Pokemon Crystal

The Short


Pros
- Improved version of Pokemon Gold/Silver
- Can finally play as a girl for the first time in a Pokemon game
- Can catch both legendaries from Gold/Silver
- Pokemon now animate when entering battle, which is a nice touch
- Several small aesthetic changes and the phone calls people give you are less stupid
- Has the best batch of available pokemon between the three games of this generation

Cons
- Essentially the exact same game as Gold/Silver

Yep, we're doing this again. 

Note: I will not be going over the basic mechanics of the Pokemon games in this review, as I have covered these mechanics extensively in my Pokemon Blue/Red review. Instead, all subsequent reviews will instead focus on the changes made to the formula in any particular iteration. 

The Long

Pokemon Crystal has a lot of fond memories for me. It actually was my brother's game that I essentially stole (since you can only have one save) since he had Silver anyway and I needed a pokemon game to play. I started playing it when my family went on a trip to London a considerable number of years ago, and I remember setting the internal clock (which changes the in-game night/day cycle) to London time because...I was in London. 

I then came home a week later and couldn't figure out how to change it, so my Pokemon Crystal game was always on London time. I'll just say the main character is a perpetual night owl and call it good, I guess. I certainly killed a lot of Hoothoots. 

Anyway, ever since the start there's been a sort of tradition with the Pokemon games, established by Pokemon Yellow. They'll release a pair of games (Red/Blue, Gold/Silver, Ruby/Sapphire, etc.), and then a year later they'll release the "definitive" version of these games (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, etc.). These usually offer a few extras (like being able to get both of the legendary or starter pokemon as well as a few bonuses) and perform very minor balance and story changes to keep the games consistent.

This is the only "improved" game that I'll be reviewing (aside from Pokemon Yellow) seeing as most versions aside from Pokemon Yellow don't really offer much new that is worth noting. But I am reviewing Pokemon Crystal simply because of the time I spent with it and how significant it was in my personal history of Pokemon.

You can finally play as a girl!

The improvements between Gold/Silver and Crystal are minimum, but still make Crystal the better version. The biggest change is you can finally play as a girl for the first time in the series (a trend that continued ever since). This doesn't change anything but aesthetics, but it's a nice touch, and the girl doesn't look like a complete fashion failure like she does in all future Pokemon installments.

Not much different, but still cool. 

Another noticeable change is aesthetic: when pokemon enter a battle they have a little animation now rather than just standing there. Again, this was a nice touch, which they promptly axed for almost all future generations (why?). Yeah, they weren't great animations, but they were better than the guys just standing there, which apparently is what Nintendo liked better. 

There were a few balance changes (you can get fire pokemon earlier, which makes the game easier), but what really blew my mind was the fact you could get both legendary pokemon from Gold/Silver (Ho-Oh and Lugia) as well as all three of the legendary dogs in the same game. Much like Pokemon Yellow let you get every starter pokemon, Crystal breaks the rules and gives you all the best. You still can't get all the starters (and haven't been able to since Yellow), but hey...I'll take Ho-Oh over Cyndaquil any day. 

But in truth, this game isn't much different from Gold/Silver

Aside from that, not much is different. The story is changed a little, but since nobody ever cared about a story in a Pokemon game that probably doesn't matter. The phone calls people make to you are a little less stupid, but still have about a 50/50 split between useful/useless. They adjusted a few bosses and maps to make things better paced, but again...it's all simply very minor changes. The fact of the matter is, aside from cosmetic differences, Crystal is essentially a slightly better Gold/Silver, and that's only if you are interested in "catching them all."

Music is still great, though. 

This review might be redundant, but I really liked Pokemon Crystal, and was kind of bummed when they rereleased Gold and Silver as HeartGold and SoulSilver that they totally neglected to rerelease Crystal. I suppose even Nintendo knew it was redundant by that point, and they could only milk so much out of this franchise, but man...I really like Crystal. 

Anyway, it gets the same five out of five stars, yada yada yada. If you are looking to pick these games up and not as the DS re-releases, you should totally go for Pokemon Crystal. It's the best out of the three, and plus the cart is a cool light blue crystally color. 

Speaking of Super Nerds...yeah, I am one. Sigh.