Amffy
Crystal was my first time playing through Gen II fully. Before this, I had played through every other Gen, and needless to say, I found it a little underwhelming and I'd probably say it's my least favourite of the 2D generations. Here's why.
Criticism no. 1: Lack of Gen II representation.
Hardly any of the Gym Leaders in Johto have Gen II Pokemon as their aces, and it's disappointing that a lot of Gen II mons either aren't good, are hard to get or are caught in Kanto. As a side note, Ampharos is one of my favourite Pokemon and just so happens to be one of the best Pokemon to use in a Gold or Silver playthrough. However, the decision to omit the Mareep line in Crystal is tragic and disappointing to say the least.
Criticism no. 2: The level curve/difficulty.
Johto is fairly straightforward as far as difficulty, with some tougher Gym Leaders who might catch you by surprise like Whitney or Clair, which is fine. However, much of Crystal is so unbelievably boring, mainly the Team Rocket fights. Every Team Rocket fight is the same Pokemon every time and they aren't challenging at all. It's just a never-ending slog. Team Rocket's Hideout is the worst offender. It's an endless onslaught of weak trainers that'll put you to sleep while you mash A. Team Rocket are very much a shadow of what they were in Gen I and their motives are just dumb, which makes it all the more uninteresting. Evolutionary stones are hard to come by in Johto. Without a guide, you'd likely be stuck with some lame pre-evos before Kanto which would absolutely suck. Then there is the RIDICULOUS level curve at the Indigo League. When Silver battles you in Victory Road his ace is Lv.38, and The Champion's ace is Lv.50. Practically none of the Elite Four have any Pokemon under level 40. To mitigate this level curve I had to grind... a LOT. The Pokemon at Victory Road give terrible experience, so I spent a good few days just grinding while I did other things. This was by far my worst experience with Crystal.
Criticism no. 3: The Post-game
Having never fully played Gen II before, I was pretty interested to see what Kanto had to offer, and people always hyped up Gen II for the "2 regions in 1" thing. Unfortunately, apart from the Gym Leaders, Kanto is pretty much dead, with many places just mysteriously being closed or unaccessible. However, the Battle Tower becomes available in the post-game which is neat, however I didn't try it out. I also didn't do the Red battle, I've seen it way too many times before and I didn't really feel the need to experience it myself.
So all in all, and in my opinion, Gen II is honestly... just bad. If I had to say something good about Gen II it'd probably be the introduction of the day/night cycle and breeding, and of course the OST is brilliant as always. Unfortunately, as a game, I just don't find this fun at all, or as enjoyable as the 2D generations that succeeded it, and I'm also not a fan of Gen I and II's jankiness. I at least got to experience it nonetheless. Because of my experience with this game, I won't be playing Gold or Silver... ever.
Criticism no. 1: Lack of Gen II representation.
Hardly any of the Gym Leaders in Johto have Gen II Pokemon as their aces, and it's disappointing that a lot of Gen II mons either aren't good, are hard to get or are caught in Kanto. As a side note, Ampharos is one of my favourite Pokemon and just so happens to be one of the best Pokemon to use in a Gold or Silver playthrough. However, the decision to omit the Mareep line in Crystal is tragic and disappointing to say the least.
Criticism no. 2: The level curve/difficulty.
Johto is fairly straightforward as far as difficulty, with some tougher Gym Leaders who might catch you by surprise like Whitney or Clair, which is fine. However, much of Crystal is so unbelievably boring, mainly the Team Rocket fights. Every Team Rocket fight is the same Pokemon every time and they aren't challenging at all. It's just a never-ending slog. Team Rocket's Hideout is the worst offender. It's an endless onslaught of weak trainers that'll put you to sleep while you mash A. Team Rocket are very much a shadow of what they were in Gen I and their motives are just dumb, which makes it all the more uninteresting. Evolutionary stones are hard to come by in Johto. Without a guide, you'd likely be stuck with some lame pre-evos before Kanto which would absolutely suck. Then there is the RIDICULOUS level curve at the Indigo League. When Silver battles you in Victory Road his ace is Lv.38, and The Champion's ace is Lv.50. Practically none of the Elite Four have any Pokemon under level 40. To mitigate this level curve I had to grind... a LOT. The Pokemon at Victory Road give terrible experience, so I spent a good few days just grinding while I did other things. This was by far my worst experience with Crystal.
Criticism no. 3: The Post-game
Having never fully played Gen II before, I was pretty interested to see what Kanto had to offer, and people always hyped up Gen II for the "2 regions in 1" thing. Unfortunately, apart from the Gym Leaders, Kanto is pretty much dead, with many places just mysteriously being closed or unaccessible. However, the Battle Tower becomes available in the post-game which is neat, however I didn't try it out. I also didn't do the Red battle, I've seen it way too many times before and I didn't really feel the need to experience it myself.
So all in all, and in my opinion, Gen II is honestly... just bad. If I had to say something good about Gen II it'd probably be the introduction of the day/night cycle and breeding, and of course the OST is brilliant as always. Unfortunately, as a game, I just don't find this fun at all, or as enjoyable as the 2D generations that succeeded it, and I'm also not a fan of Gen I and II's jankiness. I at least got to experience it nonetheless. Because of my experience with this game, I won't be playing Gold or Silver... ever.
2021
As someone who never played the original Pokemon Snap, when this was announced I was very intrigued, and also excited that Bandai Namco were working on another Pokemon title (I love Pokken Tournament). The way they handle the Pokemon franchise is truly great.
As I would expect from Bandai Namco, the graphics, animations, and gameplay is great. They do a great job of adding replay value to a game that could potentially get stale very quickly (gameplay wise). This is where the Research level mechanic comes in. There is an incentive to level up the courses to see what's different, the new Pokemon, new routes, and new interactions with each level. I thought the games' version of boss battles (Illumina Pokemon) was also very creative and fun.
There is also an incentive to get high scores. Factors such as placement, other Pokemon in the photo, etc will grant a higher score for a photo, and you get a final score at the end of the course. It's definitely fun to play through a course and try and get the highest score possible and see how far up the online leaderboards you can get.
I do have two criticisms with this game however; one is the cryptic way of being able to photograph some Pokemon (which are mostly the legendaries). You will almost certainly need a guide to find out how to photograph them because of the specific steps involved. My second criticism is one that unfortunately made me stop playing the game out of frustration, and that is the LenTalk Requests. They are basically the "achievements" of the game, and give you hints, mainly on getting a photograph of a Pokemon's 4-star pose for the Photodex or other random phenomena. Some of these are fairly straightforward, but unfortunately, most of these are also insanely cryptic and require a guide to have any clue on what to do, especially if you plan to complete all of them. Not only that, but even if you follow a guide, you can still fail the request, and that is because the timing is so incredibly specific with some requests. Often what happens is you will follow a guide, take the photos, pick a 4-star photo and the request won't be completed. I thought it was a glitch, but it's just the game being incredibly specific. Not having a Pokemon or object fully in frame or just being slightly off can mean not completing the request, so experiencing this time and time again just made me give up on completing all of the LenTalk Requests, so I put the game down and gave up trying to complete all of them. It would've been a nice way to get the most out of the game but it was WAY too annoying.
Despite this, I had a great time with the game otherwise, and got a good 30 hours out of it. If you liked Pokken or are just a Pokemon fan in general you will probably enjoy the game.
As I would expect from Bandai Namco, the graphics, animations, and gameplay is great. They do a great job of adding replay value to a game that could potentially get stale very quickly (gameplay wise). This is where the Research level mechanic comes in. There is an incentive to level up the courses to see what's different, the new Pokemon, new routes, and new interactions with each level. I thought the games' version of boss battles (Illumina Pokemon) was also very creative and fun.
There is also an incentive to get high scores. Factors such as placement, other Pokemon in the photo, etc will grant a higher score for a photo, and you get a final score at the end of the course. It's definitely fun to play through a course and try and get the highest score possible and see how far up the online leaderboards you can get.
I do have two criticisms with this game however; one is the cryptic way of being able to photograph some Pokemon (which are mostly the legendaries). You will almost certainly need a guide to find out how to photograph them because of the specific steps involved. My second criticism is one that unfortunately made me stop playing the game out of frustration, and that is the LenTalk Requests. They are basically the "achievements" of the game, and give you hints, mainly on getting a photograph of a Pokemon's 4-star pose for the Photodex or other random phenomena. Some of these are fairly straightforward, but unfortunately, most of these are also insanely cryptic and require a guide to have any clue on what to do, especially if you plan to complete all of them. Not only that, but even if you follow a guide, you can still fail the request, and that is because the timing is so incredibly specific with some requests. Often what happens is you will follow a guide, take the photos, pick a 4-star photo and the request won't be completed. I thought it was a glitch, but it's just the game being incredibly specific. Not having a Pokemon or object fully in frame or just being slightly off can mean not completing the request, so experiencing this time and time again just made me give up on completing all of the LenTalk Requests, so I put the game down and gave up trying to complete all of them. It would've been a nice way to get the most out of the game but it was WAY too annoying.
Despite this, I had a great time with the game otherwise, and got a good 30 hours out of it. If you liked Pokken or are just a Pokemon fan in general you will probably enjoy the game.