Generation 2 is here! That was my thoughts back then too, I was so excited for Gen 2.
So
far the only Generation to be a direct sequel to it’s predecessor, the
generation is made up of Pokémon: Gold Version & Pokémon: Silver Version
plus Pokémon: Crystal Version and moved the action to the new region of Johto, at
least for the first half of the game. See Johto was right smack bang next to
the location of the Gen 1 games (Kanto) so much so that they shared the same Elite
Four and the same Pokédex, so far the only two regions to have such a
relationship, and you could go back to Kanto once you’d completed the Johto
half of the game, this was very well received. Generation 2 introduced a lot of
things that have stuck around today – not least of which was breeding and two
new types for Pokémon to be – Steel Type and Dark Type – but a number of conventions
wouldn’t be set until Generation (such as Abilities). Generation 2 is very
popular with fans, forget this at your own peril.
I’d like to think I’ve made
it clear that during Generation 1 I was WELL into Pokémon, if I haven’t then during
Generation 1 I was WELL into Pokémon. I was maybe a year or two too old for it
but who cares? I spent half my time online looking up Pokémon and the other
half on KaaZaa, if you don’t know what that is – good, you won’t be dobbing me
into the police - and all the time on MSN Messenger (ah wistful memories of
being a shut-in) and I followed both rumours and news closely, of course at
this point the difference was minimal.
I was thoroughly excited
about Gold and Silver, I have delightfully vivid memories of spending a week at
Centre Parcs pouring over Wizard’s “In”
Power magazine (which claimed to be the first publication in the west to
have the complete Gen 2 ‘mons) and the Pokémon
Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player’s Guide (which had the Neo sets
and South Island set in it, showing off the new ‘mons) imaging what these new
creatures would be like, in fact I still have a habit of referring to certain
Pokémon (like Sentret and Snubbull) but their Japanese names (Otochi and Buru
in these cases) because of this holiday. In the end I didn’t wait until release
- I bought Silver on a Japanese cart from a Bootsale and played through most of
it without understanding a word of what happening. I did of course get an
English language version the minute it came out and things made much more sense
when you knew what the words said.
So I’m very attached to Gen
2, and the Gold & Silver remakes Pokémon
HeartGold & SoulSilver are my favourite Pokémon games and indeed
amongst my top 30 video games of all time. But I don’t know how much I adore the Gen 2 Pokémon, Gen 2 introduced a
lot of single stage evolutionary lines, a lot of plainer designs and a lot of
simpler (and way less nutty) concepts – at least that’s how I remember it and
think of it, but they also got a fair amount of attention in Generation 4 with
new evolutions and prevolutions and being less nutty doesn’t mean ‘sucks’ –
Haunter is just a ghost after all - so I have no idea how this is going to go,
it’ll be interesting to me but I can’t promise it wont be boring for you lot.
Oh well, no one reads this shit anyway.
As much as I love Gen 2 and
its remakes, for me it has always had the blandest of Starters (cute,
but bland) with Chikorita and its evolutions being the blandest of the bunch. I
don’t think the pastel shades help, the designs are already pretty simple and
basic (no bad thing, and no more basic than, say the Charmander line I don’t
think) and colouring them in such an unexciting way only accentuates things.
The concept here is similar to Bulbasaur’s and Oddish’ but instead of being a
creature with a flower that blooms it’s a creature that blooms like a flower as
it evolves, which is a pretty neat idea and I can’t say that it’s terribly
executed – with necks growing longer and seeds becoming leaves becoming large
flowers. If I had to pick a favourite of the three I’ll go with Meganium, it’s
the most dinosaur-like and I like the antennae that look like stamen, that’s
surprisingly subtle for elemental theming on a Pokémon and looks as much like
an organic element on a creature as it does a plant thing on a plant themed
thing.
Also I’m not alone in this
right: Chikorita you and I knoooow how the heartaches come and they go and the
scars they're leaving! Every time, I don’t even like Abba.
So the Space World Demo has Chikorita and Meganium but
in place of Bayleaf is…that thing up there. Hanamogura (roughly translated to
‘Flower Mole’) and…I don’t get it. Ok, I get it, it’s a little weird mole thing
bursting out of a flower, it’s a blooming mole, I get that, good, good - but
why the fuck is it between two dinosaurs in an evolutionary line? Even if you
want to argue that Chikorita is less a ‘dinosaur’ and more a ‘thing’ Hanamole
still sticks out like…well like a weird mole between two dinosaurs. My theory
is this: originally Gen 2 had all different starters and the Space World Demo
was shown off during a period when they were mid-way through replacing whatever
the original Grass Starter was (presumably moles from seeds) with the Chikorita
line but before they’d thought up something to replace Hanamole with. That
Hanamole is the remnant of a previous evolutionary line and never meant to
evolve from Chikorita and into Meganium. We know that Pokémon were programmed
in without the rest of their family (Quagsire, Ledyba, Sneasel, Snubbul to name
a few), family that was added sometimes years later and it’s not like anyone
playing at Space World was going to see the second stage evos for the Starters
anyway. That’s my theory, my other is that someone at Game Freak at the time
was just a mad person with no concept of how Pokémon Evolution worked and a
massive boner for moles.
As a stand-alone design
Hana’s fun though, kooky and a little more Gen 3 than Gen 2 but fun. I’d like
to see it brought back as a grass/fairy type, it would provide a nice
‘masculine’ counterpart to the likes of Flabebe or (given that it doesn’t
evolve) Comfey - the way Tauros and Miltank or Cacnea and Maractacus compliment
each other.
I picked Cyndaquil on my
first playthrough when I couldn’t understand a damn thing about what was going
on based solely on my preference for the three visually and conceptually and I
stand by my original judgement call that Cyndaquil is the best of a bad bunch.
Like Rapidash and Onyx, Cyndaquil is such an obvious idea for element + animal
you’re surprised no-one (including yourself) thought of it earlier: a hedgehog
whose quills are an explosion! Of course! And it’s cute but more so
uniquely shaped little head gives it something to latch onto as a design and elevates it above the blandness of, well, it’s evolution. THAT SAID, as Gen 2 is the
beginning of the ‘Starter Midvolution Issue’ (we’ll get to that in a minute)
I’d much prefer a boring evolution to that and yeah I can’t say that Quilava is
much different from Ivysaur or Charmeleon but it just lacks a certain charm and
personality, I’m not doing a very good job here am I? Typhlosion’s one of those
cases where as an evolution of its immediate predecessor (I this case Quilava)
it’s more than satisfying but as a final stage for the what came first you can
see the argument at it isn’t as satisfying. However I think this is masked better
than some evolutionary lines by keeping a continual colour scheme scheme
throughout – if you have no idea what the fuck I’m on about (probably because
I’ve worded it horribly): Imagine if Dragonite was blue and white:
Wouldn’t it seem far less
jarring as coming from Dratini? Even thought as a design it would still have
all the issues that make people dislike it as a Dragonair evolution bar the
colour. It’s a good way to cheat the brain and Typhlosion does it just fine. We
started out with a stubby hedgehog and end up with a ferocious long bodied
thing of indeterminate specials with a fire collar, the two look nothing alike
but their colour scheme hides it so well and ultimately I can’t complain
because it still feels like it came from Quilava - tricksy Game Freak!
People really seem to like the
Totodiles (including Bogleech) but I’m not in this crowd, sorry everyone. For me the Totodile Line is overshadowed by
its midvolution and in turn a trend with middle stage evolutions (especially in Starters) that it
started, what is this trend? The midvolutions stiiiink! Specifically the
midvolutions are very awkwardly designed, each sporting some weird design choice
that makes them look shite, for Croconaw it’s that beige markings that are
supposed to be, I believe a mix of an egg and the stereotypical outfits of
cartoon cave men like Ally Oop that fail all over the place and that just stuck
on red diamond on it’s tail. Neither have any reason to exist either – Totodile
and Feraligatr both have the same markings, it just moves down, so why not just
have that beige ‘arrow head’ in the middle? Well because it wouldn’t look
cave-man-y I suppose is the answer, but my counter-argument is why the fuck
does Croconaw look caveman-y at all? Because crocodiles are one of the most ancient
of all creatures still living today is the counter-counter-argument. ‘Yes I
know that’ begins my counter-counter-counter argument ‘but neither ‘mon either
side of it shows any hint of a caveman element, one is just a precious little
baby crocodile and the other is an – admittedly badass – big crocodile that
always looks pleased with itself’. And then I win the argument, because I’m
scripting it.
This issue bugs me no end
because it brings down my opinion of a line overall and SO MANY starters have
this issue. Why has no-one noticed and rectified this in 5 generations of
games?
Feraligatr has an
exceptionally appealing shape to its body don’t you think? I tried to find a
way of saying that where it doesn’t sound like I’m going ‘dem curves’ and that
I want to bang a 7-foot crocodile thing but apparently one doesn’t exist. This
twisted, hunched over and very monstrous looking shape to it, it’s quite
pleasing, and I like the way they ‘Pokémonized’ the bumpy crocodile/alligator
by giving it the standard Pokémon ‘armour bits’ in strategic places. Nice that.
Oh and if you’re wondering
why Feraligatr’s name is spelt like that, which you may not be given how weird
a lot of Pokémon’s names are, the reason is simple; Feraligator is 11
characters long and Gold and Silver had a 10 character limit for names that
even the dev team had to obey. So yes, the name didn’t fit. I’m completely
serious.
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