Christmas will come early if you get this!

After I had collected all 151 Pokemon on the blue version I couldn't wait to get my hands on the gold version! After seeing it released in Japan the tension was unbearable! Being from England I even had to wait longer than the US release. But it was worth it!

I bought mine on the day of release for 24 pounds, which is about $30 not bad considering the hours of game play you will enjoy with this game!

When the game is loaded you can watch an enjoyable introduction with Pokemon including Lapras, Pikachu and more! I don’t want to spoil it for you.

The adventure begins…

At the start of the game, name your hero! Like in blue/red/yellow you can give ‘em your own name! You name your rival later. The adventure is set in a similar poke world but the story is completely different. Instead of being ash you play as another trainer from New Bark Town near the Pokemon researcher Professor Elm. Again like in the original games you have the choice of 3 Pokemon to choose from they are

-Chikorita (Grass)
-Cyndaquil (Fire)
-Totodile (Water)

Choose wisely as you will need to rely on this Pokemon in the early stages of the game. I don’t want to spoil the plot for you but unlike the original games you have to collect 251 Pokemon instead of 151 so there are 100 new Pokemon. This means the you will be playing for hours so make sure you have plenty of batteries!

New features

Pokemon gold and silver are packed with new features. You can now enjoy the game in full color as it now uses the Game Boy Colors enhancements! This allows you to see the Pokemon in the color the game designers wanted you to see them. No more green Psyducks or anything else like that!

A time feature has also been added to the game. When you first start you have to enter the day of the week and the current time. This feature greatly enhances game play by allowing different events to happen on different days of the week and for Pokemon to appear at different times of the day! For example the Pokemon Hoothoot only comes out at night time. Also certain trainers appear at different days of the week!

You pack has also changed. One annoying thing about blue/red/yellow is that you have to scroll through lists of items to find the piece of kit you need. Not any more! Your new pack has different pockets used for certain items. There are 4 pockets:

-Tools (For potions and other items to boost you Pokemons health)
-Poke Balls (For quick access to different poke balls)
-TMs and HMs* (As you get new TMs and HMs they are instantly sorted into numerical order, great!)
-Key Items (For important mission type stuff, such as keys and passes)

*TMs and HMs stand for technical machines and hidden machines. They contain different moves certain Pokemon can learn.

Wait! There are more new features! You get Poke Gear at the start of the game. This is a cool wristwatch computer that features a town map, radio and mobile phone. When you beat certain trainers, they will give you their phone number and call you for rematches! With the radio you can listen to tune into different stations like Oak’s Pokemon lectures and get hints and tips from them.

Lastly if you have a game boy color you can now use the infrared port. You can play the mystery gift game! Then you can gain items that won’t appear in a Poke Mart!

The game play

The game plays much like the original games. The controls are the same and there are 8 new gym leaders:

-Falkner
-Bugsy
-Whitney
-Morty
-Chuck
-Jasmine
-Pryce
-Clair

You find these in the world of Johto but you can also battle with the other 8 gym leaders in Kanto. That’s 16 gym leaders and 2 worlds to explore!

A day care center still exists but is totally different. You can now bread Pokemon! For example if you bread a Pikachu with a Raichu you can get a baby Pichu! Ahh how sweet!

Battling and trading remains much the same in gold and silver as it did in the original series. However you can use a time capsule in gold and silver to trade Pokemon between the original games (You can only trade the original Pokemon between 1-151)

What other games are compatible with gold and silver?

-You can use Pokemon from gold and silver with Pokemon Staduim2 on the N64.
-You can trade with Pokemon Crystal when it is released for the Game Boy later this year (The equivalent of yellow for red and blue)
-If you own a Pocket Pikachu you can trade items across as well!