A look back at: Pokemon Gold & Silver '97 Reforged

Text walkthrough! May actually be updated once I get ALL the information I need from the Github page, which was super helpful. My main team was my starter Dynabear (Fire type), Nidoqueen, Gelania (new evolution of Tangela), Dewgong (which replaced Quagsire because for some stupid reason Quagsire cannot learn Waterfall), Crobat, and Ampharos.

So Generation 2 is a polarizing generation. No question about it. The designs are fine, but the new Pokemon were underwhelming. Lots of baby forms, Pokemon that needed newer evolutions down the line, while Crobat, Ampharos, and Quagsire, along with maybe the starters, more or less carried the weight of this generation alongside returning Kanto mons. And then there was what could have been. Which kinda felt over-stimulated to say the very least. Tangela gets not only a new evolution (not Tangrowth) but a baby form? Paras, Ponyta, Growlithe, AND Vulpix got baby forms? Ditto gets a new evolution? Aipom, Azumarill, Hitmontop, and Sneasel look drastically different? You got Sunflora, Snubbull, and Quagsire here but not Sunkern, Granbull, or Wooper? Umbreon's a Poison type? Steel being weak to Water and Electric but not Fire or Ground and also resisting Fighting? Dark being weak to NORMAL? There's actually a lot to take in. For the record, the type changes are from the Space World '97 type chart, and you can actually change it to the regular one.

The region actually feels quite organic, even if you scrunch up Kanto's region and do it Dragon Quest 2 style fitting it right into Nihon while allowing the post-game to be clogged by random islands where the only things of interest are catching legendaries and the remaining starters. Not too much of a plot, but I'm used to it, the only really notable thing is that Giovanni is actually in the game this time. New sprites for the gym leaders are kinda cool too. But overall, the '97 Reforged hacks really are just about playing through what could have been, the beta stuff, as Crystal hacks too. And it was quite a neat showing.