So continuing with my thoughts on replaying all the Pokemon games, I beat the Champion a couple of days ago in Crystal. For Crystal and the rest of the games, I'm dividing up my thoughts between the campaign and postgame (though the postgame for GSC really is the second half of the campaign).
- First off, the graphical improvements made in GSC are great. The Pokemon sprites look like how the Pokemon are supposed to look like (though this was fixed in Yellow)! Being done with a monochromatic color scheme is also nice. The greatest change Crystal makes, though, are animated sprites. Crystal's animated sprite work is far superior to Emerald's or Platinum's, which just shows the Pokemon bouncing around and is rather uninspired. It amazes me that the sprite work really progressed backwards until Black and White.
- Now the rule I'm using for my replays is to only use Pokemon that were introduced during that generation. This self-imposed rule made my run much more difficult than it had to be, as this is the generation that introduced stinkers such as Unown, Delibird, and Jumpluff (all of which ended up on my team)! Making these Pokemon viable is ridiculously difficult. I had to breed Confusion onto Jumpluff just so it could have an attacking move besides Mega Drain! And I spent a lot of coins at the Game Corner just to get a Blizzard TM for Delibird. Other Pokemon are good, but don't get great moves until higher levels, making them hurt during the first half of the game. Using a Heracross with no Bug or Fighting type moves is just so bizarre!
- The distribution of some new Pokemon is terrible too. If you want to use the highly touted new Dark type Pokemon, you're going to have to basically wait until the second half of the game. I'm still waiting to catch a Houndour.
- An interesting relic of these games being the sequel to RBY is that the new Pokemon types and Pokemon eggs are both allegedly newly discovered. Any references to these being newly discovered are removed in Pokemon remakes.
- I'm bringing up the plot just to point out how poor it is. Team Rocket cut off some Slowpoke tails, uses some weird science to make Magikarp evolve, and then takes over a radio tower to beg Giovanni to come back. Everything Team Rocket does seems so much more low scale than any of their plans in RBY. Their hideout in Mahogany Town is so smaller than their hideout in Celadon City. The Silph Company building is taller than the Radio Tower. Team Rocket loses the element of "real life criminals in a fantasy world" and just become generic bad guys.
- This is just something minor that bugs me, but I really wish that Johto and Kanto had separate leagues. Now there are so many questions like what happened to Lorelei and Agatha? Why did Lance suddenly become champion? If they wanted to have a shared Pokemon league, I wish they did something interesting with it. Why not make Giovanni the champion? At the end of RBY, he claims he's going to travel to train his Pokemon. Having him end up as Champion ties up that plot while also providing a more satisfying conclusion to Team Rocket's plot than "Oh well, I guess we're going to disband again!" In fact, I really hate that the remakes made Giovanni hope for Team Rocket to become stronger again, while RBY kind of implied he was done with Team Rocket for good.
- And here's my thoughts on the level curve: it's a disaster. Basically from Goldenrod City until the Radio Tower, all of your opponents' Pokemon hover around the same level. It makes defeating Claire a bit of a pain in the ass, especially since Kingdra only has a weakness to Dragon!
- And one last point on Whitney: she's not nearly as difficult as people still claim to this day. Use strategy beyond brute force and you'll be fine. I had my Phanpy use Mud Slap on Miltank. It's a weak attack, but it decreases accuracy, which shut down Rollout from gaining power. Phanpy is Crystal exclusive, but still, any accuracy decreasing move will basically render Miltank worthless.
Now for my Pokemon. My Hall of Fame time was 20:53 (longer than my RBY time, which shocked me, considering how much of GSC happens in the post game), and here's my team:
Henry VIII (Jumpluff) Level 40
Synthesis/Mega Drain/Confusion/Sleep Powder
Hamlet (Donphan) Level 41
Take Down/Flail/Strength/Mud Slap
Othello (Unown K) Level 40
Hidden Power (It actually had Hidden Power Psychic of all things!)
Caesar (Delibird) Level 41
Present/Fly/Blizzard
Juliet (Heracross) Level 41
Fury Attack/Counter/Horn Attack/Take Down
King Lear (Feraligatr) Level 45
Slash/Ice Punch/Bite/Surf
Now it is time to conquer Kanto for the second time. I'll post my final thoughts on Crystal once I beat Red.
