25 Years Ago, Pokémon Gold and Silver Proved the Series Was Here to Stay

By Elijah Gonzalez | November 20, 2024 | 12:45pm

Video Games Features Pokémon

25 Years Ago, Pokémon Gold and Silver Proved the Series Was Here to Stay

It’s somewhat hard to imagine now, especially for those born after the craze began, but there was a time when Pokémon’s monster-collection mania was brand new. Sure, the idea of capturing and training critters in a turn-based RPG format had been done before GameFreak’s series debuted; Shin Megami Tensei and its demon wrangling is generally cited as the first example of this style of game, while Dragon Quest V furthered this trend in a way that would later be iterated on in the Dragon Quest Monster spin-offs. The catch is that these and other monster collection games were still Japan-exclusive releases in the mid-’90s, meaning large swathes of players had never been exposed to these ideas yet.

Of course, that changed when Pocket Monsters Red/Green (in Japan) and Pokémon Red/Blue (worldwide) blew the doors open on this sub-genre to become one of the best-selling games of all time, wrapping these monster collection mechanics within family-friendly packaging that felt tailor-made for the Game Boy. Soon, there was a TV show, a trading card game, and you couldn’t pass through a mall without seeing a Pikachu plush in a store window.

However, perhaps more impressive than its short-term success is that this popularity never went away: every new game in the series still sells a bajillion copies, the trading card game is perhaps more popular than ever due to the recent mobile game, and the anime keeps chugging along hundreds of episodes later, even if Ash finally retired with a Pokémon World Championship under his belt. Despite being a phenomenon many expected to burn brightly before fading just as fast, Pokémon has held onto every bit of its cultural cache. And while there have been plenty of games that helped or hurt this legacy over that span, one of the main reasons the series is still around today is because its first sequels, Pokémon Gold and Silver, picked up right where the originals left off in the best way possible.

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Released more than three years after Pocket Monsters Red and Green, Pokémon Gold and Silver came out 25 years ago in Japan on November 21, 1999. While the wait for this follow-up was unusually long for a release of its time, the general cultural blitz alongside the release of Pokémon Yellow helped maintain the hype, teeing up Gold and Silver to eventually sell over 20 million copies. It remained the second-highest-selling pair of installments for roughly 20 years.

The most straightforward reason for the Gold and Silver’s positive reception is that it not only maintained but further honed the existing creature-capturing formula, making lots of small changes that added up. For starters, in classic sequel fashion, there was more of it. It added 100 Pokémon with the new Johto region, an area inspired by Japan’s Kansai district. All things considered, Gen II was a fairly good additional batch of ‘mons, and while there are some long-forgotten guys in there, like Sunflora, it also introduced plenty of longstanding fan favorites. There were lovable weirdos like Quagsire, Wobuffet, Shuckle, and Smeargle, competitive staples like Scizor, Tyranitar, and Skarmory, and a memorable batch of legendaries with Lugia, Ho-Oh, the Legendary Dogs, and Celebii.

Meanwhile, it was also one of the only sequels to introduce additional elemental types beyond the original 15 from Red and Blue. Steel and Dark types were incorporated, with Dark acting as an important countermeasure to Psychic, which previously only had one weakness, while Steel generally introduced bulky fighters that were tough to take down. Other advantages were tweaked to make things more balanced or less weird, like making Ghost attacks Super Effective against Psychic instead of dealing no damage. The addition of the new types combined with the infusion of around 100 new Pokémon and more than 80 extra moves made it so there was much more going on for team building and battling.

For the more competitive side of things, they tinkered with many of the previous games’ questionable elements. For one, they separated the “Special” stat into two separate ones, Special Attack and Special Defense. Basically, in Gen I, the Special stat was both Special Attack and Special Defense, meaning high Special Pokémon like Alakazam dealt impressive damage with non-physical attacks like Psychic while also being strangely bulky against these same kinds of moves. Another big change is that they made it so that Critical Hit percentage no longer scaled with Speed. Before, fast Pokémon like Jolteon would not only strike first most of the time due to their 130-base Speed, but they would also deal Crits far more often, which do double damage, making them extremely strong. While these mechanical adjustments probably did not register for kids facing off on the playground who didn’t understand how Crit calculations worked, these alterations helped balance competitive play going forward.

On top of this, Gen II introduced tons of bells and whistles that made this setting feel more dynamic and robust. A perfect example is the new day-night cycle where time passes in-game as you play. Certain Pokémon would be easier to catch at specific times of day (Bug types are out in mass in the morning, for instance), and NPCs would move around as these pixelated backdrops shifted from a yellow hue to a deep blue as things progressed from dawn to dusk. It granted Johto the veneer of being a living, breathing space where Pokémon migrated and shifted amidst distinctive temples and shrines inspired by real-world Japanese architecture from the Kansai region. And then, when you reached the end of Johto after defeating the Elite Four, you unlocked the Kanto region from the previous game, letting you rematch the original gym leaders as you visited locations that had changed in the intervening years. While today, I would probably groan if I reached the end of a long RPG and found I was only halfway done, at the time, this turn was a delightful surprise.

There was also the addition of the Pokégear, which functioned as a radio, phone, watch, and map. Perhaps the most important addition here is that phone calls would let you know when certain trainers wanted a rematch or if a rare critter was sighted nearby. And this wasn’t all. Your ‘mons could now hold items to bolster them in battle, such as berries with healing effects, and there was even a mini farming mechanic where you could grow and pick these fruit. Other additions included Shiny Pokémon that set off many playground rumors, more types of Poké Balls with different strengths, and the ethically questionable option to breed your creatures to pass on their moves in ways that wouldn’t normally be possible.

But beyond all these small additions that granted a lived-in feel and more balanced battles, perhaps the most essential decision with Gold and Silver is that GameFreak didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken. While the studio sanded away many rough edges, like some gameplay issues and the bizarre pixel art from the original (why did Golbat previously look like this!?), they maintained the core appeal: it is so dang fun to capture and train Pokémon. There was still anticipation as you tried to catch a new monster and watched the Poké Ball repeatedly wiggle before the victory jingle played. There was still the sense of progression and ownership of building your team, either through assembling and leveling a well-thought-out crew that balanced various type advantages, or doing what most of us did, myself included, in putting together a team of cool and/or funny looking guys. And underneath it all was a sense of adventure, as you played a fledgling Trainer who was probably way too young to leave home on an adventure; while that air of freedom could be infectious for anyone, it especially appealed to kids the same age as the protagonist.

And then, after Gold and Silver, they made a whole bunch more installments, with many longstanding fans eventually souring on the series over the years, only to be replaced by the flood of newcomers trying them for the first time. For quite a while now, the popular narrative around the Pokémon games, especially in online circles, is that their gameplay has become stale, they’re far behind the curve visually, and in the case of Pokémon Scarlet and Violent, they launched in an unacceptably broken state. As someone who has fallen off on the series, I mostly agree with these criticisms, and while there have been lots of new creatures, gameplay adjustments, and more, Pokémon has not fundamentally changed that much in the last 25 years.

However, while some of these same critiques could have theoretically been levied at Pokémon Gold and Silver when it came out, that wasn’t the majority opinion at the time. It received one of the most positive critical receptions the series has ever seen and was the second highest-selling installment for almost 20 years. The basic reason for this response is fairly apparent: its ideas still felt novel at the time. Back then, these games still had a spark, a gleam of newness that hadn’t worn off. By contrast, Ruby and Saphire were criticized for familiarity even though they had a similar number of tweaks compared to their predecessor (Double Battles, natures, abilities, 135 new Pokémon). There were eventually diminishing returns due to the absence of a big leap, something which Game Freak notoriously avoided for decades until the recent Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

In many ways, I can understand why many other longstanding fans are so annoyed about the series’ lack of innovation. Speaking as someone who literally started playing videogames because of Silver, Pokémon was many people’s introduction to this medium, and as such, it’s disproportionately near and dear to many. It makes sense that people want a series they love to grow with them, and there’s an understandable expectation for a Nintendo-published series to do just that.

But at the same time, you have to let go at a certain point. You have to accept that these games are simply for a different audience, that they’re not always aimed at those who played the last nine generations and who are going to put together a Smogon University-approved tournament-caliber team. Because when I think of the things that I would personally want, like dramatically more difficult battles, ways to even more easily level up Pokémon in mass to experiment with different competitive loadouts, and more, these are things that probably would not have worked for me when I started. Of course, there have been attempts to appeal to these more hardcore players, like how Gen VI introduced ranked online play and how there have been lots of changes to make it easier to train EVs, but at least personally, the only way to pull me back in at this point is a dramatic overhaul that would fundamentally change many core elements of the experience. Personally, I’d rather play one of the many other interesting RPGs out there than get repeatedly chuffed about how GameFreak is predictably being GameFreak.

However, even if I never play another mainline Pokémon game again, I’m glad this series is still around to expose newcomers to the joys of turn-based battles. 25 years ago, Pokémon Gold and Silver proved that this phenomenon was here to stay, and while I wish the series felt as fresh for me now as it did then, it paved the way for generations of players to experience that same initial rush. In a game industry defined by constant change, it’s comforting that this familiar gateway is there, even if I won’t ever go back in.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11 and on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.