Pokémon Gold Version

aka: Pocket Monsters 2: Gold, Pocket Monsters Kin (Gold), Pokémon Edición Oro, Pokémon Goldene Edition, Pokémon Versão Gold, Pokémon: Attrapez-les tous! - Version Or
Moby ID: 5515
Game Boy Color Specs
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Description official descriptions

Pokémon Gold takes place several years after Red, Blue and Yellow, and puts the user into a brand new world, Johto. The gameplay is very similar to the previous games, but with several improvements. These include new functions for the player's PokéGear, a Pokédex that can now be sorted by evolution type, and, of course, new Pokémon. Once again, the objective of the game is to become the champion trainer, and try to complete the Pokédex. To become the champion, the player battles Gym Leaders to obtain various badges. Completing the Pokédex requires a different set of actions, and involves capturing wild Pokémon, battling various trainers to obtain money, and trading Pokémon with NPC's and other owners of Pokémon games.

Spellings

  • ポケットモンスター 金 - Japanese spelling
  • 포켓몬스터 금 - Korean spelling

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Credits (Game Boy Color version)

60 People (54 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 20 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 58 ratings with 4 reviews)

An awesome sequel to the original Pokemon Game Paks.

The Good
In the first three Pokemon cartridges, you engaged in a long and enjoyable journey involving catching and training Pokemon in order to defeat hundreds of other trainers as well as gym leaders. That, added to the thrill of trying to catch 'em all, proved to be a great recipe for some awesome gaming. In Gold, that fun is multiplied exponentially. In addition to your world from Red/Blue/Yellow, you now have access to a whole new world, with twice the battles, twice the gym leaders and twice the life span of the game. This is one of the best role-playing game titles on the pocket market, and don't be fooled by those who accuse the series of being too juvenile, because it really isn't.

The Bad
Essentially, your primary focus is battling, and that can get tedious after a while, since most of the trainers are incredibly easy to defeat. Also, the graphics and sound could use some tweaking -- while they're acceptable for the GBC, they could be improved upon. But this game has few negatives.

The Bottom Line
Pokemon Gold is the sequel to the hit games Pokemon Red and Blue (and also Yellow), where you take the role of a budding Pokemon trainer in realizing his dream by traveling through a whole world of cities, seas, caves and the like and catching, raising and battling your "Pokemon" (little creatures that bear similarities to real-life animals.) You train these Pokemon to defeat rival trainers in one-on-one combat with your creatures, including master trainers called gym leaders. One of the main aspects of these older games' enjoyment is the attempt to try to catch all 151 pocket monsters, and now 100 more have been added to your list to try and track down. As your Pokemon grow stronger, the battles get more challenging, and an absorbing story and effective, long-lasting gameplay make this a fantastic role-playing-game.

Game Boy Color · by pocketgamer2000 (20) · 2003

The apex of the series and the only one worth playing.

The Good
I remember when I got my copy of Pokemon Red. I was 9 years old and I had gotten a clear purple Gameboy Color and the Pokemon Red game, suffice it to say, I was stoked. I played that game to death for months afterwards, risking permanent eye damage from playing endlessly for hours. I didn't care however, I was having the time of my life. When Pokemon Gold came out, I totally ate up the screenshots and pictures of new Pokemon that my friends had printed out on the school computers. I got it, played it endlessly and then eventually, as with anything, I grew tired of it.

I'm now 20 years old and recently I tracked the game down again, having misplaced my old copy years ago. With my PS3 and myriad of other consoles sitting sadly neglected, I went back to playing Pokemon Gold on that same Gameboy Color that I got when I was 9 years old, reliving that magical period of my life when I held the best game I had ever played literally in my hands.

I'm a lot older now and have played better games since then obviously, but I still recognize it as one of the finest I've ever played. Game Freak expanded so well on everything from Red and Blue (or Akai and Midori depending on where you come from) that it was almost revelatory. The map was improved by being integrated into the fantastic PokeGear accessory, that wasn't so much of an accessory as a sub-menu full of extra features like the radio, calender and cell phone. The cell phone being used to call other trainers and arrange battles or simply rap about what Pokemon they've been catching lately. You could also call your Mom and ask her about your savings. It was minor details like this, expanding the concepts of what could be done on the Gameboy Color, that really got to me. While not actually pushing the hardware, it makes it seem like it is doing more, which is an amazing feat. It is conveying the illusion that you are having a conversation with someone over the phone or that you are listening to the radio, when in fact you're just reading a randomly picked, context sensitive message. The thing is, it is all so organic that it feels natural and realistic.

The best new feature added to the game though is the fact that you know have a manageable inventory. Instead of the insufferably long list of items in your inventory you have a bag which is split into different compartments for your HM's and TM's, Balls and Items. You then have further grouping options. It's the single best feature they added to the game and makes sorting your items a breeze. You can also hotkey one frequently used item such as the bike. Then there is obviously what goes into the bag that is important. Additional healing items like berry's can be used as a regular item or given to a Pokemon to use in battle at their discretion. You can also send and receive mail and use inedible fruit called an Aprikorn to make custom Pokeballs.

It would be difficult for me to list every single new feature that was added to Pokemon Gold without this review seemingly turning into a white paper so I'll just quickly talk to you about the graphics.

In addition to making everything more detailed, colorful and actually added a degree of characterization to your character the Pokedex has been updated, looks a lot better and the full color palette of the Gameboy Color seems to be getting employed. Everything looks fantastic, it's hard to fault how good this game looks on the handheld.

The Bad
The music is bland and uninspired. The town themes are enough to send me to sleep and the battle themes are generic, uninspired and frankly quite abrasive after a while.

That's it, that's all I can fault.

The Bottom Line
I love this game, it features so many new innovations to the series that were endlessly recycled in further remakes (speaking of which this game was just remade into HeartGold) or proprietary titles. It's easily the apex of the series, an intensely addictive game that will give you hours of joy and a real sense of accomplishment when you complete it. I love this game, it has a special place in my heart, it was a part of my childhood and hopefully one day you can sit down and play it and relish it as well.

Game Boy Color · by AkibaTechno (238) · 2010

A sequel as a sequel should be. Classic!

The Good
The original games introduced an easy to master but hard to put down RPG experience. You started out with nothing but would soon get a pokémon. Pokémon are strange creatures that use different types of powers to battle each other. You were a trainer and had to collect these creatures and become the pokémon training champion. At first glance it was a simple RPG, but you would soon discover the complex rock/paper/scissors battle system that had you thinking what characters and moves had to be used in battle. Searching out all pokémon wasn't easy and you had to trade with the other versions to get all of them. Some evolve from others, too.

This game vastly improved upon the original games. It is displayed in colours, has a new world to explore making the map twice as big and adds 100 new pokémon.

But apart from those obvious additions there are also a lot of other things the new versions of pokémon added. This game made all those little issues from Red, Blue and Yellow history by making the gameplay much more accessible. For example, items are organized in categories, pokémon are healed when stored in the PC etc.

There are also bigger gameplay additions, many of which are now common sense to fans. Pokémon can now hold items and new obstacles such as waterfalls and whirlpools will have you looking for new abilities to tackle them. There is also a neat little item called the pokegear which has a map, a radio and a phone. It will be vital to get certain pokémon. Two new types of pokémon, the metal-body Steel-type and the nocturnal Dark-type, add new strengths and weaknesses to the mix. The pokédex, the digital pokémon collectors encyclopedia is much more user-friendly and vastly improved.

The new Johto region expands the landmass of the original Kanto region. Off course there are new towns and new bosses to challenge. It houses many new pokémon and you will also discover some pokémon that evolve from older ones or into them. For example Onix can now evolve into Steelix and Pichu evolves in the well-known Pikachu.

You will be playing for quite a while. You will have to link with the other versions to get all pokémon including the original Game Boy versions. The total of 251 unique characters, the ability to play through the classic Kanto world after playing through the main quest and the ability to battle friends via link cable all add up to a lengthy adventure that still stands as one of the best in the series.

Not only the fact that it adds colours to the pokémon universe adds up to the graphics. The pokémon look much better than they did in Red/Blue/Yellow. The world is slightly more detailed.

Sound is great. Some of the catchiest tunes on the Game Boy Color can be found here and every pokémon has its own distinct cry.

The Bad
It may fall a bit short when compared to recent titles in the series. Nowadays, pokémon can be played online over the internet. Many layers of battling that refined the battle system over the years are not yet present in this game.

Also the storage system for pokémon can be really inconvenient at times. You have to save all the time and when a box in it is full, you can't capture any pokémon. This is really annoying when you finally run into that rare pokémon that you've been looking for for a long time.

The Bottom Line
A great update to the original games. It stays true to the original formula while updating it in many great ways.

Game Boy Color · by Rensch (203) · 2007

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Related Sites +

  • Pokèmon Elite 2000
    A Pokèmon fan site good at covering the latest news about coming and existing Pokèmon games.
  • Psypokes
    A comprehensive Pokémon site that pretty much covers everything there is to know about the games.

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  • MobyGames ID: 5515
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jeremy Ou.

Nintendo 3DS added by Rik Hideto.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Freeman, gamewarrior, DarkDante, Spag, LordRM, Caelestis, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, GenesisBR.

Game added December 17, 2001. Last modified March 2, 2024.