Pokémon Heart Gold + Soul Silver Review

Matthew Scullion

One decade ago, Game-freak had done it. They'd amassed a gigantic empire of cuddly toys and action figures, conquering most of the known world. Gold and Silver were the perfect sequels- they'd taken what worked from the first batch of Pokemon games and fixed some of the problems. It followed the same basic formula as the initial adventure in the Pokemon world and reworked it to be more balanced and more varied, all the while retaining the aspects of the series which were attractive in the first place. Then we had the dawn of a new hand-held and speculation was rife over what was to be done with the juggernaut franchise, hype was built up that could never be lived up to. Nintendo seemed to have missed the point entirely, taking the wrong ideas about what made G&S so good. People weren't excited about a region and up-scaled graphics, the best of the Pokemon world was Johto and Kanto. With the release of Fire-red and Leaf-green remakes of the highlight of the series were heavily hinted at, and when they were confirmed, poke-fans the world over were full of glee. But was this excitement justified? Or would this be just another step away from the simple game anyone who grew up in the nineties knew and loved?

Before we get into that, it seems like a wise step to take a step back and explain what the game actually is, for those of you who have been huddled in a nuclear warhead bunker for the last 20 years. Pokemon is a JRPG set in a world where making yellow mice fight dinosaurs made of rock is not only allowed, but encouraged. The main focus of the game is to journey to the 8 gyms of the region and do battle with the leader of each,  building up your monsters' strength and cataloguing new additions in the course of doing this. Traditionally, the end game of a Pokemon adventure is fighting the champion of the elite four after defeating his colleagues and being crowned the victor. This is not the case in the newest instalment; rather than simply becoming a catch 'em up grind-fest, you're presented with a new challenge: go to the areas of the original games and follow in the footsteps of the resident champion of that area. This was the defining factor of G&S  and the main reason many saw Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, Pearl etc. as disappointments in comparison- all of them provided a few mini-quests after you were done with the brunt of the game and none of them gave you double the story mode for your money. In this regard Heart gold and Soul Silver are a return to form, adding even more to the already lengthy extension to the main game. A few “new” elements have been introduced to the series in the form of walking Pokemon, the ability to allow your first creature to follow you around the world map. We've seen this before, waaaaaaay back on the black and white game-boy with the Yellow version, but you were restricted to a single member of a single specie. This installment offers all of the 493 species and 500-strong appearances to use this in feature. While it may not seem much, its enough to make it a new experience. You take much more interest in the creature that follows you everywhere than you did the ones that only came out to blow fire up a caterpillar's arse and then retreat. It also makes the idea of pokemon being less like weapons and more like pets actually more apparent, something only the spin-off games and animé have done before now.

The other massive addition to the Pokemon journey is the Pokewalker: a red and white pedometer device with an infra-red port. You bung a monster of your choice in there, clip it to your belt and walk about, levelling up, finding items and opponents as you go about your life. The package might've cost £5 more for this, but its worth double that. Besides this it plays mostly the same as Diamond and Pearl, which isn't surprising given its basis on the same engine. It isn't by any means just a vanilla re-skinning though- minor tweaks have proven to be some of the most intuitive changes possible, such as dropping the save/item/status menu to the bottom screen makes it much easier to access and a toggle-able run button saves your thumbs a bit of wear, which is always nice.

Overall, Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver is a completely different animal than its gameboy colour counterpart, but that's a good thing. The visuals have been brought up to DS standard, the 50 hour journey has been extended further to accommodate the hardcore players who actually want to complete the Pokedex. It's by no means ground-breaking, but that's never really been the territory of new pokemon games. It delivers exactly what it promises: an updated version of a ten year old game where the story doesn't matter as much as the gameplay. If you loved G&S in the first place, you will love it all over again- in fact its the exactly what a remake should be. One of the biggest failings of any long-term gamer will be nostalgia, if your memories of a game are amazing and you go back to find that the visuals are simple and eye-breaking, the controls are frustrating and gameplay mechanics you've grown accustomed to aren't present, your memories of that game are irrevocably ruined for all time. Heart Gold and Soul Silver are the antithesis of this, they take every little pleasant memory you ever had of raising and catching your favourites, without confronting you with the stark reality of how they really are. They're the games as you remember loving them, not how they'd be if you went back to them today.

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