"I taught my Jynx Shadow Ball instead of Ursaring" "I delayed my Weepinbell's evolution until after the E4 for Razor Leaf and then replaced it with Giga Drain five minutes later" "Raichu in Crystal is a thicc gothic girl" "nibbling on swimmers' feet" my man is DERANGED
I wasn't really wanting to say ??? but i really didn't know his name so I put ??? because I thought well can't lie to the cops and I thought it was going to be like other games and we'll fine out the evil guys name at the end. So sad it never changed at all, especially when you see Giovanni talking to him later in game, thought for sure it was going to change then and we'll fine out his name. I only thought it was going to be different from RBY because of when they asked me in game, but give me a break I was 8/9.
When I played Gold, I pressed B because I thought I would learn his name later, but then it defaulted to Silver, and that’s how I realized it was letting me name him.
I used to like gen 2 a lot when I was like nine or 10 when these games had just came out, but 20 years later, I can’t say I like them nearly as much. It’s kind of a dead horse, but my biggest gripe with it is that the majority of the interesting gen 2 pokemon are post game. Why? Why can…Houndour for example only be found in Kanto? They weren’t native to that route three years ago, what magically changed?
@HomeCookinMTG thry probably did that on purpose I think one of his ther videos he was saying the same thing 2nd gen is still one of my favorite this came out when I was 11 just had some flaws but I really enjoyed this and gen 1
@@HomeCookinMTG i would recomend getting into rom hacks if you not already into them, i played vanilla crystal then went right to crystal clear and oh boy, best decision i made.
During Gen 3 era. I was 8 years old and i was begging my parents at the game store to get Pokemon Crystal because "The Pokemon moved!" I eventually got it and boy it did not disappoint. Those animated sprites are fantastic.
Agreed, I played it until the battery for the internal clock died, then bought another copy and played that one until it died. It's a shame you couldn't save your game after that happened but regardless, I still got more than my money's worth. I absolutely love crystal and I still play romhacks of it to this day. If I had to pick one it would probably be Liquid crystal although a lot of people would disagree hehe. It's just got so many cool features like a weather system depending on what time of year it is which is a nice little addition. They added a third region, Orange Islands, but sadly it never got finished. Don't let that keep you from this game however. It still has more than enough content to make up for the fact it isn't finished. Also, I find that it has the best difficulty curve out of any of the other romhacks and personally that's what I love most about it. Polished crystal is great too, it adds the content that was in Heartgold and Soulsilver but I find the game to be a tad too easy. Even playing it in Nuzlocke mode doesn't really add a challenge which is unfortunate because it's such a great version besides that. Crstal Kaizo is the 'hard romhack; it is very difficult and I do love a challenge but I find that it can be very immersion breaking at times. Just as a quick example, a water type might have a ground move in case you decide to use an electric pokemon on it. It's just a little too jarring for me but if you can look past that and you love a challenge then I give it a solid recommendation.
21:14 If I remember correctly, there was an obscure mechanic that doubled the happiness rate when training a Pokemon in the location it was caught in. According to Bulbapedia, this only exists in Crystal, the gen 3 games, and all games after and including gen 5 (though for every game after Crystal, the happiness boost was apparently dropped from x2 to mere +1). I don't think there's any other way to check the caught location in these games, and that's the only reason I can imagine for this npc's existence
If you have Pokemon Stadium 2, going to the lab and checking your boxes will also tell you exactly where a Pokemon was caught if it was in Crystal Version.
I'm very glad you've been continuing to go through and compare the Pokemon games. Your presentation and dedication to the small details and quests is a very interesting way to watch these classic games. I've definitely been learning a lot
@@reillywalker195 actually I would swap out Pidgey on the first route for Murkow, actually having less Kanto Pokémon in the new region is the way to go
The use of the original location given at 21:15 is for friendship purposes, since you get double friendship if you interact with your pokemon in the route you found them
Immediately paused The Sopranos to come watch this when scrolling through UA-cam on my phone. Never played Crystal but my wife raves about it, saying it's her childhood favourite. Think she still has it somewhere. Banger video as always, can't wait for the next.
Fun fact about the radio quiz, they changed the questions but nothing else. All they changed was the text in the questions, the answers are the same as Gold/silver. No matter which version you’re playing the answers are yes yes no yes no
Crystal may not have overhauled or added as much as later third versions, but I feel it was still a damn good polishing and send-off to the GBC era. The animated Pokemon was a real treat, and honestly, it still hadn't been topped in the later games due to style. The later games animations only have 2 frames, and use a lot translation, squash/stretch and rotation effects to fill in the gaps, looking far more stiff as a result. Plus the things it did polish just made the overall experience nicer, like the calling trainers not all sounding the same and having more specific and useful roles, like the trainers gifting evolutionary stones. HeartGold/SoulSilver are still the definitive Johto experiences now, of course, but Crystal still holds up pretty well I'd say! Also the Battle Tower got its start here, surprised you didn't mention it at all...those trainers are tough in here!
As soon as I saw Suicune on the box as a kid, bought Crystal. Suicune was hard to get for me in G/S, so Crystal got a free point from the go. While the Tower is great, nothing beats Emerald’s Battle facilities & Platinum’s Battle Frontier.
Crystal is the first Pokemon game i owned, and is so very important to me 20+ years later. I remember what I was wearing when I finally beat the Elite Four, and the absolutely crazy moment of encountering Red atop Mt. Silver
21:17 In Crystal if you battle in the same route as you caught the Pokemon, you get double friendship EXP, that is why the Seer exists. It is mentioned by Pokefan Jaime from Route 39 after defeat.
14:13 “humph. What are you doing falling into a hole? Some genius you are!” -is easily some of the funniest random dialogue I’ve ever heard in a Pokémon game. Silver (or ???) is so unhinged and I love it. And yes I was also one of those overly literal kids that named him ??? Because that’s what he said his name was. He isn’t silver. His name is ??? And I won’t hear otherwise.
Fun fact about Crystal, if you change one byte in the first part of the ROM, you can make it run on a regular Gameboy/GB Pocket. The only Color-exclusive feature that Crystal has is Mobile System GB connectivity, which is a service that is Color-exclusive, Japan-exclusive, and long discontinued. With that one byte changed you could play through the entirety of the US release of Crystal, including trading with other games, on an original Gameboy without any issues. I don't understand why they didn't just gate those features off via NPC dialogue from non-Color Gameboys. There's no technical reason why they had to make the whole game Color-exclusive. Maybe they anticipated tighter integration with the MSGB, similar to how Mystery Gifts and wifi battles worked from gen 4 onward. But IMO it's more likely it was a request from Nintendo themselves as a way to push their new-at-the-time handheld.
@@lpfan4491 IIRC it's at 0x173. To determine if the game is running on a Gameboy Color, the game checks that register A is equal to 0x11, and sets a flag if it is. If you change the byte at 0x173 (or thereabouts) from 0x28 (jr z) to 0x18 (jr), it will unconditionally set the flag. In other words you're tricking the game into thinking that it's running on a Gameboy Color no matter what you're actually running it on.
@@lpfan4491 It's 0x173, or somewhere around there. At startup, the game checks the value of one of the Gameboy's CPU registers which tells it whether or not it's running on a Gameboy Color. If the register is equal to 0x11, then the game knows it's running on a GBC and sets a flag. If you change the byte at 0x173 (or therabouts) from 0x28 to 0x18, it will set the flag regardless of your hardware. In other words, you trick the game into thinking it's running on a GBC even if it's just a regular Gameboy.
I believe there are three phone numbers tied to Pokemon: one for Pikachu, Marill, and Clefairy each. (Edit: After double checking, Picnicker Tiffany on Route 43 is the Clefairy phone number.) On a different note, how would you compare Crystal to HG/SS? I feel like the Gen 4 remakes touch up the games a lot, but I've heard some people say that HG/SS fail to preserve little touches, like the Headbutt trees having sleeping Pokemon fall out if they're active at the opposite time of day.
😭 time to remake the video for Tiffany. I gotta play HG still! I heard it was faithful to a fault, would you agree with that? Like they didn't change things that they should have.
@@ji_mothy It had a lot of good additions, but I do remember the level curve still being kind of wonky. It's been a while since I played it, so I'd have to see if there was anything else that stood out to me as something that should've been updated.
HGSS is everything you can ask for a remake : beautiful , complete , expanded post game with the Battle Frontier import , and POKEMON WALKING WITH YOU etc etc... BUT, and that's a major but , it's really a shame that they didn't touch at all the level curves and gym leader teams. They got like... 10 years to notice that Johto gym leader lack of Johto mons + the level curve is horribly done and yet they didn't fix it at all : the game still a joke after Morty until Clair , still boring in Kanto despite some additions , the Radio Tower still an endless repetitive pain... like sure now the Rocket Executive are named but huh... that doesn't change lot of things. At the end , it was close to perfect but they shouldn't have stick 100% with GSC and export the same errors.
It wasn’t the first Pokemon cash grab that is Yellow. Yellow fixes a lot of what is wrong with Blue and Red. But the multiple starters kind of kills the team making.
Yes! But I thought Yellow did the best with the Pokémon you could catch in game, and the shuffled trades. It had a new identity via the teams you can assemble. Crystal gave you too many, and really felt more pay-to-win as far as Pokédex completion
I really appreciate these breakdown type videos, their are not a lot of long form pokemon videos like this anymore and if you have a patreon you can have my monies 😂
I love crystal so much. Fire red was my first pokémon and I convinced my dad to take me to game-stop after learning there were more games. I picked up crustal because the cartridge was so pretty and also silver. my dad was happy they were cheap loool I ended playing crystal way more than Silver and to this day it’s my second favorite pokémon ever. I prefer to replay it over the remakes
I remember finally saving up my lawn and hedges money for months, and having $30 to buy this on my own Man, I was ripped off working house to house as a 6 year old lol
I think it's a stretch to say it SAVED gen 2 when gen 2 already sold a metric crap ton with GS but it did improve some aspects and it's my choice for a gen 2 playthrough for sure.
Love these videos, i hope you continue through the different generation. Would also be cool with a guide you could download to follow along. Keep up the good work man!
Came for the Pokemon analysis, stayed for the ska jokes. It’s a shame all my best friends are metalheads cause they won’t be able appreciate such highbrow humor.
Pokemon Crystal was my peak Pokemon childhood. After I got Pokemon Stadium 2, I filled that game with every single Pokeball, Berry, X ACCURACY and literally everything I accumulated throughout the game. And, I also had Gold and Silver, so I back up everything onto PStadium2 also; along with all my shinies. The only thing I never got, that continues to elude me even today is a Miracle Berry. Also later on after like my 10th reply, whenever I created a new game, I would also create a custom party with all of my favorites starting from eggs, and I would literally not progress in the game until all 5 eggs had hatched. Having all three starters, an Eevee, Larvitar and a Pichu was just peak. Great video.
Gen 2 were the best Pokémon games. Not only that, they were the best games in the gameboy color, and as sequels to gen 1, they were the best sequel games of any game series I’ve ever played. After many more powerful generations and decades, lots of people like to look back at them and pick apart their flaws. A lot of the points they make are valid in that context. But after playing through all the gens, none of them were as good as gen 2 in the context of the time they were released. No other Pokémon gen has added more to the series. It added 100 new Pokémon, new moves, new move sets for Pokémon, and a new region with new gyms. It added trading between generations. This is obviously standard for a new gen, but before gen 2 came out no one knew we were definitely going to get new Pokémon or any of that. On top of that it fixed a lot of the flaws of the original Added two new types. Added day and night cycle and Pokémon that only appear during certain times of day. A day of the week cycle and Pokémon that you can only catch on certain days, as well as NPCs that appear on certain days. This made exploring the same area multiple times worth it. It added friendship. It added Pokémon gender and breeding and moves learned through breeding. It added berries. It added pockets to your bag so you could carry way more. It added pokeball crafting and ball variants other than the standard 3 types. It added held items. It added a cell phone you could use to redo trainer battles for the first time. Trainers you exchanged number with would call you to tell you about sales at the department store, swarms of rare Pokémon, and other useful info. It added two new HMs. It added shiny Pokémon. It added a new type of status affect in the form of attraction. It added Pokémon sprite animations, a female playable character, and battle tower. It actually had a post game unlike gen 1. When you headed to the Pokémon league and look at the map you saw all of Kanto, no one expected that. Then after the Elite Four you get to go to Kanto on a cruise ride. You can redo the cruise as many times as you want and grind battles. When you get to Kanto you get to earn all the original gym badges, and every trainer has more powerful teams. Instead of Giovanni you fight Blue, your rival from the first game in the 8th gym. Then after that you go to Mt Silver and have a surprise mountaintop battle against yourself from the first game. Reds Pokémon are around level 80. It’s the highest level fight in the whole series out of all 9 generations. Sure some Pokémon were weak by comparison to later gens. That didn’t matter in gen 2. Sure some new Pokémon you can only get in the post game, but that just meant finding new stuff lasted the whole game. Back then the full Pokédex wasn’t released before the game, and the game came out when the Johto anime started. So most of us playing through at the time were discovering Pokémon that were completely new to us the whole time. It was exciting; not a design flaw. The game balance was a little off in the post game. But it was so cool to have a post game that no one expected that it didn’t really matter to anyone I knew at the time. All generations added some things and improved some things, but I don’t think anyone can name a generation that did more. Calling the games bad by today’s standards is like going back in time and telling kids in the 90’s that the Nintendo 64 or original PlayStation suck because they aren’t as good as the switch or PS5. You would be right by today’s standards. But without having the new consoles to compare, those kids would call you idiots
I love the fact, that you left a handful of tongue slipups in the final video. No matter if intentional or not, it doesn't take anything away from the high quality of the production, creates an authentic video and makes you sound even more likable than you already do. Keep it up mothy!
Love this video I know I've said this part before I'm streaming and I'm going to say it here with you just as a reminder don't worry so much about different variety content you should just enjoy what you're making people will come it just takes time
It's funny how even if the changes were not enough to warrant a new purchase back in the day, in retrospect Crystal makes Gold and Silver pretty much obsolete. If you insist in playing vanilla pokémon, Crystal is basically objectively better. However, and I think this is a point that is not brought up as much as it should, there's not really any reason to play vanilla pokémon anymore if you're not playing your old cartridges. I'm not even talking about crazy rom hacks with fakemon and that kind of stuff, but games like Crystal Legacy, Polished Crystal or hell, even Crystal Clear if you're up for a more shaken up version are the definitive ways to play Johto for me nowdays.
One of my favorite things to for gen 2 is to get the super rod and go to the lake to the south (right hand side path) of blackthorn. The pokemon there are all level 10 if my memory serves correct. Rare but not too rare is a dragonair at level 10. If you find a female one you can trade for a dodrio (in Gold or Silver) or a rhydon (crystal) at level 10. Its a fun quirky thing that adds a bit of fun to perhaps trade to another game for a playthrough. I like to think of it as a trophy to hunt.
0:44 "between the releases of Shrek and 9/11" made me laugh - nay, cackle - so hard i had to pause the video to finish laughing, and it was so loud i scared my cats. bravo, sir.
Pokemon Crystal is my favorite game ever. I want to play it every 3 - 5 years. I even went as far as to get one of my gameboy colors modded with the bright screen for it. Once you figure out you can breed almost anything before the third gym, it opens up the game completely. Trading between crystal and gen 1 and gen 2 games to craft your perfect / favorite team, makes the game have basically infinite replay value, and makes you realize how well designed it really is. The biggest problem with playing the game without the trade cables is pokemon availability. Once you fix pokemon availability, and make it so your breeded pokemon aren't getting boosted EXP (which is why I dislike using normal traded pokemon), the game becomes incredibly fun, and you start to see all its charm in its design, presentation, sound effects etc. Because you get to use the team you have always truly wanted for basically the whole game. Plus it is really easy to duplicate items from gold or silver. And this is the only pokemon game I enjoy completing the pokedex for.
Crystal is not better than Gold/Silver with the biggest reasons being: - Lugia can only be caught after the elite 4, AND its a Lugia without AeroBlast - It is near impossible to catch Ho-Oh since you need to catch the 3 dogs, and finding Entei and Raikou is near impossible with the randomness. And let alone being able to catch Entei and Raikou is impossible also without a Masterball. And not only that, but Ho-Oh doesnt even have Sacred Fire in Crystal. - As mentioned above, Entei and Raikou are still random The Unknown were pointless in this game. And Suicune isnt even that special of a pokemon (nor are any of the 3 dogs) to have a game/movie dedicated making them the main character, unless all 3 dogs were together in the movie/game. Raikou-Entei-Suicuine are only special if all 3 are involved together, with the same being for Articuno-Zapdos-Moltres Sometimes I wonder why Entei was the main Pokemon in movie 3 (along with Unknown ironically), or why Suicine was one of the main pokemon in movie 4 (along with Celebi), or why there was that special movie of Raikou alone in the anime. Bottom line, Crystal is nowhere near as unique as Yellow was Only thing I like about Crystal were: - That the Pokemon did a little move when you battle them, - You can easily capture Suicune, - You have the option to play as a boy/girl, - It will tell you on what route/city/town you are in automatically once you enter it
I love these videos, they're informative and fun as fuck. I also love that you had the economic factor as a part of your scoring, much appricated! Your videos are always a highlight of my week! :D Stay awesome dude!
Crystal has a special place in my heart because its the first game I'd purchased for myself with my own pocket money. I remember getting home with it and spending like the entirety of the next week just playing the game at any opportunity. Really kindled my love for the series.
Crystal made it easier to get Rare Candies. If you listen to Buena's Password radio show every night after 6:00pm, you can get a rare candy every 3 days. You can also obtain elemental stones from certain trainers earlier on, instead of waiting until the Kanto post-game.
Not sure how i missed this before, but so glad the ruby/sapphire video showed me it was here. I absolutely adore Crystal, though i will say it is large in part due to nostalgia. I think all the points you make are totally fair, and i actually liked some of the positives you mentioned, as it showed me new parts of a game i believed i had seen every side of
great video crystal is probably my favorite game in the franchise. I never grew up playing it tho I picked it up on virtual console years ago and since its became my favorite due to its mysticism and comforting energy
I had Gold, and wanted Crystal, but didn’t expect to get it because I already had Gold. But my grandma actually gifted it to me, and I’m glad she did, because Crystal is still one of my favorite pokémon games. The same goes for Emerald and Platinum. Every time I wondered if the third version was worth it, the answer was yes.
it was for me because it was the first time i got to play a girl in a game which as a young girl meant alot to me. Edit: I too thought his name was ??? the first time i played.🤣
Great work on the video. Always love these and hope ya consider doing Ruby and Sapphire in the future. There’s however two things of note that I feel were glossed over. 1: The Odd Egg has boosted shiny odds, and I may have missed it but this goes unmentioned. You could have reasonably gone for a shiny Tyrouge. 2: I haven’t double checked myself but allegedly Stadium 2 has a move relearner feature which could make Luigi and Ho-oh must better if the player had access to it. Just something that could have been pointed out if we’re assuming original hardware over 3ds.
Personally i dont think crystal does enough to really make any substantial changes outside a female character being playable. The encounters do change but one unforgivable is that Mareep is not in crystal and i dont get why. This is a problem i have with 3rd Versions sometimes is that the native pokemon introduced in that gen arent in all three games or arent in the third version. I know we are supposed to trade with others to get pokemon but for me who didnt have friends who even liked pokemon it was a lonely time. I didnt get to use Mareep until Colosseum. I think some of the old pokemon should be version exclusives personally cause if you are like me you want to use all the new pokemon but cant cause some are cut off because of their exclusivity. This happens in Emerald and Platinum too. It might be a small thing to some but for a third version which is suppose to be the enhanced one why are some of the native pokemon missing
Crystal is the perfect upgrade to gen 1 and 2. Most things people complain about today, are things that just weren't possible back then. They had very limited developers, space for code and time. And they managed to do a lot with that. Fitting whole (more or less) Kanto on a gbc cartridge is crazy. Yes, the level curve and pokemon and move availability are probably the biggest downsides. But I feel like it's at least somwhat intentional. Wouldn't make sense if all Kanto leaders were lv 80 all of a sudden. And red being so ridiculously high leveled is still one of the best things ever. It just emphasizes the difference and how far our player character from gen 1 has come. And accessing the larvitar and misdreavus etc so late in the game is obliviously a detriment to the gameplay, but how awesome was it to reach the last region in Mt silver and find larvitar. I feel like old gamefreak was more about experience and creating the "first-time-wow-effect" than replayability. Personally I'm okay with that, I replayed it probably 100 times anyways. I get why people dislike that tho. But from the design, to music, to atmosphere and lore, it's amazing For me probably the best pokemon game overall. With nostalgia and vibe playing a huge role of course
My take on Crystal is that, in 2024, if you're going to play Gen 2 you might as well play Crystal. What it adds wasn't worth buying a whole new game for when it was first released, but it has enough little tweaks to make it a slightly richer experience than Gold & Silver whilst still giving that core experience we all remember from those original Johto releases. Also, points to a number of things it introduces that went on to be series mainstays; 1) A Female Player Character 2) Moving Sprites 3) Legendaries involved in the storyline 4) Exclusive battle music for Legendaries 5) A Battle Tower Yes, a lot of this was under baked in Crystal, but those who played got those raw experiences before Ruby & Sapphire perfected them. So Crystal is certainly a major entry in the series, even if it was one of the more skippable ones at the time.
I know you didn't have time for it, but the Battle Tower was actually a really cool addition and made Crystal worth getting on its own. As a kid I had a bunch of high level pokemon from the first two generations and nothing to do with them, but all of the sudden there is something to do which allowed me to utilize all of that work for something. All of those pokemon would end up stranded in Gen 2 anyway so this was the one time there was something to do with them in an "Endgame" context outside of fighting other kids, which was basically impossible to orchestrate for me. These days if you want to do the Battle Tower, Crystal is the LAST game I would suggest, but back then it was the only game in town.
Should I have raised the Cubone?
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Why doesn't Cubone evolve to cubtwo?
maybe a video on your team building process?
Thick club marowakgoes hard especially with swords dance
@@NA1c158only issue being cubones thick club is only obtainable from kanto and it’s a 5% chance on it
@@btttmeehan get good.
"I taught my Jynx Shadow Ball instead of Ursaring"
"I delayed my Weepinbell's evolution until after the E4 for Razor Leaf and then replaced it with Giga Drain five minutes later"
"Raichu in Crystal is a thicc gothic girl"
"nibbling on swimmers' feet"
my man is DERANGED
🫡
All of those things are excusable except Shadow Ball on Jynx. What could you possibly be thinking?
"Post Clair nuttery" 😂😂
Yeah, I also named my rival "???" because I didn't want to lie to the police. I was such a good boy.
I wasn't really wanting to say ??? but i really didn't know his name so I put ??? because I thought well can't lie to the cops and I thought it was going to be like other games and we'll fine out the evil guys name at the end. So sad it never changed at all, especially when you see Giovanni talking to him later in game, thought for sure it was going to change then and we'll fine out his name. I only thought it was going to be different from RBY because of when they asked me in game, but give me a break I was 8/9.
When I played Gold, I pressed B because I thought I would learn his name later, but then it defaulted to Silver, and that’s how I realized it was letting me name him.
I named him "BUTT!!!" because I was 11 and at the time, that's about what I'd call someone who was randomly rude to me like the rival.
I called mine Vader, but that's because my name was Obi-wan
Same
Pokemon Crystal was my favorite as a kid. Still is honestly.
Im playing Crystal again and im 60 hours in + other 55 on my other save
Yep! It was my first pokemon game at 7 💪
I used to like gen 2 a lot when I was like nine or 10 when these games had just came out, but 20 years later, I can’t say I like them nearly as much. It’s kind of a dead horse, but my biggest gripe with it is that the majority of the interesting gen 2 pokemon are post game. Why? Why can…Houndour for example only be found in Kanto? They weren’t native to that route three years ago, what magically changed?
@HomeCookinMTG thry probably did that on purpose I think one of his ther videos he was saying the same thing 2nd gen is still one of my favorite this came out when I was 11 just had some flaws but I really enjoyed this and gen 1
@@HomeCookinMTG i would recomend getting into rom hacks if you not already into them, i played vanilla crystal then went right to crystal clear and oh boy, best decision i made.
I'll never forgive Crystal for their sins of removing Mareep from being able to be caught. Still one of my favorites gens though.
Agreed
I think there is a hack called the ‘EMU’ edition hack that allows you to catch all 251 . It makes Crystal that much better
@@bapjapi think Crystal Legacy does too
*laughs in gameshark*
During Gen 3 era. I was 8 years old and i was begging my parents at the game store to get Pokemon Crystal because "The Pokemon moved!" I eventually got it and boy it did not disappoint. Those animated sprites are fantastic.
Crystal has a certain charm to it that no other Pokémon game has ever had since. It’s such a cozy game to play
The muted GBC palette and the day/night cycle really gives wonderful vibes to these games!
Agreed, I played it until the battery for the internal clock died, then bought another copy and played that one until it died. It's a shame you couldn't save your game after that happened but regardless, I still got more than my money's worth. I absolutely love crystal and I still play romhacks of it to this day. If I had to pick one it would probably be Liquid crystal although a lot of people would disagree hehe. It's just got so many cool features like a weather system depending on what time of year it is which is a nice little addition. They added a third region, Orange Islands, but sadly it never got finished. Don't let that keep you from this game however. It still has more than enough content to make up for the fact it isn't finished. Also, I find that it has the best difficulty curve out of any of the other romhacks and personally that's what I love most about it.
Polished crystal is great too, it adds the content that was in Heartgold and Soulsilver but I find the game to be a tad too easy. Even playing it in Nuzlocke mode doesn't really add a challenge which is unfortunate because it's such a great version besides that.
Crstal Kaizo is the 'hard romhack; it is very difficult and I do love a challenge but I find that it can be very immersion breaking at times. Just as a quick example, a water type might have a ground move in case you decide to use an electric pokemon on it. It's just a little too jarring for me but if you can look past that and you love a challenge then I give it a solid recommendation.
21:14 If I remember correctly, there was an obscure mechanic that doubled the happiness rate when training a Pokemon in the location it was caught in. According to Bulbapedia, this only exists in Crystal, the gen 3 games, and all games after and including gen 5 (though for every game after Crystal, the happiness boost was apparently dropped from x2 to mere +1).
I don't think there's any other way to check the caught location in these games, and that's the only reason I can imagine for this npc's existence
If you have Pokemon Stadium 2, going to the lab and checking your boxes will also tell you exactly where a Pokemon was caught if it was in Crystal Version.
Dumping your starter and killing legendaries is a sign of deep evil in your heart
I don't use legendary pokemon, so I prefer killing them for exp
>Talks about early Weezing
>Says how good sludge bomb is
>Says you should get early Weezing
>Doesn't get early Weezing
“Raichu is a thicc gothic girl” is not something I thought I’d ever hear said, but well, here we are.
Glad to see how many of us named their rival "???". How was I supposed to know?!
I'm very glad you've been continuing to go through and compare the Pokemon games. Your presentation and dedication to the small details and quests is a very interesting way to watch these classic games. I've definitely been learning a lot
Mareep not being in Crystal is still a war crime
One thing that could improve Crystal is adding Houndoor to Burned Tower, its a national fit there
Murkrow, Slugma, and Misdreavus would've fit there, too.
@@reillywalker195 actually I would swap out Pidgey on the first route for Murkow, actually having less Kanto Pokémon in the new region is the way to go
I had gold and sold it at GameStop and got crystal so I can be a girl 😂😂😂
Ok that's so real though!
this is so real. people say it doesn't matter but dammit, it does!
And you probably later learned that cristal is a generic hooker's name.
I never realised how many "sidequest" there are in Crystal compared to other Poke games. Its awesome
I mean gen 7 has over 100 of them, its just that nobody talks about them.
The use of the original location given at 21:15 is for friendship purposes, since you get double friendship if you interact with your pokemon in the route you found them
Between Shrek and 9/11 had me rolling 😂
as a 36 year old entire man it almost gave me a heart attack. I was 13, that shit ruined everything 😂
Immediately paused The Sopranos to come watch this when scrolling through UA-cam on my phone.
Never played Crystal but my wife raves about it, saying it's her childhood favourite. Think she still has it somewhere.
Banger video as always, can't wait for the next.
Just subbed and watched your other vids a few days ago, extremely happy to see this pop up on my birthday!
Happy birthday! Hope u get a good ice cream :)
Pissed me off to no end how gold and silver handled evo stones. I had to handle all those on yellow and trade them over.
Fun fact about the radio quiz, they changed the questions but nothing else. All they changed was the text in the questions, the answers are the same as Gold/silver. No matter which version you’re playing the answers are yes yes no yes no
I noticed that, cause I remembered how carefully I announced "yes yes no yes no" on my Gold video XD I'm still glad they bothered!
Babe wake up, new ji_mothy for long video just dropped
Best in the series
Easily one of the best UA-camrs out there! I glow all the little jokes and references throughout the video, it always keeps me entertained!
Crystal may not have overhauled or added as much as later third versions, but I feel it was still a damn good polishing and send-off to the GBC era. The animated Pokemon was a real treat, and honestly, it still hadn't been topped in the later games due to style. The later games animations only have 2 frames, and use a lot translation, squash/stretch and rotation effects to fill in the gaps, looking far more stiff as a result.
Plus the things it did polish just made the overall experience nicer, like the calling trainers not all sounding the same and having more specific and useful roles, like the trainers gifting evolutionary stones. HeartGold/SoulSilver are still the definitive Johto experiences now, of course, but Crystal still holds up pretty well I'd say! Also the Battle Tower got its start here, surprised you didn't mention it at all...those trainers are tough in here!
"Dark Cave and the Bad Seeds" got me
Had to soft reset my brain to process the Nick Cave ref
@@stephen9561 did you press up + X + B?
babe wake up, another 50 minutes of mothy crushing old pokemon games just dropped
As soon as I saw Suicune on the box as a kid, bought Crystal. Suicune was hard to get for me in G/S, so Crystal got a free point from the go. While the Tower is great, nothing beats Emerald’s Battle facilities & Platinum’s Battle Frontier.
Pokemon Silver and Crystal are the only 2 pokemon games i still physically own . Cant bring myself to sell them
Crystal is the first Pokemon game i owned, and is so very important to me 20+ years later. I remember what I was wearing when I finally beat the Elite Four, and the absolutely crazy moment of encountering Red atop Mt. Silver
One minor correction: you can encounter and catch the other two beasts before the clear bell cutscene, but they'll be missing if you do :)
Half the fun in Mothy vids are the super niche references you get and the other half is figuring out the ones you don't
21:17 In Crystal if you battle in the same route as you caught the Pokemon, you get double friendship EXP, that is why the Seer exists. It is mentioned by Pokefan Jaime from Route 39 after defeat.
14:13 “humph. What are you doing falling into a hole? Some genius you are!”
-is easily some of the funniest random dialogue I’ve ever heard in a Pokémon game. Silver (or ???) is so unhinged and I love it. And yes I was also one of those overly literal kids that named him ??? Because that’s what he said his name was. He isn’t silver. His name is ??? And I won’t hear otherwise.
Fun fact about Crystal, if you change one byte in the first part of the ROM, you can make it run on a regular Gameboy/GB Pocket. The only Color-exclusive feature that Crystal has is Mobile System GB connectivity, which is a service that is Color-exclusive, Japan-exclusive, and long discontinued. With that one byte changed you could play through the entirety of the US release of Crystal, including trading with other games, on an original Gameboy without any issues.
I don't understand why they didn't just gate those features off via NPC dialogue from non-Color Gameboys. There's no technical reason why they had to make the whole game Color-exclusive. Maybe they anticipated tighter integration with the MSGB, similar to how Mystery Gifts and wifi battles worked from gen 4 onward. But IMO it's more likely it was a request from Nintendo themselves as a way to push their new-at-the-time handheld.
What byte is it?
@@lpfan4491 IIRC it's at 0x173. To determine if the game is running on a Gameboy Color, the game checks that register A is equal to 0x11, and sets a flag if it is. If you change the byte at 0x173 (or thereabouts) from 0x28 (jr z) to 0x18 (jr), it will unconditionally set the flag. In other words you're tricking the game into thinking that it's running on a Gameboy Color no matter what you're actually running it on.
@@lpfan4491 It's 0x173, or somewhere around there. At startup, the game checks the value of one of the Gameboy's CPU registers which tells it whether or not it's running on a Gameboy Color. If the register is equal to 0x11, then the game knows it's running on a GBC and sets a flag. If you change the byte at 0x173 (or therabouts) from 0x28 to 0x18, it will set the flag regardless of your hardware. In other words, you trick the game into thinking it's running on a GBC even if it's just a regular Gameboy.
26:58 this kiss, this kiss!
You are not the only overly literal child. I also named my rival ??? and it stayed that way for years. Glad to know I'm not alone haha
Question mark gang here, was so confused when I beat E4 and they never revealed what the rivals name was
I believe there are three phone numbers tied to Pokemon: one for Pikachu, Marill, and Clefairy each. (Edit: After double checking, Picnicker Tiffany on Route 43 is the Clefairy phone number.)
On a different note, how would you compare Crystal to HG/SS? I feel like the Gen 4 remakes touch up the games a lot, but I've heard some people say that HG/SS fail to preserve little touches, like the Headbutt trees having sleeping Pokemon fall out if they're active at the opposite time of day.
i dont think the crystal changes really change that much tbh
😭 time to remake the video for Tiffany.
I gotta play HG still! I heard it was faithful to a fault, would you agree with that? Like they didn't change things that they should have.
@@ji_mothy It had a lot of good additions, but I do remember the level curve still being kind of wonky. It's been a while since I played it, so I'd have to see if there was anything else that stood out to me as something that should've been updated.
HGSS is everything you can ask for a remake : beautiful , complete , expanded post game with the Battle Frontier import , and POKEMON WALKING WITH YOU etc etc...
BUT, and that's a major but , it's really a shame that they didn't touch at all the level curves and gym leader teams.
They got like... 10 years to notice that Johto gym leader lack of Johto mons + the level curve is horribly done and yet they didn't fix it at all : the game still a joke after Morty until Clair , still boring in Kanto despite some additions , the Radio Tower still an endless repetitive pain... like sure now the Rocket Executive are named but huh... that doesn't change lot of things.
At the end , it was close to perfect but they shouldn't have stick 100% with GSC and export the same errors.
It wasn’t the first Pokemon cash grab that is Yellow.
Yellow fixes a lot of what is wrong with Blue and Red. But the multiple starters kind of kills the team making.
Yes! But I thought Yellow did the best with the Pokémon you could catch in game, and the shuffled trades. It had a new identity via the teams you can assemble. Crystal gave you too many, and really felt more pay-to-win as far as Pokédex completion
Yellow matched up with the TV show though, 8 year old me was blown away that I could fight Jessie and James on my Gameboy
i see we're just ignoring the japanese pokemon blue, which was just the same game over again.
I really appreciate these breakdown type videos, their are not a lot of long form pokemon videos like this anymore and if you have a patreon you can have my monies 😂
For the last time.
The legendary beasts are cats.
Entei is a lion
Suicune is a panther
Raikou is a saber tooth tiger.
They are dogs man
@@pelucheCR7 Google Saber Tooth Tiger. Look at Raikou
Picnicker Gina on Route 34 was my first videogame crush.
I love crystal so much. Fire red was my first pokémon and I convinced my dad to take me to game-stop after learning there were more games. I picked up crustal because the cartridge was so pretty and also silver. my dad was happy they were cheap loool I ended playing crystal way more than Silver and to this day it’s my second favorite pokémon ever. I prefer to replay it over the remakes
I remember finally saving up my lawn and hedges money for months, and having $30 to buy this on my own
Man, I was ripped off working house to house as a 6 year old lol
good sir, your generational references give lead to your knowledge of this generation of pokemon. new sub today!
"meet the sick ampharos and move along like i know ya do" All i gotta do is keep it strong, like miltank.. XD
I am absolutely LOVING your videos! They're so entertaining to listen to while I do my pre-bedtime gaming! Keep it up, loving these pokemon vids!
I think it's a stretch to say it SAVED gen 2 when gen 2 already sold a metric crap ton with GS but it did improve some aspects and it's my choice for a gen 2 playthrough for sure.
Love these videos, i hope you continue through the different generation. Would also be cool with a guide you could download to follow along. Keep up the good work man!
24:51 wow I had no idea Suicune drank monster energy
Crystal was my first Pokemon game, being the pack in with my GBA, so rather than Crystal being an upgrade, Gold and Silver feel like beta versions
These song lyric inserts are KILLING ME lmao, I love these videos. Criminally underrated channel tbh
Fun fact: the rival's cannon name isn't actually "???" Its "idot" (because I was too young to spell idiot correct).
Are you also too young to spell “canon” correctly?
He's the Illinois Department of Transportation?
buttface was another good name for rival
Came for the Pokemon analysis, stayed for the ska jokes. It’s a shame all my best friends are metalheads cause they won’t be able appreciate such highbrow humor.
it hurt my soul to not be able to clip real songs on this video :( frustration, hell who needs it. Who needs it anyway?
I tell my wife a lot of these kinda jokes. She's gonna break soon..
After calling and battling Mothy a dozen times you finally decide to give him an HP UP, and then watch as he blocks and deletes you from his contacts.
Pokemon Crystal was my peak Pokemon childhood. After I got Pokemon Stadium 2, I filled that game with every single Pokeball, Berry, X ACCURACY and literally everything I accumulated throughout the game. And, I also had Gold and Silver, so I back up everything onto PStadium2 also; along with all my shinies. The only thing I never got, that continues to elude me even today is a Miracle Berry. Also later on after like my 10th reply, whenever I created a new game, I would also create a custom party with all of my favorites starting from eggs, and I would literally not progress in the game until all 5 eggs had hatched.
Having all three starters, an Eevee, Larvitar and a Pichu was just peak. Great video.
I really think the odd egg can make each crystal playthrough a more interesting experience than gs
Gen 2 were the best Pokémon games. Not only that, they were the best games in the gameboy color, and as sequels to gen 1, they were the best sequel games of any game series I’ve ever played.
After many more powerful generations and decades, lots of people like to look back at them and pick apart their flaws. A lot of the points they make are valid in that context. But after playing through all the gens, none of them were as good as gen 2 in the context of the time they were released.
No other Pokémon gen has added more to the series. It added 100 new Pokémon, new moves, new move sets for Pokémon, and a new region with new gyms. It added trading between generations. This is obviously standard for a new gen, but before gen 2 came out no one knew we were definitely going to get new Pokémon or any of that. On top of that it fixed a lot of the flaws of the original Added two new types. Added day and night cycle and Pokémon that only appear during certain times of day. A day of the week cycle and Pokémon that you can only catch on certain days, as well as NPCs that appear on certain days. This made exploring the same area multiple times worth it. It added friendship. It added Pokémon gender and breeding and moves learned through breeding. It added berries. It added pockets to your bag so you could carry way more. It added pokeball crafting and ball variants other than the standard 3 types. It added held items. It added a cell phone you could use to redo trainer battles for the first time. Trainers you exchanged number with would call you to tell you about sales at the department store, swarms of rare Pokémon, and other useful info. It added two new HMs. It added shiny Pokémon. It added a new type of status affect in the form of attraction. It added Pokémon sprite animations, a female playable character, and battle tower. It actually had a post game unlike gen 1. When you headed to the Pokémon league and look at the map you saw all of Kanto, no one expected that. Then after the Elite Four you get to go to Kanto on a cruise ride. You can redo the cruise as many times as you want and grind battles. When you get to Kanto you get to earn all the original gym badges, and every trainer has more powerful teams. Instead of Giovanni you fight Blue, your rival from the first game in the 8th gym. Then after that you go to Mt Silver and have a surprise mountaintop battle against yourself from the first game. Reds Pokémon are around level 80. It’s the highest level fight in the whole series out of all 9 generations.
Sure some Pokémon were weak by comparison to later gens. That didn’t matter in gen 2. Sure some new Pokémon you can only get in the post game, but that just meant finding new stuff lasted the whole game. Back then the full Pokédex wasn’t released before the game, and the game came out when the Johto anime started. So most of us playing through at the time were discovering Pokémon that were completely new to us the whole time. It was exciting; not a design flaw. The game balance was a little off in the post game. But it was so cool to have a post game that no one expected that it didn’t really matter to anyone I knew at the time. All generations added some things and improved some things, but I don’t think anyone can name a generation that did more.
Calling the games bad by today’s standards is like going back in time and telling kids in the 90’s that the Nintendo 64 or original PlayStation suck because they aren’t as good as the switch or PS5. You would be right by today’s standards. But without having the new consoles to compare, those kids would call you idiots
It's funny how Eusine was a preview of what would become of the rival in Gen 3.
:(
I love the fact, that you left a handful of tongue slipups in the final video. No matter if intentional or not, it doesn't take anything away from the high quality of the production, creates an authentic video and makes you sound even more likable than you already do.
Keep it up mothy!
That Suburu joke was clever 😂😂
Subbed for the Hexxus reference @ 16:25
I don't really have much to say but the algorithm must be fed, so here's my comment.
I know it sounds bad that Crystal was exclusive for Game Boy Color, but by July 2001 when it came out, the Game Boy Advance was out for a month!
LTJ reference was not on my bingo card for this one, loved it.
Crystal has one thing that HGSS definitely didn't: Kris!!! How come Ethan is (mostly) the same as Gold but Lyra replaces Kris?? So mean..
Love this video I know I've said this part before I'm streaming and I'm going to say it here with you just as a reminder don't worry so much about different variety content you should just enjoy what you're making people will come it just takes time
My only negative with Crystal was Lugia/Ho-Oh losing their signature moves
I liked that, it means you need to trade or play Gold/Silver for that.
It's funny how even if the changes were not enough to warrant a new purchase back in the day, in retrospect Crystal makes Gold and Silver pretty much obsolete. If you insist in playing vanilla pokémon, Crystal is basically objectively better. However, and I think this is a point that is not brought up as much as it should, there's not really any reason to play vanilla pokémon anymore if you're not playing your old cartridges. I'm not even talking about crazy rom hacks with fakemon and that kind of stuff, but games like Crystal Legacy, Polished Crystal or hell, even Crystal Clear if you're up for a more shaken up version are the definitive ways to play Johto for me nowdays.
Mareep line is a pretty compelling reason to play GS over C (though romhacks should definitely have fixed this issue)
@@kryzethx They do, yeah. Most (if not any) hack makes it so the whole dex is available.
One of my favorite things to for gen 2 is to get the super rod and go to the lake to the south (right hand side path) of blackthorn. The pokemon there are all level 10 if my memory serves correct. Rare but not too rare is a dragonair at level 10. If you find a female one you can trade for a dodrio (in Gold or Silver) or a rhydon (crystal) at level 10. Its a fun quirky thing that adds a bit of fun to perhaps trade to another game for a playthrough. I like to think of it as a trophy to hunt.
0:44 "between the releases of Shrek and 9/11" made me laugh - nay, cackle - so hard i had to pause the video to finish laughing, and it was so loud i scared my cats. bravo, sir.
I wasn't aware gen 2 needed saving. I loved silver.
So thorough! So funny! You're such a joy to listen to!
Pokemon Crystal is my favorite game ever. I want to play it every 3 - 5 years. I even went as far as to get one of my gameboy colors modded with the bright screen for it.
Once you figure out you can breed almost anything before the third gym, it opens up the game completely. Trading between crystal and gen 1 and gen 2 games to craft your perfect / favorite team, makes the game have basically infinite replay value, and makes you realize how well designed it really is. The biggest problem with playing the game without the trade cables is pokemon availability. Once you fix pokemon availability, and make it so your breeded pokemon aren't getting boosted EXP (which is why I dislike using normal traded pokemon), the game becomes incredibly fun, and you start to see all its charm in its design, presentation, sound effects etc. Because you get to use the team you have always truly wanted for basically the whole game. Plus it is really easy to duplicate items from gold or silver. And this is the only pokemon game I enjoy completing the pokedex for.
I knew i recognized this voice! This AI voice is definitely ScykohPlays. He has some really good playthroughs.
Dang, youtube recommended this one really early. Algorithm was right though, always happy for new jimothy videos :D
Crystal is not better than Gold/Silver with the biggest reasons being:
- Lugia can only be caught after the elite 4, AND its a Lugia without AeroBlast
- It is near impossible to catch Ho-Oh since you need to catch the 3 dogs, and finding Entei and Raikou is near impossible with the randomness. And let alone being able to catch Entei and Raikou is impossible also without a Masterball. And not only that, but Ho-Oh doesnt even have Sacred Fire in Crystal.
- As mentioned above, Entei and Raikou are still random
The Unknown were pointless in this game. And Suicune isnt even that special of a pokemon (nor are any of the 3 dogs) to have a game/movie dedicated making them the main character, unless all 3 dogs were together in the movie/game.
Raikou-Entei-Suicuine are only special if all 3 are involved together, with the same being for Articuno-Zapdos-Moltres
Sometimes I wonder why Entei was the main Pokemon in movie 3 (along with Unknown ironically), or why Suicine was one of the main pokemon in movie 4 (along with Celebi), or why there was that special movie of Raikou alone in the anime.
Bottom line, Crystal is nowhere near as unique as Yellow was
Only thing I like about Crystal were:
- That the Pokemon did a little move when you battle them,
- You can easily capture Suicune,
- You have the option to play as a boy/girl,
- It will tell you on what route/city/town you are in automatically once you enter it
I love these videos, they're informative and fun as fuck. I also love that you had the economic factor as a part of your scoring, much appricated! Your videos are always a highlight of my week! :D Stay awesome dude!
25:54 Post-Clair Nuttery? Amazing, simply amazing
THANK YOU no one else has commented on this 🥺
I did NOT know you could just move the mail
Crystal has a special place in my heart because its the first game I'd purchased for myself with my own pocket money. I remember getting home with it and spending like the entirety of the next week just playing the game at any opportunity. Really kindled my love for the series.
Oh hell, I've never seen anyone else ever mention naming their rival "???" but I totally did! I was so confused by the whole thing.
All American Rejects AND Cranberries lyrics on the script, love it so much
I used to play Pokemon Crystal. I actually managed to completely beat it(all 16 Gym Badges, beat Pokemon Trainer Red)......but then I lost it😭
Mothy wake up, babe just posted another video
Crystal made it easier to get Rare Candies. If you listen to Buena's Password radio show every night after 6:00pm, you can get a rare candy every 3 days. You can also obtain elemental stones from certain trainers earlier on, instead of waiting until the Kanto post-game.
Not sure how i missed this before, but so glad the ruby/sapphire video showed me it was here. I absolutely adore Crystal, though i will say it is large in part due to nostalgia. I think all the points you make are totally fair, and i actually liked some of the positives you mentioned, as it showed me new parts of a game i believed i had seen every side of
great video crystal is probably my favorite game in the franchise. I never grew up playing it tho I picked it up on virtual console years ago and since its became my favorite due to its mysticism and comforting energy
9-11 punchline that wasnt messed up. Subscribed.
That "Scizor", though
I had Gold, and wanted Crystal, but didn’t expect to get it because I already had Gold. But my grandma actually gifted it to me, and I’m glad she did, because Crystal is still one of my favorite pokémon games. The same goes for Emerald and Platinum. Every time I wondered if the third version was worth it, the answer was yes.
it was for me because it was the first time i got to play a girl in a game which as a young girl meant alot to me.
Edit:
I too thought his name was ??? the first time i played.🤣
Great work on the video. Always love these and hope ya consider doing Ruby and Sapphire in the future.
There’s however two things of note that I feel were glossed over.
1: The Odd Egg has boosted shiny odds, and I may have missed it but this goes unmentioned. You could have reasonably gone for a shiny Tyrouge.
2: I haven’t double checked myself but allegedly Stadium 2 has a move relearner feature which could make Luigi and Ho-oh must better if the player had access to it. Just something that could have been pointed out if we’re assuming original hardware over 3ds.
Personally i dont think crystal does enough to really make any substantial changes outside a female character being playable. The encounters do change but one unforgivable is that Mareep is not in crystal and i dont get why.
This is a problem i have with 3rd Versions sometimes is that the native pokemon introduced in that gen arent in all three games or arent in the third version. I know we are supposed to trade with others to get pokemon but for me who didnt have friends who even liked pokemon it was a lonely time. I didnt get to use Mareep until Colosseum. I think some of the old pokemon should be version exclusives personally cause if you are like me you want to use all the new pokemon but cant cause some are cut off because of their exclusivity. This happens in Emerald and Platinum too. It might be a small thing to some but for a third version which is suppose to be the enhanced one why are some of the native pokemon missing
Crystal is the perfect upgrade to gen 1 and 2.
Most things people complain about today, are things that just weren't possible back then. They had very limited developers, space for code and time. And they managed to do a lot with that. Fitting whole (more or less) Kanto on a gbc cartridge is crazy.
Yes, the level curve and pokemon and move availability are probably the biggest downsides.
But I feel like it's at least somwhat intentional. Wouldn't make sense if all Kanto leaders were lv 80 all of a sudden. And red being so ridiculously high leveled is still one of the best things ever. It just emphasizes the difference and how far our player character from gen 1 has come.
And accessing the larvitar and misdreavus etc so late in the game is obliviously a detriment to the gameplay, but how awesome was it to reach the last region in Mt silver and find larvitar. I feel like old gamefreak was more about experience and creating the "first-time-wow-effect" than replayability. Personally I'm okay with that, I replayed it probably 100 times anyways. I get why people dislike that tho.
But from the design, to music, to atmosphere and lore, it's amazing
For me probably the best pokemon game overall. With nostalgia and vibe playing a huge role of course
Great video, love the commentary!
My take on Crystal is that, in 2024, if you're going to play Gen 2 you might as well play Crystal. What it adds wasn't worth buying a whole new game for when it was first released, but it has enough little tweaks to make it a slightly richer experience than Gold & Silver whilst still giving that core experience we all remember from those original Johto releases.
Also, points to a number of things it introduces that went on to be series mainstays;
1) A Female Player Character
2) Moving Sprites
3) Legendaries involved in the storyline
4) Exclusive battle music for Legendaries
5) A Battle Tower
Yes, a lot of this was under baked in Crystal, but those who played got those raw experiences before Ruby & Sapphire perfected them. So Crystal is certainly a major entry in the series, even if it was one of the more skippable ones at the time.
I played Blue, Yellow, and Gold and then dropped off until Diamond.
Really excited for this video.
Similar trajectory here. Got into PS2 gaming after gold, then picked up on Switch with brilliant diamond. The DS ones are mostly lost to me
I know you didn't have time for it, but the Battle Tower was actually a really cool addition and made Crystal worth getting on its own. As a kid I had a bunch of high level pokemon from the first two generations and nothing to do with them, but all of the sudden there is something to do which allowed me to utilize all of that work for something. All of those pokemon would end up stranded in Gen 2 anyway so this was the one time there was something to do with them in an "Endgame" context outside of fighting other kids, which was basically impossible to orchestrate for me.
These days if you want to do the Battle Tower, Crystal is the LAST game I would suggest, but back then it was the only game in town.
Your nicknames are out of control and I'm 100% here for it.