31 05 2022
Heart Gold: After Olivine I make my way over east from Ecruteak. A few short routes later, I’m at Mahogany and get railroaded by NPCs to Lake of rage. Some guy is blocking the gym, some dude really wants me to buy some Rage Candy Bar. I can see why they localized it that way. It’s Rage Manju and I can understand it getting put that way. Pastry? Makes sense, but why would a guy be forcing a pastry on you. Random candy bar sellers made more sense back then. I know other pastries/confections that are close, but I was raised with having some Filipino food in my diet thanks to my Mom. Also, I could see someone going “confectionary would be too much of a word for a kid.” The shady Rocket shop is still there, but I’m gonna run quick to the lake.
Red Gyarados has dragon moves, as if they’re actually giving you pokemon that could help against future fights. Well, Twister is an actual Dragon damage move. Crystal also had Dragon Rage. In lake of Rage. Which does fixed damage.I won’t be using it but Lake of rage could’ve used a little bit more. Just a little bit more changes. Perhaps I’m not getting it because I haven’t seen a lake setup like that. Lakes I’ve been to have had rougher edges or were not visited or traveled like the one depicted here. With the improved trade back in Goldenrod to get a Machop, this game is way better than the original in including the tools to help players through difficult spots. GS have an unused map that looks like Lake of Rage. Except with more town stuff in it. Something tells me that setup makes more sense, but maybe in the final (and HGSS) they decided that it being connected to Mahogany made more sense. Driving/train videos (and Yuru Camp) gave me the feeling that maybe these sorts of areas are more wilderness and campsite like despite being closer to a more normal (small) town than some places I’m used to near the west coast of the states.
The rocket fake storefront has one of those tree camouflaged antennas. It gives the whole broadcast angle. I don’t know if this also happened in japan, but by the time this game came out some areas here had the most dollar store looking fake tree with big giant cell antennas up on it. I think I even remember seeing a smaller one off the freeway once. Wow they actually show Lance using his Dragonite to deck someone. Violence. Woulda been funnier if they also let your pokemon do similar actions in a pokemon game. Sure, let the giant Ursaring or Typhlosion hanging out with me just hit somebody. Thankfully this is on DS and not GB(C) where it’d be a little slower. Playing Crystal this close to modern games just emphasizes how slow the originals were.
Now that I’m back in this hideout again, I remember being at-level originally, but now it definitely feels like they did expect you to go to either side from Ecruteak. Rocket grunts are that lower level group from an earlier part. It just seems weird to have this fork, the direction I go always has Fly. Fly is the big time saver, why would you do it later? Honestly, this whole underground base section was pretty short in the original, but still felt a bit rough. Silver shows up for some weird reason. Lance beat him. I think it’s supposed to be he’s got a big beef with rocket, but now that I think about it the script doesn’t really show that well until later. If at all? I remember a few comments at the time mentioning it was a shame that a lot of the game was not as re-localized as it could have been. I’m not noticing it, but I do believe if a line existed in the original GSC it didn’t get changed? I’m expecting to some day get some Japanese reading ability and find out that the original scripts in pokemon aren’t that different. I think his personal beef is explained later or maybe it was a special thing. Beat up the executives again, slightly better dialogue and characters make this feel nicer than Crystal.
A short break later, I walk into the gym. New gym puzzles are nice, but feels oddly small and compact after a few of the other gyms having grander remodels. Mahogany does seem like a more out of the way rural place, so maybe it works. Again, would’ve been nice if they broke layout a little to make fancier buildings for the gyms. We got snowboarders and skier sprites in the original and they return here. If the gym looked like a fancy indoor winter sports center instead of some claustrophobic rooms, would’ve been nice. Honestly, GSC had a lot of stuff in them. Re-making an already packed game is going to lead to stuff like that. Almost feels like it could be argued the gym is a downgrade. Open room with ice tiles felt like an ice rink in my imagination.
Get the call and head over to Goldenrod. Little girl beats up Team Rocket, saves day. Rocket tower has a fun mixup over the original where you first try to sneak in by getting into a costume grade rocket uniform. Silver shows up with his jerkass and ruins the stealth mission,following through with the part of his character arc where he becomes nicer and more clearly shows that he hates rocket. Between the secret base and the tower, making a specific disguise character was nice. Definitely punched up a bunch of the humor here. Actually, back at the underground base in Mahogany, a murkrow parrots the passphrase in the secret base and Petrel feels like a proper cartoon villain throughout these events.
Going to the basement, a kimono girl shows up. I had forgotten that heart gold was so much better at setting up the box legend. Effectively, the kimono girls and some other characters were actively scouting you out to see if you were worthy. Better leadup than Crystal, I think.
It’s cool that there’s an observation deck to the tower as the final battle. The minor layout changes also make it feel like an actual office. Director gifts you the box legend wing/feather unlock item. So while important, it feel less like some historically important item like it did in Crystal. 10 year old carries around museum piece in backpack. If School taught me anything, delicate things don’t survive much backpack time. The broadcast tower having an observation deck makes so much more sense with the whole ‘this thing replaced a historical tower in this town’ angle. Also, the Director is the one who directly gives the hint as to what to do with it. They give him a fun fake out one more thing too. It’s cheesy and small but all these little additional things characters do just makes the game fit together well.
Back in mahogany, the little antenna tree is destroyed but not removed. The back tracking is a little weird, but with the whole phone thing it does feel like your journey got interrupted. Ice cave feels less a major upgrade after Crystal, but honestly I like those icy blue palettes. Save another Kimono Girl here. HGSS still has the dragonair for a dodrio trade for some reason. Claire’s gym feels like a proper fancy dungeon/gym. Definitely cooler than original. The dragon’s den definitely feels nicer than Crystal, which was already very nice. I remember being so wowed by Claire’s arc in my first playthrough. Now knowing Crystal had most of the changes, this feels like an extra nice version of it.
With all 8 badges, Prof. Elm calls us in. He tells us the Kimono Girls were looking for us. By changing kimono girls to a post-gym badges test it makes the ‘special trainer’ feel properly tested before doing legendary stuff. People involved with the area’s lore judging you, combined with the Suicune/Eusine events so far, makes it feel more special. My trainer worked for those 8 badges, met many people, and connected to the places outside the small town she lives in. Something about the scale of the game, both in building sizes and the scope of the game, almost makes it feel like someone going around and finding out what their community is like. You’re walking. The routes rarely feel too long. I sometimes wonder about a slightly more urban pokemon game because of this.
After I beat the Kimono girls, a younger one runs in and says she saw a large pokemon flying overhead, probably the legend. (It is!) The leadup to the bell tower is so nice, good fall orange trees and leaves. Bell tower keeps the jumping ramps from crystal, but has a few jumps that are hard to see on the new camera/map. Uses the same rocking pillar as bellsprout tower and it blocks stuff on the north side. Some maps don’t put the camera in the right spot to make stuff visible. The cutscene at the top of the tower is wonderful.
Kept on resetting on ho-oh to get a neutral or attack focused nature that didn’t sacrifice speed. First one also had super low stats. I won’t be going competitive with one, but I do want it to be a little bit good. The first time I played heart gold, I reset to get it in a normal pokeball. Lots of areas have well done evening sunset palettes, the top of the tower looks absolutely wonderful. With Ho-oh on hand, time to head to victory road.
Heading Victory road is still simpler, but got a new layout. The fancier cave also has a room that hints at something. Someone’s been camping out here… The routes going there are nicer too. Nice mountain and river path. Feels properly long and feels like a slightly different area in slight differences in environment design. Also, more Kanto pokemon since you’re in kanto. Everything else is just a fancier thing. The League gate is upgraded, but surprisingly feels more like a mall.
Time to take on the big challenge. Elite four rooms on the ds are cool, lots of fun effects and art. Feels like they got really comfortable after D/P. Big glow up over gameboy. Karen’s room is cool. It is a room that has blacklight stars on the floor Hg champ room is a little weird ancient tech lookin, but maybe they wanted it to look gold. Just like GSC, cute sprites during credits. Same font for The End.
After Credits, I decide I’m not too tired and go right to the Olivine pier to get right to Kanto. Vermillion city port got one of those glass floors that looks to the ocean. Also got interesting houses in town. Looking forward to how buildings look here. Spending a lot of time in Ecruteak and Violet, which are basically Kyoto old building stuffs, It felt like I get more building looks in Kanto.
