4/5 ★ – Amine2's review of Pokémon Crystal.

I felt like popping this in and playing it again. As a kid I played Gold version, but now that I have to access to Crystal, which is basically Gold/Silver but improved in nearly every way, I just play that. It's a great Pokemon game. Johto is still a lot of fun to traverse and explore, where the traditional and foresty setting of the region still makes it my second favorite behind Hoenn. The main campaign is pretty easy with a few difficulty spikes here and there, but if you don't have complete garbage Pokemon on your team you should be fine. I really enjoyed the main adventure, and it's a region I never grow tired of no matter how many times I play it, unlike other regions (looking at you Kalos). Level curve and Pokemon selection is still a slight problem but one I am able to not mind nowadays. Kanto however, is incredibly bare bones in this game. I do enjoy going through it, sure, but it's no where near as good as Johto is. The trainer and gym leaders are really easy and there's not much to do in the region. I think the after game is where the level curve is the worst because you're fighting trainers with level 20s and 30s after you've already beaten the champion, which means you're just mindlessly spamming through trainers, and the Kanto gym leaders are complete pushovers. And then the levels spike with Red, but even then he is very easily beatable with high 40's and mid 50's because the badges you received buff your Pokemon immensely, at least offensively. I managed to beat him with 40's, with Umbreon's toxic helping a bunch. I still like Kanto but it really does feel rushed in this gen. The remakes make Kanto really fun to explore and it's one of many reasons why I just recommend forgetting about Crystal and just playing Heartgold Soulsilver instead, if you have access to those games. Many of the problems Crystal and gen 2 have are fixed in the remakes (though level curve and Pokemon selection could've still used improvements) and they're just the definitive way to play Johto. There's really only a few reasons why anyone might want to play Crystal version over the remakes. Being able to get Phanphy and Teddiursa before Falkner is pretty good as opposed to only being able to access them post gym 7 in the remakes. Though Phanphy/Donphan move pool being horrendous doesn't really make me care too much. And the second thing is the odd egg which the remakes got rid of for some reason. Being able to get an elekid, magby, or pichu before the third gym is pretty cool and something I'm not sure why HG/SS got rid of. The lore is better in Crystal, too, where the game goes into a bit more detail on the events that happened in Tin Tower. Other than that, I don't really see any reason to go back to the GBC games. Even then, I still think Crystal holds up and is better than most Pokemon games; it just has problems that the remakes fix for the most part.