Review: Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal (GBC) ~ Pokémon 2

Wikipedia entry

I have an objection. This game can actually be played on the original Game Boy. Well, only the Gold & Silver versions. Crystal has to be played on the good old original Game Boy. Anyway, you might have seen this one coming. Since I played this game a lot as a kid, and I’m writing the final articles for the GB(C) month, well, why not talk about this game? It’s one of the biggest in everybody’s top 10 lists. It will appear each and every time. So, yeah. Without further ado, I’ll review the first Pokémon game I actually finished. As always, feel free to leave a comment on the content of this article and or the game. 

Story

I have a big surprise for you guys. My best friend was recently playing this game, so why not ask him to do a co-op review of this game? So, lets both give our opinions. He played Pokémon Crystal and I played Pokémon Gold.

Miz: I think that some people are wrong. Some people think that the end of the game is beating the elite 4. Yet, this is the midway point in the game. Team Rocket is still present in the game, but they aren’t the big bad.  There is actually no real story. The game is just a series of side quests, with a vague goal.

Some areas are totally optional and can be skipped without hindering your progress.

Me: The story is just lacking. Miz asked a valid question, is there actually any story? After some discussing, we both agreed that the game is just side-quests with a vague goal. As soon as you reach Kanto, the amount of side quests go down.

The game was first supposed to be a sequel of Pokémon Blue and Red, but somehow it evolved into Pokémon Gold and Silver. Truth to be told, the fact that there are side-quests, is an improvement over Pokémon Red & Blue, they were completely absent in that game.

Music and sound

Miz: It’s pretty cozy, but when you ride your bike a lot… It can get annoying and repetitive quickly. I don’t like the PokéCenter tune. The cries of the game are pretty sweet. Steelix and Espeon are one of my favorites.

Me: I agree with Miz, but the sound when a Pokémon is on low health. That’s extremely annoying. I’m so glad that they somewhat fixed this in the 3DS releases. The surf theme is actually one of my favorite themes.

Graphics, (world) design and animation

Miz: The animation is pretty basic, but that’s due to the Game Boy’s limitations. It does give a different atmosphere. Because it’s all similar, nothing is bad. Graphically, the game is pretty sweet. With the limited resources, they did manage to give you the right feel.

The first few routes are just too big and too empty compared to all the other routes, while the other routes get really lively. At some routes, you can barely evade the grass.

Me: Something I didn’t like is that the battle animations were exclusive to Pokémon Silver. They were included in Pokémon Crystal. But I played Pokémon Gold. Why didn’t they include them there? I agree that the animation is basic, but it serves as a stepping stone towards the newer generation.

Some puzzles still work on my nerves. The ice sliding puzzle is one of the worst. While it’s a fun concept and great puzzle, I got stuck several times. Even worse is the time that you had three switches to open doors in the basement of the mall. When Miz and I were discussing our opinions for this review, it turns out that we both don’t like that puzzle.

Gameplay & controls

Miz: The controls are pretty solid, but the bike controls can be pretty annoying to control sometimes. Compared to newer generations, the controls aren’t that good. But we can’t blame the game for that, since the Game Boy color was limited.

Some items are totally overpriced. Like a repel. It’s a handy item, but it doesn’t last long.

The overall gameplay didn’t get many new things, but they tweaked a lot of features. The item holding for example was a nice addition.

The improved breeding is also a great update in my opinion.

Me: Well, I clearly remember that you need to restart each HM before you can use it’s action. This made the stone sliding puzzle in the Ice Path tedious.

The addition of the XP bar is one of my favorites. I can finally see how long it will take before my Pokémon levels up. Another pleasant addition were the berries. You can either make Pokéballs out of them or use them to heal your Pokémon.

The intern clock and the events is just a fun addition. But something I didn’t like was that some legendary Pokémon can only be caught on certain days. Speaking about the internal clock, the biggest update to the game is the day & night cycle. It has effect on the wild Pokémon. According to Miz, it’s more occurring in the Crystal version.

Difficulty

Miz: This is a weird beast. When you rush through it, it might give you trouble. But if you play it normally, the game can get easy.

Me: I can’t add anything special to Miz-‘s statement, but the cheat/glitch of cloning is just a cheap way out.

Postgame

Both: There is barely anything to do anymore. Apart from the Battle Tower in Crystal, there is nothing to do.

Conclusion

The bad:

– Difficulty can be selected by playing.

– The music can become repetitive/annoying.

– The unneeded calls of trainers.

– Boring postgame.

– Kanto has some wasted potential.

The good:

+ High replay value.

+ Good animation, world design for it’s time.

+ Day & night cycle.

+ Better story than the original.

Final thoughts:

Miz finds that this game is a long term arcade-ish game. Here and there is a challenge, but you mostly continue to play. Most of the time you can set your own challenge. 

To me, it’s the biggest Pokémon game out there. While the game isn’t perfect, it does start to show its age. But honestly, it’s so well crafted, that the negatives can be overlooked for the hours of fun it provides.

Anyway, I think we mentioned everything. There might be some things that we didn’t mention that are for you guys and girls to discover. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Until the next one! Take care~

Score Miz: 82/100

Score NekoJonez: 80/100

Our score: 81/100

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Gamer’s Thoughts: 10 facts about the gameboy and gameboy color

Let’s do something different, not a review or a first impression. Let’s not talk about the game music or something along those lines. In this article I want to talk about the history of the gameboy and gameboy color and maybe some facts you didn’t know about yet. So, this is an experimental article. It would help me if you guys left a comment about the content and subject of this article. Let’s begin. 

Gameboy

1) Kirby’s color is white?

Did you know, that Kirby’s first appearance in the west was actually white? The reason for that is when Nintendo USA got the code for the game in order to translate, they didn’t mention that Kirby was pink. Because his first installment was on the gameboy, it was unclear which color he had. That’s why Nintendo decided to give him a white color.

Also, there are some rumors of Kirby’s name. It might have to do with a story of a lawyer that defended Nintendo when Universal Studio’s sued Nintendo for copyright infringement on their Donkey Kong license. But that’s only a rumor… right?

2) A calculator as inspiration.

Gunpei Yokoi was sitting on the train when he saw a business man playing around on his calculator. You know that stuff you did back in class? Turning the numbers upside down to try and spell out words? It didn’t take long before your dirty mind took over and you turned the number “80085” upside down.

So, that’s what gave Gunpei the inspiration to make the gameboy with the RD&1 of Nintendo. Sadly enough, the creator of the gameboy has passed away in a car accident a few years ago.

He got a few awards under his belt, but to me he will always be remember as the creator of the gameboy :)!

3) The Gameboy Advance SP wasn’t the first back-lit gameboy.

Remember those painful days when you had to have a lamp on to play the gameboy? When you couldn’t play it under your sheets easily because the gameboy didn’t had a light-up screen?

Well, the successor, the gameboy pocket got a second release in Japan. The gameboy light was actually the solution to the issue. Strangely enough, the device only stayed in Japan. In the USA and Europe we got all sorts of crazy attachments that barely worked.

What’s an every bigger mystery is why they didn’t include this feature in the gameboy color. Yes, we had to wait until the gameboy advance SP until we had backlit gameboy screens. What a shame actually. But hey, it was fun trying to hide the gameboy and put out the lights at night to avoid your parents busting in…. Just don’t forget you lower your volume.

 4) The gameboy wasn’t the first Nintendo handheld

So, this relates to my 2nd point about the calculator. When Gunpei started to design the first handheld game for Nintendo, he developed the Game & Watch series.

The Game & Watch series are now a big collector item. It’s even believed that some Game & Watch systems gave the inspiration to the Nintendo DS’s design.

Well, more on Game & Watch devices later.

5) Samsung sold it!

Around the time the WO II ended, Korea actually banned products made in Japan. Which meant that the Gameboy was banned. But that didn’t stop from being sold in Korea.

Samsung Korea actually sold the gameboy under another name, called the “Comboy”. It’s not the only system that Samsung sold. I know that they sell a version of the DS as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised that they helped to sell the whole gameboy line in Korea. But notice that’s I’m doubting since I don’t know for certain.

Gameboy Color

1) The SNES gameboy “port”

Back in the day, you could play Gameboy games on your TV using the Super Gameboy. You can even play with the color.

But strangely enough, the Super Gameboy couldn’t run Gameboy Color games. The SNES would be strong enough to run those games and it has color for sure.

We had to wait until the GameCube before we would be able to play these games legally on a big screen.

2) Trivia

The Gameboy color is the only system in the Gameboy series that has clear cartrigdes.

The colors in the name of the Gameboy color stand for each different color the gameboy color was originally released in.

And final part of trivia, all black gameboy cartridges are enhanced to be in color on the gameboy color!

3) Pokemon Crystal, two versions?

The most popular game on the Gameboy Color was Pokémon Gold & Silver. But strangly enough, Pokémon Crystal got two releases. I discovered this when I found out that I had two Pokémon Crystal cartridges.

When I saw the area code, somehow a “-1″ was printed on it. After I researched it, it turns out that there was a v1.1 released. There is barely anything known what is patched. But hey, time to hunt a copy down for your collection!

4) Wireless.

If you thought that you needed to use cables when it came to connecting two gameboy colors, think again. Some games actually used the infrared port on top of the gameboy.

I never used it as a kid, but it’s interesting to learn more about. Since according to my research, it was the first handheld that had wireless communication.

5) Motion Control before it was cool.

Oh, and it wasn’t the only first. Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble was the first motion controlled game. It’s a sort of maze / Super Monkey Ball-ish game.

It actually worked with tilting the gameboy around. I haven’t played it, but I have seen video’s about it. It made me want to grab a copy of it. Since you can’t have the same experience with these kind of games on an emulator.

Final thoughts

So, that was the article I wanted to release last week. But, I was busy and tired, so I moved it to this week. I hope you enjoyed reading about the gameboy and gameboy color. If you knew all these ten facts, I hope it was a nice refresher.

I enjoyed writing this, did you enjoy reading it? Anyways, I hope to see you another time. Thanks for reading.

Review: Tomodachi Life (3DS) ~ Compare That Review

Official site – Forum review

A while back, I was planning to take a break with my blog. A hiatus as it were. I would use the reviews the amazing people of Arpegi wrote and give them a nice place on my blog. Yet, it has never come to that. Yet, I have not forgotten about it. I had too much fun writing my article about Bravely Default and comparing it to the opinion of my friends over at GamersHive. Now, I’m going to compare my opinion of this game with Inu’s. So, I’ll be quoting her review through-out this review. While I haven’t beaten this game, I think I’m allowed to review this game. Why? Since you can’t really beat it. There is always something you can do. It’s like a sandbox game. Agreed, I don’t own this game for too long yet. Actually, I own it for 3 days now. But by then, you have seen most of the game. So, I hope you can understand why this isn’t going to be a first impression. Don’t worry, I played this game for over 10 hours. So, I think that’s a solid base to review it too. Anyway, time to get reviewing. Feel free to leave a comment on the article and or the game. And if you really liked it, consider making an account on our forums, so you can talk to us. (PS: all screenshots I use, are the screenshots made by Inu. They are amazing Inu) 

Is that me?

While Inu was writing her review of this game, she noticed that my Mii was on the box-art. It’s true. The Mii eating a hamburger next to “Life” looks a whole lot like my Mii. I don’t think I should look for a reason behind this, since I think it’s nothing more than a pure coincidence.

Story

Anyways, that said, let’s go on with the review. First section is the story. Yeah, the story. So, about the story…

Though there’s not much to the game in terms of backstory, there is one thing. You own an island.

– Inu

Thanks Inu. That’s exactly it. In this game you own an island. Compare the idea to a game like Animal Crossing. In that game you own a town. And that’s it for the story. You create the rest of the story yourself.

Now, the big difference with Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life is control. You are more of an observer then a major in this game. You can control some things like if two Mii’s should start a friendship or not, what they eat or where their room is. But that’s really it.

So, in terms of story, Inu said it perfectly. She said, and I quote:

You made a resident that looks like yourself. You can make more residents. Everyone calls you <your Mii’s nickname>’s look-alike. Fun is to be had. But seriously, most of the “story” comes from just watching the Miis interact with each other and have fun. They make friends, go on dates, get married, play with the things you give them…and maybe, someday, have children of their own.

– Inu

Gameplay

Honestly, this is part Sims, part Animal Crossing, part ‘sit and watch to see what they do’. A lot of the fun just comes from watching them.

– Inu

So, how to describe this game? Honestly, I would describe it more as a sort of Island Simulator – Nintendo Edition. This game is not for everybody. Like Goat Simulator, this game is only for you if it looks interesting to you. If it looks boring with reading reviews or looking at video’s, don’t buy it. You won’t have much fun with it.

I enjoy looking at how my actions and suggestions to the problems of my Mii’s influence my inhabitants. Now, is there more you can do? Well, honestly, I feel like this game has a solid foundation but didn’t build further.

There is quite a lot you can influence, but I feel that this game is lacking quite a lot. What is lacking you might ask? First, the fact that kids go on a part-time job. How crazy is that? Well, that’s not really a lack of something, but it’s a complaint at least.

So, this game got a day 1 patch. And yet, I was able to find a strange bug in the game. After a few minutes of play, I saw that my clock was running a minute or two behind. So, I adjusted my clock in-game and continued playing. When I closed my 3DS, I noticed that my whole system clock was messed up. It was suddenly 1st January 2005. And the game adapted that.

To add to the confusion, the game didn’t like me changing the time. And here who go at a strong point of this game. You can’t simply cheat with time in this game. You will get punished. From not receiving new items to not having donations. That’s a great addition to the game.

A great feature in this game is how there is no real “dead time”. What I mean here is not that there aren’t any moments there is nothing to do with your Mii’s… rather, there is no time in the day when every Mii is sleeping OR where every shop is closed. Thank you, Nintendo, this made the game trip friendly. This way you don’t have to wait to play this game when you are travelling by car to somewhere.

Lacking?

So, foremost, the treasures. It’s nothing really more than a way to earn money. You simply sell all your treasures at the pawn shop and done, you have a ton more money. Come on Nintendo! This is really lame. At least in Animal Crossing you have a museum!

A minor complaint is that you can’t use the down arrow to go to your max amount of items in the pawn shop. Oh well, that’s a small annoyance.

Another thing that I really find lacking is in the controls. The controls aren’t very good.

The game controls about as fantastically as you can expect from Nintendo. Since the game is mostly menus, there’s not much you can screw up, though. They use the gyro whatsit in the 3DS perfectly, too.

– Inu

Like I said earlier, I disagree Inu. The big issue here is that there is no button to take a screenshot of both screens. This makes you having to make a screenshot of the top screen and the bottom screen just seconds after each other and hope they match up. While this shouldn’t be that big of an issue, it still is an annoyance.

Also, I wish you could control the menu’s with the buttons. Yup, without a stylus, you’re pretty much screwed. Or you don’t mind pressing your touch screen with your fingers. There are some menus you can use with the buttons, but not everything. But in terms of the menu’s there is one huge issue. If you made a mistake, eg: giving the wrong present to a Mii, you can’t revert it. That’s a big annoyance.

Quickly about the rest

Okay, before I end off this review, I want to quickly talk about the other things in this game. I can’t talk about the difficulty and the length since that’s not playing a major part in this game.

The game is pretty cute. The synthesizer voices add a lot of character to the Mii’s on your island. The graphics are quite nice too. But the strong point here is the animation. The Mii’s act just like a real person would react. And I admit, I believed once or twice that these were real people.

Now, the music is pretty basic. Don’t get me wrong, the music is quite well-made, but I have heard Nintendo do a lot better with it’s music. It’s just that this music isn’t memorable at all. It’s not as catchy as their other tunes.

Anyways, I think it’s time for the summary.

Summary

The bad:

– The music could have been better. More catchy.

– Gameplay, it’s a bit lacking… (See positives for the rest of this sentence)

– Issues with the time settings.

– Some more use of the buttons would make the controls perfect.

The good:

+ … but what you get is really addicting.

+ Amazing atmosphere. You really feel that you’re living on an island.

+ A build in screenshot feature!

+ …

Closing thoughts: 

Inu and many others give this game a high to a near perfect score. Now, I find this a bit too high. This game isn’t a bad game, far from it! But this game lacks depth. I wish I could change the music of the lyrics of the Mii’s singing or see the pets run around while actually interacting with the Mii’s. (Once you enter their room, the pets disappear in thin air.)

We got a solid game by Nintendo, but I think they could have done more with it than what got. Maybe they are making a sequel already with more things to do and more to explore and experience. I’m crossing my fingers at least.

Notice how I haven’t talked too much in depth about this game in this review. This is because I want some things for you guys to find and experience without being spoiled here on my blog.

Anyway, this is the end of the review. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this one. I really loved writing this one. Furthermore, I hope to see you another time here on my blog. Until then!

Score: 70 / 100