Pokémon Gold and Silver

Pokémon Gold Pokémon Silver
Developer(s)	Game Freak
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Director(s)	Satoshi Tajiri Junichi Masuda
Producer(s)	Takehiro Izushi Takashi Kawaguchi Tsunekazu Ishihara
Designer(s)	Satoshi Tajiri
Artist(s)	Ken Sugimori
Writer(s)	Toshinobu Matsumiya Kenji Matsushima
Composer(s)	Junichi Masuda Go Ichinose Morikazu Aoki
Series	Pokémon
Platform(s)	Game Boy Color
Release	JP: November 21, 1999 AU: October 13, 2000 NA: October 15, 2000 EU: April 6, 2001
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Pokémon Gold and Silver are two role-playing video games made by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color handheld. They are the second games in the Pokémon series, and increased the number of Pokémon to 251. The Pokémon Ho-oh and Lugia, respectively, are featured in the boxart. A special version named Pokémon Crystal, which had the Pokémon Suicune on the cover, was released around a year later. Pokemon Gold and Silver are backward-compatible with the original Game Boy (except in Korea), but Pokemon Crystal requires a Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance.

Gameplay

See the main article: Gameplay of Pokémon

The games added many new things, such as breeding and a new bag system. There were also ninety nine new Pokémon added.

Plot

The games take place in a region named Johto. The player is a ten year old kid from New Bark Town, who is sent on a mission from Professor Elm. After completing the mission, the player gets to choose a starter Pokémon, and start a journey. During this journey, the player fights an villainous team, Team Rocket, who is coming back after being defeated by the player of Pokémon Red and Blue and many Gym Leaders so that he can earn Gym Badges. After defeating the Gym Leaders in the Johto region, the player has to travel to the Kanto region to defeat the Gym Leaders living there. After defeating a total of 16 Gym Leaders and 4 Elite Four members and the champion, Lance, Professor Oak, will ask the player to go to Mt. Silver, where the player has to defeat Red, the former champion of Kanto.

Known issues

The cartridges use a CR2025 lithium battery to keep track of the time and to power the sRAM save mechanism. As these games were released over 15 years ago, the original battery is usually depleted by now. It is possible to replace it, but it requires a special screwdriver bit to open the cartridge and soldering in a tabbed replacement battery. Replacing the battery will erase the game save on the cartridge, if any, unless special precautions (such as backing up and restoring the save file using special hardware, or wiring a temporary battery in parallel with the original while removing it) are taken.

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver

Pokémon HeartGold (ポケットモンスター ハートゴールド) and Pokémon SoulSilver (ポケットモンスター ソウルシルバー) are remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver, developed by Game Freak for the Nintendo DS. They were released on September 12, 2009 in Japan, and were released on March 14, 2010 in North America, March 25, 2010 in Australia and March 26, 2010 in Europe. There are many new features. Like Pokémon Yellow, the player's Pokémon can follow them. The games come with a pedometer-like device, called the Pokéwalker, that can let players walk with their Pokémon, and gain Watts, which can be used to battle Pokémon, or dowse for items. They also introduced an item named GB Sounds, which made the music sound like the one used in the original games.