LogFAQs > #942991078

Final Analysis: Pokmon Heartgold Version

What I thought of Pokmon Heartgold: Sometimes relaxing, sometimes frustrating
Would I play it again? Sure.
Did it deserve to make division finals? No.

I've played my fair share of Pokmon games in my day, but Heartgold was the first time I really spent much time with the franchise in the last few years. Thinking back, the last full playthrough of any Pokmon game I did might have been in Mystery Dungeon: Red around two years back. Returning after some time away can change your perspective a bit, and I think the biggest thing I gleaned this time around was as follows: "Pokmon has way too much bloody RNG."

Playing one of these games in single-player can be a kind of zen experience. It uses very little brain-power. You mostly just run around KOing everything in sight with the same one or two moves, usually in one hit. Most trainers will have vastly under-leveled Pokmon compared to the player's, even if you use a full team. That might be when the game is at its best. That kind of relaxing quality definitely goes away when you get hit with confusion and have to watch helplessly as your Pokmon hurts itself three times in a row, or when Koga's Muk gets a minimize off and then you miss, and things fall apart from there as it slowly gains back the damage your rare hits do with its black sludge. I happened to watch a little bit of Pokmon speedrunning while I played, and it looks like a truly masochistic pursuit: a run of several hours can be ruined by a poorly timed critical or status element.

Catching legendary Pokmon sucks. You do everything you can to weaken them, and then you send out a Pokmon that walls them and mindlessly chuck Ultra Balls until one finally catches, which can take a shocking amount of time. I ended my own run with Pokmon like Entei and Lugia uncaptured because I was just sick of it. I can understand that the chance needs to be low so that legendary encounters don't feel anti-climactic when you catch them on the first try, so here's my proposal for a fix: with each Pokball you throw, the chance that the next one will capture is slightly increased.

The individual games in this series can feel a little interchangeable, but one thing I do appreciate about Gold/Silver in particular is how it follows on from the first game. I think ideas like Blue succeeding Giovanni as a Gym Leader, Cinnabar Island's destruction in a volcanic eruption, and Red as a super-boss were pretty cool. I think I would like this series better if it did things like that more often. The amount of content in these games is also nothing to sniff at: as was discussed in this thread, the original games were pushing up against what could fit on the Game Boy's cartridges.

Pokmon was definitely a speed bump for this project. I think it was the first time there were days when I didn't play at all, and the overall amount of time it took me to finish was excessively long. Although grinding for Red was a drag, I don't really blame the game for that. I think it just came during a time when I was feeling a little depressed and having trouble with motivation. Still, when I look back on the games of this project, I'll be surprised if it makes the top half.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 6/129
Currently Playing: Red Dead Redemption