Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver Review

Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver

System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company
Year: 2010

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver are the 2010 remakes of the classic Pokémon games Gold, Silver and Crystal. Just like Red and Blue (Green) were re-released back on the GBA, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have done the same for the second generation of Pokémon games this Spring on the Nintendo DS.


Welcome To The World of Pokémon!

For those of you who have never played a Pokémon game before, the series is an RPG game where the player roams about the world collecting the titular Pokémon to train and battle so that the player can become the champion of the region that each particular generation (set of versions, e.g. Diamond, Pearl, Platinum) is set in, while beating off a set of baddies set out to conquer/destroy/recreate the world. After doing so, the main goal of the game becomes to catch all of the currently available 493 Pokémon (although this number is set to dramatically increase with the release of Black and White this September in Japan).

The battling style is turn-based, where each player takes turns to attack/use items and so on. In between fights you can explore the world, catching 'em all and talking to people in towns to find out interesting bits of information, or to advance the story. As you progress more features are made available, including trading and battling with other players, either locally or via Wi-Fi.

New Name, Same Old Game

The new games follow the same plot as the old ones. You start out as a new Pokémon trainer, who after being given a Pokémon from the local Pokémon expert, Professor Elm, have to go out to see Mr. Pokémon, who has made an interesting discovery. And so begins your journey.

However, these remakes aren't as similar from the old games as you would think. New areas have been added to the land of Johto that increase the game's length and certainly increase your enjoyment.

The first thing you will encounter is the Pokéthlon Dome, situated in the vicinity of National Park. The Pokéthlon is a range of mini-games that you can play to earn points to buy certain items, such as evolution items and other rarities. Although they do feel sort of tagged-on, they can provide small distractions, and the items you get out at the end are certainly worth it, and much more convenient than trawling through the battle frontier for hours on end.

Each Pokémon now has extra statistics especially for the Pokéthlon, which can be boosted by using Aprijuice. Aprijuice is made from Apricorns (those things you give to Kurt to make special Pokéballs from), and can be bought or made yourself by putting Apricorns in the new ApriBlender item. If you want to put more effort into the Pokéthlon than just randomly accumulating enough points to get items, then I'd recommend spending time with Aprijuice. In effect, with the lack of the contests introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, the Pokéthlon has replaced the old contests.

About half way through the Johto league side of the game, you will encounter the Safari Zone, located to the west of Cianwood City. This is a brand new upgraded version of the Safari Zone never seen in any Pokémon game before. This new Safari Zone is made up of six different areas, based on different environments. As you progress through the game, you gain the ability to swap these environments for others, arranging them in any order you like with the Area Customiser. This gives a much larger range of Pokémon available in the Safari Zone than ever before. Later on, you will gain the ability to place items in the Safari Zone, which, when a certain number of items are placed in each area, change the Pokémon that area holds. This is a great way of expanding the usefulness of the Safari Zone, but I wish more Hoenn/Sinnoh Pokémon had been included in there than has been.

The Battle Frontier, as seen in Emerald and Platinum, makes a welcome return. For those new players, the battle frontier is like a theme park of sorts for battling, made up of different buildings. Within each building, the rules of battling are different, giving you a challenging extension to the game.

All of these changes are great, but there is one I haven't been keen on. Due to EU laws on gambling, Game Freak were forced to completely change the game corner from previous games. What we are left with is Voltorb Flip, what I think of as a Pokémon version of Minesweeper. To earn coins, you must flip over all of the tiles on the board without a Voltorb on their reverse side. Hit a Voltorb tile however, and it's game over. When you clear all of the tiles, the game will level up and get harder. As a player who just used to buy coins from the old games, I feel that the game corner has changed for the worse, as this is now not possible. And with Porygon only available though the Game Corner in these versions, I can see many resorting to the GTS instead of ploughing through Voltorb Flip for a good few hours.

Pal Park also returns from Diamond, Pearl and Platinum; and is situated where the old Safari Zone used to be in Fuschia City. I suppose they had to include, but with dropping the Game Boy Advance cart slot from the DSi, as in most games which used GBA features, they are now redundant unless you're playing on a DS Lite.

A Legendary Challenge

For those who played the original games, all of the challenge and nostalgia is there, along with references to previous (and upcoming) versions. This includes legendary 'mon from previous games, such as Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza from Ruby Sapphire and Emerald, and Dialga, Palkia and Giratina from Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. It's great that Game Freak have given us the opportunity to catch these again, whether you're new to the series or want duplicates for trading or battling.

Due to this, there are two other new areas that should be mentioned. The first is the Embedded Tower, located just to the south of the Safari Zone. After you have finished the main adventure and beaten Red, you will obtain one of the orbs from Ruby and Sapphire, depending on your version. However, for the third orb, you need both Groudon and Kyogre from the Embedded Tower. And once again we are forced to buy both versions or use Wi-Fi trading to get all three Hoeen legendaries. I guess this isn't too bad, but when you want to replace your fully trained ones for online battling, it becomes a slight pain  finding and arranging  trades
.

The other area is the Sinjoh Ruins, which holds the three Sinnoh legendaries, complete with their special items, which can be found by trading an event Arceus onto your game. This was a great option that they included as people who didn't opt to buy Platinum haven't been left out of the alternate formes (why they misspell forms is beyond me) of Giratina, Shaymin and Rotom.

Interact With Your Face

The user interface also has had a make over, with the game now having menus that are totally touch screen controlled. Going back to Diamond feels rather odd when you've become accustomed to moving your Pokémon in their boxes around with the stylus. It freshens the game up a bit and makes everything quick and easy to access.

The Pokémon menu is the same style as Diamond and Pearl, albeit in a different colour scheme. The amp screen on the Pokégear also shows "roaming" Pokémon, like on the Pokétch in Diamond and Pearl.

The Pokédex has also received its best ever overhaul, and is very easy to navigate with a simple slider on the side instead of the gimmicky rotating Poké Ball thing in the other DS games. The Pokemon are laid out in a grid, and each 'mon's entry is displayed on the top screen when you select it on the bottom.

The Pokégear then is exactly the same as it was in Gold and Silver, however you can now store unlimited number of other trainers in your phone book. I would have liked to see a fusion of this and the Pokétch, but what we have with the Pokégear is perfectly fine.

Walking on the Pokémon Side

The obvious extra plastered all over the box, and the reason for it being a large cardboard thing, is the Pokéwalker. Consider it a cross between a Tamagotchi and a pedometer and you've got the idea. You transfer a Pokémon to the Pokéwalker and then go for a walk in real life. The Pokéwalker will then count the steps you do. The gadget contains technology to tell if you're cheating, but as always there's methods to do it.

As you walk, you'll convert so many steps into watts, which you can use to play mini-games as well as unlocking new routes for the Pokéwalker. There are two mini-games in which you can catch Pokémon and find items.

The Pokémon battles are nothing like those in the actual main game due to the limit of the technology and such. You get three options: "Attack", which attacks, "Evade" which makes your Pokémon avoid an attack and perform an attack of their own, and "Catch" which attempts to capture the wild Pokémon. Health is depicted by four bars, and each attack reduces health by one bar. Obviously the lower a wild Pokémon's health the moire likely you are to capture it.

When you use the itemfinder, you are shown a screen with so many pieces of grass. You have two chances to select the right piece, however on the first go if you don't get it it gives you a hint by telling you if "it's near" or if "it's far away". You can store up to 3 Pokémon and 3 items before you need to return your Pokémon to your DS.

It could be considered a daft gimmick, but using the Pokéwalker is actually fun, and takes just a couple of minutes to set up. Once you've clipped it onto your belt (via the included belt clip) or have it safely stored in your pocket, you'll forget about it until you get back where you have th option of playing some mini-games.

The only unnecessary thing about the Pokéwalker is that your Pokémon will level up by one level each time you use it. the Pokémon in question will not learn a move that it learns at that level or evolve, so be careful when using the gadget. As different routes have different bonus types where you cut down then umber of steps needed for the rare Pokémon and items, I find it useful to keep a select few Pokémon in my box just for the Pokéwalker.

This is Johto!

With both Johto and Kanto to explore and all 493 Pokémon to catch, HeartGold and SoulSilver are the best and perhaps longest of all Pokémon games that have been released so far. Using Gold and Silver as a base, then adding in some of the best bits from all the games since this is an epic game which will have you busy for hundreds of hours. And when you think you're finished, there's always a Battle Frontier record to be broken or battling over Wi-Fi. And if this is your first Pokémon game, you're in for one of the best gaming experiences of your life. Some said that Pokémon was just a passing craze, but it's more than that. Pokémon is a series that when it grips you, it'll keep you buying each new iteration. Until Game Freak really run out of ideas, the series won't be dying any time soon.

+ Biggest and best Pokémon so far
+ Improved and new areas add to game's extensive life span
+ Pokéwalker is a fun distraction
- In it's essence it's the same game we've been playing for over 10 years
- Rubbish game corner replacement

9/10