Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver - Review

The Heart and Soul of good, albeit flawed, remakes.

Console: Nintendo DS

If you go and Google ´The best Pokémon games´ you will no doubt find many lists where Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver are right there at the top. That you can visit both Johto and Kanto, the Pokémon walking gimmick and the Pokéwalker, and all the improvements and series' staples that the originals introduced are all things I read often. Yes, these games are fun, feature-rich titles but I've never been fully onboard with that train of thought. 

Personally, I enjoy other games more, such as Black & White and Legends: Arceus, for a variety of reasons. I also feel that, and this has become a lot clearer now that I've replayed these games, that its flaws are overlooked. 

On a more positive note though, I didn't replay SoulSilver because I wanted to beat it down. I started the my copu back up as it has been well over a decade since I last did and I wanted to play it again. The only memories I have of that playthrough are of the DSi XL I got with the game. That's it. So, a proper replay of these remakes were in order! 

Let's finish up this, mixed bag setup we shall call it, and talk about these remakes proper!

As always you are a 10-year-something kid who, after a little push from the local Pokémon Professor, sets out on a journey to become the best there ever was. In this case, Professor Elm tasks you with picking up a package a few routes over, lending you a Pokémon for aid. Impressed by your kindness and skill, Elm allows you to keep the Pokémon and advises you to take on the Gym Challenge. 

Along the way, you run into a red-haired kid who stole one of the Pokémon in Elm's lab as well as remnants of Team Rocket, attempting to recapture their former glory. 

The story of HeartGold & SoulSilver is one of those flaws I talked about in the opening. There's not much to it. We have a couple of story elements aside from the Gym challenge that runs through the journey but none of them really amount to much. 

Take Team Rocket with their minimal presence. They pop up a few times being a nuisance to the people before they make their big move, none of which felt very satisfying with its low stakes and underwhelming end. The lack of a 'face' like Giovanni's also doesn't help matters. Team Rocket is pretty much a faceless threat this time around which doesn't help with you, the player, making a connection. 

No, Johto's narrative is very focused on you running your way through all the Gyms with some short B and C-plots sprinkled throughout. Some of them are fun, yes, but this doesn't make for a very cohesive and compelling narrative. The same goes for Kanto, by the way. That said, it does make these games very easy to pick up and play as this all does make for a rather loose, stakeless, pace. 

This also affects, is affected by, the balancing and progression. When you hear that two whole regions are packed into this one cart, the idea that pops to mind is that you have double the length here. That's not true. I've looked at the playtime, the level curve etc. and you see that GameFreak more or less spread out said normal experience across the two regions. 

It took me a little around 45 hours to fully beat SoulSilver, and get all 18 badges, while my last playthrough of fellow Generation IV title Diamond took me around 40 to get to the end. Not a big difference, now is it? This decision to spread out the normal adventure over double the badges doesn't just affect playtime but the entire progression curve. 

Another example is Champion Lance's team, which is lv. 46-50. Diamond & Pearl's Champion Cynthia's team is lv. 60-66. That's a rough 15-level difference between what you expect to be a similar challenge. Accommodation for Kanto like his wasn't a bad idea, lowering the levels of battles because there's twice the amount of gyms to tackle is only beneficial for the player. However, this also pushes the levels of trainers and wild Pokémon down, giving rise to issues in the back half of the game. 

Battle are pretty plentiful, but the futher you get in the story, the less effective they are in giving you exp.

Not only that, but there is a lack of high levels to be challenged, and train by. Once you gain access to surf you can, in theory, choose to either do the one-two punch of the Cianwood and Olivine gyms or deal with the Lake of Rage situation and challenge the Mahogany gym. A neat bit of free choice which also means all these gym leaders' teams are roughly on the same level. You don´t get the Scarlet & Violet levelling issues with its 'go anywhere but with no level scaling' approach, yes, but on the flip side this means that there's no rise in challenge. 

And then Kanto is even worse. There are absolutely no chances in wild Pokémon levels to what they were in Red & Blue. Lt. Surge, the first gym you come across, might have Pokémon around lv. 50, the wild Pokémon around town are only around lv. 13. 

This all creates a serious lack of experience to gain without a lot, and I mean a lot, of grinding when the game hits you with a level curve. That's a problem for both training and adding new Pokémon to your team, should you want to this late in the game. 

It's why I used my multiple DSs and Pokémon Diamond to trade my team over and use the trade and lucky egg bonuses plus the higher levels of Stark Mountain to speed up the process. Even so, that first run against the Elite Four with level 40 Pokémon came down to luck and a lot of healing items. Seeing Lance's final Dragonite go down was an incredible feeling, but I would've appreciated it had the level curve not been so steep to begin with.

And those points were all the things that I feel are overlooked when people rate HeartGold & SoulSilver. The stuff that really puts a dampener on the quality and fun which is why, including some personal preferences, I don't rate them as high as many others. The keyword here, however, is 'dampening' as in making the less strong, not making its strength disappear altogether. I didn't play for over 40 hours out of spite!

Let's start with all the good stuff in the gameplay. How it works needs no explanation. You catch Pokémon in this RPG adventure that you battle within a turned-based battle system with a rock-paper-scissor type deal at its core. Nothing new here and these games are too old to have any kind of battle gimmick as seasoning. 

No, what I want to discuss is how all the improvements that were introduced with Gen III & IV benefit these remakes. The battle system is so much more refined and there are so many more options for you to play around with. And no, I'm not just talking about updated Pokédex that makes some Johto Pokémon available earlier and throws in a couple of new evolutions, such as Mamoswine. Not all of them though, which is a bit odd, but I digress.  

Take the Shiny Gyarados you catch as part of the story. Gyrados has always had good stats but because its strength lies in the physical department and water moves used to be all special, it never reached its full potential until this generation. Throw in some of Hoenn's double battles here and there and you get a more refined, dynamic and fun battle system. Without Diamond & Pearl's sloweness I might add, which is a big improvement in and of itself. 

Speaking of the original Gen IV games again, as the games preceding these remakes they make for a natural point of comparison more a lot of areas, such as the graphics. These games run on the same engine as them, bringing along a mix of 2D sprites and occasional 3D elements to create a more layered world. 

This looked fine enough in Diamond & Pearl, but I prefer the look HeartGold & SoulSilver. In the former, the edges were more jagged and you had weird stuff like how the eyes of characters would suddenly widen depending on the angle. These things have all been fixed and combined with Johto's more traditional, historic look have a pleasant visual experience here. The latter also creates a nice contrast with the more 'modern' Kanto but that's something for another time perhaps. 

I'm also pretty confident in saying that these remakes are the golden standard when it comes to updating Pokémon games. You have the above upgrades, yes, but you also have plenty of new features and some other fun details as well. 

While Team Rocket is a pretty faceless threat here due to Giovanni's absence, it wasn't for a lack of trying. Every Gym Leader got a design update and better flavour text to make them more memorable as per usual, but they also gave each Team Rocket admin a unique name and look. In the case of Archer, they even carried this design over into the Let's Go titles. Neat even if it doesn't work out in the end.

The redesigned Team Rocket Admins. Good designs, not the bgest implementation.

Not everything is new and shiny though. Well, not everything isn't if you want it to. In "Ranking all 9 Pokémon Generations - My Pokémon Journey" I put the 2nd generation in the fourth spot. A large part of that was the atmosphere it created. I found Johto a very pleasant region to be in, from the design, the nice looking 2D sprite work that was in full colour to the music. That music remains one of the most calming and pleasant Pokémpon soundtracks to listen to. It's one of my go-to's when I want to put something calm and zen on in the background. 

The score has been nicely updated but as a reward for beating all 16 gyms, you have the option to listen to Gold, Silver & Crystal's original score as well. They even made old, chiptune rearrangements for tracks that were never in the originals. That is a neat feature that I could not pass up talking about! 

So, HeartGold & SoulSilver play and look better than before, which I appreciate a lot, but what is really the kicker is just the sheer amount of content that is in these games. You have everything Gold & Silver offered and more. What more? Well, how about the original's 3rd version's Suicine focused content? Or Diamond & Pearl's Palk Park to bring over Pokémon from say, Fire Red? Platinum's Battle Frontier is here too for some extra challenge and Johto now has its very own Safari Zone that you can catch Pokémon in and even customize. 

If that doesn't scratch your catching fancy, you now have dozens of Hoenn and Sinnoh Pokémon roaming Johto and Kanto to go after and almost as many Legendaries to hunt down. Out of the 493 Pokémon that were out 15 years ago, only about 40 of them you can't get in in these games.

Even after getting all 18 Gym Badges, there are dozens of hours of stuff for you to do. And that is not even including all the minigames in the PokéWalker, should you (still) have one. Which I don´t and never did. Aftermarket, you know?

Lastly, I know that some Pokémon fans will inevitably bring it up if I don't mention it. All Pokémon following you around is a very beloved feature by many fans that was always near the top of everyone's list of requests. That feature was fully introduced in these remakes to tie in with the PokéWalker. Never been a big fan of it myself but hey, it is a part of the legacy of these remakes. 

Conclusion

Reading through all I just wrote, HeartGold & SoulSilver are a bit of a paradox, aren't they? They´re a pair of well-crafted remakes rich in content that appeal to both nostalgic fans and newcomers with their polished-up graphics and a plethora of Pokémon and features. Even so, it has some often overlooked flaws that hold it back from the lofty pedestal many place it on. The uneven progression, underwhelming narrative, and a level curve that creates frustration rather than challenge, to name them again. 

Still, I enjoyed my revisit to Johto with its relaxing pace and atmosphere. While they´re not high on my list, they remain a very thoroughly enjoyable pair of titles that pack a punch and have solidified their place in Pokémon legacy.