Video Game Review: Pokémon HeartGold

Nostalgia is a heavy tonic when you really think about it.  When a video game sets a long-lasting impression during your youth, it’s easy to think the positives that you saw all that time ago still exist all these years later. What happens though when that doesn’t turn out to be the case? Nostalgia is a positive concept, but it often obscures the reality of the product when you let the way you felt about a game drive the expectations you have when you come to revisit it.  Pokémon is a franchise which reflects this complicated struggle all too well. I, like many, have a lot of fond memories of playing the franchise in my youth and have a lot of glorified feelings for a lot of the older titles. After all this time I decided to revisit what is considered one of the pinnacle Pokémon games out there and the very best of generation four; Pokémon HeartGold. Despite the strong memories I have of the game, I find time and age has made my perception of the title considerably more critical of the game this time around. 

Released in 2009, both Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver are traditional remakes of the 1999 GameBoy Color titles, respectively called Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. Developed on the same engine used for the prior generation four titles, these remakes serve as a comprehensive repackaging of those original games, imbued with all the new mechanics and quality of life adjustments from the prior generation four games.  Ever since it’s release, these two titles have amassed a major reputation one of the most definitive Pokémon experiences to this very day; reinforced by a high 87 review score on Metacritic and 9.2 user aggregate score. It’s fair to say these two titles have established a legacy all of their own and there’s a lot of content embedded in this title to justify the reputation. 

The story of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver takes place predominately in the Johto region. This region is established to the west of the Kanto region, separated by the mountainous terrain tied between them.  Imbued with a more rural and naturistic environments and cities, the Johto region serves as the primary region your player character will be tasked to explore in their journey to become beat the Pokémon league and become a Pokémon master.  On your journey across the western region, you will come across the remnants of the nefarious Team Rocket. Coming off their defeat two years ago at the hands of the original player character Red, the remains of the criminal organization are out to cause chaos across Johto in an attempt to revive themselves and bring back their old boss Giovanni. Your rival in this game is a cold and uncaring child called Silver, who sees you as a weak trainer based on your empathy and fondness towards your Pokémon. The legendary storyline behind these titles revolves around Ho-Oh and Lugia respectively for each version. On your travels, you will come to assist a group of Kimono Girls who serve to protect the legendary Pokémon and find a trainer who may be worthy of facing them one day.

From a narrative end, nothing really feels all that connected in the course of this title. I appreciate this is a traditional remake of the old games and it was probably a creative decision to not deviate from the originals in any sense, but it serves to reflect a core weakness of those titles.  The overarching storylines don’t tie in with one another cohesively and a long period of time may pass until you end up falling back into a Team Rocket escapade or a Kimono Girl encounter.  I get the idea that the game needs to focus primarily on you building your Pokémon team and taking on the gyms across the region, but there’s little relevancy these additional segments have on the large scale and simply exist in their own bubble rather than feeling interconnected.  I am one of the people who believe a remake has the ability to reimagine the product in new and creative ways as apposed to simply retreading everything all the same.  I think from a narrative perspective, this game plays everything way too safe and the end result is a game with little to no engaging storyline to serve as a layered motivator to your time exploring the regions. 

On a gameplay end, there’s a lot of excellent elements to address but there are also some minor gripes that pull it down too.  First off, let’s talk about the combat system, which is arguably the heart and soul of what makes Pokémon what it is (I swear that wasn’t an intended pun!).  It’s great to see a lot of the generation four improvements come into the mix when navigating the battle system of these titles.  What’s immediately noticeable is the special/physical split. For anyone uneducated, generation four brought in a new set of stats for both special and physical attack and defense. These stats, accompanied with the new typing for moves being either physical or special, adds a whole new layer to approaching battles from a more tactical perspective and it gives a lot more viability to any Pokémon you pick up. 

Speaking of picking up Pokémon, Johto has a whole new range of Pokémon to capture on top of the generation one Pokémon from Kanto.  As you explore Johto you will come to encounter a mix of Kanto and Johto Pokémon to capture and train and while there is a fair variety, it does lead to a small criticism in how I feel a good chunk of new Pokémon are locked to the post-game. It sadly dampens the impact of the new region’s potential when a good proportion of its wildlife is from the prior generation. Again, this feels like another notable trip-up of playing it too safe on remaking every aspect of the original games. There’s no justification in my mind to lock a good chunk of the Johto pokedex to the post-game as it limits your options for building a team to work with through the main game.

I also feel the levelling field in this game isn’t given all that much thought.  A lot of the wild grass patches you will come across in the game have notably under leveled Pokémon to fight, making the grind to level you your team gruelingly extensive. The only means of levelling you viably are through trainer encounters, but even then it’s not all that easy because once you beat trainers, you need to wait a notable duration of time and then have to ring them up to initiate a re-battle.  I feel the better solution is to increase the level of wild Pokémon to better match the level of the encounters within the same area.  There’s no better example of this than in the post-game, in which you travel to the Kanto region and the entirety of the wild patches are the same levels as they were in generation one, despite the fact you are likely Level 40+ at this point. It makes building and levelling teams in the later stages of the game considerably grindy and not fun.

In terms of level design, I can’t help but feel the game is more cumbersome to navigate than it is enjoyable. A lot of this is based on the incredibly frustrating HM system.  As noted in my FireRed review, I never liked the Hidden Move requirements in the early games. The idea of being locked off from accessing key areas unless you train specific moves to your Pokémon which are for the most part weak and take up a key move slot you may have needed feels so obtrusive. There were so many moments where I innocently explored a route or cave, only to be held back a HM obstacle which required me to go all the way back and get a Pokémon to get past it.  I get it, it’s metroidvania level design but the way it’s implemented in these games serves more of an inconvenience for the player and there’s a clear reason they retconned it in new generations.

Visually, despite being a 15 year old Nintendo DS game, it’s hard not to be impressed with the visual scope of HeartGold and SoulSilver.  Rural nature is a key theme these games have run with and it’s seen in all aspects of the game’s environmental design. Pokémon and trainer sprites have their own unique animations too, which is a nice little flair to give them life in this title.  Where this game really shines though is in it’s audio side.  Go Ichinose, Shota Kageyama, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda and Takuto Kitsuta did a phenomenal job in revising a lot of the old generation two tracks with new instrumentals and beats to really fit it into the new generation. Another example of the benefits of not being afraid to revise a concept as apposed to simply remaking it. 

I know from the majority of this review, it seems I really disliked my time revisiting Pokémon HeartGold and while that is somewhat true, I am not blind to the overall value it still holds.  I can see why as a child I loved this game so much, because during that period, it really was the best Pokémon game that had been produced. I think time and age has made me more critical to a degree and I simply can’t value how dated this game feels.  It’s a game which chose to remake all the core concepts but not do anything to improve upon it.  It’s a game which feels a mile wide but an inch deep on a lot of levels and its positives simply aren’t enough to overshadow a lot of the cumbersome design choices littered throughout this game.