2nd Gen Do you think Crystal was the perfect third game?

While we are all super hypeeeddd for G/S re-release... Crystal comes to mind. The poor third sibling that got left out of the fun.

What do you think Crystal was lacking - if anything? Did it differentiate itself from Gold and Silver enough? Whatchu guys think?

Crystal is the game I grew up with out of the three, and I believe it was a great game. For reference, I've played all three of them now, and I believe Crystal played its roll as a third game in a generation perfectly - subtle gameplay changes, without making the game feel different.

Crystal added a few things - Sprite animation when entering battle (some Pokemon actually had their sprites redone, and some were re-coloured slightly), subtle changes to some interiors and exteriors, new legendary encounter music for the three legendary dogs, the cell phone feature was updated so that trainers had a bit of a personality.

I obviously didn't name everything, because I'd have to go on for quite a while; as their was a fair few. However they were all subtle, or simply expanded on the story already, enriching the experience. All of this whilst still being the Johto/Kanto adventure you already knew from Gold and Silver (if you played them)

Crystal fixed plenty of bothersome things from GS. Animations, girl (<3), made the "story" at the start work better like the reason for Elm to give you a pokemon etc, and iirc you didn't get ad many annoying phone calls from trainers?

But the perfect third game is Platinum ^^ Crystal did good things in fixing up its siblings' faults though!

No, but it did fix a lot of issues that Gold and Silver had, and added new things like sprite animation and a battle tower and legendary music for Suicune, Entei and Raikou among a lot of other things. It's close to perfect but not quite in my opinion.

Given that Crystal is my favorite of all the Pokemon games, I'm biased. I feel like Crystal made more changes than the other third versions. The addition of moving sprites, new music, female player character, tons of little bug fixes, enhanced graphics, the Battle Tower, and the new sidequest for the Ruins of Alph make Crystal a very hard act to follow.

Yes indeed for so many reasons (it was also my first pokemon game)

Crystal is a great game, but it's not the best third version by any means. Fixed some graphical issues, added sprite animation, added the Suicine and Eusine subplot, and a few other changes here and there, but failed to do much else aside from that. As far as third versions go, I think Platinum did better justice (granted, it was coming off of games that, when given real criticism, needed all the help it could get. Gold and Silver didn't need all that much for what they were then.) to its predecessors. But like I said, Gold and Silver didn't need it as badly as Diamond and Pearl, for example.

Not saying Crystal is bad -- I love it. It's my favorite of this trio of games and I am bummed it's not coming to the eShop, but the looks of it. But when grading it as a third version and being asked to compare it to the others as the best, then no, it misses the mark on that front.

Ammako said:

I wouldn't even nominate it. Whose idea was it to make the Mareep line unobtainable?

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This is the one true sin of Crystal.

That is SO true. Removing Mareep was so stupid. It was so stupid that I didn't even notice it was a thing despite playing Crystal more than Gold...

I mean that goes to show that clearly it didn't matter TOO much to me, but dude, Mareep is cute. It's like a staple of Johto. Ampharos got a mega many years later. Ampharos got a special part in these games. It's so insanely crazy and I honestly can't believe that I didn't notice it as a kid lmao. They could have removed something useless instead (and funnily enough... Johto has many of these filler Pokemon). :|

Forever said:

They could have removed something useless instead (and funnily enough... Johto has many of these filler Pokemon). :|

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Johto pokemon aren't filler, they are better than that.

why not cyrstal for virtual console?

I think Crystal was definitely a good start to the third game trend, though not as impressive as some of the entries that followed it. The Mareep thing is probably Crystal's major sin for me, but I definitely appreciate the changes it added. It also made it a lot easier to get certain items and moves than in G/S (extra elemental stones from phone calls from trainers, items on that password show, move tutors once a week), which was a nice change. The story also helped, although Suicune somehow never felt as impressive to me as the other focal legendaries up to that point in the series.

I never used the Battle Tower much, although in retrospect, I think it was a nice addition, and a good precursor to the Battle Frontier seen in Emerald. Should Crystal be re-released, I'm looking forward to building competitive teams and using them in the Battle Tower.

strangerhypno said:

Johto pokemon aren't filler, they are better than that.

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It's more... a lot just don't do much competitively or in the main media. Girafarig and Stantler come to mind for example. Cool concepts but don't really "achieve" much.

LeedsUnitedForLife said:

why not cyrstal for virtual console?

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We aren't entirely sure yet :(

Forever said:

It's more... a lot just don't do much competitively or in the main media. Girafarig and Stantler come to mind for example. Cool concepts but don't really "achieve" much.

We aren't entirely sure yet :(

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Fook that sucks. i never played it and have always wanted too!!

Forever said:

It's more... a lot just don't do much competitively or in the main media. Girafarig and Stantler come to mind for example. Cool concepts but don't really "achieve" much.

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Obscurity doesn't mean it's bad. And a pokemon's worth shouldn't be determined by their competitive value, especially ones that weren't created with competitive intent. Girafarig is also good ingame for Gold and Silver, I heard.