5/5 ★ – Akod's review of Pokémon SoulSilver.

I did not grew up with Pokémon. I mean sure I watched the anime but I didn't play any of the games when I was young. I never owned a Gameboy, my first portable console was a Nintendo DS. In fact, the first time I played Pokémon, I was procrastinating while in college and I had an emulator open so I decided to try Pokémon Platinum. Long story short I did not sleep that night, I was immediately hooked on the gameplay, the character sprites, the combat. Platinum was my door into the world of Pokemon, and me failing an exam that semester. Fast Forward a year later and I had preordered my first videogame in my life: Pokémon Soul Silver. And just like that, I was also hooked on this game as well. The graphics that were this beautiful mix of sprite work and a bit of 3D models, the music that went incredibly hard for an encounter for a Rattata, the variety and familiarity of exploring Johto with Pokémon I knew from the series and some newer ones I didn't encounter on my Platinum run. The fact that I could take one of said little monsters in my backpack to college and walk around campus using my pokewalker. I got hooked on everything under Gen 4. And I did try to move with the games, like with the jumps to Gen 5 and Gen 6 but they never clicked for me like Gen 4 and in particular Heartgold and Soul Silver (yes, I did ended up playing both back to back). And I think its mostly because a lot of the features from this game, were never seen again in other games. We never seen another dual world spanning two continents, 16 different champions and Pokémon following you around as you walk through the world. There really isn't nothing like Heartgold and Soul Silver. Which is the reason why I consider these two games the peak of the series and among my favorite games of all time.