A year ago, I was marveling through a heavily merchandised litle rpg called Pokemon Yellow. At the time, I had only minimal exposure to the cartoon, the card game, and the vast omnipresent marketing plan. Pokemon was an rpg for Game Boy, and EVERYBODY was talking about it. And everybody had been talking about it for quite some time.
I hate not knowing what everybody is talking about.
With Pokemon Gold and Silver, there isn't quite so much chatter... mainly because the pokemon paradigm just isn't as fresh and imposing as it once was. The trend has officially plateaued; in fact, we're so close to the edit now that we can no longer use Japan as a vision of the Pokemon Yet To Come. But - and this I happily predict - if people are still snapping up pokejunk next year at this time, we can officially declare the property an evergreen.
Pokemon was the phenomenon that broke all the rules. Consider: it originated as a video game... and on the long-suffering Game Boy, no less. And _then_ it graduated to card game, cartoon, breakfast cereal, the movie star and all the rest. But most amazingly, Pokemon does not forsake its fathers, after all this swag-come-lately. Pokemon Silver/Gold returns the hyper-inflated kiddie uber-property to it's birthing matrix... specifically, it's dot matrix.
It's easy to overlook (or forget) how great a game this is. As an rpg, it is pleasant and engaging... it creates a complete, unique little world and lets you in slowly. The slippery-slope pace is particularly surprising given how huge Pokemon has become. When you enter the Johto continent of Pokemon Silver and/or Gold, you're fresh, you're uninitiated. It's as if you never heard of Pokemon. This is entry-level role-playing at it's finest, with no overblown fantasy drama cliches, no intensely confusing menu systems and subsystems... it's an rpg without the pain.
In Pokemon Gold or Silver, you start off with a single pokemon (the flowery lizardine Chikorita, Totodile the blue aligator, or Cyndaquil the flaming porcupine thing) and have to create your personal legend from the ground up. You'll travel from city to city meeting and challenging other pokemon trainers, winning money and experience. As your pokemon grow, they'll learn new skills that will keep you moving... opening up new paths and regions... all for the inevitable goal of becoming Pokemon League Champ and the damn-near-impossible goal of completing your Pokedex.
Yes, that is the exact same plot of Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow.
Here is where Silver/Gold becomes a great sequel. Everything about the first set of games has been retained, upgraded or added to. Three years have passed since the primary trifecta of Red/Blue/Yellow, and you now take on the role of a different young trainer in a different continent. There is a whole passel of new, never-before-seen pokemon to catch. There are a lot more of the mini-mission sub-quests, usually involving Team Rocket. New Gym Leaders. New badges. New HMs and TMs. A radio. A phone. A mail system. It's a much deeper environment, and it has the incredible bonus of offering an entire second level that takes you back to the towns and people of Red/Blue/Yellow.
But the single most startling addition is how Pokemon Silver/Gold gets into your life... your real life. As you should know by now, these games now run in real time... so if it's 6pm Tuesday in your world, it's 6pm Tuesday in Johto. This sounds incredibly dull until you realize the ramifications: if the Park Clerk tells you that the Bug Catching Contest is only held on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, then you need to turn your Game Boy on sometime during a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday. You won't understand how this infects your brain until you're sitting at work on a Thursday afternoon and suddenly think "Shit. I need to get to the park for the Bug Catching Contest."
Another great use of real time involves Kurt, the cranky artisan of Azelea Town. He'll take an apricorn from you and hand-carve it into a specialized poke ball. Now, apricorns of all colors are free for the taking; apricorn trees are fairly common in Johto. But ol' Kurt will only make you one poke ball a day... so you'll be flying to his house every day to pick up yesterday's ball and give him a new one. Remember how you could always work around the un-reality of these sorts of situations in other rpgs? Not any more.
Despite all the gimmicky Pokemon games (Pinball, Puzzle League, Hey You Pikachu, etc), Pokemon hasn't forgotten what made those original little rpgs so great. And G/S develops it even further. And while you're playing it, you get to completely ignore the marketing machine... and just immerse yourself into a damn fine game.
