Pokemon Gold

Game mechanics

Unlike 2009’s Pokemon HeartGold, Pokemon Gold is a faithful port of the original Game Boy Color’s game. Like in 1999, it introduces features not seen in the first entries in the series. List of novelties starts with new region of Johto, inhabited not only by known pokemon, but also 100 previously unseen species, including legendaries like Ho-Oh, a mascot of the game. There are also two new types of them: steel and dark, both with their own pros and cons. Some of them can only be obtained in Pokemon Gold, so completing Pokedex requires trading with other players.

Second generation also introduces novelties to gameplay. Players can use new items, including previously not existing types of pokeballs. There are also daily and weekly cycles (some pokemon can only be caught during a certain time of a day), improved interface, new statistics and attacks of creatures. List of changes is closed by breeding system (which lets player obtain pokemon with moves and statistics inherited after their parents) and Shiny – extremely rare colors variants for all species.

Technical aspects

Pokemon Silver for 3DS doesn’t change the original game, offering old-school visuals of Game Boy Color, although shades of grey from Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue are replaced with color graphics. The visual side is complemented by 8-bit music soundtrack composed by Junichi Masuda. However, there are two technical novelties, one the being support for local wireless connection for trading and playing with others, and the other is that players can use PokeBank application to transfer their pokemon to newer games from the series, like Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon.