Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Review

Yes, I know, I hardly do reviews (I've done maybe 5 in my entire life) And I thought why not, another one couldn't possibly hurt.

The game in question (Well games) is the newest in a successful franchise where you have to catch them all, that's right, Pokémon Pokemon HeartGold Version and Pokemon SoulSilver Version
.

Pokémon SS/HG is a remake of the Gameboy Color games Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal, taking most of the things that were added in crystal and bringing it into the next generation of Pokémon games. Things like Apricorns and the Blue card are brought over while new events and music have been added, mostly for the better. It feels like a new Pokémon game at yet at the same time, those who enjoyed Gold and Silver will still enjoy their newer brothers.

The game itself runs on a modified Platinum engine, all the bugs and glitches are the same for the most part, if it's good or bad. The graphics look pretty good for a DS game and the Pokémon following you and showing emotion is a nice touch, it brings something to the series that hasn't been shown in depth since Yellow. It does not add any Pokémon to the already massive 493 Pokémon, but it does allow you to catch a lot of them easily, only a few are event Pokémon/traded from the game boy advance games). The reasoning behind that is because the Nintendo DSI does not have a gba slot, so using the feature called pal park is disabled for the games.

The game comes with what is called the Pokéwalker, a device the counts the number of steps you take and turn it into experience and watts, a currency that you can exchange for items and chances to catch unique Pokémon. Of course this has it's ups and downs, but for the most part it's well designed and works, the battery is supposed to last up to 3 months on normal use. The only real bad thing about this is that Pokémon sent to the Pokéwalker can only gain one level per stroll, and won't learn any level up moves.

The Pokéathlon is a set of 10 minigames where you can use various Pokémon to compete in various events for points that can be traded for hard to find items. The games themselves rely on the touch screen, so if you are the type of person who dislikes using the touch screen, then it's something to avoid. Overall a nice little detour of the main game.

The Game Corner has changed in any non-japanese country to what is called Voltorb Flip, its a fun little waste of time, not as luck based as the slots, but the payoff in the early levels aren't that great, there is also no way to buy coins, but you don't lose coins if you lose, so I guess it isn't bad.

The bad? Well, three things come to mind, the first being that the (Acid Rain glitch , and some of the remixed music (After a certain event, you get something that makes the music 8bit like the gameboy) sound bad compared to the full version. And the last one is not really a major thing is that it takes so long to unlock routes on the pokewalker.

My Ranking:
Gameplay: 10/10
Sound 8.5/10
Graphics: 10/10
Fun Factor: 8.5/10
Overall: 9/10

My Final Thoughts: If you liked either the gbc games, or any of the pokemon games and you are looking to play these, then go for it, it's a worthy investment being longer than pearl/diamond/platinum by a long shot. If you didn't like D/P/P, you can still give these a try, they don't bring in the other half of the pokemon till after you beat all 16 badges.

Fond memories of gold and silver: Beating the game for the first time not expecting anything else and then suddenly you have 8 more gyms to go after and end game content.

Best Battle track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vdXjkWkAg8 (Ho-oh Battle)/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhkGx0QGVDY Red battle
Best out of battle theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_1IoC6m7UU (Lugia Summoning) / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQeD1IdI-cU (Ecruteak)

DRM and You

Wow, another blog by me, but this is something that's been on my mind for a bit, and I'll explain why Security like DRM is horrible.

Now you may be wondering "Oh DRM, isn't that what software companies/music companies use to stop the sharing and illegally distribution of software or music." Yeah, that's it, but its a bad thing when it's taken too far.

Let's say you come home with that new game Dictation & Triumph 4. you install D&T4 and it tells you that you must have an active connection to play the game, thats fine, but wait, you have to be online to play single player. Do you see where I am coming from, if not then I can tell you what that means. Your internet goes down and then there goes all your experience, the ablility to save and the ability to play the game with the said experince, leaving the game you are currently playing will send you to a login screen. Can't even access the main menu. The game requires the exp to get upgrades. Or, let's say it's not on your end, let's use the example that it's server side, same thing happens. All over a little bit of piracy, all they're really doing is hurting the honest man and not really hurting the dishonest man.

Another example that I have, 3 music tracks that I have gotten for free from buying a cd at Wal-Mart (I dislike Wal-Mart, but I won't go into details), I transfer the media over to a hard drive. A while later I tried to play the tracks and it says that I can not, because it is not on the origonal hardware. In fact, you can't play it on most mp3 players unless you have it on the internal memory instead of like an sd card. This keeps the honest man honest and the dishonest man to find ways to get free music. These were offered as free, but I don't think I can refind the redemable code.

In all honesty, DRM hurts the honest people and does nothing to stop pirates, they will find ways around the protection, I don't want to support companies that uses such a tactic like that. It's unfair to the honest people with horrible internet connections due to location or other factors, or who don't even have internet for a period of time.