Pokémon Gold

Laugh all you want, but it really felt nice to finally cast this game aside. I first started playing it around what must have been ten years ago when the Pokémon craze was at its apex. I remember getting to Goldenrod City and catching a Sudowoodo (some kind of rock-based tree) before giving up on the second generation altogether. Then, last summer I started playing the game again and once again got to the same point and quit for a while. But a week or so ago, I picked Pokémon Gold up and decided not to put it away until it was beaten. And now it is. The elite four and the champion Lance himself were vanquished just moments ago and all I really used to get the job done was a Level 50 "Feraligatr" (my starter Pokémon, a giant, roided-out alligator) and occasionally a Level 45 "Amphobos" (some kind of electric sheep/kangaroo thing). The other four Pokémon on my final roster were all below Level 30. Ridiculous. Now, I consider this game beaten because the credits rolled after I beat the "Elite Four" and Lance; technically, I could now go on and collect all eight badges from Kanto, the world from the original Pokémon games (Red and Blue). But I mean, what's the point? I beat the shit out of that world when I was in fifth grade. Why go back now? What would that prove? Actually, the biggest turning point for me in Pokémon Gold came when I realized it was a downright waste of time to try to become a Pokémon master and "catch 'em all." Early on in any Pokémon game, every time you see a new Pokémon you feel the urge to add it to your collection. And where does that leave you, just a third into the game? Chock-full of shitty, useless Pokémon. My breaking point came when I reached a dungeon wherein there was a very rare Pokémon that was only encountered in one out of every twenty battles, and also only during the morning. Oh, and its only move allowed it to escape from battle, so any attempt to catch it needed a miracle to succeed. I must have spent at least two hours last August waking up to my alarm, turning on the game, struggling for a while, and ending up late to work. Stupid. Pointless. Fuck "catching 'em all;" my motto, upon taking up the game again a few weeks ago, was "gotta kill 'em all." With a new purpose in my Poké-life - just destroy everything and never use a Pokéball again - I stampeded through the final five gyms and all other dungeons the game threw at me. I may not have ended up a "Pokémon master," but at least I reign supreme as the champion. Pokémon Gold has plenty of shortcomings. Battle messages are abundant and unfold at a snail's pace, lengthening the game substantially. The whole experience was similar to an RPG for beginners, which I suppose more or less is what the game was. My biggest gripe with the Pokémon series in general is the amount of slowdown that occurs throughout the game. Healing your Pokémon? Here's a five-second animation and ditty. Picking up an item? Wait five seconds for three lines of text to congratulate you. My second-biggest gripe is that Pokémon can only know four moves at once. I'm calling bullshit on that. In the anime series, Pikachu has like twenty goddamn moves in his arsenal. Why can't my water Pokémon know more than one move in addition to the mandatory-for-traveling "surf," "whirlpool," and "waterfall?" My third-biggest gripe? The "boxes" system on Bill's PC. When I swap my Pokémon in and out of my lineup, I shouldn't need to screw around with boxes first. Why can't I just dump every Pokémon I'm not using into the same easily-accessible location? I have plenty more gripes, but now I just sound bitter. So I'll stop. Beating Pokémon Gold was actually a pretty big accomplishment for me as the game was one of the oldest in my backlog. The big question now is, "what to do about Silver?" Pokémon Silver is quite literally the same game as Pokémon Gold. The only differences include a few Pokémon that are exclusive to one or the other. So part of me considers both games one and the same, and thus, both done. Of course, another part of me is calling bullshit on that part of me. I suppose someday I'll return to Pokémon Silver and try some kind of themed playthrough or specific challenge. But not yet. Not yet.