Pokémon Crystal es lo más JRPG que jamás se va a sentir la franquicia. Es francamente sorprendente lo mucho que metieron en un juego en esos años, donde sí, quizás la historia es lo que más sufre, pero los pequeños momentos ayudan mucho a sentir Johto como una región viva donde siempre están pasando cosas. Los eventos diarios y semanales, la inclusión de no solo 8, sino 16 medallas y toda una región extra completa hacen que este juego dure horas y horas y horas. No quise continuar con el post-game porque me sentí muy a gusto pasando el juego base con la creación de dos equipos y que aparte logré sacar un shiny, pero no descarto la idea de volver a jugarlo después para terminar el post-game y acabar la liga fusionando a esos dos equipos. Por mientras, quedo muy satisfecho de mi viaje de regreso a Johto.

Johto (Finished in 33:45) 10/4/2024
Team that beat the leauge:
Typhlosion - 46
Suicune - 46
Gyrados - 32
Weepingbell - 31
Rhydon - 35
Pidgeot - 36

So first of the playtime was me trying to get an Umbreon for the ghost gym which I realised was a waste of time due to no dark type moves until like level 36 this was in reality like just over 20 hours. This game was fun I enjoyed going through Johto again for the first time since I first played Heart Gold. I don't think its my favourite Pokemon game but its nowhere near the worst. This game was incredibly easy because of the difficulty curve until I fought the elite four and champion and brought like 5 full restores and revives so in the end I was cycling through reviving Suicune and sacrificing all the useless team members. I can't say its the fault of the game though it just made it more fun trying to keep my team alive after playing the modern games. Looking forward to the post game now though.

Yeah, Johto kinda sucks. On the one hand the lore and world are some of the most interesting in the entire series (especially in Heart Gold & Soul Silver where it becomes much more fully realized thanks to hardware advancements). On the other hand it has by far the WORST PACING in the entire franchise. Not only are the levels of wild Pokemon and trainers incredibly inconsistent, especially in the late game, but due to hardware limitations they had to make Johto incredibly small so they could fit the entirety of Kanto on the same cartridge. When I say the entirety of Kanto, it's more like a hollow husk of Kanto. Heart Gold & Soul Silver certainly made some improvements to Johto, but the terrible pacing is still present.

I also failed to mention the new Pokemon. On paper 100 new Pokemon is awesome! In practice you won't be able to get many of them until the post-game (Larvatar, which evolves into the region's pseudo-legendary Tyranitar can't be caught until the END of the post-game). Not to mention half the gym leaders don't even use the new Pokemon. The very first gym, a flying type user, has a team made up of, get this, Pidgey and Pidgeotto. You'd think the ghost type gym leader would at the very least incorporate the new ghost type Misdreavus on their team, right? Nope, best I can do is Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar.

Small design decisions like this plague Johto and constantly make me scratch my head.

I used to think that these older Pokemon games were cool novelties that did not stand the test of time at all. Hell, for years gen 2 was my least favorite out of any of them. I shiny hunted Celebi on the VC version of this game and stopped playing immediately after. I never really "got" Crystal or the hype around it. After SV pushed me away from the series, I came back with a real Gameboy Color (custom of course) and an official Crystal cartridge. Now that I've beaten Red, I can easily say that I was so wrong.

I forgot what it was like for these games to actually feel like an RPG with an end goal to reach for. I forgot how much smaller details got put into the world to make it feel more alive. Legendaries actually feeling like legends that you can find and catch for yourself, rather than the game just handing them to you. So many other components that make these games so special are highlighted in Crystal, and it made me love this series again.

This game definitely isn't perfect, and it's not going to suddenly be my favorite Pokemon game. But after the Switch's output of mostly okay-at-best pokemon games this was such a nice refresher, and a reminder as to why I still love this series after 15 years.

Man, remember when Pokémon actually tried? These games used to feel like an actual adventure with dungeon-esque sections and optional content that was cool to discover.

Game Freak will never top the moment in the gen 2 games where you surf to the right of New Bark Town and are told you stepped into Kanto. Then you realize you have 8 more badges to collect. You get to go through Kanto and see what has changed over the years. You also have stuff like the roaming legendary beasts, fighting Red, introduction of Pokémon breeding and shiny collecting, etc. It's kind of crazy how much new stuff this gen had.

Gen 2 was almost too ambitious because it just made gen 3 look lame in comparison. The taking out of features was almost an omen of things to come.

There's really no reason to play RBY when you have this (except for getting exclusives). Crystal is such a packed game, especially for its time, despite how crazy the pacing is. Definitely the best of the GB/C Pokemon selection, boasting a really streamlined visual experience. Prepare to devote at least 100 hours to just beating this game normally, both of my normal playthroughs have taken that long. Compared to gens 3-5 it leaves a lot to be desired and requires a lot of patience, which is why I wouldn't put it up against most newer entries. It is pretty cool for what it is, though.
251/251 Pokemon Caught
16/16 Gym Badges
350+ Hours