2nd Gen Why Pokémon Crystal's eShop Debut Is Frustrating

After many long years of waiting, Pokémon Crystal – the final 8-bit hit – arrives on Nintendo eShop today. While this is exciting, its re-release is poisoned by its owners' avarice, and poor timing.

Generation VII hasn't been stellar. At its surprising inception, it denied Pokémon Z its existence. Regardless of how you feel about generational tradition and enhanced third versions, folks who enjoyed X and Y but were frustrated with their shortcomings saw much potential for a third game in Kalos, and that was wasted when Generation VII was announced instead. While I think moving towards making the game right the first time is a step in the right direction, it's unfortunate to observe Game Freak prove with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon that they haven't even lifted their feet off the ground.

X and Y were transparently incomplete products; they presented a uniquely irritating scenario, yet one regrettably common for Pokémon players – we had to buy and play the games to be unsatisfied, then begrudgingly accept the fact that, let's face it, we would pay again for what we wanted in the first place, only to be denied the opportunity. It's sort of like if you accidentally got pregnant, then came to terms with it –and even got excited– just before you miscarried.

Ultimately, Pokémon's 20th anniversary celebrations with an endgame of shiny new celebratory games ceased our mourning of what could have been. But unlike Zelda's Skyward Sword and its self-referential script for their 25th anniversary, Sun and Moon don't really feel like they're celebrating anything, which is… sort of awkward. They were the destination of the commemorative hype train, after all, one of the strongest and most successful ad campaigns in series' history. Even I got excited – a Legendary distribution every month, special TCG boxes, emotional videos all over the internet, even a commercial at the Super Bowl! #Pokemon20 and #TrainOn were the hashtags of 2016, as far as I'm concerned. Thriving in everyone's passion, fans came together to keep each other involved, excited and talking about Pokémon all year. It was an inspiring time to be a fan.

Then, on November 18, 2016, Pokémon Sun and Moon were released, and they were shocking failures and Pokémon died forever.

...Just kidding.

But they weren't great, guys. Come on. It's like, "Let go of my hand, Game Freak!" Y'know…? They were linear to the point of misery, with some story concepts ending up being empty promises. HMs are gone and the games are still garbage. That's bad.

The following year, on June 6, 2017, an announcement video revealed Pokkén Tournament DX…--

…Okay, hold on…

WHAT?! I JUST BOUGHT THE WII U VERSION LAST MARCH ON RELEASE DAY AND NOW YOU'RE GOING TO PORT IT TO A CONSOLE I CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY, ADD NEW CHARACTERS THAT WON'T BE COMING TO THE WII U VERSION, AND THEN STOP SUPPORTING THE ORIGINAL CONSOLE RELEASE?!

I remain inconsolably livid over this, and please don't bring it up to me in conversation. I understand that the Wii U sold poorly and the Switch is a big hit. Please, I ask you to stop formulating any response to my anger. I simply wanted to be heard.

Okay. So, that video also announced Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, which would come a year after Sun and Moon. If you ask me, the proximity between these releases was a catalyst for franchise fatigue… Y'know, dependent on whether or not these were going to be sequels or paired third versions…

But they were the latter, and they failed, and Pokémon languished and died!

…Sorry... Obviously, that didn't happen…

Not only were the Ultras too close to their predecessors, the footage shown made zero attempts to communicate to us what these games really were, and anecdotally, I was upset to eventually discover much later (unacceptable!) that they wouldn't be to Sun and Moon what Black 2 and White 2 were for Generation V. After all, the story in Sun and Moon wasn't exceptional, but I was invested enough to care about the fates of at least Lillie, Lusamine and Gladion.

Because of their ambiguity, UltraSun and UltraMoon were overshadowed by the video's third announcement: Pokémon Gold and Silver, games which had originally released 18 years prior, would re-release on Nintendo's eShop on September 22, 2017.

Crystal's absence instantly sparked discussion within the community.

"Why only Gold and Silver? Where is Crystal? Is Crystal never coming? Where is Crystal?! Also, Sinnoh remake WHERE? WE EXIST TO BE PANDERED TO!"

Well, here it is. Four months after the re-release of Gold and Silver, Crystal makes its return.

…And I just feel betrayed.

Recap:

• Sun and Moon are unfortunately bad after impossible heaps of hype
  
• The Pokkén thing we aren't talking about
  
• Second pair of Generation VII main-series games turn out to be half-baked retellings instead of sequels, meaning they audaciously expect me to play Sun and Moon a second time after just one year…

And now, this. Gold and Silver just came out four months ago. How could they present this as something so exciting knowing they just intentionally tricked us?

I, like many fans, settled for Gold and Silver, knowing I would buy Crystal when it came out. Generation II on 3DS was exciting and I wanted it ASAP. Had they released all three games at once as they did with Red, Blue and Yellow, I would have only purchased Crystal. It's completely normal for anyone to assume Crystal wouldn't release for many months, or even a year.

The amount of time separating the availability of these games sends a clear message, and my response is just as negative. Would Crystal's inclusion have affected Gold and Silver's sales? Maybe. Likely, even. These aren't new games, after all - fans have had almost two decades to discover Crystal is the generally superior experience.

*sigh*

Let's end on a good note...

Thanks for the Celebi event!

I think you could have made your point without discussing the modern games. Anyway, you're right that it was a dirty tactic, but if you still want the game - don't let $10 bother you that much.

Personally, Polished Crystal has made it so that I don't need the Virtual Console at all. Transfers don't matter to me.

Fair enough. I think repeated disappointments from this generation are relevant background for understanding my anger, though.

It's not about $10, it's about principle. :pink_blankstare:

Also, I didn't see they cut off my poll question... I'm sure you can figure out that it was supposed to finish asking if you would have bought Gold or Silver...

Personally I think that the separation was to a) make more money off GS sales b) help people remember why GS was so bloody awesome c) to help tie people over until the Switch game is announced d) to potentially hint to Australia being the gen 8 region (with an Australia Day release for Crystal at 12am Australia time vs 9am for US, nearly 24 hours later) BUT if you want to further discuss that point feel free to head over to Pokemon Gaming Central to do so. e) to implement the Celebi thing.

Overall though I don't think that gen 7's apparent failure really relates to the GSC release overall, the same as Pokemon Go's hype and perceived "failure" doesn't make gen 7 any worse of a gen. Ultimately USUMSM had flaws but to me they indicate a like... tie over generation until we get the Switch, and the GSC releases just further help tie us over until Gen 8.

I identify with a lot of the things you wrote, including the disappointment in gen 7. If I had just bought Pokemon Gold or Silver It would feel soon to return to Johto, and I would be reluctant to buy a third version game.

Since Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow were released side by side I think the right thing to do was to release Gold, Silver and Crystal together, or at least not leave fans in the dark about the time that Crystal would be released. While I understand they want all of their games to sell, it's never good to create distrust with your audience.

Because the gen 2 game I was most interested in playing was Crystal I did not purchase Gold or Silver at their e-store release. Gold and Silver are fine games, but I knew what I wanted. I wanted my extreme speed dratini, I wanted Suicune to follow me, I wanted my shiny mystery egg. I felt it was the best game of the three as third game versions often are, and I just wasn't gonna compromise on this one, it was either Crystal or bust.

Gold and Silver were very tempting though.

Greedy move honestly, all of gen 7 was pretty greedy as well, I mean releasing the incomplete version then one year later release again in two versions again with a few more features?

I'll be honest; if I knew Crystal was coming out so soon after Gold & Silver, I wouldn't have bought Gold. Crystal is a game I have never played before, whereas Gold & Silver I have played tons of times before.

I played both gold and silver gold on my old 3ds and silver on my 3dsxl and got crystal too now so i can coplete my 8bit era vc collection

I've bought all Gen 1 and Gen 2 releases (two times each even, English releases for the New 3DS I usually use to play and French releases on a 3DS with a capture card that I have) . If Crystal were released on the same day as Gold & Silver, I would have bought them all nonetheless.

I like these games so much, I don't mind replaying them over and over.

I feel your pain on what a disappointment this so-called "20th anniversary" has been. :( While the newest games did do some interesting things with storytelling, Alola still feels like a half-baked filler region (ie. more akin to the Orange Islands than Kanto or Johto) that was quickly thrown together so GF could release something new for the 20th anniversary. The region itself is small, aggressively linear, and uninteresting, and it's overly reliant on poorly-executed gimmicks to set itself apart (Trials, Ultra Beasts, Regional Variants, Z-Moves, etc). And, USUM are just a horrible step backwards from what we got with B2W2. What made GF think they could still get away with making people buy a slightly "upgraded" version of a game they had already bought just a year earlier?

The way the VC re-releases were handled was only salt in the wound. As far as I know, Crystal won't even be getting a 3DS theme like RBY and GS got, which only adds to the feeling that the game is being treated like an afterthought -- given a delayed release for money-grubbing reasons and then denied the same levels of hype and promotion the previous VC re-releases got.

As a female fan of Gen 2 and the Pokémania Era, Crystal is a very important game for me, and it saddens me to see Nintendo/GF still treating it (and its female protagonist) with complete and total disrespect. First, HGSS took only the most superficial parts of Crystal (ie. Buena's Password, Extremespeed Dratini, etc.) while dumbing down the Suicune storyline and throwing away the series' first female protagonist in favor of a fanservicey Mario cosplayer (apparently, the "boys need new eye candy" mentality that infected the anime after OS had spread into the games by Gen 4). And, now, even with the VC re-releases, Crystal is still getting shat on compared to RBY/GS. >:(

I'm very close to just giving up on the franchise and burying myself into older games (and romhacks). Gen 6 already wore me down with its mediocrity, and Gen 7 has outright killed my spirit. What a total letdown the 3DS era has been for the franchise.

The reason why Crystal was released separately and not Yellow is probably because Yellow wasn't as much an improved remake as it was a tie in game to take advantage of the anime's popularity wheras Crystal was the first Pokemon game designed specifically as the improvement to it's sister duo's games.

People would probably buy either Red or Blue and then Yellow since Yellow technically wasn't a true improvement to R/B whereas they wouldn't as easily bought Crystal with Gold or Silver since Crystal is the defacto enhancement to G/S and not just some tie in game like Yellow was.

I'm the rare person who prefers Gold to Crystal, despite Crystal being an objectively superior game in terms of features. (But it doesn't have Mareep!) Anyway, before any of the GSC games were announced, I planned on playing Crystal as my main game due to its extra features. However, the announcement that G/S were coming first made me change my plans, and along the way, I realized that Gold means more to me, probably due primarily to nostalgia. So I was happy to preload Crystal to have it ready at its release, but I didn't mind having G/S a couple months earlier. Plus, I had a rough fall, and having Gold around to unwind helped get my mind off things a bit, so I'm glad I didn't have to wait until January to get my first gen II game on 3DS.

That said, I haven't been a big fan of gen 7. I felt so-so about Sun and Moon, and after restarting Sun repeatedly in the fall to get those various event Pikachu, I haven't had much of an urge to start USUM at all (even though I've heard the tutorial aspects improve a little bit). While my interest in Pokemon does fluctuate (I tend to be more into even generations than odd ones), it's unprecedented for me to have an unopened Pokemon game sitting around nearly three months after release. I think my frustration stemmed from the linearity and hand-holding that was so pervasive in SuMo. I've played Pokemon for two decades now, and I just want the game to leave me alone and let me play at my own pace. I've never minded tutorials too much in the past, but the degree of constant supervision in the newest games drove me nuts. If anything, that oversight is part of what drove me to focus on the gen II games for the time being; I know what they have to offer, and I know that I enjoy the degree of freedom they allow, so I find them a lot more satisfying than the newer games.

BettyNewbie said:

I feel your pain on what a disappointment this so-called "20th anniversary" has been. :( While the newest games did do some interesting things with storytelling, Alola still feels like a half-baked filler region (ie. more akin to the Orange Islands than Kanto or Johto) that was quickly thrown together so GF could release something new for the 20th anniversary. The region itself is small, aggressively linear, and uninteresting, and it's overly reliant on poorly-executed gimmicks to set itself apart (Trials, Ultra Beasts, Regional Variants, Z-Moves, etc). And, USUM are just a horrible step backwards from what we got with B2W2. What made GF think they could still get away with making people buy a slightly "upgraded" version of a game they had already bought just a year earlier?

The way the VC re-releases were handled was only salt in the wound. As far as I know, Crystal won't even be getting a 3DS theme like RBY and GS got, which only adds to the feeling that the game is being treated like an afterthought -- given a delayed release for money-grubbing reasons and then denied the same levels of hype and promotion the previous VC re-releases got.

As a female fan of Gen 2 and the Pokémania Era, Crystal is a very important game for me, and it saddens me to see Nintendo/GF still treating it (and its female protagonist) with complete and total disrespect. First, HGSS took only the most superficial parts of Crystal (ie. Buena's Password, Extremespeed Dratini, etc.) while dumbing down the Suicune storyline and throwing away the series' first female protagonist in favor of a fanservicey Mario cosplayer (apparently, the "boys need new eye candy" mentality that infected the anime after OS had spread into the games by Gen 4). And, now, even with the VC re-releases, Crystal is still getting shat on compared to RBY/GS. >:(

I'm very close to just giving up on the franchise and burying myself into older games (and romhacks). Gen 6 already wore me down with its mediocrity, and Gen 7 has outright killed my spirit. What a total letdown the 3DS era has been for the franchise.

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I feel the same about most of what you said (I'm a guy though). Ever since I looked into the rom hacking community more closer into their internal developments..
I can confidently say they are our only true hope. They can do what GF did but better.
Where GF messed up, they can fix- and improve.
I am looking forward to the near future where we can re-implement a revamped crystal version that allows people to utilize the mobile system over the internet and also taking advantage of the opportunity to fix any lingering bugs that may have been ignored or left alone by GF.

People who are passionate about the series and interested in the rom hacking scene will provide us with a true paradise to play within as they have already to experience it as it truly was intended.
Not holding my breath on GF anymore. I can breath easily and relax now :senpai: . . .