Pokemon Soulsilver is the third mainline game I ever played, behind Diamond and Platinum. I remember begging my dad for this game and receiving it on Easter since he wanted an excuse to not just get it for me for no reason. Back when I first played this, I absolutely loved it. Playing through the game just to unlock Kanto! I had never played a gen 1 game before so it was amazing (and still is). Present day, this game is nearly flawless. Starting with the story, this is a weaker part of the game. This game follows up on the Team Rocket plot from before, with Team Rocket trying to get Giovanni back in the picture and to regroup. While interesting at first, it isn't anything particularly special. Their motivations are a bit more clear, but ultimately aren't a major motivator for the game. We do get more unique interactions with them though, like at the slowpoke well and the lake of rage. While these are moments that stand out, they still do not make Team Rocket very complex. Instead, the game's sense of adventure pushed me through. I wanted to explore every inch of this region again and all the unique aspects. The game has a lot of old theming around it, like Ecruteak city for instance. The burnt tower, Bell tower, and dance theatre perfectly show the inspirations for the region and how it is less technologically advanced than Kanto was represented. This is seen especially with the apricorn system for instance, though I did not utilize this much. There are many attractions throughout Johto, one of which being the Pokeathlon. This was and still is one of the best minigame systems put into a mainline Pokemon game. All of the minigames are enjoyable and can add hours upon hours of playtime onto this. There is also the Ruins of Alph, which has a set of puzzles and the Unown. This is a great side quest to go through and if you have an Arceus you can also go to the Sinjoh ruins for possibly one of the most strange Pokemon cutscenes ever. As for our rival, he is more complex than Blue primarily with how aggressive he is with us and his own Pokemon. It's interesting to see how he slowly realizes throughout the game that he needs to treat his Pokemon with love and care rather than view them through the lens of power. I don't like how the final quote where he realizes this is an optional battle at the dragon den however, as if this is missed then it could be frustrating not seeing his story end naturally. This also brings me to a point of contention. I do not like that the Celebi event was locked behind a limited time event. Now, I did use the DNS trick in order to do this event. The event is great, we go back in time and get backstory about Silver and Giovanni and also battle Giovanni. It re-contextualizes huge parts of the story and really completes lots of it as well. However, if there wasn't a custom DNS server open then this event would be impossible, meaning we would not be able to experience this in game without cheats. I understand the event system and having special pokemon for this, however this was too far when holding back integral story content. This aside, I do have a few smaller issues as well. The game feels very underwhelming in terms of difficulty and levels. Most mons were incredibly underleveled in each route up until victory road. This was irritating as I battle every trainer I came across and still felt underleveled. Then I got to the elite four only to realize the highest level Pokemon in the league was level 50. While this is okay if there's enough EXP beforehand, there really isn't a consistent amount in the game. Only one or two of my Pokemon were appropriately leveled and everything else was lacking severely. This also goes for the Kanto region. While I absolutely love this postgame (one of the best in the series, literally an entire region), I don't love the levels in it. You were regularly see level 15 pokemon in routes which is so below what you will have at that point. Yes, the trainers will have appropriately leveled mons but you cannot consistently grind against the route pokemon until you get to Mt. Silver. This is a bit ridiculous, all the Pokemon in the routes should have been scaled up. Now, the battle with Red. This is a GREAT fight. It's a great final fight and really does take a lot of prep. It feels a tad annoying having to grind for even longer due to the EXP deficit, but beating him is worth it. There are also many, many legendaries to catch over the course of the game, but I feel like they went slightly overboard with the roaming pokemon. Yes, Platinum has four roaming legendaries whereas Soulsilver only has three, but two out of those three know roar. I can manage this with mean look and hypnosis, but they broke out of this constantly and ended the fight, This made it so much more tedious and annoying. The amazing thing is though, even with all of those issues this game is still incredible and one of the best Pokemon games. The amount of content is honestly insane and will keep you busy for a very long time and is a must play for any Pokemon fan.