After weeks of old posts, I am rested and mostly no-longer jetlagged. Actually, that’s a complete lie. But I have managed to play some games in between my 10 hour sleeps and 12 hour work days.
During my trip to Japan this November, my husband and I spent quite a bit of time looking at old game hardware and thinking about our own collections, which lead us to thinking about Pokemon. We talked a lot about Pokemon, and I couldn’t help but pick up a few Japanese copies of my old favorites. This counts as studying game design, right?
All of this to say: this post is the first installment in my Pokemon Crystal play-through, and unfortunately it will not be very long because of my current addiction to sleep. I only just beat the first gym.
Crystal Version does not need an introduction: released half a year after Gold and Silver in North America, it was the first game to include a Battle Tower, cute little wiggles for the battle sprites, and one of the few implementations that would actually make it into all later Pokemon titles: a girl main character. Up until summer 2001, I was perfectly happy being a boy in the Pokemon world because I was a pretty annoying tom-boy and pick-me in real life (in my defense I was literally a stupid child). I would continue to be ‘one of the bros’ until well into college, but even someone as ‘not-like-other-girls’ as me could not contain my excitement that finally finally the main character was a girl, and there was no difference between her story and Gold’s, and her outfit was fucking sick.
I think the general consensus now is that Crystal is one of the best of the Game Boy era Pokemon games. At the time, however, most of my classmates who played Pokemon were not really impressed by it or were actively hostile because Nintendo was pandering to girls. Anyway, other than a full play-through of the main quest in Crystal, I did not really sit with the game or put an insane amount of hours into it. (My in-game hour count in Gold version was lost when the internal battery finally died in 2014, but I remember the number. It was really not good. I actually did play too many video games as a child. My parents were right.)
So, I started at the beginning with an un-modded emulated Crystal version on my laptop. Yes, I did just pick up an old copy in Japan, and have my original back in the US, but for this write up I will be playing in my native language and without concerns about internal batteries.
It’s the classic RPG opening in your bedroom. Your mom gives you some gear, there is an old, wise Professor who gives you your Pokemon: on this play I chose Cyndaquil, the basic form of my childhood favorite, Typhlosion. The opening of the game is slightly longer than that of gen 1; instead of popping up to Viridian and back to get your Pokedex, you have to go through a small town and an addition route to get to Mr Pokemon, and to meet good old Prof Oak, before going back to Professor Elm in New Bark Town. He uses the new phone mechanic to summon you back to his lab to tell you a Pokemon was stolen, but you actually run into the thief and the Pokemon (always the one with the type that has an advantage over your starter’s type) for a battle on the way. Once you have the Pokedex, you are given some Pokeballs and you can get right to it.
I found that having a longer route to the beginning of the game was not as annoying as I remember it being as a child, but that might be because now I’m used to things like BotW and… I don’t want to bring it up but… things like PKMN Sun and Moon. I never got off the tutorial island in those. it felt like years. Also, what the hell is Cherrygrove. There is fuck all there. Although, fun story: I was the first of my friends to get the Map Card because I was the one who would obsessively talk to every NPC multiple times just in case. Do kids still sit together in a room and play games together, even single player ones? That was nice. I miss having friends and play dates. I miss racing to see who could beat the first gym the fastest, catch the most Pokemon the quickest…
I caught a few Pokemon, but missed out on quite a lot. You can probably guess why, considering I’ve been working long days… yep, all Night Pokemon! I love love love the Day/Night mechanic and days of the week! As you probably know from my Majora’s Mask obsession, I’m really interested in time and timers in game design. Obviously there are some serious detriments for those of us who can’t play at any time of day or all days of the week because we are adults with responsibilities, but that’s where I think being able to change the clock and have it only affect superficial things like “what is available now” and “with this person be in the right place for a quest” is actually really important for accessibility for people of all ages and with complicated schedules. BUT I also love the feeling of finally having time to be able to do something you haven’t had the opportunity to in a game because you happen to have a free morning.
Well, I’ve done my best to catch as many as possible and today I’ve finally beat the first gym. I think getting that badge was pretty easy, and I don’t feel like I’ve done too much grinding, even though I actually am a terrible grinder and can’t help but try to level up all my favorites (and it turns out I have a lot of favorite Pokemon! It’s all the ones that look like little rats!), which makes the going very slow in games like this. But even considering my personal problems, I think this game is pretty well paced. Also, there are so many Pokemon available early in the game, which is very motivating and really makes the possibilities for team make up interesting even early in the game (apparently this was due to complaints about Gold and Silver not having a good variety). At the moment, I’m favoring: Gastly, my Cyndaquil, Butterfree, Egg (you know), Poliwag, and Pidgey. I’m hoping I can beat this by March or sooner so I can get back to playing short games.
Brain Full of Games 