alakazam, Slowbro, and Pidgeot).
Being a Pokemon game and such an early one, there isn’t a ton of story here, and the story really isn’t the focus of the game, but what’s here is certainly interesting in several respects. Taking place in the Johto region, the one adjacent to the west of Kanto (where the first game takes place), this is the rare Pokemon game to actually be a narrative sequel to the previous one, taking place three years after it. It’s hardly high art, and a lot of it is no doubt due to cuts that were required as a result of trying to fit all of Johto AND all of Kanto onto one lil’ GameBoy cart, but it’s nonetheless very interesting to see not just all the new places, but how all of the old, familiar locations in Kanto have changed too. As with how the first generation of Pokemon had it, it’s a fun and light guide through the new region along your trainer’s journey to be the new best trainer around, and it does that job very well~. As for the base mechanics, Pokemon is still very much the same as it was the last time around, save for a few additions or changes here and there which have varying degrees of significance. On the more light side of things, the new gimmick of an in-game clock give us both events related to days of the week as well as a day and night cycle. It can be a bit of a pain to wait for the right day of the week to get a particular item or to wake up early in the morning enough to catch a certain Pokemon, but it’s not all that important most of the time, and it adds a good bit of extra flavor to the experience. As for more significant changes, the new Pokemon (just about 100) do a good job of helping flesh out some types that were underrepresented in the last generation, and a bundle of new Pokemon moves help expand out on several types who had woefully poor move pools in the last game too. It’s hardly perfect, as there are still a good few types who are nearly nonexistent or totally useless, but the introduction of dark and steel types (as well as re-balancing how some other type interactions work) have done a lot to break psychic types’ stranglehold on the greater strategy of Pokemon. Another significant addition to that effect is that “special” is now two stats, “special attack” and “special defense”, and that means that a lot of preexisting Pokemon are either now a lot better or a fair bit worse as a result of how they’re more or less resistant/adept at using special-aligned attacking moves. We’re still a couple generations away from solving the bigger problems with types and special/physical attacks (move category is still dependent on type and not yet linked to the individual move instead as it would be in Pearl & Diamond), but this is a good step in the right direction that adds a good deal of strategy beyond mere type advantage. The bigger changes and issues with Pokemon Gold (and Silver), however, are present more in the nature of its execution rather than how the mechanics work on paper. A large amount of strange and questionable design choices end up making this game feel very awkward and overly convoluted compared to games before and after it. Most prominent among these issues is how the distribution of Pokemon (and the types thereof) is handled. Many Pokemon (both strong and weak, both old and new) are not in Johto at all, but in Kanto (meaning they’re found in the later third of the game, and after the Elite Four, one of the game’s biggest challenges). Additionally, evolution stones, which are used to get many water, grass, fire, and electric type Pokemon to their final and strongest evolutions, are virtually nonexistent. The only way to get them is through a rather obtuse method once in Kanto or through being very lucky with certain very poorly signposted RNG mechanics involving specific NPCs back in Johto. Kanto as a whole has an incredible paradoxical nature to it. On one hand, it was absolutely purposeful to put it in here. After the credits roll for defeating the Champion, going over to Kanto gives you new story events and unique NPC sprites to see, tons of new music to listen to, and a ton of new Pokemon to catch. That’s all saying nothing of just what an incredible programming challenge fitting Kanto on the cartridge alongside Johto was in the first place, of course. On the other had, it feels like a serious afterthought with just how poorly balanced it is. You’re likely already going to have a somewhat difficult time with the Elite Four with just how much higher level they are than you are that point (roughly level 40 to 50), and yet the first five gyms you’ll encounter in Kanto have Pokemon that average around level 35, making them an absolute joke to any trainer who beat the Elite Four to get there. Wild Pokemon are also generally incredible low level, the levels they would’ve been in Pokemon Red & Green, so you aren’t getting challenging encounters anywhere other than the last three gyms and the final battle with Red. Going through Kanto is still fun and interesting, of course, but it’s difficult to ignore just how strangely balanced the whole experience is. Looking back at your initial adventure through Johto, a lot of the new Pokemon are just very poor at doing what they’re meant to do, and the change to the special stat means that a lot of old favorites that were great before are now awful because their stats have been gutted. By the same token, it can be very discouraging to find a favorite Pokemon only to realize later that they require an evolution stone to evolve, so they’re just really not worth using. It’s very easy to end up feeling quite boxed in to only a few actually viable Pokemon due to the statistic shortcomings of some and the inability of many others to evolve. Numerically speaking, almost all of the electric, grass, water, and fire types you’ll find in Johto need an evolution stone to evolve, and only one or two (if even that) end up being reasonable to use at all. The types used in many of the new gyms as well as in the new Elite Four make certain types like Grass feel ultimately quite useless, and the game, while not being *that* hard as far as Pokemon games go, is left with some oddball balancing issues as a result (and the relatively slow leveling curve doesn’t really help matters either). These aren’t fatal problems for the overall design of the game, but it just ends up making the overall experience feel a lot more frustrating compared to earlier or later Pokemon games. The presentation is, as one would expect for Pokemon games of the era, absolutely excellent. The new music is great, and the new takes on old tracks in Kanto are really well done too. The graphics are also excellent, with the new Pokemon art being really well done while having a much more unified style than the first games had. While I do miss the charm of just how weird and disparate the original first generation art was, it’s hard to be upset with new sprites that look this dang nice~. The game looks great in color, of course, but I do want to mention just how surprised I was by this game’s Super GameBoy compatibility. The SGB’s interaction with black cart GameBoy games (that being ones that are in compatible to be played on an old monochrome GameBoy as well as are proper color games on a GameBoy Color) is super variable with some games not using it at all, but this is easily one of the most impressive uses of the hardware I’ve come across. While the overworld you’re walking around in is virtually always in some shade of color-tinged monochrome, battles are actually entirely in color. It’s not a perfect recreation of how the game looks on a GBC, but you’d be hard pressed to spot the difference most of the time. I thought I might be longing for the color that a GameBoy Player or similar GBC-like device would add as I played this on my SGB for the novelty of it, but I was very pleasantly surprised with just how much effort clearly went in to making this game be an impressive color experience for SGB owners as well~. Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. This is a really weird one to recommend, because your mileage is going to vary a LOT depending on how tolerant of the shortcomings in its execution you are. The second generation Pokemon games are absolutely not bad games by any stretch, but a lot of their weaknesses are most prevalent in comparison to their sister Pokemon games. While this is a fun game that I quite enjoyed my time with, it’s really hard to argue that I wouldn’t have probably had just as good if not better a time with virtually any other Pokemon game due to just how generally better designed they are. This is absolutely a Pokemon game worth checking out for fans, but if you’re someone who’s more tepid on the series, then this is very likely you’re going to find is worth skipping even if you’re generally okay with the poorer quality of life features found in these old GameBoy RPGs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
|