Chikorita is almost useless until you get to Kanto. The Johto Starters don’t present a particular advantage against the Gyms out the gate due to a variety of factors.

In terms of difficulty, the originals were a little easier than Red/Blue/Yellow in some ways but harder in others.

As a reminder, you can only Mystery Gift the same person once a day. The feature works fully in the the Virtual Console versions: All the 2DS, 3DS and New 3DS Family consoles have an infrared bar so…yeah. It also doubled as an additional way to both level pokemon you weren’t currently using and even randomly get new items or pokemon which could then be transferred back to the game.

The remakes included the Pokefinder Prehep, which was essentially an enhanced replacement for the Mystery Gift feature in the originals.

This is not possible in the Virtual Console versions–not yet anyway–but if you had Pokemon Crystal, you could pay the Move Relearner in Blackthorn City a visit to get Aeroblast or Sacred Fire on the level 70 versions of Lugia and Ho-Oh. The cover legendary could be caught at level 40 with their signature move while the other could be caught at level 70 without it.

As a result, Silver was more popular even though you could catch both Lugia and Ho-Oh in both games and in the same locations. At the time of their original 2000 release, The Power of One–also known as Pokemon The Movie 2000 in the U.S.–fans were already familiar with Lugia, who was the main Legendary in the movie.

Now that the original Gold and Silver have (Finally) been re-released (on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console), I have decided to do this little compare and contrast for folks regardless of which you prefer. I already did it for Ruby and Sapphire and their remakes OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire two years ago so…yeah.

…I plan on doing this with the original Red and Blue and their Game Boy Advance remakes FireRed and LeafGreen, likely in February or April.

Pokemon heart gold gameboy