Back to GBC

Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal Version

Gen 2 is my favourite. There are nostalgic reasons for this, I mean you would not believe how cool the day/night cycle was at the time. Before it came out in the West, I got my hands on a magazine that had sprites and names for all 100 new Pokémon, and I was the coolest kid on the playground for a few weeks. I declared that Hoppip was the greatest Pokémon that ever had or would exist. And while it's taken a bit for granted these days, it truly was a big deal that you were able to play as Kris in Crystal. All this is to say that I understand a lot of my love for these games is attached to fond memories.

Still, I don't believe it's entirely down to schoolyard nostalgia. There are many things I love about gen 2:

• The vibes
• The palette
• Small touches like Gold and Silver having different sprites from each other
• The radio, and Pokégear in general
• Mystery Gift, the sequel to Card Pop
• The aforementioned day/night cycle
• Days of the week
• Mom saves your money so you can still buy full restores after getting clowned by the Elite Four a thousand times
• And more

The general tone of the games is a big one. Johto is probably the most Japanese-feeling region, full of legends and hints at Shintoism. Bold, beautiful legendaries, a kind of quiet contentment in the every day. There are so many big ideas in these games (cramming all of Kanto in the cart as well?!), but none of it ever feels unmanageable in the way I would come to find later entries in the series.

They also had a touch of melancholy to them, both within the games and out. Because later entries would not be compatible with these ones, it felt like a time capsule that was destined to remain untouched by all the advancement to come. Even within my own personal life, by the time gen 3 had come around I was more interested in preteen things than a new Pokémon game, so I put the series down for a while after the end of GSC's day. To me, there's a clear divide between the first two generations, and everything else.

Crystal Clear

While I'd been recommended this romhack a lot in the past, I waited on giving Crystal Clear a try. I'm not a big fan of open world games thanks in large part to their modern implementation, so the pitch of "Pokémon Crystal, but open world" didn't really appeal to me. I gave the opening a shot, but it asks you to decide so many things right from the get go that I was intimidated by it. There's also a lot of custom art thrown at you in this opening segment, so I thought it might be a more original setting-type romhack than it actually was.

What finally got me on board was (of course) RetroAchievements. Despite my love of gen 2, I've played the vanilla games enough that I don't intend to go back to any of them without some QoL romhacks attached. Crystal Clear is the only improvement hack with a full achievement set on there.

Well, I definitely should not have avoided this hack, because it turned out to be everything I wanted. I said the opening was intimidating to me, so I'll speed through it and let you know what does and does not matter.

Starting town:

• Where "your room" is now located. You can buy other properties later, it's not locked in.
• Can be in Johto or Kanto. Kanto has received a huge upgrade from the rather barren version in GSC, so don't be afraid of it.
• Difficulty levels can mostly be ignored. Trainer and gym levels are determined by your number of badges so you won't encounter anything you can't beat. Wild Pokémon levels can be a concern but there are always ways around this.
• Progression obstacles are removed so you don't need to factor in Sudowoodo or HM availability.
• In summary: just pick your favourite! I chose Goldenrod as I always thought that'd be the coolest place to live as a kid.

Trainer portrait:

• Can be changed at any time in the Goldenrod Department Store basement.
• One of many things in the game that can have a custom colour palette!

There's also an external tool (see below in Fun Extras) you can use to inject your own custom trainer sprites and starters into the game. I didn't do it as it changes the hash of the rom and as such will break RetroAchievements integration, but it's a seriously cool feature.

Bag:

• Can be changed in the settings menu later.
• Tons of options, kind of overwhelming, just go with the default unless you're into this.
• There are additional designs to find in secret places in the overworld.

Starter:

• 30 to choose from!!
• Look at the categories: the hard starters are Pokémon like Magikarp, Ditto, and Smeargle that will require some creativity to work around.
• Again, pick your favourite! I went for a Slowpoke and named him Mort.

After all of this is chosen, you'll get an explanation of the hack, and from there, it's really up to you. Whatever experience you're looking for, this romhack supports. You can beeline for the badges without worrying about progress blockers. You can make a perfect DV team for Stadium or shiny hunt with new chaining features. You can catch all 251 Pokémon without ever getting a single badge. You can explore all the secrets the original game has to offer with a huge number of new mysteries to be found. I normally hate caves, but this game made them feel more like optional expeditions and I ended up loving the process of gearing up and getting ready for a new adventure.

There are plenty of options for challenging yourself or making it a breeze, if you want. Just about everything is customisable. There's even a Nuzlocke mode that you can set up in the beginning, and a New Game+ that lets you keep your old Pokémon and start again. Did I mention the upgraded Pokédex with movesets, upgraded area info, and a lot more? If I were to go through all of the features, we'd be here all day, but suffice it to say: I really enjoyed my time with the game.

One thing to note is that the plot has been more or less stripped out. This was honestly a boon for me, I don't really like Pokémon plots at all. My job is to be a trainer, get the badges, fill the Pokédex, and learn about the world around me. If you like that aspect, you'll love this! If you preferred being the hero that saves everyone from evil, maybe not so much. It's far from a dead world, though: NPCs are still there to give the world life and lore, and in addition to the vanilla ones there are a ton of fun little events to go through. I've played a crazy number of hours in this game and I still haven't found them all. Some of them are just small secrets that'll give you a lemonade on a certain day of the week, some of them are longer sidequests for powerful items or unlocks, but there's nothing like saving the Radio Tower from Team Rocket or teaching your rival to cherish his Pokémon by repeatedly beating them up. The Suicune plot from Crystal has survived, though in an extended form to explain the presence of Kanto legendaries, and a certain event that was only available in Japan and later on the 3DS virtual console versions has been restored.

Another feature that might be more polarising: this romhack is a real labour of love, and the creator of the hack, ShockSlayer, decided to put in some characters that were based around him and his friends. I understand why, and for the most part, found it matched just fine with the tone of the game. You'll usually find them hanging around in buildings or fields, serving a purpose or providing some challenging battles with well composed teams. Generally they fit in well, you'll only really notice them because of a custom sprite or their name standing out, and where it's somewhat 4th wall breaking it feels fine because it's just a quick nudge, similar to the Game Freak offices in Celadon Mansion. It did get a little much for me at one point, though...

SPOILERS FOR THE END GAME

First off, I'll say that the Elite Four rework was a fun challenge. The teams are varied rather than based around one type, you don't get a free switch from knocking out your opponent, and neither of you are allowed to use items.

Where it's not so great is that the original E4 have all been replaced by friend characters, and the champion is ShockSlayer himself. It feels a little egregious for a hack that's been so faithful to the original and based around playing the game the way you want to. What I mean by this is that before this point, you can potentially avoid original characters if you want to have a purist experience, but this is inescapable on a normal playthrough.

I have seen people defend this decision by saying that characters like Karen or Will were barely characters at all, that if you're fighting randoms anyway they may as well be these ones, and that in the canon it's been 2 or 3 years, so why wouldn't they be replaced? I disagree because I don't think this argument understands the issue that some have with the situation. I don't think it would have been as controversial if they were replaced with new trainer characters that felt like they belonged in the world. The problem is less that Will's gone and more that the final(ish) challenge is robbed of its gravitas when one of the members of this exclusive and accomplished institution is chastising me for playing the game on an emulator. I don't know if that line changes if you're playing on a real cart, but Fibbef, my dude, I have made the CC cart. I have played the game on a real GBC. It does not make one superior to do so. Why am I thinking about this instead of my battle strategy or reflecting on how much it took to get here?

The original E4 are not totally lost, at least. You can face them with their old teams and levels in a battle simulator at Indigo Plateau. I just think it would have been a much better way around if the friend characters were the ones in the simulator and the real Elite Four featured the original, or less out of place, trainers with updated teams.

Anyway, I can't emphasise enough that those quibbles are just one small part in an otherwise excellent game. For me, Crystal Clear refreshed the adventure of gen 2 in a way that I haven't experienced for a very long time. It replicated so well the surprise and excitement of GSC's mysteries and exploits in a thousand different ways. I genuinely enjoyed building my team, and several more for use in Stadium 2. If you're a fan of Crystal and keen to give hacks a try, I would 100% recommend this one.

Fun Extras

PCNY Distribution Station

Blue Moon Falls is a fantastic fan site dedicated to gen 2. So many quirks and goings on of the games have been researched to an incredible degree there - the Stadium hue analysis is amazing! I highly suggest taking a look around if you're interested, there's some great documentation on features like the Mobile System GB and the reason you can't actually get the Pikachu bed for your room.

One of the other extremely cool things they've made is a virtual PCNY Distribution Station. The original physical station would have a different offering of special event Pokémon each week that you could download to your GSC cart. They've replicated this, and while you can choose any of the available distributions, the default selection is from the matching day in 2002/2003 that the Pokémon were available.

I've been checking in weekly to download my allotted Pokémon. At some point I'll list the ones I got!

Warning: I've been using a vanilla copy of Gold and then trading the Pokémon I received to Crystal Clear from there. Romhacks often have code in different places than the original, and this can cause problems with tools like PkHex and other save editors. Be careful using romhacks with this tool, and as always, back up your saves!

Crystal Clear Trainer Sprite & Starter Injection

I mentioned above that there is a way to get your own custom trainer sprites and starters in the game: behold, the Crystal Clear Injector.

The instructions for both are easy to follow, and if you're not much of a sprite artist, there's a huge repository of custom sprites made by members of the community, accessible by clicking the "use public template" button. Now you too can play as an Aipom with a hat!

Other neat features of this site include a save converter if you want to play Crystal Clear as a virtual console game on the 3DS, a patcher for SGB mode that adds your team to the displayed border, and a Stadium 2 patcher so that you can have the game reflect your custom Pokémon palettes accurately. If you're using that last one though, check out this video about it because the process is a little wild. And yes, it breaks RetroAchievements.