Because of the endless great new features, Pokemon Silver and Gold are easily the best games in the Pokemon series.
The games are set three years after the events of Pokenon Red and Blue, in the new fictional world of Johto. You play as a new main boy protagonist who, like Ash in the previous games, wants to become the best Pokemon trainer in the land. Also like on the previous games you can choose one of three starter Pokemon given to you by Professor Elm (Johto's equialent to Professor Oak). And as your adventure goes on you'll battle Gym leaders, the Pokemon League and attempt to stop Team Rocket once and for all. So the story is pretty much a carbon-copy of Red and Blue's story, so what's so good about Silver and Gold?
While Red and Blue introduced the series to the masses and incorporated alot of things to the series, Silver and Gold greatly improve the Pokemon formula. They added so much things to the series, and this makes Silver and Gold the most important games in the franchise. Apart from the game having 100 new Pokemon (aswell as the previous 150 found in Red and Blue) the most important new feature was the Pokegear. The Pokegear is a watch that is also a mobile phone, map and radio (because it's a phone, if you battle a trainer with a Pokegear they may add your number and ring you if they want a re-match). The games were also the first in the series to have a days of the week system and in-game day and night feature. This was revolutionary for the series and made catching Pokemon more fun because there are some Pokemon (like Hoothoot) that only appear at night, and some Pokemon only appear on certain days of the week. The games were also the first to let Pokemon hold items, and had new items to exploit this feature, like berries and the Leftovers. They were the first games in which you could breed 2 compataible Pokemon to make an egg, which eventually hatches after some time, sometimes resulting in you hatching a rare Pokemon. New 'specialized' Pokeballs, like the Fast Ball, were introduced, which were more effective against certain Pokemon than others. 2 new Pokemon types were introduced, Dark and Steel types, Steel having great defence and Dark been extra strong against Pyschic Pokemon. And they were also the first games to have 'shiny' Pokemon sprites and to have Legendary Pokemon (Entei, Raikou and Suicine) running across the world map so you can randomly encounter them. Yes, Gold and Silver do play very similar to Red and Blue, but they introduced so many new features to the series that make them individual games in their own rights.
And another thing that Silver and Gold are great for is the fact that the games are 2 adventures in one. Once you've got all 8 badges from Johto and beaten the Pokemon League, you go to Kanto (the region from Red and Blue) and have to carry on your quest by collecting all eight badges from that region too. This though was the feature I most liked about Silver and Gold because it added alot more depth to a game that already had alot of depth, and I thought it was a fantastic addition on Nintendo and GameFreak's behalf.
Musically and visually Silver and Gold are also a step ahead of Red and Blue. They aren't much better graphically, but they do use the GameBoy Colour to it's limit, so the game is in full colour so the Pokemon and enviroments do look a treat. And Nintendo had all new music composed for the game too, so expect a new battle theme and so on. And the battle cries the new Pokemon make are great too, but the original 150 Pokemon do sound more static, and it sounds like Nintendo just recycled the battle cries from Red and Blue for those pokemon, which is a shame seen as though the GameBoy Colour is more advanced than the original GameBoy.
If you add up all the new features to the adventure in Silver and Gold it should take you about 70 hours just to collect all 16 badges and complete the game. But because of the 100 new Pokemon, catching them all was harder than ever and if you do endeavor to catch them all you could easily sink over 200 hours of your life into playing the games. And like with Red and Blue each games have Pokemon that are only available in that game, so you'll need both of the games, or need your friend to have the opposite game to you, in order for you to catch them all.
Pokemon Silver and Gold are fantastic games. While they play pretty much the same as Pokemon Red and Blue they introduced a ton of new features to the franchise and completeley revolutionised the series, making them great games in their own rights, and in their own rights the Pokemon games are just quality Role-Playing games. If you're a hand-held gamer and you haven't played these games then you MUST go and get them as soon as you can because they aren't just the best Pokemon games in the series, they are just some of the best hand-held games ever made.
Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 9.5/10