Pokémon Silver Version

Take me back man

This was originally planned to be the swansong of the franchise (which is hard to imagine), and it definitely feels like it. The ambition is through the roof and it's packed with so much content its insane even today.

looking at those low-quality Japanese boxarts gives me more nostalgia than looking at the American boxarts

remember playing this on a j2me emulator called meboy or something on some walkman flip phone
i got to ho-oh's tower and didn't save anywhere inside the tower, so when i finally managed to catch ho-oh (or not, i'm not too sure about that detail) somebody fucking called me and the emulator froze
i was so fucking pissed man i wanted to cry

Best final boss of all time

I have so much nostalgia for this game but I hate Johto so much. It's so poorly balanced and relies too much on gen 1 mons that the new mons don't get a chance to shine.

Can’t believe I beat Red with Lvl. 40 Pokémons. And it was my first attempt.

Gen 2 Pokémon is the hardest for me to rate. On one hand you have beautiful sprite design, absolutely terrific sound design (that Super Effective sound is delicious) and soundtrack, enough interesting optional dungeons to keep you occupied for a while in Johto, a barebones Kanto, but still better than nothing and a fun challenge with good battles up until Morty.

But there's two big problems with this game: The Level curve and Pokemon distribution. Trainers after Slowpoke Well are just absolutely awful until maybe Victory Road, with the absolute lowpoint being the Mahogany Rocket Hideout with all those losers with Rattata and Koffing in the low levels. The Pokemon Distribution is just so unfortunate. Johto has some really cool designs, but they are so hard to find. Murkrow, Houndour, Slugma, Misdreavus are Kanto-exclusive, there's so many specific trade evolutions which are a nightmare to get, Skarmory, Phanpy, Teddiursa are only available after Ice Path, Tyrogue is only available before the E4 and of course the worst crime being that Elemental Stones are only available post-E4 with very specific measures to get them, this makes Pokemon like Exeggcute and Growlithe almost completely worthless.