Pokemon Yellow debuted the concept of re-releasing the latest addition of a Pokemon game with a slew of extra content to justify its existence. However, I wouldn’t consider it to be the definitive version of the original Kanto journey. The bells and whistles attached to Pokemon Yellow deviated far too much from the core narrative and progression of pokemon catching than what was displayed in the Red/Blue entries. For the fans of the Pokemon anime that Yellow was catered towards, it set an inaccurate precedent for every Pokemon generation that followed where they’d have to manually type in Ash’s name for their character and Pikachu would not act as their little staticky shadow step by step. Pokemon Crystal, the subsequent release acting as a sister version of Gold/Silver, is the first instance of what I’d consider a definitive edition for a Pokemon generation.
I can’t believe no one at Game Freak thought to include the option to play as a female protagonist before Crystal. I understand that Pokemon’s target demographic (and video games as a whole) is young boys, but is it outside the realm of possibilities that girls would be interested in a game revolving around collecting cute, fictional animals and bonding with them like pets? Is it the battle system and conquest arc that inherently cements Pokemon as a male-centric series? Hardly. The ability to swap the protagonist’s gender is a brilliant tactic from a marketing standpoint, garnering a crucial audience whose newfound interest in the franchise is because of this new feature giving them a chance to be a contender as a Pokemon master. For the boys who already experienced Johto in either Gold or Silver and are confident in their masculinity, the female protagonist should also mix up the familiar backdrop adequately.
Really, a definitive version of any game should remedy the mistakes made by the rougher iteration it’s sprucing up. One new feature introduced in Gold/Silver is the ability to save the phone numbers of a select few trainers after defeating them in battle, and I didn’t care to humor this feature. Every time one of these people called me to give me an unsolicited rundown of their day, I immediately deleted their contact information. In Crystal, these trainers will notify you of when swarms of rare pokemon are occurring, plus give you various gifts they scrounge up. Socializing finally pays off. The select pokemon found in seasonal packs are also much easier to obtain than the less than 1% chance given in Gold/Silver, which should honestly only be entertained for Remoraid and Snubbull anyway. Gold version exclusive Growlithe is catchable around Violet City to use against Bugsy if your character didn’t choose Cyndaquil as a starter, and dark-ice type Sneasel can be found in the Ice Cave. It’s a far more sensible spot to put a new pokemon with a beneficial typing for both the dragon and psychic challenges the player will face before shipping off to Kanto. Also, if Gold/Silver’s onus was to give the ugly Red/Blue a makeover, surely the moving pokemon sprites that introduce a battle are a pleasant little touch that gives these creatures a boosted speck of personality.
Crystal’s slight narrative deviation seems to revolve around the Suicune, one of three legendary dogs that succeed the legendary bird trio from Kanto. Like in the base game, the elemental dogs will scurry from their resting place in the basement of Ecruteak’s Burned Tower and run frantically around Johto. I did not mention the side quest involving capturing them because stumbling upon them is a rarer occurrence than catching a pokemon only found during swarms, and the exciting moment of finally finding them just to have them roar your pokemon away from battle adds too much insult to injury. At least encountering Suicune periodically finally culminates to potentially catching it in Kanto, unlike the tortuous hunt for Entei and Raikou.
Pokemon Crystal isn’t merely Gold/Silver for girls, even though the addition of playing as one would naturally entice the other half of the gender demographic. Like Pokemon Yellow, its quality-of-life enhancements from the base game are relatively minor, but it doesn’t inject any outside influences from other Pokemon media to discern it for a different player base. Crystal is Gold/Silver plus one, which inherently makes it the definitive version by clear definition.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
I can’t believe no one at Game Freak thought to include the option to play as a female protagonist before Crystal. I understand that Pokemon’s target demographic (and video games as a whole) is young boys, but is it outside the realm of possibilities that girls would be interested in a game revolving around collecting cute, fictional animals and bonding with them like pets? Is it the battle system and conquest arc that inherently cements Pokemon as a male-centric series? Hardly. The ability to swap the protagonist’s gender is a brilliant tactic from a marketing standpoint, garnering a crucial audience whose newfound interest in the franchise is because of this new feature giving them a chance to be a contender as a Pokemon master. For the boys who already experienced Johto in either Gold or Silver and are confident in their masculinity, the female protagonist should also mix up the familiar backdrop adequately.
Really, a definitive version of any game should remedy the mistakes made by the rougher iteration it’s sprucing up. One new feature introduced in Gold/Silver is the ability to save the phone numbers of a select few trainers after defeating them in battle, and I didn’t care to humor this feature. Every time one of these people called me to give me an unsolicited rundown of their day, I immediately deleted their contact information. In Crystal, these trainers will notify you of when swarms of rare pokemon are occurring, plus give you various gifts they scrounge up. Socializing finally pays off. The select pokemon found in seasonal packs are also much easier to obtain than the less than 1% chance given in Gold/Silver, which should honestly only be entertained for Remoraid and Snubbull anyway. Gold version exclusive Growlithe is catchable around Violet City to use against Bugsy if your character didn’t choose Cyndaquil as a starter, and dark-ice type Sneasel can be found in the Ice Cave. It’s a far more sensible spot to put a new pokemon with a beneficial typing for both the dragon and psychic challenges the player will face before shipping off to Kanto. Also, if Gold/Silver’s onus was to give the ugly Red/Blue a makeover, surely the moving pokemon sprites that introduce a battle are a pleasant little touch that gives these creatures a boosted speck of personality.
Crystal’s slight narrative deviation seems to revolve around the Suicune, one of three legendary dogs that succeed the legendary bird trio from Kanto. Like in the base game, the elemental dogs will scurry from their resting place in the basement of Ecruteak’s Burned Tower and run frantically around Johto. I did not mention the side quest involving capturing them because stumbling upon them is a rarer occurrence than catching a pokemon only found during swarms, and the exciting moment of finally finding them just to have them roar your pokemon away from battle adds too much insult to injury. At least encountering Suicune periodically finally culminates to potentially catching it in Kanto, unlike the tortuous hunt for Entei and Raikou.
Pokemon Crystal isn’t merely Gold/Silver for girls, even though the addition of playing as one would naturally entice the other half of the gender demographic. Like Pokemon Yellow, its quality-of-life enhancements from the base game are relatively minor, but it doesn’t inject any outside influences from other Pokemon media to discern it for a different player base. Crystal is Gold/Silver plus one, which inherently makes it the definitive version by clear definition.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com