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Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver is 10 years old today

Forkball

Forkball

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,941
Remember when Pokemon games came out in Japan like six months before US? Dark times.



September 12th, 2009 saw the release of Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver in Japan. Remakes of the 1999 (another JPN release date) classic Pokemon Gold and Silver, HGSS introduced a plethora of interesting new features like:

+All 493 Pokemon could follow the player
+New playable female character
+Gen I and Gen III legendaries and starters in postgame
+Amity Park where you can walk with your Pokemon and see how they are feeling
+Pokeathlon minigames
+VOLTORB FLIP
+New story elements and old ones expanded upon along with redesigned areas
+First Pokemon remake to have online
+PokeWalker, a pedometer peripheral which can be used to train Pokemon or obtain new ones and items

Pokemon fans complain that each new game always takes away a much-loved feature. What did HGSS take away? NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IT'S FLAWLESS HAVE YOU HEARD HO-OH'S THEME


The gap between the original and the remake was a little under 10 years... but we've now hit the point where the gap between the remake and now is even longer. I'm not dying for a remake right now (Sinnoh first), but if they do... please keep it away from Let's Go and give it the proper treatment.

For me, it's the best Pokemon game and one of my favorite games ever. The only mark against it is that they cut off the online services for DS titles, so you can't get a Gengar and Alakazam easily like I did.
 

Deleted member 10737

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
49,774
best remakes
and along with platinum, my favorite pokemon generation. the games the best visual aesthetics of any pokemon game ever too (imo).
i remember reading the leaks on serebii like it was yesterday...
 
Zoon

Zoon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,397
My favourite pokemon game by far.

Also, what? Voltorb flip as a + ? That's probably one of the worst minigames I've ever played. Not only does it require a lot of thought, there are times when it's completely impossible to find the correct one. They should have at least left slots as a minigame.
 
WrenchNinja

WrenchNinja

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,754
Canada
They added a new route and the music is amazing



Remember when they wanted to make a remake the best it could be

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Joni

Joni

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,508
Should do a small Switch upgrade for this, and call it Let's Go. Reuse the branding, but keep the original gameplay.

Zoon said:
They should have at least left slots as a minigame.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They had to be removed for Europe anyway, so they probably decided to streamline.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
The 2009-2012 period with HeartGold/SoulSilver, Black/White, and Black 2/White 2 was the peak of the mainline Pokemon games.
 
Jimnymebob

Jimnymebob

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,689
I'm not a huge fan of the gen 2 games themselves, but it's probably close to, if not the, most perfect remake a game has ever got.

For me, Pokémon could've stayed like that forever, graphic and features wise.
 

Deleted member 17402

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,125
My favorite games in the series. I kind of stopped caring for Pokemon after X/Y. I played some of Ultra Moon but dropped it before the second trial. Couldn't stand much of that.

I also haven't played the older Pokemon games in such a long time because I have a mental roadblock when it comes to playing a game that I know is missing Pokemon that have come out after it. It's the only series I feel this way about. With that said, I may have a much easier time picking up Pokemon Shield/Sword for Switch because of the hard limit on which Pokemon they're including, rather than the unintended limitation of a game being older and therefore not including the monsters that released after it. It'll be easier on my conscience, in other words.
 
cdm00

cdm00

The Fallen
Dec 5, 2018
2,226
HGSS are some of my favorite games of all time, Pokemon walking behind you was an excellent idea

And I actually miss when Pokemon games came out in March instead of the Friday before Black Friday spot, maybe that's just the nostalgia in me
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
10,196
this is a little bittersweet for me since SoulSilver was the last Pokémon game I really enjoyed, can't believe it's been 10 years

I remember my main squad of Meganium, Slowking, Poliwrath, Crobat (my first Shiny!), and Magnezone well.

also: bring back Game Boy Sounds




and the PokéMart theme, god, it's so good. Let's Go getting rid of it genuinely annoyed me.
 
Serif

Serif

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
3,812
Part of me wishes it could have been built with the Gen V engine instead, the Gen IV games feel slower. Still - one of my favorite Pokemon games ever. I counted my lucky stars when my copy of Soul Silver kept working ( and still works !) after getting trapped in the laundry machine.

I remember my first shiny was the day care egg hatching into an Eevee, became a trusty beautiful blue moon Umbreon.
 
Serebii

Serebii

Serebii.net Webmaster
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
13,139
It has been longer since HeartGold & SoulSilver than it was from Gold & Silver to HeartGold & SoulSilver. it's crazy.
 
Mr. Capo

Mr. Capo

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
527
Wished ORAS was given this treatment. The DS era of Pokemon games were truly the best (Platinum, HGSS, BW, BW2).
 
Zassimick

Zassimick

Member
Nov 6, 2017
495
The one Pokemon entry I continue to put in consideration for my top 10 favorites of all time. I've played through both numerous times and the franchise has never lived up to this level. This period from HGSS to B2W2 was the high-point of the franchise for me aside from the Pokemon craze with RBY.

HGSS are the standard to which all Pokemon games should aim for.
 
MayorTortimer

MayorTortimer

Member
May 27, 2018
771
I love Pokémon and this has to be my favorite installment. Would love if they re-released it for the Switch sometime. I remember it being agonizing waiting half a year to play after Japan got it.
 
Hint

Hint

Member
Apr 9, 2018
180
SoulSilver was the last Pokemon game I've played until Sword and Shield come out. I also still have the game complete with box and the Poke-Walker thing, so its now probably one of the more valuable games I own. Wish I had time to replay this before the new ones.
 
Dad

Dad

Member
Oct 25, 2017
525
I still remember all the "will they/won't they" speculation about GameFreak even making a second set of remakes. I was so goddamn happy when it was finally announced
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,163
Whilst not my favourite game in the series due to the wonky main-game level curve of Johto, it's probably in the top 5 easily, with a great amount of post-game content and a staggering amount of new features as well.

Gym Leader Rematches as well as Elite 4 round 2 that uses all of the regions pokemon (Though Lance still ends up as the Flying Type Master, at least he has a few more Dragons this time, would take until Black and White 2 till he could actually claim being a Dragon Type master.) The battle tower from Platinum returned. The Safari Zone was overhauled and you could basically build your own. It's still the game with the most amount of Following Pokemon somehow. GB Player lets you have the original music playing (Why is this still the only remake to have that by the way?)

Oh and they also created some brand new themes for the various legendaries, not only were Raikou, Entei and Suicune given unique variants of their theme, but Ho-Oh and Lugia got entirely new songs that remain some of the best themes in the series to this day.





Still the (Heart) Golden standard for the Pokemon Remakes, and will probably remain as the best remakes in the entire series if the route going forward will be those abysmal Let's Go games.
 
Corrie1960

Corrie1960

Banned
Mar 19, 2019
1,888
My favourite Pokémon game is Pokémon silver so I loved Pokémon soul silver it's an amazing game with the best postgame of all time getting to collect 16 gym badges and challenge the elite 4 and then champion twice with a stronger team. Then going up mount silver to challenge red.

Game freak should of continued the trend of putting the past gen in the current gen for a postgame :(
 
tellNoel

tellNoel

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,257
And EZA is streaming the original versions every Thursday, so it's perfect that the anniversary of this is today :)
 
Aleh

Aleh

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,319
I still remember telling my mom how nice it was to play it because I didn't have to hold B to run. Amazing.
 
MisterSpo

MisterSpo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Feb 12, 2019
9,080
I loved this! Of course it came out in Europe later, but it is a remake of one of my very favourite games. I was having a tough time at university with depression and nearly broke down on the train home (I still remember a stranger looking at me with great sympathy). When I got home for my Easter break, Heart Gold was waiting for me and I basically spent 2 weeks on it, returning to a childhood favourite. One of my all-time favourite games.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

Member
Nov 8, 2017
13,164
Yeah I need to dig out my copy and start a new file.

It's not perfect (level xp curve was real harsh at higher levels from memory) but it preserves the spritework for Pokemon while still modernizing it a lot. My overall favourite game in the whole series for sure.
 
Dwebble

Dwebble

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,633
A superb remake- kept some of the issues that the originals had, but larded it up with tonnes of content and additions.

The next few DS games blew it out of the water, but this was the start of the imperial phase.
Serebii said:
It has been longer since HeartGold & SoulSilver than it was from Gold & Silver to HeartGold & SoulSilver. it's crazy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Bloody hell.
 
Gloam

Gloam

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,500
This was the first Pokemon game that I finished. Liked it a lot, the Pokewalker was good stuff. 10 years though, man, what have I done with my life?
 
NZerker12

NZerker12

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,549
These along with BW2 are the best pokemon games to date. None of Gamefreak's 3D games come close.
 
Agni Kai

Agni Kai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
7,034
These games were and still are amazing to this day. I love how colorful it is.

Will never forget the first day I played SoulSilver (because Lugia is the superior Pokemon, right).
 

Deleted member 135

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,682
For a brief period of time in the last months of my senior year of high school everyone was playing Pokémon again.

It's like we were all in 1st/2nd/3rd grade again. Battling, trading, talking about Pokémon all the time. It was like a little revival of the original Pokémania we experienced firsthand.
 
NSESN

NSESN

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
25,349
Best Pokemon game and one of the best jrpgs ever, and ,imo, the best remake ever
 

ryodi

#TeamThierry
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,369
I missed G/S/C so Soul Silver was all new to me and was absolutely fantastic and alongside B2/W2 are the pinnacle of the series for me. I also started listening to 1Up podcasts around the same time so those guys going nuts for the Pokewalker is one of my main memories of the game being released. The only mistep is that the GB Sounds are only unlocked at the end of the game.
 
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