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    Gen II: Gold, Silver and Crystal 
  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • There is a Firebreather in the Burned Tower named Dick in Gold and Silver. It's probably no coincidence that he's gone from Crystal and had his name extended to Richard in HeartGold and SoulSilver.
    • "Behold my graceful BALL dexterity!" Quoth Juggler Irwin on Route 35. The quote was changed to "Behold my dexterity and grace!" in HeartGold and SoulSilver.
  • Adorkable:
    • Professor Elm's slightly dorky mannerisms only make him more enjoyable.
    • Jasmine's so shy and awkward it's impossible not to be charmed by her.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Olivine Gym. Even though, geographically, you encounter Jasmine right after Morty, it's obvious she's the 6th gym leader and you have more to do before facing her. After all of this, she tells you that she's using the newly discovered steel type, a type you surely have almost no experience in fighting. Considering she has pokémon that're higher level than the 7th gym leader, this should be one epic battle, right? Wrong — she uses two Magnemite at level 30 (which by then should have evolved into Magneton), and her Steelix is wrecked by a good Fire type because all Fire-type moves are special. Her Steelix even knows Sunny Day, which strengthens Fire-type moves but confers extremely limited benefits to her team (the only good thing about it from her perspective is weakening Water-type moves, which her Steelix is weak to and her Magnemite don't resist).
    • Most of the Kanto Gym Leaders are fairly underwhelming, considering that they all come after the Elite Four and Champion. Their Pokémon are typically under Lance's team's levels (and thus likely yours), and they have fewer members overall for their teams. Janine is easily the worst, with none of her Pokémon even hitting Level 40 when you're probably showing up to fight her with a team at least in the mid-to-high 50s.
  • Anti-Metagame Character: The introduction of Dark- and Steel-type Pokémon. Both of them are able to resist Psychic-type moves, which were otherwise uncontestable outside of another Psychic-type during Gen I. Dark is even outright immune, along with having an offensive type advantage against them.
  • Arc Fatigue: The Team Rocket plotline can end up as this due to its two lengthy segments in the back half of the Johto journey when it's required to clear out their Mahogany Town Headquarters, and to free the Goldenrod City Radio Tower from their takeover. The main issue is that there's a lot of mandatory Rockets to fight through, and most of them have such low levels that they hardly pose any challenge. It especially feels tedious and lengthy if you end up doing these Team Rocket segments back-to-back.
  • Breather Boss:
    • Pryce is a breeze for a Gym Leader due his relatively low levels and use of Ice-types. He makes for a nice break after you're required to deal with Team Rocket at the Lake of Rage and before the Radio Tower. His ace, Piloswine, is also quite pathetic, as along with the mentioned low level, it's a Pokémon with a much higher Physical Attack stat compared to Special Attack, yet it doesn't have any Physical moves other than the low-damage and inaccurate Fury Attack.
    • The Kanto Gym Leaders in general aren't particularly difficult because their team levels are about the same as the Elite Four; it's not until Blaine that you encounter a Pokémon (his Rapidash) at Lv. 50, the level of Lance's strongest Dragonite. Janine in particular is laughably easy, since her Pokémon's levels are all in the 30s, which is lower than any of the Elite Four.
  • Casual-Competitive Conflict: The existence of this is alluded to by Karen's losing dialogue, where she states that one should always try to play and win with their favorites, regardless of whether they're seen as "strong" or "weak" Pokémon. It even serves as a page quote for said trope, representing the casual side of the argument.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Due to their rarity in these games, it's common to think that several of the Johto/Generation II Pokémon originated from Hoenn/Generation III.
      • The first is the Slugma line, which is a result of being somewhat rare and hard to find at optional locations in the Kanto post-game of Gen II. Meanwhile in Gen III, it's more common in Hoenn, being catchable at locations the player has to travel through, and is even used by several Trainers, such as Gym Leader Flannery and your Emerald rival if the player didn't start with Treecko.
      • The same case happened with Skarmory (casually, at least; competitive players remember it as one of the few good answers for Snorlax, the best Pokémon in the metagame). In Gen II, it's a rare Silver/Crystal exclusive encounter on an optional late route of Johto, where you're likely to skip over it because you're usually heading for the Pokémon League by this point. Not to mention that it's never used by a single Trainer in either Johto or Kanto. Meanwhile in Gen III, Skarmory is catchable on a route the player has to travel through, and pops up on several Trainers, such as Gym Leader Winona and Champion/ex-Champion Steven Stone.
    • A common rumor that's been passed around for Gen II shared by fans and journalists alike is that Gold and Silver were originally planned to be the final games of the series before Game Freak realized just how popular the franchise had become and continued making more. This is verifiably false — Game Freak president Satoshi Tajiri spoke in a Japanese magazine interview in July 2000 (before the games were even released outside of Japan), and when asked if Gold and Silver were the end, he flat-out said "No, it's not the end." The origin of this rumor was a long game of telephone from a 2010 interview with Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara, who described Gen II as his involvement of Pokémon games was done, saying "I didn't intend to make any more ''Pokémon'' titles," not the company as a whole. In the same interview, he even stated he ended up changing his mind on stepping down following the massive success of Gen II, saying "I couldn't very well get off the ride halfway through."
    • Another production-based myth is that the reason the Kanto region appeared in the games was because of especially skilled programmers managing to compress the initial Johto campaign into half of the available cartridge space, with many citing Satoru Iwata in specific as being the one responsible for the extraordinarily efficient compression that managed to leave enough space for a setting twice as big as the games' predecessors. The truth is much more mundane: the main reason the Gen II games had twice as much cartridge space as in Gen I was because of the simple fact that Nintendo had upgraded to 1 MB cartridges, whereas the Gen I cartridges could only hold half as much space. Going through the game's code, there is a programmed algorithm credited to Iwata, but it has nothing to do with memory compression — rather, it was about improving the game's speed, significantly reducing the game's loading timesnote .
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
    • Consider how often you, anyone you know, or anyone you've seen play these games have ever willingly picked Chikorita as their starter outside of a Self-Imposed Challenge. Many Pokémon in the games are weak to Cyndaquil's Fire-type attacks (notably being the best counter to the new Steel-type, as their Special Defense is never as good as their Defense, which is generally high enough to tank their physical weaknesses to Fighting and Ground), while Totodile quickly gets a powerful STAB move in Surf right before the 4th badge and has an overall strong movepool. Chikorita, sadly, struggles to damage most of the gyms, the Elite Four and the largely Poison-oriented Team Rocket, won't get any better STAB move than Razor Leaf (which, previously the strongest drawbackless Grass-type move in Gen I, has been nerfed to stop constantly getting critical hits, and Grass-type wasn't given a new move of similar strength to compensate) for most of the game, has the most restricted movepool and worst offensive stats among the three starters, and Meganium's cutesy design is generally regarded as less cool-looking than the more ferocious designs of Typhlosion and Feraligatr.
    • Competitively, Gen II has the infamous reputation for being "stall-oriented," since stall tactics ruled its Metagame in the early days of competitive Pokémon. This was largely in part due to the lack of Natures and every Pokémon being able to put maximum Effort Values into every stat, which caused everything to be bulkier by default, and caused the inexperienced playerbase at the time to gravitate towards stall as a response to this. The metagame has since developed and become significantly more balanced, with even archetypes such as Explosion offense seeing widespread tournament usage for some time, although games are still typically slower-paced than in future generations.
    • Speaking of competitive Gen II play, Snorlax is used on every serious team due to being the Mighty Glacier, making it one of the best abusers of the new moves Curse and Belly Drum (see Game-Breaker below for more details). Players of newer generations are often shocked to see such a dominant Pokémon not being banned, but GSC players agree that GSC OU would be a much worse environment with it gone, and prefer to maintain the metagame as it is. Some adventurous tournament hosts have tried running Snorlax-banned events, and games quickly morphed into the exact stall-fest that most people still think the generation revolves around.
    • A habit that started from this metagame was carrying around random Fire-type moves to avoid being walled by Steel-types (particularly before the Physical/Special split, when Fire was the only one out of Steel's three weaknesses that could bypass their huge Defense and take advantage of their often mediocre Special Defense).
    • While Dark- and Steel-types were added in large part to Nerf the dominance of Psychic-types from Gen I, the sheer lack of these types in Johto means that it is far too easy to run roughshod over most of the game with a Psychic-type. Both the Abra and Drowzee lines can be caught relatively early on Route 34, and each can be taught the "elemental punches" from the Goldenrod Department Store for greater coverage. Expect to see plenty of players carrying one throughout the game.
  • Condemned by History: Downplayed; while Gen II is still a much well-beloved and highly regarded trio of games, general opinion of the games has trended somewhat downward over the years due in part to players revisiting it coming to terms with several fundamental issues with the general gameplay structure of Johto. This includes rather unimaginative and mediocre stat spreads and movepools for the starters, a poorly balanced level curve exacerbated by the game's half-baked semi-open direction, nonsensical area distribution for new Pokémon, a lack of impressive new Pokémon (several of which were redeemed via later generations), and Kanto being haphazardly tacked on artifically inflating the game's size.
  • Crack Pairing: There are actually a subset of fans who actively ship Jasmine with Amphy, which is bizarre on account of the fact that she's a Steel-type trainer.
  • Disappointing Last Level:
    • Victory Road is significantly smaller than in Generation 1 and has no puzzles. It also lacks trainers besides the fight against The Rival at the exit, so all you're doing there is fighting largely standard cave Pokémon.
    • It's cool to revisit Kanto, but most of the trainers and Gym Leaders are around or even below the levels of the Elite Four, and will get swept away by your Champion team. There's also not a lot to do aside from beating the Gym Leaders, fixing the Power Plant and defeating Red.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Even Better Sequel: When released, Gold and Silver were highly praised by gamers and critics alike for being an overall better game than the originals. They introduced a number of mechanics that would become staples to the franchise as a whole: breeding, holding items, Day/Night cycles, shiny Pokémon, hour-based schedules, protagonists of both sexesnote , special Poké Balls, rematches with trainers previously fought, and friendship evolution.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
    • The name of the original protagonist is Red, not Ash.
    • These games' new male protagonist is not Ash either. He's a completely separate character, and his name is officially stated to be Ethan in HeartGold and SoulSilver.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • The three games are collectively referred to as GSC and the Metal Generation.
    • A scrapped fire starter, Honoguma, is sometimes jokingly called "Pikaflare", just like Marill is called "Pikablu", due to its resemblance to Pikachu.
    • For almost two decades, the rival and female protagonist were officially unnamed; they were universally called Silver and Krisnote . Both names were ascended in Pokémon Masters.
    • On that note, the rival is sometimes jokingly referred to as ???.
    • The male protagonist was unnamed until the remakes; the fans called him "Gold" before then.
    • Due to the fact that his team as a Champion is filled to the brim with Flying-Typesnote , Lance is referred to as "Bird Keeper Lance", often jokingly by fans.
    • Due to how odd the interior of the Viridian Gym looks, fans often refer to it as Blue's "LEGO Gym". It's supposed to be Pokéballs on top of small tables, most likely as a reference to the amount of Pokémon that Blue caught during his journey. However, they ended up looking like a bunch of 1-by-2 Lego bricks.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Blue with either Red, Leaf or Lyra.
    • Kris with Silver was quite common. As was (and still is) Ethan/Silver.
    • Ethan/Kris was quite popular following the release of Crystal. With the remakes, this couple seems to have boomed in popularity - it's not uncommon to find fanfics of Silver/Lyra with Ethan/Kris as Ship Mates. note 
  • Fanon:
    • Suicune, Raikou, and Entei are believed to have been a Vaporeon, a Jolteon, and a Flareon, respectively, before they were resurrected by Ho-Oh. Though it may have been alluded to initially with the trio's Hidden Abilities matching the Eeveelution's normal Elemental Absorption Abilities, Gen VII changed them to Inner Focus and Pokémon Generations depicted them as three unnamed Pokémon that don't resemble any existing ones. Since the release of the Space World prototype revealed the original designs of Suicune, Raikou, and Entei, fanon seems to have switched to the prototype designs being their pre-resurrection forms.
    • Ethan is usually depicted as a reckless Hot-Blooded Guile Hero with absurdly good luck to contrast Red's stoic temperament. This is probably inspired by Pokémon Adventures, where Gold (the universe's iteration of Ethan) is portrayed exactly that way, while Red is a laid-back, easygoing Battle Master.
  • Franchise Original Sin: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Has its own page here.
  • Game-Breaker: The unquestioned king of the GSC games is Snorlax, who is considered even better than the Purposely Overpowered Mewtwo, Ho-Oh, and Lugia. Snorlax benefits greatly from the Padded Sumo Gameplay of this Gen, as its titanic HP and very high Special Defense makes it ridiculously resilient, while the very powerful physical attacks of later Gens don't exist here to smash through Snorlax's lower physical defense. Then, Snorlax's low Defense can be patched up through Curse, which also raises its Attack at the cost of lowering its Speed, which it doesn't care about (it's slower than everything to begin with, and Speed is at its least important in this Gen). After some Curses, Snorlax is nearly unkillable while it can now slaughter your entire party in one or two hits. But what really pushes Snorlax to game-breaking territory is its ridiculous versatility; instead of Curse it can run Belly Drum to maximize its Attack at the cost of half its HP, while it can then instantly Rest to get that HP back while having the power to instantly smite anything, or it can run the vast variety of coverage moves it learns to hit everything very hard while still being very hard to kill itself, or it can run Lovely Kiss to give it sleep utility, or it can run Toxic and with its stats be the best staller in the game, etc etc. While no single Snorlax set can beat absolutely everything, Snorlax has the means to beat everything in the game, and about every serious competitive PVP team will have a Snorlax, as not using him would put one at a massive disadvantage.
  • Goddamned Boss: Koga's Muk will use Minimize to make it more likely to avoid hits, all while healing itself with its held item. And it can take a hit, too. His Crobat can also do the same thing with Double Team, and it makes up for its weaker defense with its extremely high Speed stat, almost ensuring its Evasiveness will be stacking up before you can stop it.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • Due to a oversight on Game Freak's part, Rest (the user falls asleep to recover HP) can be used through Sleep Talk (a move which randomly uses one of the user's other three moves while asleep).
    • A glitch causes Present to use a different damage formula, making it do a lot more (or less) damage than intended based off of various factors. This lets you do humorous things like having the weak Blissey taking off about 70% total HP from an Umbreon.
    • If a stat gets too high, it will roll over the Cap to a lower value. The easiest way to pull this off is to make a Level 100 Marowak with the highest possible Attack stat and holding a Thick Club use Swords Dance, giving it an Attack stat of 8.
    • If Belly Drum (maximizes the user's Attack at the cost of half of their max HP) is used by a Pokémon with 50% HP or less, the game will tell you the attack failed but still will give a boost of +2. This is because the game treats Belly Drum as using Swords Dance 12 times but doesn't check the HP value of the user on the first instance. This glitch was fixed in Stadium 2.
    • The cloning trick, coupled with the ability to hold items. It allows you to get up to five of the same item (and/or Mons) at once, and notably to get all three starters as much as you want (the fact that they don't show up in the Pokédex until you breed one being a small price to pay). Once you've obtained the Master Ball much later in the game, it becomes insultingly easy to catch the Roaming Legendaries by abusing this trick.
    • The Celebi Egg Glitch. It involves breeding two Sneasel that have the same moveset with Beat Up as the THIRD move (it doesn't have to be Sneasel, but Beat Up is its Signature Move in Gen II), getting a 'bad clone' from the cloning trick, and five worthless Pokémon. It works because Celebi and Beat Up share the same index number; it's not just Celebi you can get, it's just that Celebi is one of THE most unobtainable Pokémon of them all. For example, using Splash will get you... Mewtwo. This trick can also be used to get held items by using the fourth move, which shares index numbers with items.
    • The Johto Guard Glitch allows for trading certain Gen II Pokémon back to the Gen I games as a glitch Pokémon.
    • The capture algorithm was full of all kinds of bugs, including one that made the Love Ball work better if the target Pokémon had the same gender as yours, rather than the opposite gender.
    • Talking to your mom to adjust DST carries a 50% chance of triggering a phone call. If you only have a single phone number, such as a person who will call about a Pokemon swarm or to give you an evolution stone in Crystal, you can force the specific event you want by repeatedly changing DST back and forth for a couple of minutes.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The backstory with the two towers, one of which burned to the ground and changed the world forever, and the other of which was literally called the Tin Tower, certainly became uncomfortable to say the least after the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on 9/11. The storyline was retained in the remakes, but the Tin Tower's name was changed to the Bell Tower, perhaps in response to this.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Check the main page.
  • Hype Backlash: Though many of the new mechanics are warmly embraced, some people view Johto itself as a mere extension of Kanto (which itself gets criticized for losing many features from Gen I), with Pokémon generally rarer and weaker than similar Gen I Pokémon.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks!: One of the few common complaints towards Gen II is the bad level curve. Whitney's Miltank and Morty's Gengar, the two bosses considered the hardest in the game, are difficult simply because they are fully-evolved Pokémon with high stats at a fairly early point in the game, and even they can be beaten with a Geodude/Gravelernote . After Ecruteak, the next three gyms can be fought in any order, and the trainers' levels at this point were skewed down a little too much to compensate. Kanto also suffers from this when the levels of the trainers are still nowhere near adequate to justify having to fight Lance's level 50 Dragonite to come to the region, but this is fixed in the remakes.
  • It's Hard, So It Sucks!: On the other hand, the lower levels at the end of the game compared to the other generations have also been met with frustration from players. By the point of the last Gym, you're still fighting lv.30s, leading to many tedious hours of Level Grinding necessary if you hope to stand a chance against Lance and his trio of Dragonite. And Arceus help you if you try to add new party members late into the game, especially in Kanto, where they're at mostly the same levels as they were in Gen I while all the trainers are much stronger. (Especially Red, whose team ranges between the 70s-80s!)
  • It's the Same, So It Sucks:
    • A common criticism towards this generation is its over-reliance on Gen I Pokémon, making many of Gen II's fall into obscurity. Many of them are not used by trainers, some can only be found under conditions that are not recorded in the Pokédex *, some are swarm-exclusive * and some of them are exclusive to the post-game. Up to this day there are fans who thought that Skarmory and the Slugma lines, for example, originate from Hoenn as they're much more common over there.
    • A majority of the Johto gym Pokémon being from Gen I is seen as quite disappointing since there's many Johto Pokémon that could have been used on the gym teams. Falkner, Bugsy, Morty and Chuck don't even use a single Johto Pokémon on their teams. Morty is especially egregious; he's Johto's Ghost-type gym leader, yet he doesn't use Misdreavus, the one Ghost-type introduced in this generation.
    • The Western 3DS Virtual Console release of Crystal does not enable the proto-GTS that is the Pokémon Communication Center, despite being on a console more than capable of handling its features.
  • It Was His Sled: You can revisit the Kanto region after you beat the Elite Four, and at the very end of the game, you fight the True Final Boss, who is none other than Red, the PC from the first generation games. Both were very shocking twists in their day, but nowadays they're common knowledge. See Late-Arrival Spoiler.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Team Rocket cuts off Slowpoke tails for profit, uses radio waves to force Pokémon to evolve early, and takes over a radio tower while acquiring hostages. But Clair is the most hated character in the game because she refuses to give you a badge after you defeat her, devised a test to earn the badge that she expects you to fail, and still doesn't hand out a badge after you pass the test until she's threatened with being reported for insubordination.
  • Junk Rare: See the series' sub-page here.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: The Virtual Console release of Crystal allows the player to catch Celebi in normal gameplay. Considering this is the first time in nearly 20 years that one can obtain Celebi without an event, a lot of people have said they're purchasing this release just for it, especially since it has been confirmed that this Celebi can be shiny.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Karen has been shipped with: Sidney, Will, Lance, and Grimsley.
  • Love to Hate: Silver is probably the most popular rival in the series after Blue for the same reason as Blue himself, in that he's an unrepentant jackass for most of the game.
  • Low-Tier Letdown: Gameplay-wise, the Gen 2 starters in their debut generation are generally considered to be the worst set of starters in the franchise:
    • Feraligatr has solid stats and gets access to Ice Punch for valuable coverage, but has no secondary typing to get STAB off of, and most cripplingly, specializes in the Attack stat while Water is a Special type, making its offense with Water moves and the aformentioned Ice Punch quite weak due to its lacking Special Attack. It also has no access to boosting moves aside from the ubiqutous Curse to patch up its offensive shortcomings, and isn't bulky nor fast enough to shine in other roles, leaving it a Master of None. Huge buffs in later Gens, including gaining Swords Dance and Dragon Dance for boosting moves, the physical/special split in Gen 4 letting it use Water and Ice moves off its much better Attack stat, and getting Sheer Force as a hidden ability in Gen 6 to makes its offense even stronger, would turn it into a legitimately great Pokémon, but those coming to the Gen 2 games after having first played the later Gens are sure to find Feraligatr dissapointing in its debut.
    • Typhlosion' stat spread isn't bad, but suffers from having the same exact stats as Charizard, and unlike Charizard, it has no secondary typing to get STAB from (while also losing out on the very valuable Ground immunity that Zard has), nor has any access to boosting moves unlike Zard (who gets both Swords Dance and Belly Drum), severely limiting it in competitive play. For the single-player campaign, it gets limited by the Fire typing, with its weaknesses being plentiful and the Champion having an entire team that resists Typhlosion's STAB, while also being limited by the fact it'll have no access to a Fire move stronger than Fire Punch until deep into the postgame (Typhlosion doesn't learn Flamethrower until level 60 and there's no TM for it, while the Fire Blast TM is locked away as a very expensive prize from the Game Corner). Later Gens would buff it by letting it learn stronger Fire moves much sooner and giving it access to the extremely powerful Eruption to give it a niche in competitive play, turning it into a pretty decent Pokémon.
    • Meganium was actually the best of the Gen 2 starters competitively, being the only one of the three to see legitimate usage in Smogon's Gen 2 OU tier, as its good defensive stats, access to dual screens, and recovery in Synthesis gave it a niche as an effective Stone Wall support Pokémon in a notoriously defensive meta. For the single-player campaign however, it is widely regarded as the worst of the three; offense is much more valuable for single-player, and Meganium's offense just sucks, with mediocre offensive stats, no secondary typing to get STAB from just like the other Johto starters, and its strongest STAB move until the postgame being the 55 power Razor Leaf (with it not learning Solarbeam until level 61, which isn't even good with it neeing to spend a turn to charge, and not getting Giga Drain until you beat Erika, which itself is a mild upgrade over Razor Leaf at only 60 power). The Grass typing also infamously struggles in Johto, with it matching up poorly against most of Johto's boss trainers, leaving Meganium to rot on the sidelines doing nothing productive if you have it on your team. Tragically, while the other Gen 2 starters would get serious buffs to make them respectable or even great in later Gens, Meganium would be largely neglected by Game Freak and gain nothing worthwhile, leaving it just as bad for single-player in the Gen 4 remakes, and Power Creep would make it quickly tumble into irrelevance competitively, fueling Meganium's reputation among the fanbase as arguably the worst starter of all time.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Red, both in and out of universe. THE strongest trainer across the entire series at the time of release, surpassed by Barry in Platinum only to regain his throne come HGSS. The fandom almost unanimously has come to agree that if anyone goes up against Red, they don't stand a chance. Characters in-universe talk about his feats with a sort of awe, how a child from Pallet Town was able to take down Team Rocket, vanquish the Elite 4, and then... vanish without a trace.
    • Gym Leader Chuck, who demonstrates on-screen that he can lift up a boulder with relative ease and makes tossing rocks seem such a breeze. Bear in mind, the best any of your Pokémon can do is to push it one tile sideways, where he can lift it up, and then toss it two tiles away onto a statue!.
    • Lance, who is so good a dragon trainer, he can evolve Pokémon early and teach his Dragonite a move it normally can't even learn!note 
    • Youngster Joey's Rattata, remembered for his claimnote  that it in the top percentage of Rattatas (even after it evolves into Raticate), which he will happily tell you repeatedly on his many, many, many phone calls to you.
    • Kris is remembered for being the first female protagonist in the series. When she was replaced with Lyra in the remakes, fans claimed it was because she was too powerful to make the game a challenge.
    • Whitney's Miltank. Due to it being difficult for unprepared trainers, it has gained a reputation of being a terrifying being who only lives to see trainers' hopes and dreams smashed to smithereens.
  • Memetic Loser: The Mareep line, because it was a notable Electric-type for its availability in the early game of Gold and Silver, but was omitted from Crystal, the Updated Re-release that a lot of fans suggest playing more. Those who prefer Gold and Silver, or even its remakes, over Crystal jokingly justify that at least those games have Mareep, while others would argue that Mareep is worth sacrificing over the changes in Crystal.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Chuck was given Chuck Norris Facts-like status for a while.
    • Karen's line, "Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites," is used in parts of the fandom as a creed against things ranging from "Stop Having Fun" Guys, Tournament Play in general, or the tiering system used by Smogon.
    • "Are you a boy or a girl?" The Running Gag of Pokémon Professors (usually Oak) being unable to discern young men from young women was introduced in Crystal.
    • It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattata!
    • My Name Is ??? note 
    • ThisExplanation
  • Memetic Psychopath: Upon entering the Mahogany Town Souvenir Shop, before even getting the chance to elaborate that it's actually Team Rocket HQ, Lance proceeds to take out his Dragonite and use Hyper Beam on one of the workers. Said worker is never seen again after heading into Team Rocket HQ, leading the fandom to believe that Lance murdered a man in cold blood.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The high-pitched shrieking sound coming from a beam attack, especially HYPER BEAM!
    • The noise most Psychic-type moves make is particularly satisfying, especially Psychic itself! New games even brought it back because of this!
    • The opening notes to the Legendary Beasts battle theme when you encounter them in the wild. It also helps that the rest of the song is considered one of the best pieces of Awesome Music in the game already.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The opening in Crystal might just be the biggest Mind Screw in the franchise before the Arceus event in the remakes. The Last Note Nightmare, dramatically setting up The Reveal that never happens, and given that there's still no Mind Screwdriver to date despite the remakes, it's unlikely there will ever be one.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Due to Hoenn's focus on weather with their mascot legendaries, Castform, the villainous teams, weather-related abilites and the depiction of weather on the overworld, it is easy to forget that 3 out of 4 weather-inducing moves were introduced in this generation.
    • Thanks to Skarmory and Slugma being Metal Slimes in these games (as well as absent from Gold and exclusive to Kanto respectively), it's not to hard to find people who have either mistaken them for being introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (where they were more common), or still do.
    • Some of the younger players are unaware that a number of features that Pokémon Diamond and Pearl made standard were actually introduced in the second generation, such as the day/night cycle or online play (although the later was exclusive to Japanese Crystal, as it made use of a peripheral that connected the game to mobile phones, which weren't nearly as widespread outside of Asia back in the day). Some also mistakenly assume Kanto to be an addition by the GSC remakes (like the Sevii Islands in the RGB remakes), when it was already present in the originals.
    • Many years before the Global Trade System allowed you to leave a Pokémon on the internet to be traded for a requested Pokémon, as well as browse trade requests already up, Crystal's Pokémon Communication Center allowed players to do all that on the Game Boy Colour. But only if they were Japanese; Western fans would have to wait a few more years.
  • Once Original, Now Common: Many of Generation II’s innovations – an expanded Pokédex, significant postgame content, and numerous references to the original Kanto games, among others – have become old hat since and are now part of the established formula.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Misty's boyfriend, despite being shown in one scene for about 10 seconds, left a lasting impact on fans thanks to his skittish personality, making him prime material for fanfics.
  • Polished Port: The Virtual Console rerelease of Crystal is identical to the original, but with one key difference: the GS Ball, previously Temporary Online Content (and Japan-exclusive), becomes available after defeating the Elite Four. This not only means Celebi can now be legitimately caught and transferred to Gen VII games no matter the time period, but it's also the first time Celebi's shiny palette is legitimately available in games post-Gen III.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • It's common knowledge that people hate Zubat. They're annoying, they're everywhere, and in Gen I, it was one of the worst Pokémon in the game to use yourself. Its evolution Golbat was hardly any better, with bad stats, a terrible movepool, and a part-Poison typing that made it a liability in a meta dominated by the broken Psychic-type, making it one of the worst fully-evolved Pokémon in the game. Gen II, however, gave it another evolution in Crobat, which is much stronger, and much, much, much faster, while it also got improved farther from the line getting a better movepool and the Poison-type being improved from other types' rebalancing like the Psychic type being nerfed. Sure, Zubat is still annoying as hell, but thanks to Gold and Silver, it became a very viable choice for a good Flying and Poison type in your team and Crobat would become one of the more popular Gen II Pokémon, including getting 11th place among the Johto Pokémon in the 2019 Pokémon Of The Year votes.
    • Onix was infamous for being a very intimidating-looking Pokémon with laughably bad stats, including a base Attack stat lower than what many first stage Pokémon had, and being so easily countered on top of those horrible stats. Gen II would give it a desperately-needed evolution in Steelix, that not only has really souped up stats, but also had its Rock typing replaced with the new Steel typing, giving it fewer weaknesses and a whole lot more resistances to make it work much better as a physical wall.
    • The Seadra line was among the most forgettable Pokémon in the game, having thoroughly mediocre stats and a poor movepool that gave it nothing to stand out among the sea of Gen I's overabundant Water types. In Gen II, it gained a new evolution in Kingdra, which besides improving its stats made it part Dragon-type, significantly improving its viability and giving it something to really stand out from other Water types.
    • Scyther in Gen I was pretty horrible despite its good stats, having a terrible movepool that only included Normal attacking moves in Red/Blue and only gaining the very weak 35 power Wing Attack for any STAB in Yellow, while its Bug/Flying typing gave it a ton of very exploitable weaknesses. Gen II would give it an evolution in Scizor; though it had the same base stat total with just redistributed stats, its Flying-type was replaced with the Steel typing that resulted in it gaining one of the best defensive typings in the game, shooting its viability up a ton even with a still-poor movepool. As the series went on, both Scyther and Scizor would get their movepool issue fixed and Scizor would become a consistent mainstay in competitive play. Scizor even scored 5th place among the Johto Pokémon in the 2019 Pokémon Of The Year votes, cementing its status as one of the most popular Gen II Pokémon.
    • Porygon was an infamous Junk Rare in the Gen I games that was only obtainable as a Game Corner prize for a ludicrous amount of coins, taking way more effort to get than it was worth with its exceedingly poor Master of None stats. In Gen II, it gained an evolution in Porygon2 to give it a much-needed all-around stat buff to make it an actually viable Pokémon, and even with the Porygon line gaining a new evolution in Porygon Z in Gen IV, Porygon2 has remained good enough to stand as a viable Pokémon in some tiers of competitive play.
    • The Marowak line was a Master of None Ground type in Gen I that was outright worse than every other Ground type in some way due to its very poor stats and only having an above-average Defense, with even the aforementioned Onix being better. Gen II didn't give it a new evolution, but instead gave it an exclusive held item in the Thick Club, which when held by Cubone or Marowak, doubles their Attack. With the Thick Club, Marowak would become the Pokémon with the highest Attack stat in the game, a title it still holds to this day outside a couple Mega Evolutions with attack-doubling abilities, giving it actual viable use and something to stand out from other Ground types with.
  • Sacred Cow:
    • Both the original Johto games and the remakes are treated as this by the fandom, as they hold a lot of appeal to old-school fans who disliked later generations, but are also viewed with less disdain than Gen I among said newer fans for not suffering as heavily from Hype Backlash. Many fans loudly hold them up as the greatest and most infallible games in the series outside of a few Vocal Minority factions, the remakes slightly more so for being bigger and less dated than the GBC originals.
    • Many of the more popular Pokémon of this generation are very well-regarded, but unlike other similarly popular Pokémon such as Charizard, Pikachu, Lucario and (to a lesser extent) Mewtwo, they haven't undergone Hype Backlash due to being overmarketed and / or having an overzealous fanbase, and are therefore treated as impossible to criticize. Lugia is one of the strongest examples, as it's often a top 5 Pokémon in popularity polls but isn't stereotyped as being worshipped by nostalgic fans the way Charizard is.
  • Scrappy Weapon: The Custom Balls made by Kurt; first they were very cumbersome to actually obtain, as you would have to find Apricorns to take to him and wait a whole real world day for him to make the Custom Balls (when you could just go buy a bunch of Great and Ultra Balls whenever). To make things worse, in Gold/Silver he could only make one at a time (Crystal and the remakes fortunately let you give multiples of the same Apricorn color to him to make multiples of the same Custom Ball in a day), and then some of them didn't even work properly due to improper coding. Thankfully, they all work as they're intended to in the remakes.
    • Love Balls only worked properly against same-gendered Pokémon of the same species as yours, instead of the opposite.
    • Fast Balls state in-game that they are better at catching "fast" Pokémon, meaning Pokémon that flee from battle. In practice (due to improper coding), they only work properly against Magnemite, Tangela, and Grimer, when there are several other Pokémon that can flee (including the Legendary Beasts, whose entire schtick is fleeing battles).
    • Moon Balls are supposed to work better against Moon Stone-compatible families, but instead don't work as intended at all: within the coding, it is apparently effective against Pokémon that evolve with a Burn Heal. Since obviously no pokemon evolves via a Burn Heal this makes them functionally identical to a normal Poké Ball in all circumstances.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Friendship-based evolutions. Instead of just slogging through the Elite Four a few times with an Experience Share to evolve a Pokémon, you need to use them and do things that increase invisible friendship points, such as spending money on very expensive vitamins, frequenting barbers in Goldenrod City, or using them in battle a lot without them fainting. This is especially difficult with Eevee when you're trying to get Espeon/Umbreon, due to being a weak Pokémon with a limited movepool if you wanted to attempt the latter.
    • Roaming legendaries. Hard to catch and even harder to find (they don't show up in the Pokédex until you've stumbled upon them once, and even then they tend to run away when you're close to them), getting them is very much a Luck-Based Mission. It's even worse in Crystal, since you need to catch all of them (though thankfully Suicune doesn't flee once you finally track it down) to even make Ho-Oh appear. Thankfully, unlike in later generations and the remakes, statuses that prevent moves from being used such as sleep and paralysis do prevent them from fleeing, so no sleep-running Entei.
    • As if roaming legendaries are not enough, several rare Pokémon in the wild such as Heracross, Delibird and Dratini tend to flee as well. Not to mention Pokémon like Teddiursa and Phanpy where Crystal moved them to be catchable in early game Johto areas (Violet City side of Dark Cave and Route 46 respectively), yet they have an egregious 50% chance to flee. This is to promote the Fast Ball, which quadruples the catch rate when used on Pokémon that can flee... but due to a glitch it only works on Magnemite, Grimer, and Tangela, rendering the Fast Ball near-useless in practice.
    • The Pokégear could be used to record trainers' numbers, allowing for rematches and useful information... but most of the time, the trainers simply called you to tell you about irrelevant personal news like failing to capture a Pidgey. And you had to listen to the stupid message. The phone calls being random, infrequent and beyond your control make matters much worse. The remakes at least offer you the chance to ignore the call by picking something else on the menu or entering a different area.
    • The levels that wild Pokémon can be found at are some of the lowest in the series, and some of the trainers have low-leveled Pokémon, too. This means newly-caught Pokémon can take a while before becoming useful and makes Level Grinding a pain (especially for stone-based evolutions whose best moves come at high levels; Growlithe, for example, learns Flamethrower at level 50 and can't get it as Arcanine outside of TMs). Even worse, Red has the highest-leveled team in the series outside of Battle Institutes.
    • The freedom to go anywhere after Ecruteak City was frowned upon for being the reason that the Johto journey up to the eighth badge got saddled with such a poor leveling-curve. The sad part is that this problem remained in the remakes.
    • Some people were not a fan of several Johto Pokémon, such as Larvitar, Slugma, Houndour, Misdreavus, Murkrow, and (pre-Crystal) Sneasel, being restricted to the Kanto post-game. Clefairy, Diglett, Chansey, Snorlax, and Aerodactyl were also restricted to the Kanto post-game, which was an odd case for Chansey given that the Pokémon had a new Johto evolution in Blissey. While the remakes allow Misdreavus, Murkrow, and Larvitar to be obtained at the Johto Safari Zone without blocks, and Slugma to be obtained from an egg, the fix is countered with the addition of the Kanto starters, fossils, and legendaries note  to the mix (in particular, the Kanto starters can only be obtained after defeating Red, well past any point where they can be useful in-game).
    • Trade evolutions, already something of a Scrappy Mechanic in Gen I, were given an added annoying wrinkle in Gen II: all the new ones required the Pokémon to be holding a specific rare item to evolve if traded.
    • The Game Corner was never popular, but skill means even less as coming close to getting a row of 7s results in the machine outright cheating in many ways to make the last wheel keep moving, just to ensure you don't get the win. The Awesome, but Impractical Fire Blast, Blizzard, and Thunder TMs are only available through the Game Corner, and cost 5,500 coins each. After beating the Elite Four in Crystal, you can also learn Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt from someone outside... but only on certain days, and for 4,000 coins, and once per day. Suffice to say, the Fire/Ice/Thunder Punch TMs from the Department Store are more practical options for normal playthroughs.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop:
    • Whitney, Morty, Clair, and Lance aside, these are in many ways the easiest Pokémon games — simply because it's very, very easy to level up just your starter and solo the game with it. In contrast to the previous games which often delivered sudden level spikes, this game overcompensated by being very reluctant to throw any Pokémon at the player above Level 40 until the very end. Even despite Jasmine (the sixth Gym Leader) having Pokémon that are all higher leveled than Pryce's (the seventh gym Leader) and using Steel-types, she's still somewhat of an Anti-Climax Boss simply because your Pokémon may be way, way overleveled and can simply overwhelm them with the level bonus to damage calculation. And once getting into Kanto, only the Gym Leaders can pose any kind of challenge, and even then, Blue's the only one that's at a respectable enough high-level team.
    • In Crystal, some of the Ice Path puzzles are a tad more streamlined to not be as confusing or annoying as they were in Gold/Silver. The large skating puzzle in the first room has fewer rocks to bounce around, and in the following room where you need to drop Strength boulders down holes, you no longer have to go all the way around the room to push the first boulder drop from the other side.
  • Signature Scene: Without a doubt, finding Red on top of Mt. Silver and the ensuing battle. It's become one of the most iconic moments in the entire series.
  • That One Boss:
    • Whitney. Her Clefairy is for the most part is easy to deal with, but the same cannot be said for her infamous Miltank. It has Rollout, a Rock-type attack that gets stronger every consecutive turn it connects, and lasts up to five turnsnote . At this stage in the game, Rollout can gradually put the hurt on pretty much anything, even if it resists Rock. Miltank also knows Attract, which can infatuate male Pokémon and give them a 50% chance of not attacking every turn, Stomp, a strong STAB attack with a chance of causing flinching, and Milk Drink to restore health. Adding to that is that Miltank is surprisingly fast and has enough bulk to give most physical attackers pause.
    • Clair's ace is Kingdra, a dual-typed Water/Dragon Pokémon. It's only weak against Dragon-type moves, which you are unlikely to have at this point (especially since the only Dragon-type Pokémon obtainable without trading is the Dragonite line). Kingdra is packing some serious heat in the form of Surf, Dragon Breath, and Hyper Beam — and it has the stats to use those as well. Her Dragonair aren't as bad, but they come packing Thunder Wave, which will leave you slow and thus open to her Kingdra's antics.
    • Champion Lance has 6 Pokémon which all know the super-powerful Hyper Beam. His team consists of 3 under-leveled Dragonite, one of which has Outrage, which will easily take out most of your team unless you happen to have a then-rare Steel type (only 5 fully-evolved Steel Pokémon existed in Generation II; one is a version-exclusive, two of the others are item trade evos where said item is difficult to obtain until the post-gamenote , and one (Forretress) is a rather underwhelming Bug-type). They also know Thunder Wave, so chances are you'll be the slower one. His Aerodactyl is super-fast and has the flinch-inducing Rock Slide (which it can't even learn in this generation!). Gyarados and Charizard will be the least of your troubles, but even they are quite annoying.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • The Lavender Town music. It's a peaceful town after the Pokémon Tower was converted into a radio tower, so it sounds much chirpier than the original. Despite the in-story reason for it sounding happy, people still are divided on whether it's good or not.
    • Speaking of Lavender Town, the Pokémon Tower graveyard being converted into a radio tower was widely thought to be in poor taste. The graves were relocated to a new site, but seriously.
    • Kanto as a whole suffers from this trope, with several areas of interest either inaccessible or flat-out gone. The remakes provide a much more faithful representation of the region as it originally was, including the Kanto legendaries and their respective dungeons (which were, respectively, unobtainable and inaccessible in Gen II).
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • The Ruins of Alph. The puzzles in the ruins hint at an ancient civilization which built them and left secret messages hidden within... but almost nothing comes of this, and the ruins don't play a role in the games' story. The only reason for the player to visit them is to catch Natu, Smeargle, and the 26/28 shapes of Unown; aside from that and a few hidden items in Crystal and the remakes, they have very little to offer. The remakes did add an additional event to them where you can obtain a level 1 Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina, but it requires an event Arceus, so it's no longer accessible.
    • Team Rocket has secretly been researching how to use radio waves to force Pokémon to evolve and send them into a furious rage. After you defeat them and shoo them out of their current hideout, they take over the Goldenrod City Radio Tower, and use it to broadcast to Giovanni to come back and lead them again. However, there's an obvious link between these ideas — what if Team Rocket had taken over the radio tower to broadcast their signal? Imagine the terror and danger that would have been posed by Team Rocket holding all of Johto hostage by threatening to broadcast their evolution signal across the region and send Pokémon everywhere into a frenzy. However, Team Rocket shows no real interest or even awareness of this idea beyond a couple of their scientists musing it may be possible for them to do it.
  • Tough Act to Follow:
    • Generation II improved GREATLY from the first games, and despite Generation III and the D/P/Pt games being more advanced with extra features, they suffer from this trope; in fact, the series was originally slated to end at Gen II because the games were so hard to top, but the cash just kept rolling in and the rest is history. The remakes, on the other hand, are generally agreed to have surpassed the originals.
    • While the Starter Pokémon and Legendaries were wildly popular (and continue to be so), they didn't quite match the beloved, iconic status of the Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle lines and Mewtwo, respectively. As those Pokémon are unavailable in Gold, Silver and Crystal, some fans of the Just Here for Godzilla variety prefer the Gen I games (as shown by popularity polls), despite Gen II being very widely regarded as an Even Better Sequel. HeartGold and SoulSilver rectify this by making all the Kanto starters and legendaries available in-game, although the starters typically aren't of much use since they can only be obtained after defeating Red.
  • Trolling Creator:
    • The first gym of the game is Flying-type. So the obvious answer is an Electric-type, right? Even the guy at the gym tells you to use Electric types. There isn't a way to get one before Violet City without trading, though. So what is a kid to do? Well, use a Rock-type, of course! Have no fear, because a guy just down the street will trade you a rare Onix and only asks for a super-common Bellsprout in return! This seems perfect... until you find out that Onix does not learn a Rock-type move until level 16 (well above the levels of the Gym Leader's Pokémon) but, being a traded Pokémon, will not listen to you once it reaches level 11. You can catch Geodude in Dark Cave, which learn Rock Throw at a more reasonable level 11, so that's still not a huge problem... but Falker's signature move is Mud-Slap, a Ground-type move that is super-effective against Rock-types AND lowers accuracy, which makes the somewhat-inaccurate Rock Throw that both Geodude and Onix can learn even less reliable. To top it all off, you can finally catch an Electric-type Mareep on Route 32, right after you get past the NPC Roadblock that the gym badge opened up.
    • One of the Fighting-type's exploitable weaknesses is Flying. There's not many powerful Flying-types moves readily available before Chuck's Fighting gym, but his wife will give you the HM for Fly, which is a pretty strong move. The catch is that she won't hand it over until you have already defeated the gym (though at least it lets you get back to Olivine City quickly, as well as anywhere else you've already been).
    • Jynx cannot learn the powerful move Psychic by level, and the 'TM' for it is all the way in Saffron City. You can breed for a Smoochum that evolves in to Jynx at level 30, or can hold off to learn Psychic at level 37, but it cannot learn Lovely Kiss, one of the best moves in the game. Jynx, on the other hand, only learns Lovely Kiss at level... 25. You can have a Jynx with Lovely Kiss but without access to Psychic until Saffron City, or you can breed a Smoochum that learns Psychic but will never be able to learn Lovely Kiss. Pick your poison.
    • One of Kurt's custom Poké Balls (that is actually coded properly for once) is the Friend ball, which makes pokemon caught in them start with a much higher friendship, making evolving via friendship a snap. Except of the 8 pokemon in Gen II that evolve via friendship, only 2 of them, Zubat/Golbat and Chansey, can be caught in the wild.
  • Ugly Cute: Snubbull and Granbull. Dunsparce as well, being a weird snake thing.
  • Underused Game Mechanic:
    • Gold and Silver played around with the idea of being allowed to journey in multiple directions after departing from Ecruteak City. However, the poor leveling curve that resulted in low-level Pokémon in whichever side the player chose to save for later ended up doing more harm than good.
    • The post-game content of Gold and Silver where the player heads off to Kanto to see that region's timeline updated several years after Red's adventure was a great way to extend the Pokémon endgame. Yet apart from the HeartGold and SoulSilver remakes, this was the only generation to do such an extension.
    • The Dark- and Steel-types, despite being among the most publicized new features in the game, are barely used. There are only six Pokémon of each new type, few of them can be obtained until near (or after) the end of the game without trading, and few trainers use them. They are treated more like Secret Characters than the major shift in game balance that they were supposed to be. Furthermore, Dark and Steel moves, on top of being rare, are both mediocre offensively. Amongst the Dark-type moves, only Crunch has respectable enough power and accuracy to be used at high level. Meanwhile for Steel, Iron Tail and Steel Wing tend to be frowned upon due to their mediocre accuracy, which just leaves it the rather weak Metal Claw to work with. Another bit of a missed opportunity is that none of the Kanto Pokémon were retconned to being part Dark-type, with the Ekans, Oddish, and Gastly lines usually being seen as the most worthy candidates. This is further exemplified by the fact that Karen, a Dark-type specialist, has Vileplume and Gengar on her Elite Four team.
    • The friendship mechanic was introduced in these games (after Yellow had a precursor that applied only to the starting Pikachu), which is a hidden stat that indicates how much a Pokémon likes you. However its actual effects are very limited; gameplay-wise it is only used for two things: determining the base power of the moves Return and Frustration (the former being stronger the higher the Pokémon's friendship value is, the latter being the opposite), and a handful of Pokémon requiring a high friendship value to evolve. On top of that, there is nothing that indicates how much a Pokémon likes you, aside from the animation of Return/Frustration and a specific NPC that tells you. Future generations wouldn't do much to address this, until Gen VIII tied in-battle bonuses to having high friendship (which were taken from the similar-but-separate affection mechanic tied to Pokémon-Amie and Pokémon Refresh in the prior two Gens).
  • Unexpected Character: The novelty has been lost in the decades since the games' release, but Lance's return happens completely out of the blue.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Bugsy is a guy, folks. This is lampshaded during his appearance in the Pokémon Adventures manga, in which Gold (Ethan's counterpart in that manga) mistakes him for a girl until Bugsy points out that he's a guy. Doesn't help that his team in the remakes is all female, and that he's referred to as female in an official strategy guide.
    • Many gamers confused Silver for a girl in the early days thanks to his shoulder-length red hair. In his original battle sprite, his jacket could also be mistaken for a Little Black Dress.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The battle graphics have some truly beautiful color cycling and sprite distortion effects, otherwise unheard of in an 8-bit game. Not even sprite animations in Emerald could match the dynamic animation in Crystal.
  • The Woobie:
    • Jasmine is remarkably put-upon in-game; she's quite embarrassed when you find her at the all-you-can-eat diner, and Erika seems out to make her look foolish during the latter's off-time.
    • Blaine. His entire island of Cinnabar was burned down by a volcano, and he had to move his Gym to a small cave in one of the Seafoam Islands all alone. Alleviated in HGSS though, as he now has trainers under his stead and the cave is retrofitted.
    • The final Rocket Grunt, who is stuck running a one-man operation to disrupt things in Kanto because he hasn't heard about Team Rocket disbanding again yet.
  • Woolseyism: Clair's Japanese name means "breath," and is a pun on her TM move, Dragonbreath. This is why when she gives it to you she says "no, it has nothing to do with my breath". The joke is kept in the English version, instead changing the meaning to her having bad breath.

    Gen IV: HeartGold and SoulSilver 
  • Abandon Shipping: For the undoubtedly small contingent of the fanbase that shipped Lance and Clair, it is now undoubtedly smaller due to the revelation that they're cousins.
  • Accidental Innuendo: Any time Kurt gives you the custom Poké Balls, due to most of them having innuendo-ish names. "Kurt gave you the Friend Balls!" "Kurt gave you the Heavy Balls!" "Kurt gave you the Love Balls!"
  • Adorkable: As NPCs, Ethan/Lyra will often coo over how cute their Marill or other Pokémon are acting, and get pretty emotional easily. It's very endearing.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Despite being an event-exclusive boss, Giovanni only has four Pokémon ranging from Level 40 to 46 — if you got past the Elite Four, and you almost certainly have by the time you get to him, you'll have no trouble at all.
    • Mewtwo is surprisingly not very hard to deal with due to its moveset at Level 70. Half of the time it'll waste turns with Power Swap and Guard Swap (steals your Status Buffs, but if you're trying to catch it, you're not going to use moves like Swords Dance) and its only offensive move is Psycho Cut, which runs off its weaker Attack stat and can’t harm any Dark-type (meaning it can’t even touch a humble Houndour).
  • Broken Base: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Casual-Competitive Conflict: Violently so, unlike the originals, as the competitive scene began to truly launch during the fourth generation.
  • Even Better Sequel: To the Sinnoh games, as well as FireRed and LeafGreen. After the far more well-received Platinum in the wake of Diamond and Pearl, HeartGold and SoulSilver add more content, more legendaries, more Pokémon to catch, a refined plot, a kickass soundtrack that redoes some of the best themes in the series and does them justice, and finally, FINALLY, bring back a fan-favorite region. While the debate rages on for a franchise as huge as Pokémon, HeartGold and SoulSilver are considered by some to be the most well-liked games in the entire series for their blend of innovation and nostalgia, while other games would lean too heavily on one or the other - even for different parts of the game.
  • Fanon:
    • Ariana is commonly thought to be Silver's mother due to their matching hairstyles, hair color, and affiliation with Team Rocket.
    • Silver's new hairstyle making him look like a younger Roark has sparked theories that they are related or even the same person. By extension, Ariana being Roark's mother and Byron's ex-wife/ex-girlfriend is also a theory, though less common.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Though Lyra is paired with many people, Silver is by far the most popular to put with her.
    • Lyra with Red, Blue, or Lance is very prominent in fanart.
    • Perhaps because of the similarities in their hometowns, Morty/Falkner gained quite a following, and is sometimes ship mates with Bugsy/Whitney.
    • Janine/Falkner is moderately popular, and is occasionally accompanied by Whitney/Morty.
    • Some people have taken a small but consistent liking to Morty/Sabrina. Mysterious psychic gym leaders associated with 'creepy' Pokémon, hmm.
    • Morty (noticing a pattern here?) is also very commonly shipped with his old buddy Eusine.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: Silver rips off the player character's clothes at one point. Granted, it was because he couldn't stand to see them wearing Team Rocket's uniform and the player character still has their usual clothes on underneath, but still...
  • Game-Breaker: If you trade a certain Movie Arceus from a Pokémon Diamond and Pearl save to this game as soon as possible, you can get the legendary Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina of your choice and with your OT before the first Gym.
  • Goddamned Boss: Ho-Oh in SoulSilver and Lugia in HeartGold, at least from a catching perspective. Three of their four moves are VERY powerful, but have 5 PP each. The fourth? Safeguard, which prevents Status conditions. This means that not only is inflicting status problems, a key element in capturing Legendaries, likely off the table (once the other three moves are depleted, they'll spam Safeguard), but also both Legendaries have a mere 40 turns' worth of moves before they'll be reduced to Struggle, which will finish them off.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Check the main page.
  • Hype Backlash: While the Hype Backlash hasn't been as severe as with the originals, HGSS have been catching some heat years after their release, especially because the contested nature of the Gen VI games has somewhat vindicated other gens in the fandom's eyes, namely Gens III and V, and caused the typical Fandom Rivalry between generations. Namely, while the remakes fix many of the issues the originals had while introducing new content, many have noted that the remakes still suffer from a lot same issues that hurt the originals such as poor availability of Johto's Pokémon, heavy reliance on Kanto Pokémon for the first half of the game, questionable level curves, having the same simplistic plot as the original Johto games, and the Kanto post-game still being relatively lacking.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Apart from a few notable exceptions, such as Pryce's team getting buffed up 3 levels, they still didn't fix the low-level curve after departing from Ecruteak City, a primary criticism that plagued GSC. At the very least, the Kanto journey after completing the Elite Four has more appropriate levels.
  • It's the Same, So It Sucks:
    • As mentioned in It's Easy, So It Sucks!, the low-level curve still existing after Ecruteak City was a huge disappointment for many returning players.
    • While Slugma could now be hatched from an egg that's rewarded by Primo at the Violet City Pokémon Center, and three other former postgame Johto Pokémon note  could be caught prior to the Elite Four in specific areas of the Johto Safari Zone, some fans were not pleased that the Johto Pokémon Houndour and Sneasel were still restricted to the post-game Kanto just like in the original GSC.
    • This applies to some Kanto Pokémon that aren't obtainable anywhere in Johto, such as Clefairy, Diglett, Chansey, and Snorlax all while some of them are being teased heavily by the Johto trainers. Not being able to get Chansey in particular for Johto is an odd one given that its evolution, Blissey, was introduced in the original games.
    • For those who were hoping that a faithfully updated Kanto would have some expanded story content this time around apart from the mission to retrieve the stolen Power Plant part from a last remaining Team Rocket member, not much else was tweaked.
    • The remakes were a perfect opportunity to fix up the Johto gym leader teams to have more Pokémon from the region they're in. However, apart from a few level and moveset changes, and one of Clair's Dragonair being replaced with a Gyarados, the teams stayed the same.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Silver, after details concerning his childhood come to light.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Lyra has been paired with pretty much every single male character she's shared a sentence with. Some of the more popular ships include Lyra/Silver, Lyra/Ethan, Lyra/Lance, Lyra/Eusine, Lyra/Morty, Lyra/Petrel and Lyra/Proton.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Red already was one in the original games, but his appearance in this game kicks it up a notch further. While Steven Stone had taken the "Most Powerful Trainer In The Series" title in Emerald and was succeeded by Barry in Platinum, Red took it back here, which added fuel to the fire when it came to fans' belief that Red would never let anyone be better than him. Just look at some of his fanart, it screams "badass"!
    • While Kris was already one as well, the use of Lyra in her place catapulted her even higher, with many fans who think she was outright replaced thinking it was only fair because Kris was too powerful for the game to be any fun.
  • Memetic Molester:
    • Lyra, especially concerning the (graphic) "Lyra Raped My Poor Quilava" copypasta.
    • Silver's stripping scene. Silver, hating Team Rocket is not a good excuse for stripping people. Not that the fandom has any problem with it, though.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Joey's Ratatta is (still) in the top percentage of Rattata!
    • Silver tearing off Lyra's Team Rocket shirt has been the subject of much artwork and shipping.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Arceus event in Sinjoh Ruins. In context, Arceus is distorting molecules of matter to create an egg that births either Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina, which is awesome on its own merits, but the presentation of the process is downright unnerving. From a closeup on Arceus' face that puts emphasis on his glowing eye, to the floor pattern showing up piece-by-piece, to the overwhelming drums and Scare Chords in Arceus' theme music, the entire event builds itself on how eerie it is. Even the stock images in the background, while it may seem silly that photos were likely pulled from Google Images to be used in the game, the display of real-world imagery in a Pokémon game only adds to how unnatural the process is.
  • Older Than They Think: The choice of palette for Misty's new look actually has precedent—Ken Sugimori produced a new set of gym leader mugshots for the Gold and Silver era Pokemon VS series of the trading card game; instead of using the white and orange palette from the games, Sugimori rendered GSC-era Misty with a a blue jacket and white swimsuit.
  • Padding: The Team Rocket uniform sequence. You find you can't go in the tower, so you get the uniform, go back to the tower, and then your rival takes the uniform off, making the entire sequence wholly extraneous to the plot/gameplay.
  • Remade and Improved: One of the best examples in the Pokémon franchise. All Pokémon in the Johto Dex are now available (and even some beyond), many quality-of-life features were added that are considered some of the best in the series, and many postgame quests and facilities were added, including the Battle Frontier from Platinum.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Rule of Fun: Every Pokémon in the game can walk behind you, even Water type mons that clearly shouldn't be able to physically walk on land (i.e Wailord and Seaking).
  • Sacred Cow: The games are widely considered to be this, with the fantastic reception that they got upon release only becoming stronger with time. One might be able to criticize the original Gold and Silver for being dated, or Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 for the bizarre and arbitrary design of its bonus features, but say anything bad about HeartGold and SoulSilver and the fandom will eat you for breakfast.
  • Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic:
    • The New Pokédex in Gold and Silver included the Kanto starters, fossils, and legendaries, but they were unobtainable in-game except for Aerodactyl, making it a weird example of a regional Dex that required trading from a previous generation in order to complete (not to mention the popularity of the Pokémon that were excluded). HeartGold and SoulSilver keep them in the Johto Dex, but have them available at various points during the Kanto post-game, complete with full dungeons for the legendaries.
    • The version of Kanto in Gold and Silver was seen as a big draw, but was also considered disappointing and limited by some players for omitting many of the region's landmarks (including the aforementioned dungeons for the bird trio and Mewtwo) and for being pathetically easy. The HGSS version of Kanto re-adds many features from the Kanto games to provide for a more complete second region, and makes the average trainers more than just distractions.
    • A major criticism of FireRed and LeafGreen was that they actively blocked the user from using any Pokémon outside of the original 150 for the main game, and prevented trading with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire until late in the postgame. HeartGold and SoulSilver allow for free trading and communication with the Sinnoh games right from the start, and even add a few Sinnoh evolutions of Kanto and Johto Pokémon to the Dex.
    • Swarm Pokémon are comparatively easier to get in the remakes. In the original, you'd have to have the phone number of certain Trainers, who would call to notify the player of outbreaks of certain Pokémon that usually have a very low encounter rate, like Dunsparce and Yanma. This was annoying due to how unreliable calls were and the fact that you were limited to only 10 phone numbers in the Pokégear. In the remake, the player instead has to listen to Professor Oak's Pokémon Talk, and even includes other hard-to-catch Pokémon like Chansey and Ditto. Unfortunately, the remakes have it so that swarms will only be mentioned after obtaining the National Dex, meaning that beating the Elite Four is a requirement. Still, it beats the more tedious method in the original.
    • The Custom Pokéballs made by Kurt were strongly disliked in the original, not only due to the tedious method of obtaining themnote  but many of the Custom Balls didn't even work properly due to faulty coding.note  The remake thankfully fixed these issues, with players being able to obtain multiple Balls in a day and the Balls themselves now work as intended.
    • While it suffered greatly from Guide Dang It!, the reintroduction of the Safari Zone in the remakes allowed players to get their hands on certain Pokémon that could only be found late in the game in the original, such as Larvitar and Houndour.
    • These games let you use the Pal Park multiple times a day, as opposed to the original versions of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum where you could only use the park once a day.
  • Salvaged Story: In the original games, your rival randomly decides to tell you his name after your first battle, even though he's supposed to be keeping a low profile after stealing a Pokémon from Elm's lab. Here, you instead find it out when he drops his trainer card.
  • The Scrappy: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • While phone calls can be ignored and there are no longer limits on how many numbers you can store in the Pokégear, those numbers cannot be deleted, period. Other glaring issues with the Pokégear, such as low calling rate for NPCs that matter, are carried over from the originals too.
    • Despite the numerous improvements to the game, they still didn't and (because of game design) couldn't remove the low level curve, which was the one persistent criticism the Johto games faced.
    • The game doesn't tell you that you can call trainers and ask for rematches. Also, if you're in the timeframe they are ready for a rematch, you can beat them, go off screen, call for a rematch, and fight again just like before. The only conundrum here is remembering what time to be there by — there's a lot of trainers, all with specific windows available for battle.
    • The lack of area-based evolutions, despite the obvious candidates for the areas in Kanto and Johto (Viridian or Ilex Forest for Leafeon, Ice Path or Seafoam Islands for Glaceon, the grass outside the Power Plant for Magneton and Nosepass). HGSS players have no choice but to obtain them from the Sinnoh games.
    • The low payouts for Pokéathlon, made worse by the slowness of the events themselves making it tedious to farm points. It doesn't help that Pokéathlon is the only reliable source to get the elemental stones before beating the Elite Four. Otherwise you have to rely on the Pokégear calls from certain trainers, who call randomly and tend to talk about irrelevant matters instead of giving the stones.
    • Voltorb Flip. While there is a sizeable portion of fans who like the game, there are notable flaws. For starters, it's fairly common for some board layouts to boil down to luck rather than logic or skill, which jeopardizes your progress and can send you down a few levels, back into lower payouts. The payouts starting small but getting bigger as you level up also leads to a hefty grind for the 9,999-coin Porygon or 10,000+-coin TMs. Finally, there's the lack of an option to simply buy the coins with regular currency like in previous games. Of course, none of this is helped by this game replacing the fan-favorite Card-Flip and Slot Machine games to comply with the stricter PEGI ratings.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: Compared to Diamond & Pearl, these games are still notably easier due to the level curve post-Ecruteak City. However, despite the simpler level curve, a few changes were made to result in...
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: Many additions that weren't in the originals like Abilities and the Physical/Special split make many of the fights harder:
    • Falkner is significantly stronger than in the original game. His Pidgeotto is several levels higher and now knows Roost, a move that allows it to recover half of its HP.
    • Whitney's Miltank now has the ability Scrappy (allows Normal-type moves to hit Ghost-types) and holds a Lum Berry (cures it of a status ailment one time).
    • Morty's Gengar can now use Shadow Ball off of its high Special Attack stat (in the originals, it worked off of its unimpressive Attack), while the Levitate ability gives it an immunity to Ground it didn't have back then.
    • All of the trainers in Kanto have had their levels buffed up a considerable amount, including the Gym Leaders.
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Many western fans will admit that they've invested a lot of hours into Voltorb Flip, not just because of the Game Corner mechanics living vicariously through it, but also due to it being a genuinely fun Minesweeper clone.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: Clair, who is infamous for her arrogance and failure to comply to Gym regulations, is mocked by several other characters, including other Gym Leaders.
  • That One Boss:
    • Whitney returns in this game as savage as ever. While neither of her two Pokémon have changed much in terms of movesets and both of them are one level lower than in GSC, both have received pretty gnarly upgrades. Her Clefairy has Cute Charm, giving it a chance to infatuate any male Pokémon that touches her; if you don't have any good female or genderless Pokémon, your team's probably going to have some issues with being Distracted by the Sexy. Plus, if you can't knock her down in one fell swoop, she will keep spamming Minimize to (literally) shrink your chances of ever hitting her. And after tiring you out, you'll find out her Miltank received a double upgrade: most notably, she now has received the ability "Scrappy" (how appropriate) which allows her to hit Ghost-types with Normal-type attacks, and a Lum Berry as a held item, which will negate the first status ailment you inflict upon her.
    • Morty's battle was hard but fair in GSC, but HG/SS kicks up the ante immensely. His Gengar was already strong, with STAB Shadow Ball, Hypnosis to put you to sleep, Dream Eater to Life Drain sleeping Mons, and Mean Look to prevent switching out. This game improved it even further, with Levitate turning its Ground weakness into an immunity, and Shadow Ball running off Gengar's monstrous Special Attack instead of its inferior Attack, meaning that just about anything that doesn't resist it will be floored in one hit, or have most of their health blasted off. Its other two weaknesses are either easy to counter (Psychic-types are screwed with the presence of Shadow Ball) or very scarce (the then-rare Dark-types are mostly unavailable until the very late stages of the game).
    • Chuck, in contrast to the previous game, is miles more dangerous. Remember how in GSC his Poliwrath's strategy revolved around putting you to sleep and then perfect his accuracy with Mind Reader to turn the Powerful, but Inaccurate Dynamic Punch into an Always Accurate Attack? HG/SS upgrades the Mind Reader + Dynamic Punch combo into Focus Punch, turning the Awesome, but Impractical move into a godly combo where Hypnosis will circumvent its "impractical" side and turn it into pure "awesome". This also opens up his last slot with Body Slam to paralyze any Pokémon with an immunity to sleep. His Primeape is no slouch either, packing a Double Team + Focus Punch combo that will make you tear your hair out — and if you think you can bring a Quilava knowing Swift, think twice, as Primape also packs Rock Slide. If there was ever an excuse to choose Chikorita as your starter, this would be a perfect one!
    • Clair, much like Whitney, took a further level in badass. One of her three Dragonair has been replaced with a Gyarados — fortunately nothing extremely dangerous since the only physical move it knows is Bite, though its Intimidate ability can make it hard to kill. Both Dragonair discard Dragon Breath for the significantly stronger Dragon Pulse, one of them trades Surf for Aqua Tail while the other trades Ice Beam for Fire Blast, and both now have the Shed Skin ability, meaning you can't repay them the favor by inflicting them with status conditions. Clair's Kingdra, however, is the biggest offender: both Surf and Dragon Breath are upgraded to Hydro Pump and Dragon Pulse, it holds a Sitrus Berry, and it now carries the Sniper ability, which boosts the damage on Kingdra's critical hits. Oh, Crap!, indeed.
    • Blue. Your team's speed will likely will be nerfed by Exeggutor's Trick Room, making the slowest Pokémon move first. The Mighty Glacier aspect of Pokémon like Machamp and Rhydon is thus conveniently removed, allowing them to destroy you. This is made even worse by the Physical-Special split and great type coverage provided by their extremely powerful movesets, and his Machamp has No Guard and knows Dynamic Punch. Of course, if you choose to rematch him, he turns out to have gotten a Tyranitar. Make sure you take out his Exeggutor before it sets up Trick Room!
    • Lance's team in the remakes has higher leveled Pokémon, with two of his underleveled Dragonite now packing Dragon Rush instead of Dragon Breath, and both them and his strongest Dragonite's Outrage now running off of their titanic physical Attack. The real problem, however, comes on the rematches for one reason (and one reason only): Garchomp. Swords Dance plus Outrage equals a very, very bad time for your team.
  • That One Sidequest: Pennant Capture in Pokéathlon Dome. It's hard to control your character unless you have good Skill and Speed. Even then, it's usually up to luck if you do well or not. Your opponents are really good at stealing your flags, and it's hard to steal them back from them. Worst of all, to get 100% Completion in the Pokéathlon Dome, you have to match the second record of fifty flags, when the average player gets somewhere between twenty to thirty. You have 60 seconds; you can only get nine at a time, and it takes four seconds to gather up your flags and switch to your next partner.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Not everyone was fond of the remixed music (particularly the themes for Lavender Town and Goldenrod City), but thankfully Game Freak provided an option in the games that switched everything to the classic eight-bit tunes.
    • Lack of room decoration. The original games gave you several options for decorating your character's room in their house (sort of a precursor to the Secret Bases that showed up in Gens III and IV), but these were removed in the remakes.
    • Starting with these games, The Pokémon Company dropped Nob Ogasawara, the translator they'd been using since Red and Blue, in favor of moving localization in-house. Given that Ogasawara had a small following online and the new translators didn't have his knack for natural-sounding dialogue, many fans were miffed by this choice.
    • Speaking of translations, these are the games that started the trend of eliminating some regions' local language translations of the franchise to be replaced with another country's "universal" translation; the European French translations of the games were made available in Quebec and began to phase out the French-Canadian version of the franchise. Fans were not happy, largely because the English dub names for 400+ Pokémon and characters (used in French-Canadian translations of the anime and books/merchandise) were being officially replaced with a hefty tome of completely different French names. Similar homogenizations would later occur in Latin America and in China, to similar fandom displeasure.
    • Discussed by the Game Freak President in the Celadon Condominiums in Kanto.
      "We are remaking an old game, but this is quite a challenge. Old fans would not want us to mess with their good memories...but there is no point in just redoing the same thing, right?"
    • Not getting the Crystal-added Pokémon Egg from the Daycare Center that had a chance to hatch into a random rare baby Pokémon. It was sometimes neat in Crystal having the chance of obtaining something powerful early on like an Electabuzz or a Magmar.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver were designed as expanded, polished remakes of games that were already considered the best in the series, resulting in nostalgic games chock-full of content and features that, many argue, have surpassed the originals to become the most beloved Pokémon games of all. As such, later games have a tough time living up to it. The next set of games, Pokémon Black and White, deliberately set themselves apart from the rest of the series and largely (if not completely) avoided being overshadowed by HGSS, in a similar vein to The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask compared to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Much later, expectations for Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire were very high thanks to HGSS being the previous remakes, and while the final product was well-received overall, it left many fans disappointed.
  • Underused Game Mechanic:
    • In order to make up for the lack of the Pokétch, it fills the bottom screen with shortcuts to menu options and an interact button. There's one button that toggles your Running Shoes so that you can run without holding down the B button. Since there's few times when running is a bad thing, this is very useful. However, as later games lessened the use of the touch screen, this toggling feature has never returned.
    • HeartGold and SoulSilver had quite a few mechanics like this. The Berry Pots (which let you grow berries on the go, instead of planting them in a single spot and having to remember where they are) are exclusive to itnote , and the GB Sounds key item (letting you listen to the soundtrack of the original games by turning it on) doesn't have an equivalent in the Ruby and Sapphire remakes two gens later. By far the biggest, though, is the following Pokémon feature. It's very much cosmetic, but fans enjoy it for adding a lot of flavor, and it finally got a return in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Bugsy, big time. He looks even more feminine in the remakes than he did in G/S/C.


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