Generation II
Generation II Pokémon games consist of Pokémon Gold, Silver, Pokémon Crystal on Gameboy Color and Pokémon Stadium 2 on Nintendo 64. The games mostly take place in the Johto Region, but also include the Kanto Region and White City. In these games, the main character starts in New Bark Town and moved onto Kanto once he or she defeated the Elite Four. The games came out in 1999 in Japan and in 2000 everywhere else.
Advances in Gameplay
Pokémon Gold and Silver brought with it many, many different changes that would alter how the world of Pokémon would be precieved as the game reached new heights in popularity. These advances included:
- Playing as a girl (Crystal Only)
- Genders for Pokémon are introduced.
- Breeding
- Morning/Day/Night feature
- DVs get more involved as breeding became available.
- Alternate colors for Pokémon
- Trading and battling capabilities with Generation I
- 100 new Pokémon bringing the total to 251.
- Old Pokémon such as Golbat given new evolutions (Crobat).
- Old Pokémon such as Magmar given a baby form (Magby).
- Two new Pokémon types: Dark-type and Steel-type.
- Happiness became a quality of all Pokémon.
- Special stat split into Special Attack and Special Defense.
- Pokérus introduced.
- Pokémon can now hold items.
Starters
This time around, the Pokémon known as Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile, are availible to trainers at the beginning of the game. They too follow the Grass-Fire-Water (respectively) route of the previous generation. However, the game swtiched difficulty settings compared to Generation I as the Fire-type known as Cyndaquil became the Pokémon of choice to handle the first few gyms, whereas the Water-type, Totodile, was the intermediate difficulty Pokémon, and the most difficult Pokémon to start out with was Chikorita, which was of the Grass-type.
Gym Leaders
The second generation gym leaders had added gyms for the different types including the two new types introduced in this version. The leaders are:
Generation II Notes
Pokémon Crystal allows trainers to play as a female lead and has a slightly different storyline, as trainers focus on the Pokémon Suicune. Kanto became a different place than what trainers were accustomed to as changes were made, some of which are explained in the Kanto article. This generation is not compatible with Generation III and later, due to a number of internal mechanics changes, as well as the general incompatibility between Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance software.
