Review Pokemon Crystal

Pokemon Crystal

Console: Gameboy Color
Genre: RPG
Multiplayer 1-2
Wi-Fi: No

An old classic back in the Gameboy Color area, Pokemon Crystal is an upgrade of Pokemon Gold and Silver. This is the first Pokemon game where you can choose your own gender. You start off in a little town called Newbark, as you go to see Professor Elm, he asks you to take a little errand but it is dangerous to go without a Pokemon so he end up giving you one of three. This is usually a hard decision, the choices are Cyndaquil (fire), Totodile (water) and Chikorita (grass). Which is the starter triangle, fire beats grass, grass beats water and water beats fire. Whichever you choose, your rival (later on) picks your weakness. After running the errand you get a phone call from Elm, one of his Pokemon has been stolen, which is by your rival, as you rush back, you battle him on the way and he runs off after you defeat him. You get back and report to the police, which you then decide upon his name, then you can finally make your way to catch Pokemon and train to collect gym badges.

As you progress through the game you will find the old evil group known as Team Rocket, they plan world domination, you have to stop them along the way which is no easy task. Also along the way you bump into the star Pokemon Suicune several times, which leads to the final encounter of battling and attempting to capture this legendary Pokemon. Pokemon Crystal has to be one of the biggest Pokemon games created with a huge amount of sixteen badges to collect which consists of two regions, the Kanto region and the Johto region. After you complete the Johto region you can access the Kanto region.

Even playing Crystal again, it is one of those games that really draws you in, you cannot stop playing it and you will love all the old Pokemon style games through playing this again. This is the first game to show animations when you encounter wild Pokemon or trainers. Also you can encounter extreamly rare Pokemon that are an alternate colour, this is known as a shiny Pokemon, the odds of coming across one is 1 in 8192. The only exception is the red Gyarados within Lake of Rage. Coming across a shiny and capturing it is a true accomplishment to any player.

After completing the game you will want to gather up the strongest team you can, then you can play against your friends in a multiplayer match to see who has the better tactics and strengths. You can either play offensive, defencive or a mix on teams. This can be known as competetive play. You also have the feature to trade one for one to your friends to help complete your Pokedex or help complete your team.

Another goal you can have within the game is obtaining all 251 Pokemon. This will be hard but well worth the effort. After collecting eight badges you can challenge the elite four. But if you obtain sixteen bages and beat the elite four, you have access to Silver Cave which has the toughest trainer of them all within the cave, bringing him down will take alot of skill but well worth the fun.

As usual, the classic Pokemon tunes can be found within this game, almost every sound will make any Pokemon fan smile listening to either a legendary battle music or just listening to the bycicle music. The graphics are still good, despite the age of the game, the lifespan you will have on this game will last you for a while, depending on how addicted you get, and ofcourse the gameplay, a classic rpg take in turns battle which is always awesome. There is nothing better than taking down a Snorlax in one hit with a Hyper Beam.

Overall despite this being one of the older Pokemon games, I belive this to be one of the best of the series, generation two will always be brilliant and well remembered for the older Pokemon fans, if you have not played Crystal before then what are you waiting for? Buy it now! A true classic, possibly the best game on any Gameboy console.

Overall Score - 96%