Pokémon Crystal

Pokémon Crystal Version for Game Boy Color

Pokémon Crystal was the first Pokémon game where you could play as a girl.

It's me, Sage. I think it's interesting that the text "ID No." has anti-aliasing, unlike all other text on screen.

I love the tile floor in this little outpost... whatever you call the areas that section off the routes in the game.

The shop is so well designed.

The rival (Silver) is so gender.

This house with a tatami mat floor is so detailed and colorful!

I love the retro cell phone interface for calling people.

Falkner's gym

Falkner's portrait

Between Pidgey and Quilava, Bugsy was a complete pushover.

Some kind of glitch...

I'm so jealous! Raichu is my favorite Pokémon, but you can't get one (unless you get extremely lucky from the egg) until well after you beat the Elite Four :(

Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck!

Feeling this a lot lately.

Gastly using Curse

The Game Corner (gambling)

Hehehe

OMG it's Raichu! My favorite Pokémon.

Vaporeon

Jolteon

Flareon

Espeon

Umbreon

My least favorite thing in Pokémon: catching legendary/mythical Pokémon. Having a 1% chance per ball and just save scumming a fight is not even remotely fun.

Some of the attack animations are really impressive for the Game Boy Color.

I was pretty underleveled for the Elite Four, but by using strong Pokémon instead of my favorites, I was able to win without grinding. Sorry Karen, but I'm an adult with a job, I don't have time to win with my favorites.

That's me! It took about 50 hours including some grinding I didn't really need to do. Plus I left the game idle a bit while playing in docked mode with my Analogue Pocket.

I didn't really want to take any legendary/mythical Pokémon to the Elite Four, but I didn't feel like grinding and Suicune was already at a good level. So they were my backup Ice attack user for Alakazam, and I may have used a Water attack once?

Golem has historically been fantastic on my team, but the Elite Four was better at hitting his weaknesses. He did help out, though.

Alakazam is absurdly good in this game. Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, and Psychic made him an absolute monster.

Gyarados! I feel like he was such a monster in some of the games I played, but I didn't have as much luck with him here. Loading him up first with Surf then with the inferior Waterfall, combined with his lackluster Special Attack, made him mediocre at using his STAB for Water attacks. He mostly just uses Strength and hits hard. But hey, cool free shiny Gyarados, right?

Dragonair! I got the free Dratini from the dragon master guy and then gave him the Exp. Share. I haven't actually used him in combat yet, but I'm excited to eventually get a Dragonite, I guess. But the slow growth rate is brutal.

My starter, Typhlosion. Not as good as I hoped, honestly. He takes way too long to get any decent Fire moves. Putting Rollout on him was pretty great though, since he avoids the array of Rock type weaknesses and has the HP to stay alive long enough for Rollout to become a real threat.

Whew! I did it. I beat the Elite Four. I've heard Kanto is mostly a cake walk after Johto, so I think I'll take the time to go through it.