You are a trainer of these animal-like
creatures called Pokémon. You use Pokéballs (and other upgraded
balls) to capture these Pokémon,
and if they stay in the ball, then they are yours to keep. Then you can
use them in battle. Each Pokémon has a level and a type. The level
determines its attack power, defense, and HP (Hit Points). The type determines
its weakness or strength against other types. You have six Pokémon
in
your party, and can keep many more
in your PC. You determine which Pokémon is first, and it always
is the
first one that battles. You can switch
others in and out during battle. You can also change the Pokémon
in
your party by going to your PC at a
Pokémon Center, which also heals your Pokémon. Once a Pokémon
loses its HP, it is defeated. Once all the Pokémon are defeated,
the trainer with those Pokémon loses. Finally, you can use items
that restore health or boost its strength. You go around winning battles
and beating gym leaders for badges, which you need for multiple reasons
(explained in the game itself as you go along).
This stuff you probably all know. You
also probably all know how I blasted this game for nearly two years now.
Things have changed, however, since I decided to go back and play the game
again. Using a strategy
fellow tourist Misty Koopa suggested
(thank you very much!), I went from totally frustrated to champion in
just over a week. Now considering I
gave Metroid Fusion three stars even though I had a similar situation as
I did when I quit this game (it seemed to be way too difficult for me),
there's no reason this game shouldn't get a good score, considering I liked
most of this game except for several tough spots. Here comes my real Review
of Pokémon Gold, still on the 0-4 star scale, but a lot more fair
than the first time around.
Graphics: *1/2
This hasn't really changed. The graphics aren't that great, though they're not so terrible that you can't understand what's going on. I guess for the GBC they're not that bad, but I think they can be better in the battle scenes, the only time graphics can actually be shown off. The Surf move has a pretty neat effect to it, but that's about it. Of course graphics don't matter, certainly not in this game.
Sound: *
I can't say the sound was very impressive.
Two of what I would consider some of the best tunes in video game history
(the Gym Leader battle tune and the final Rival battle tune) were taken
out in favor of other,
lesser tunes. Even more so, you don't
get to hear that awesome tune from Silph Company or the interesting
tune from the Pokémon House
on Cinnabar Island anymore. Finally, where's the Cerulean/Fuchsia Gym
tune?
Oh, there's music in the game, just not that good music. The best tune is the awesome Lucky Channel theme (listen to the radio in Johto), which is reminiscent of several good Mario Party tunes. Most other music is either poor or boring. The tune in New Bark Town is almost like funeral music... it's too sad for my liking. It's not all bad, it's just not that good, and I have high standards.
Difficulty: *
This rating may make little sense. How
can I possibly now call Pokémon Gold an easy game when I previously
called it hard? The answer is this: I've played a lot of hard games since
Pokémon Gold (including a certain
one released in August 2002 for the
GameCube), and this game doesn't even compare to their difficulty. As
long as you aren't a quitter, you can
make it through the difficult parts of this game and keep on going. I was
a quitter, but now that I started playing the game again, I realized that
it wasn't all that hard after all. I now know what hard games are, and
this is not one of them. Easy difficulty isn't a bad thing, at least not
in my books, though I do wish Kanto was harder (more on this later).
Characters: ***
You know, I've always had a liking for
the Pokémon characters. The gym leaders have such contrasting
personalities, they'd be a perfect
cast for Survivor (cheater Sabrina would win it all, though). I'm always
big on the gym leaders, as I love to see their personalities, and these
have very varied personalities, ranging from the strange Bugsy to the mean
Clair to the crybaby Whitney to the caring Jasmine. The rival character
does seem believably rough, though I wish he were a little taller (he has
a 16-to-20-year-old's personality but a 10-year old body). There's some
rule in certain RPGs that the main character of the game can't talk, but
why can't Red? Red, by the way, is the main character from the original
three games (Ash is the American cartoon's name for this character), who
you battle in the final battle, but since he's not the main character in
this game, I think he ought to talk, not just say "....". If not, then
someone else should be the final trainer, why not Giovanni? There are quite
a few references to him, and even if he stopped running Team Rocket, he
could still be a Pokémon trainer
(and maybe still have that Mewtwo... ooh, the list of ideas goes on and
on).
Before I move on, there are also these
creatures known as "Pokémon"... I'm sure you've heard of them before,
and from what I hear, they play a pretty big role in this game. Yeah, they're
important, and almost all of them are here. Now you can try making them
fall in love and have more Pokémon (hatched from eggs that you must
carry around for a while). That means genders play an important role as
well in this game. What's
more, it matters to have your Pokémon
happy with you. It's basically a continuation of the Pokémon Yellow
idea, where you tried to keep Pikachu
happy, but for really not much reason. In this game, if certain Pokémon
like you enough, they'll evolve... that means that two new Eevee evolutions
can happen, depending on the time of day. Anyway, so much more happens
with the Pokémon in this game than before, making them more of characters
than just objects, and making raising them the right way another dimension
of the game.
Controls: ****
My opinion on these hasn't changed much...
they are simple and easy. The Select option lets you simply hit
the Select button to use an item rather
than having to go through the menus to find it. This saves you lots
of time, especially if the bike is
your Select item. Of course, the theme of the controls of this game is
for everything to be really, really simple, and that doesn't hurt at all
in this RPG.
Story: **1/2
The story (in the last Review known as Setting) really isn't that bad. It's not that depressing, after all, and it makes a lot of sense. I like the fact that Kanto people seem to despise Johto people; it adds to the feeling of there being a rivalry between the two lands. I do wish that once you win in the Pokémon League, you would be recognized as Pokémon League champion for more than a minute or two. The story seems to be a lot better than that really "dark" and "mature" story in the upcoming Pokémon Colosseum (a "dark" and "mature" story is not necessary to make a game good; just look at the Mario series before the GameCube).
Gameplay:
I choose not to talk much about the
basic gameplay of how to catch Pokémon and how to win battles, etc.,
considering I've explained most of
that simple stuff at the beginning. Instead, I will say right now that
the gameplay is very good, and I will talk more deeply about certain bigger
parts of the game.
Johto: ****
Johto is the heart and soul of this
game (I will speak on how that's unfortunate later). This is where all
the Team Rocket battles occur (except one), and where you do most of the
dungeon-style quests (like Union
Cave, Ice Path, the Radio Tower, etc.).
I was upset about some parts of this land for a while, but truth be told,
they were no worse than any other time I struggled in the original Pokémon
games. Sometimes you'll have to meet up with the gym leaders outside of
gyms for special tasks, which I like. There is a lot to explore in Johto,
about as much as there was to explore in the original games. Both of the
legendary birds are in Johto (Ho-oh and Lugia), and catching them is a
real challenge. I enjoyed this part of the game a lot when I played it
the first time, save for a few frustrating points, but I didn't really
say that in my former Review or anywhere else, as I was so frustrated that
I only talked about the bad things of the game. Looking back, I nowremember
enjoying the Radio Tower almost as much as I enjoyed Silph Company in the
original Pokémon games, and I remember my dramatic win over Pryce.
It wasn't all bad, in fact not bad at all. Adding to the score is Mount
Silver, which is in Johto, but not a place I explored following the last
Review (I quit before beating the Elite Four). That place lets you see
lots of rare and strong Pokémon, then lets you battle to be champion.
The final battle was incredibly easy for me, as I didn't lose a single
Pokémon. Overall, I'd have to say my Johto experience was incredibly
enjoyable, despite the few frustrating times (besides, most of that frustration
happened when I had a very weak team at Indigo Plateau, in Kanto).
Kanto: *
My feelings on Kanto are somewhat mixed. First, I'll talk about the good stuff in this paragraph. It extends the life of this game for quite some time, as it sure gives you a lot to do. I really like the chain of events necessary for moving Snorlax: visit Power Plant, go to Cerulean City, beat Rocket Grunt, go back to the Power Plant, then go to Lavender Town for the Poké Flute upgrade. You also have to hunt down Misty and Blue (or Gary, as he's known in the American Pokémon cartoon) in order to fight them, and I like the addition of having to do this, as it adds to the gameplay. Speaking of Misty, I forgot to look closely at the guy she was with on her date... more specifically, if it looked like Red or not (to see how much weight the argument for "Ash and Misty love" has... but that's another story).
Now, I talk about the two main reasons
I refuse to give Pokémon Gold an awesome rating, which it could
have earned had these two things been
better. The first, and more important, reason is this: what happened to
Kanto? My all-time favorite place in the original three Pokémon
games, Silph Company, only has its bottom floor open. I can almost understand
this place and the Game Corner's basement being closed, since they had
directly to do with Team Rocket, and by the time you get there, Team Rocket
is no more. But that wasn't the end of it. Cinnabar Island was almost destroyed,
meaning the Pokémon House is no more. The Seafoam Islands no longer
have what I felt was the hardest puzzle in the original three Pokémon
games, instead being somehow shrunk to the size of a room. The Power Plant
is back in business and no longer hosts a bunch of Electric Pokémon
(at least this place plays into the plot). Mt. Moon is greatly shrunk.
The Underground Paths are closed. You can't fight at the Fighting Dojo
Gym in Saffron City. The Pewter Museum is closed for renovations. The Lavender
Town Tower doesn't have any ghost battles anymore. The Bike Shop is closed
(that one I have no problem with). Maybe worst of all, the Safari Zone
is closed, for no good reason (at least there was a reason for Silph Company
not being totally open like before). That takes away one of the most challenging
parts of the original games, where you tried to catch rare Pokémon
without being able to use any of your own Pokémon (sorry, National
Park outside of Goldenrod City in Johto doesn't cut it). This is "sad"
(as one character in Fuchsia City put it). Basically, out of laziness or
some other strange
reason, the developers decided to make
Kanto incredibly inferior to Johto, which is a real shame. If Kanto had
as much to do as Johto did, this game could have actually been one of the
all-time greats. Instead, the lack of stuff to do in Kanto (besides the
Snorlax saga I mentioned above) makes this game's lifespan shorter, as
you're basically just beating every gym leader in Kanto and not doing much
else.
The other problem I found with Kanto is that the gym leaders (and other characters) are just plain too easy. I'm sorry, but I expected much more. Only Blue was about as challenging as the Elite Four (or Five). The rest were noticeably easier than the Elite Four, which doesn't make sense. If you have to beat the Elite Four first, then shouldn't the gym leaders after the Elite Four be even harder? After I got past the Elite Four, I did not have another hard battle with a trainer for the rest of the game (I admittedly trained very hard for Red in order to beat him so badly). This was very disappointing.
So, including Kanto was a great idea
for Pokémon Gold, but why couldn't they have made it just as good
as
Johto? And why couldn't it have been
much harder than it was? If these two things were fixed, we'd be talking
about an all-time great (despite all the bad things I said back when I
was frustrated). Instead, we're talking about a game that, similar to my
recently-reviewed NFL Street game, was on the verge of greatness when it
just ended.
Legendary Pokémon Battles: ***
I'll say this: if you can manage both
of the legendary birds without using a Master Ball, you're good, and if
you manage to catch both without using
a Master Ball and without using your first bird in the battle for the second
bird, you're a genius. My catching of Ho-oh in a Master Ball was like finding
a key to a mansion, and one of the reasons why this Review is drastically
different from the first one. It was one of the most thrilling Pokémon
moments ever for me when I caught Lugia, something that greatly helps the
Fun Factor of this game. As for those three dog-like Pokémon from
the Burned Tower? I haven't seen any of them yet, or at
least I don't remember seeing any of
them. They're a little too rare... at least the game should give me the
opportunity to catch them. I did catch the Lapras in Union Cave... not
that easy of a thing to do, actually. Overall, though, I like the whole
catching of legendary Pokémon, which I think should always be in
Pokémon games... stealing (or "snagging") Pokémon just doesn't
seem to be the same (this is a reference to the upcoming Pokémon
Colosseum).
Replayability: ***
Well, I've got to say that there is
quite a lot to keep you busy, even after you've beaten Red. There are
things such as trying to evolve Pokémon
based on affection, getting Eggs and thus new Pokémon, and also
trying to catch as many as you can.
Unfortunately, the game's length is hurt badly by the lack of much stuff
to do in Kanto, but there is a lot
of stuff on the whole that makes the game worth playing even after you
beat it.
OVERALL: ***
Pokémon Gold is not the horrible game I said it was before. In fact, it's a great game. It could have potentially earned 3 1/2, maybe 4 stars had Kanto offered more to do and more of a challenge. However, that is not the case, and thus this game ends up with the same rating as its predecessor (I can't pick which one I like better, though the original is a sentimental favorite). It is definitely worth buying if you have any Game Boy system.
As for my sudden change of opinion,
I assure you that this has no effect on my opinion of other games I
consider poor, and I'm not about to
start changing my opinions on other games just because I now like this
game. I do want to make it clear that
no matter what I said in the past, I do like Pokémon Gold now, and
I
think it is a good game. I only hope
Whitney and Jasmine can forgive me for all I said in the past...