I don't know, there's a part of me that wants to love it, but gen 2 was just so incredibly rushed and unpolished that I'm not sure if I could even call it the best. I think the Crystal Clear romhack is probably the best way to experience Gen 2, it does a really good job at stabilizing the difficulty curve and gets rid of the boring parts of the game.
Hard agree, most of the other games grew off me unfortunately but I've just appreciated this one more and more. I haven't even played the remakes as much since they got it so right here though they're obviously great as well
Rushed? Didn't Gold and Silver have by far the longest development cycle of any Pokemon game? They had to create whole filler anime seasons because the game was delayed twice. It took like 3-4 years to make which for a Game Boy game was longer than normal. For reference, Scarlet and Violet took 3 years to make.
Totally spoilt by the huge features cuts left off the international editions, most notably the mobile link. The original Japanese version is the real game, the international versions of crystal were a mere exploit. The second generation (and the fourth after that) is pretty much the most enjoyable one.
Game Freak has been rehashing this formula for 2 decades now: Meandering region with varying memorability followed by compacted lower quality postgame content capped off by a true final battle against a master trainer.
I think it speaks testament to this game in particular. G/S were a little less concise in this formula, Crystal really takes the ingame content and starts creating gameplay loops.
The 4h section where you just fight team rocket grunts non stop that all have lvl 28 pokemon when you are lvl 50 is one of the reason I don't like Johto
The second generation (and the fourth after that) is pretty much the most enjoyable one.
I think it speaks testament to this game in particular. G/S were a little less concise in this formula, Crystal really takes the ingame content and starts creating gameplay loops.