This was the first Pokemon game I played. I remember my grandma was actually interested in Pokemon and her favorite was chikorita. She would repeat the name because she thought it had a cute ring to it I even went out of my way to trade some of my cards for a chikorita so I could give it to her as a gift. Today I purchased crystal through the 3ds store. I'm going to soft reset until I get a shiny chikorita and I'm going to name it Deborah in loving memory of my grandmother. I will never evolve it :) I miss you grandma.

My favorite addition to Gen 2 is the EXP bar... I know, really simply, but damn it made leveling up so much easier and enjoyable for me.

I love he’s calling Miltank easy to kill while fighting her with a female starter?? It was the fact that she’d seduce all your Pokémon and then beat the shit out of you that made her so problematic. And female starters are rare lol

Gold version was my first Pokémon game that I ever played, and it will always have a very special place in my heart

Suicune's a pure water-type, dude..

The bug catching contest was how I caught my first shiny pokemon

On the cons, I think possibly the reason why they left the Kanto part the way they did was because of the limitation of small memory. It's kind of a miracle they fit two regions on that tiny GBC cartridge.

you forgot to talk more about Silver, since you know, he has a CROBAT

Since Silver's Golbat eventually evolved into a Crobat, I guess his arc has completed; he had become a better trainer. And I actually really liked that montage at the end. :)

the worst part of these games are the leveling spread, gym leaders level 60 pokemon and trainers level 34

I remember being an 8 year old and when I heard about Silver & Gold I saved up my allowance for 5 months (I got $5 a week) and I bought both versions of the game opening day.

I really prefer the aesthetics of the gen 2 pixel-y sprites over the modern sprites.

GS/C were such amazing sequels, it makes me sad how dull Pokemon games are now. Their first sequels introduced breeding, shinies, day/night and the concept of post-game content

You call this a pokemon review? It isn't seven hours long!

One of my favorite parts of this generation is the rival. He's just blue but he hates your guts. I also like his character development as he learns to respect his pokemon, even being able to evolve golbat into crobat Solid rival 10/10

In my pokemon soul silver, i chose cyndaquil, but what i didn't know, my cyndaquil was special it had a red back i thought that the starters shone like shinies i had no idea until my friend got heart gold and also picked cyndaquil, i notest that his didn't shine and was blue i still have that cyndaquil in my copy of sun and if i had a pokemon in real life, it would definitely be that cyndaquil

0:55 The Games (summary of the entire story) 15:11 His review of the game 18:10 Music 18:58 The Pokemon 27:23 Conclusion

2nd gen was indeed my fav gen of all time! likely will remain so.

I can actually stand to look at these games graphics . Don't get me wrong i know the impact red and blue had and the graphics by 1990's standards are pretty good for a game boy . But god ! do gold , silver and crystal look good even now .

Awesome review Stan! I'm really loving these pokereviews and you did great! I agree with almost everything you said! And that montage was just... It was actually amazing and hit me in the feels! Thanks for letting me be apart of the randy Union! Cya in 2016!

If you picked Chikorita you picked hard mode. If you picked set mode and Chikorita, you chose nightmare mode.

To be perfectly honest, my least foavorite thing about this game is the level curve and level grinding. Because of the critically low levels in wild AND trainer Pokemon, grinding is a massive chore in gen 2, and it's hard to get on par with the 8 gym leader and the elite four. I'm currently replaying Blue version on the 3DS(Pokemon20 yay!) and I just beat Sabrina and most of my team has been on par with the bosses of the game with minimal level grinding. Mind you, level grinding is always a problem in Pokemon (except for Gen 6, but that's a whole different can of worms.) but it's especially tedous in Gold, Silver, Crystal, and the remakes.

I hate how the anime has convinced everyone that the protagonists were always 10. I don't think any of them actually were, the youngest being RBY and SM at 11.

Suicune is Water type... Even though its the color of ice and is called the Aurora pokémon...?

Correction: Masuda AND Go Ichinose (and Morikazu Aoki, less importantly) worked on the music... ...and it is far better than Gen 1's soundtrack IMO. Plus it includes remakes of almost every song from the Gen 1, so yeah.

Missing the pokemon is the result of the pokemon having a very low catch rate at that health. The number of shakes in gen 1 corresponded to the chance that you would catch the pokemon. "You missed the pokemon" just means that there is the lowest possible tiered chance that you will roll a number that corresponds with a "capture". The only thing that giving a status condition does is increase your catch chance overall: it doesn't cause you to miss less except in the effect that it may cause your capture roll to lie in the greater probability. Edit: to be clear, I DID enjoy the video though 😅

Gen 1 & Gen 2 were so lit when they came out back then and they still are..those generations drove us 90 babies crazy lol all the other gens can just go

I respect this review but feel so distant by the fact that all the pokemon in the cons were memorable to me lol

Gen 2 will always be my favorite because of the fact you can explore two regions

you didn't have problems with with Miltank because your Quilava was female and she couldn't attract you

At the end of the day it makes sense, to me at least, that legendaries would be roaming rather then just sitting in a cave somewhere

The reason a lot of people found Whitney's Miltank tough was simply because it was a type match up not a lot of kids knew at the time, mostly because they've never had to deal with it, and also because it was a lot of kids 1st or 2nd RPGs in their life. I remember getting rekt several times by it just because it was the first time one of the games through a large level spike ahead of me, meaning I couldn't just effortlessly force my way through with Ember and whatnot.

It's funny to me that he says "graphically it may not hold up" because the art style of this gen is actually my favorite out of all of them. Maybe it's cause I played this game when it was new though, I don't know.

Great Review! It's been an awesome year, and I'm looking forward to what you have coming up for next year!

Gen 2 has & always will be my favorite generation. HG/SS are my all time favorite Pokemon games, even though technically aren't gen 2. Silver was my first main series Pokemon game(pokemon snap & stadium were my actual firsts). Totodile & his evolutions are my all time favorite starters, as well as most of my favorite pokemon coming from gen 2, such as sneasel, kingdra, & noctowl to name a few. I love going back to Kanto later in the game & seeing all the familiar places & people. Lugia, Celebi, Suicune, & even Ho Oh are also some of my favorite legendaries. My only problem with HG/SS are that you can't go to the Sevii Islands, but I can look past that. PS: Don't fuck with Sunflora.

I started during Gen 1, playing Pokemon yellow on the gameboy pocket. I then bought Silver when it came out and it took me awhile to get used to the extra 100 pokemon, Dragonite being my all time favorite pokemon and the one I took up as my main pokemon. Now look...we have over 8 generations of pokemon....wow.. Though Pokemon Black is beginning to grow on me. Soul Silver will always be my favorite of all the pokemon games.

Crystal will /always/ be my favourite.

Missing a throw was reskinned to a ball doing zero shakes in the next games. I guess that's an example of a visual change going incredibly far.

i think Gen 2 is probably my favorite gen overall, i like playing as a girl so i dont really like not having that option in Gen 1, so for me the gen 2 games are the most nostalgic and familiar games for me personally in the same way that the gen 1 games are for a lot of people, everything i loved is turned up to 11 in the remakes but i think Gen 2 succeeds in creating a distinctly memorable and natural map for Johto itself, i feel like when i still play Kanto games (despite playing through Kanto in Gen 2, the gen 2 remakes, and the gen 3 remakes of gen 1) i still feel the need to look at the map because the layout of the world makes no sense there but i never feel that way with Johto itself

the trippy thing is that Red isn't even your past self--he's you *from* the past, in present form (older like you, going from Gen 1 to 2). it's more like you vs. your first self, both in the same place and time.

iT'S MY FIRST TIME HEARING THIS, Karen was Agatha's daughter!!! MIND BLOWN!!

even though I'm far and away a gen1er, I'm blown away by how much I love the character designs in gen 2. they're very memorable overall... wow

"Suicune" "Ice-Type Beast"

One more thing I want to praise about this game, is the pokemon sprites, specifically in crystal. They are the sweetest of all icings on a cake! The look official. They are clean, pleasing yet they all have personality. Absolutely beautiful, the detail to lighting on each of them is simple yet very effective. They are the best sprites in the series.

Literally laughed out loud at your Snorlax named 'puberty'. Made me relate on a personal level. ;)

I played untill gen 3 but god was it fun. I remember playing with my old neighbourhood friend he had gold and i had silver. We completed almost the whole game sitting next to each other

One of my biggest problems with Gen 2 is how half of the gym leaders, and the champion, don't actually use any Gen 2 Pokemon. Like it's crazy how despite the newer games having fewer new Pokemon overall they were pretty much always able to have each boss character use at least 1 new Pokemon, often more. I know the newer games get flack for referencing Gen 1 to much, but it feels like Gen 2 didn't even wanna be a new game.

wow i completely forgot of stantlers existence

Fuck with Remoraid and you're fuckin with Octilley. Ain't nobody fuck with Octillery.

Omg Whitney must have been an easy leader cause your starter is female

I agree about the legendary dogs. For me, it was more fun to just start a new game on another version of Gold/Silver/Crystal, acquire the master ball and make a pokemon hold it. Then trade it over to my game. It was less of a pain than actually pursuing the legendary dogs.

Unmentioned gripe: The movesets ruled out a lot of pokemon from the get go. And the missing Kanto legendaries could have been released after beating Red (him giving up)

ALL HAIL BUGSY

physical and special moves were determined by the type of the attack

Okay this is crazy. I literally started playing Crystal again a few days ago and just beat Morty. I've been watching a ton of Pokemon vids lately so guessing that's literally the only reason I found this. Very well done review. I still feel its my duty 4 years later though to tell you that Suicune is a water type though. Yeah I know... I know. Seriously though, I remember playing silver/crystal heaps as a kid. Its beyond insane how nostalgic I feel for this gen. There's been some cool things added over the years, but I probably would have been perfectly okay if these were the last entries in the series. The newer remakes are cool, but the 1 thing that bugs me about the remakes is probably the smallest possible thing you can think of: the music. I know you can change it to the old 8 bit style in Kanto, but I have a stupidly hard time dealing with it otherwise. While Kanto is quite limiting in some aspects, its actually beyond impressive what they did to have it all fit on the 1 game and how much work they had to do that went into that. I keep having to remind myself that there are 16! Fucking gyms in Gen 2. Also I just love how 90s the originals feel. Like getting an email was the coolest thing ever and being able to call people. That's the other thing I loved about Crystal particularly. Each character that would call you had their own personality. I kinda wish they would have dynamically leveled with you in the game a bit to give the rematches some more personality. Over all though, there are just too many reasons to suggest why gen 2 is so amazing. Time to become the best like no one ever was.

if ya want your gold and silver cartridge to hold a save file again just pop the cartridge open and replace the battery.

There is no way that silver is the best rival, In my honest opinion, N was the best rival of any pokemon game and probably will be the best villain for all the games to come. Black and White have the best story and sense of immersion of all the games.

I really dont think that remakes should make the game any less fun! 9.5 and the vary least

Also love how you called Entei a "Dumb mutt" gonna have to catch him and name him that 🤣

One thing that urked me about these games (Gold was my FIRST Pokemon game ever so I love me some Gen II); the fact that you are under-leveled when it comes time to face the Pokemon League. I believe Silver states that he defeated ALL trainers in Victory Road (explains why the cave itself is EMPTY) and you're almost always going to be about 10 levels or so below even Will (the first member of the league you have to fight). This is me talking about even if you battle EVERY TRAINER in the game! This sucks even in the remakes!

Why did you say Apricots? It's Apricorns. A fictional ingredient to make the Pokéballs. My OCD bugged me when you said that.

*says Whitneys Miltank isn't that bad* *has female starter* Hm... I wonder why ... xD No but Gen 2 is absolutely amazing. The music, the towns, the pokemon, everything is just perfect. I adore Gen2

Back when I was in elementary school everybody had HeartGold and SoulSilver every year I asked for it and it didn't get a Pokemon game until White 2 came out I eventually got soul silver around the time Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out

I really enjoyed your review. I think that you got the point, unlike other people. Great work man! :D ps: I also really enjoyed your FR/LG, my first pokémon games and, maybe, my favourite!

They are bring these games except for crystal to the virtual console on 3DS systems we can enjoy Gold and Silver without worrying about the clock battery.

I never know why i tend to confuse skarmory's original generation. Its 2nd gen but i always think its originally from hoenn. Maybe its ORAS but idk tbh

Man crystal was and still is my fav pkmn game 😍

I still remember when I was deeply bored, and something told me, to look for the pokemon games. Pretty much that's how I found out about Crystal. I randomly picked up Totodile, and my adventure with Pokemon games has just begun. Since that day, Crystal reached the position of my favourite Pokemon game ever, and Totodile's evolution line (especially Feraligatr) and water types in general, my main choice.

Apricots?

best gen ever IDGAF about gen 3 fanboys

I have a similar experience with Silver in the sense of it being one of my first Pokemon games that was legit mine not to mention it being gifted to me. However, I got it as a birthday present rather than a Christmas present.

Ah sweet memories... I do agree with a lot that you said in this review. Though I don't really mind that there wasn't much in terms of stakes here, but then again, I am someone who plays Pokemon just to relax. As for the Kanto thing, I think the reason it was watered down was because of limitation since there is apparently data of the Safari Zone. Also, if you play Crystal on the 3Ds, you can actually get Celebi after beating Lance. If there was one complaint I could give it would definitely be the grinding. I mean, for most of Johto it isn't too bad. At least up to Claire it's pretty manageable, but after that, it starts to get more tiresome once you reach Kanto since they for some dumb reason kept the wild Pokemon levels as they were in the originals. Sure there are a lot of trainers to fight but still, it's pretty bad. Still love Johto. Definitely one I go back to quite a lot.

Soo... when are we getting the Gen 3 review? :3

it's 8.5 because of the graphics....christ, dude sorry it's not PS4.

My first game was Pokemon Blue and when gold and silver came out it was so cool back then that the game had different colors and new pokemons. I would spend hours every day to play it as a kid. Those were the good times.

Pokeballs never actually "missed" in the first gen - as in, there wasn't a chance to miss in addition to the odds to catch. "Missing" was just the way Gen 1 translated a failed catch against Legendaries, the idea being that it was almost impossible to even hit them with a ball in the first place. This probably just made more sense to the devs at the time than putting them in a ball over and over again just to have them break out an absurd amount of times. Basically as soon as you threw the ball the game knew if it would fail to catch; if the catch would fail, it would "miss". Whenever you saw a Legendary go into a ball, it wasn't "the odds finally playing out" - it meant you'd finally caught it. I agree it was a good change though because it still feels better, even if underneath it's mechanically identical. I just think it's worth understanding that Gen 1 wasn't depriving you of the chance to even catch a Pokemon by adding a "failed throw" mechanic on top of the normal catch rate. And the reason you thought they "had to be asleep to not miss" is because it's virtually impossible to catch a Legendary in the first place without status, especially Sleep. The only time you would EVER see a "successful throw" & therefore capture is if they're asleep.

I love how he says Whitney isn't that hard yet his starter is like lvl 25. Of course it isn't that hard if you only trained one Pokemon.

Luckily you had a female starter when you fought Whitney otherwise you'd get locked into Miltank's attract.

Another improvement that you forgot to mention is that when you capture a Pokemon, it will have a ball symbol next to its name/XP bar so you know that you already caught it instead of guessing and memorizing.

My only gripes with Gen II are the following: 1- Pokémon League being so low level, and being the only place to grind to level 100 2- Batteries dying and losing your save files 3- Pokémon movesets are terrible for the most part. Some Pokémon are almost unusable because their typing doesn't match their stats (since this was before the physical/special split from Gen IV). Some don't learn any move of their own type by leveling.

The best gen is gen 2

25:28 what film was he referencing?

This was great. Gen 2 was always my favorite, and I've never really looked into why it was. This just made me realize things I'd never thought of before. I've been a fan of Pokemon for 16 years, and this video was great. Keep up the good work! You're doing excellent.

I am so nostalgic for the National Park Theme, even though I didn't play gen 2 until last year...I played the GB Sounds in National Park on Heart Gold all the time and I fell in love with the tune. Not sure why, but it gets me really emotional now and when I played through Crystal with my friends, I started crying when I got to National Park

the best generation, it even included gen 1 too

I knew I wasn't the only one who didn't ever find Miltank difficult

Some of the newer games are pretty amazing, Fire Red and Leaf Green, HG/SS obviously, and even Sun and Moon. Honestly Gen 2 is still such an amazing series even to this day, and that's why I'm still playing it even now. I know not everyone can have this mindset, but when I play the game these days part of it is just marveling at how much of a landmark title and improvement it was over the originals. You don't get that same impression with newer titles, or at least not nearly as much.

The child in the pikachu outfit at 0:26 (you, I assume?) looks JUST LIKE ME when I was that age!!! :O

whitney not that hard huh? next time try it without over leveled pokemon

Everyone knows that Gen 3 has the best starters. All 3 are great. Every other gen has a runt or two, Bulbasaur, Chicorita, Chimchar, Tepig, Fennekin and Chespin. No matter how much I like these, these generally are least favorite. Chimchar can be argued due to the hate being generally based on the whole Fire-Fighting thing. Now I like all the starters, but how many people pick Bulbasaur or Chicorita? Does anybody not pick Froakie? (I like Chespin but that's beside the point.) But between Treeko, Mudkip, and Torchic, then it depends on who you are talking to, time of day, and if they're tired of mudkipz memez. Of course this is all subjective, and I love the stage 1 starters for Gen 2 as a whole best, but IMO Sceptile, Blaziken, and Swampert lines are the best, not even putting Mega-Evolutions into the equation. (Also I think Treeko is better than an of the other starters, and Emerald is my favorite Pokemon game, even if it wasn't my first, so I might, definitely, be biased.) I do like the Gen 2 pokemon overall more than Gen 3, though I love gen 3. I think I'm gonna go play Heartgold again.

Gen 2 _expanded_ on gen 1. And it did an amazing job at that. While not introducing all too many new pokemons, it expanded on several pre existing transformation trees, introduced new and improved systems and features. A lot of worthless pokemon were made viable through new transformations and niche use cases. Onix, Porygon, Golbat and Scyther got competitively strong transformations, we got the held item system, which allowed for an arsenal of new strategies, we got moves like sweet scent, Mean look and headbutt which made you reconsider keeping that weaker pokemon who happend to be the only party member knowing the move. And of course, SHINIES. Gen 1 and 2 go hand in hand, literally. One day, i hope we'll get a Kanto/Johto game where both continents have a lot to do in them, and get the same amount of polish and love. As sadly, Kanto was primarily there for you to clear the remaining gyms and catch a Snorlax, with no further story progression of it's own.

I remember i got Gold along with some enamel pins of Ho Oh and Lugia when my parents renewed my subscription to Nintendo Power

As good as Gen 2 is, the sequels are so much better. In some ways, they make Gen 2 look ancient.

8.5 too much water

The best thing I can say about Crystal is that you can duplicate masterballs and any pokemon you want. I have 15 suicunes, ho-ohs and lugias. I named my rival Booger. You can get Celebi in the 3ds version of Crystal. Typlosion is by far the best starter. Like in red/blue, your starter basically determines difficulty. Best end-game team for crystal without trading is probably Typhlosion, Kadabra (or Espeon if you have the patience), Crobat, Joltean (or Elekid if you really have the patience), Suicune and an earthquake user, like Nindoking. I will say this though - too many people look at this game with rose-tinted glasses. It did a lot for the franchise, and there's a lot of nostalgia, but the reality is that the game has over a dozen major problems - most of which were fixed in later games. The fact that the first flaw you bring up is about team rocket kind of shows you got those glasses on, as I have many more annoying things that come to my mind. I personally would rather play later entries over Crystal. It was good for its time, but outside of collecting missed pokemon in your living dex, there's not a lot of reason to go back here in 2020. I would not recommend it honestly.

Honestly the only redeeming qualities about these games for me is some of the new mechanics they've added. Like breeding, day and night cycle and held items. Other than that silver is like the only good part about the game!

beststarter desings?? noooo gen 3 and 4 are much better, also chickorita sucks for johto's story

Raikou, Entei and Suicune are cats, not dogs. Agatha isnt Karen's daughter

To my knowledge, it has never been confirmed that Agatha and Karen are related. Where do you find this stuff? Lol

Shoutouts to the people that only type matchups for the gyms and think that Chikorita has to be a horrible pick for a starter. You people are the ones that have made Chikorita my favorite gen 2 starter.