2nd Gen What happened to Pokémon Crystal’s eShop release?

[J-Pom]

Maybe Nintendo and Game Freak wanted to invoke the feel of Gold and Silver being the only true sequels in the main series Pokemon game canon by leaving out what was less of a sequel and more of another glorified extension, that being Crystal.

The reason they kept Yellow, on the other hand, was probably to further celebrate the franchise's 20th birthday (Which was the reason they released Red and Blue on VC in the first place) by also releasing the only Pokemon game to have actual ties to the show (Since it's very loosely tied to the games). Since Crystal has no ties to the show and the franchise's 20th birthday has already ended, they probably thought it was irrelevant to put forth the extra resources to re-release it.

But they might re-release Crystal someday, maybe on that game's birthday, since it did after all introduce some things that have since become game tradition (Like an alternate gender for the player and a battling facility).

 

[Link119]

I was figuring that maybe the Mobile System would have to be disabled altogether for a Virtual Console re-release to Japan. Should that be the case, though, I think a Japanese re-release version of Crystal will end up being nearly identical in features and functionality to the versions the rest of the world got (since the Mobile System GB never was released outside of Japan).

As for re-releasing Crystal separately at a later date: If Crystal does eventually get re-released, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens sometime next summer at the very earliest (since, although the release span between G/S and Crystal was over a year apart in Japan, North America got those released about nine months apart).

Speaking of disabled features, did anyone else get a slight wave of depression after speaking to the photo guy and being unable to say "Yes", because the Game Boy Printer is officially ancient history?...

 

[S-MAN]

I realize this is kind of old but has anything changed since this article was written as far as features/patches?

It seems like a lonely adventure if the only thing we can exchange/battle is restricted to local. Sun and Moon is just too much to learn for some people (me) and not seeing any sort of more compatible system is really depressing.

We don't have 100 children running around the streets like back in the day where we can challenge each other or trade with y'know? For G/S/C to simply serve as some bridge to "migrate" Pokemon into the "newest" and apparently better games just kind of
sucks.

Even years after their original release it was disappointing to learn about the mobile system for the first time and it not even being implemented due to most of us being technologically-challenged. That isn't the case anymore. It's even easier and cheaper to do so now- so why stop here? Can we just create a friendly non-negotiable petition for Nintendo to follow through with their old ambitions they once had for their franchise?

 

[Topaz Light]

Speaking of disabled features, did anyone else get a slight wave of depression after speaking to the photo guy and being unable to say "Yes", because the Game Boy Printer is officially ancient history?...

I didn't actually check this in-game myself, but I read about it, and honestly I'm kinda disappointed that they just disabled it altogether... it would've been really cool if they'd set it up to save the screenshot to be printed with the GameBoy Printer as a .png to your 3DS's image gallery or something instead rather than just disabling it altogether.

 

[Imperator161]

I didn't actually check this in-game myself, but I read about it, and honestly I'm kinda disappointed that they just disabled it altogether... it would've been really cool if they'd set it up to save the screenshot to be printed with the GameBoy Printer as a .png to your 3DS's image gallery or something instead rather than just disabling it altogether.

That's a good point. I never had a GameBoy Printer, so I've never tried to actually print anything from my Pokemon games, but in the modern era, it seems like an easy way to get Pokemon images from your 3DS to the internet/your computer. I still find it irritating that I can't really take high-quality screenshots of any of my "official" Pokemon games from over the years, especially when taking screenshots is a common practice in many other games these days.

My guess is that GF either thought it would be too much work to come up with an alternative printing feature, or figured no one would ever use it. Still, it seems odd that they updated certain mechanics (like trading) while leaving others untouched or crippled.