The Gold/Silver Pokemon series is honestly my favorite in the entire franchise
Basically, the games in this franchise that take place in the Johto region are actually my favorite in the whole entire franchise. Like I said, I used to be a huge fan of the original Pokémon games and I could probably name all Pokémon up to the Johto class as well as remember the maps of the Kanto and Johto regions. Once they got to the Hoenn region, I gave up trying to remember them all. Aside from that, the amount of gameplay in this game is great because it makes the Gold/Silver games the longest to complete in the entire franchise. These games in general always take a while to complete, about two weeks or something like that. In the other games, you just go through one region and then you're done. That ultimately is why the Johto handheld games are my favorite in the franchise.
The story for the game is similar to the previous entries in the franchise. You play as a trainer who lives in the small Johto town of New Bark Town. Your journey begins when your scientist friend Professor Elm asks you to pick up a mysterious egg from his friend Mr. Pokémon. Like in Red, Blue, and Yellow, Elm gives you a Pokémon to assist you on your journey. Like with all other handheld games in the series, you select from 3 different Pokémon which basically determines how hard your journey will be. Your choices in this game are the Fire Pokémon Cyndaquil, the Water Pokémon Totodile, or the Grass Pokémon Chikorita. After you collect the egg, Elm notifies you over the phone (I'll explain that in a minute) that while you were out getting the egg, a thief stole one of the other two starter Pokémon. This character, literally first known only as ??? becomes your rival in the game and like with all rivals in the series, they take the Pokémon that has an advantage over your starter Pokémon. After you fight him and make sure everything is all right back in New Bark Town, you head out to face the Johto Gym Leaders and the Final Four and Champion as well as taking down the criminal organization known as Team Rocket.
That's all there is, right? No actually because after you complete that, you are able to face the Kanto Gym Leaders, before fighting the two trainers from the past series, Red and Blue. Blue is the 8th Gym Leader occupying the Viridian City Gym while Red (who we can probably assume is Ash from the TV show) fights you on top of Mt. Silver. You beat him and the game IS officially completed but of course you can still play in order to catch them all and of course that's not going to be easy seeing how there's now at least 250 Pokémon.
The gameplay is still basically the same. You go around the various towns of the Johto region, fight trainers all over the map, and attempt to catch Pokémon using Poke Balls. Battles are based on a turn based system where you can order commands to have your Pokémon attack their opponent's Pokémon, switch the current Pokémon out on the field for another one, use items to heal or catch wild Pokémon, or escape from an encounter with a Wild Pokémon. If you beat a trainer, you win some money and continue on your journey. If you lose to them, you forfeit some money and retreat to the last Pokémon Center you visited.
Of course, being that this is a 'sequel' to Red/Blue/Yellow, there are some new features introduced in this game. The first new addition is a time system which keeps track of the current day and when it is day or night. This is important because it determines what kind of Pokémon you encounter in the wild. A new thing Pokémon can do now is hold items. They use this mainly during battle which can heal them at a certain time. There are also some new items like berries which are similar to potions and heal items which can get your Pokémon's health back and cure it of status problems like paralysis and poisoning.
The phone that I mentioned earlier is a part of the device that you get at the beginning of the game, the Pokégear. This device has multiple functions for use in the game. The most simple function it can do is be a watch and seeing how this game revolves on a time system, it's a good idea to maintain an keen eye on it (but to completely honest, being that this is the Game Boy Color version, you probably won't make it completely accurate). Instead of the past game where you just have the map, the map is installed into the device as well. Another function of the Pokegear is the phone which is used to call important people like Professors Elm and Oak and other trainers who will call you when they are ready for a rematch. That is something that I think was new in this series because I don't really remember you could be able to face trainers again after beating them once.
Like with the last game, the gameplay here is solid which is what this series is perhaps best known for and that is the fact that it is never broken. I've said before in this review that the games in this series that take place in the Johto region are my favorite in the entire franchise. I can't really explain why but maybe it's because you go through basically 2 single Pokémon games in one. None of the other games are like that so that's most likely the main reason why I like this game so much.
There's nothing really I can complain about this game. If you like this series then obviously you will like this game. Before you do ask, I still didn't think this series had gotten old at this point. After all, this was only the second handheld series so why question it?
Times the word Pokémon appeared in this review: 29 (pretty low compared to my last two reviews if you think about it)