Back when I was only twelve, I had the option to pick my first REAL Pokémon game. Sure, I had spin-off games such as Pokémon Go and watched a ton of movies and T.V. shows, but this was the real deal. I had learned about shiny Pokémon when I got my first one on Pokémon Go (Chikorita). A shiny Pokémon is a discolored version of its regular form, and it’s extremely rare (1/8192, so that’s something to hunt for). This is one reason why I chose HeartGold. I had the option between the games of Red and Blue, Gold and Silver, HeartGold and SoulSilver, or X and Y. In Red and Blue, shiny Pokémon weren’t a thing, and Gold and Silver was 8-bit as well, and mostly white, black, and one primary color. Gold was my favorite color at the time, and Ho-Oh was the featured Pokémon in HeartGold, so that was what I went with. I was also able to grab X, the first 3D main-series game. I’ve had both games for two years now and still play on them all day.

Now, if you aren’t a Pokémon fan or haven’t played a main-series game, you’re probably confused on all these “weird” names for video games in a series. Regularly, there are two or three games in what we call a generation, or gen for short. Pokémon games Red, Green (Japan exclusive), Blue, and Yellow were all in the first generation of games. Games in a generation do not go in order and are not parts of a series, but rather have minor differences between each other, such as featured Pokémon and trainers. Each generation adds a ton of Pokémon; the first generation had 151 Pokémon, while generation 2 added 100 more, as well as already having the existing 151 Pokémon. There are eight generations, with Pokémon Sword and Shield being the latest generation. Generation 2 (Gold, Silver, Crystal) added plenty of new features and more parts of the timeline. However, Generation 3 and 4 were different. Generation 3 had Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, but there were remakes of Pokémon Red and Green from generation 1, named FireRed and LeafGreen. Generation 4 had Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, yet there were remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver. This is how HeartGold came to be.

Pokémon games have a basic structure: you start the game in your room, you go down stairs to get your equipment from your mother, you walk to the professor's lab, you get your starter Pokémon, you battle other trainers, you heal your Pokémon at Pokémon centers, you battle the eight gym leaders, you battle the elite four, and you battle the Pokémon champion. HeartGold and Soulsilver have their own storyline. Once you make your way to the laboratory, you notice a red-haired boy peering at a window on the side of the building. This is your rival during the games, unlike how you get your starter WITH your rival. His mind is completely corrupted and he’s evil. Once you get your starter, the Pokémon professor tells you to make your way to a house owned by a man by the name of Mr. Pokémon. Once you get there, he gives you an egg to take care of. Then you follow the path to the next town to heal up your Pokémon and stock up on supplies. However, your rival walks up from behind you and challenges you to a battle. He sends out his Pokémon, and you realize he picked the type that is effective against yours. This gives you a tough trainer battle right off the bat. After you defeat him, you heal your Pokémon and make your way to the next city. The next city, Violet City, has one of the eight gyms, where you can fight a gym leader for a badge. You need eight badges to challenge what you call the “Elite Four,” a group of the four strongest trainers that you have to defeat to challenge the Pokémon champion. What’s unique is that there’s a second region to do this all over again, and you have an epic final battle against Red, the character you play as in generation 1 as well as FireRed and LeafGreen.

Pokémon Gold was really just a better version of Red. With 8-bit graphics and sound, and only black, white, and one primary color, Pokémon Gold featured a new character that you play as with several new Pokémon types as well as 251 Pokémon. You could still continue your journey in the region in generation 1, but there was an entire new region of gyms and trainers. Two regions to beat the game in, unlike generation 1 where there was only one. Shiny Pokémon were released in that game, and people found out about it after finding a strangely discolored Gyarados, a water dragon from generation 1. In generation 1, you played as a ten-year-old named Red. Your rival is Blue. However, the final battle in Pokémon Gold is Red, and you have a new rival who stole one of the three Pokémon you can start with. Why am I talking about Pokémon Gold? Well, Pokémon HeartGold is a remake and is ten times better.

Pokémon HeartGold has way more Pokémon than Pokémon Gold. Because Pokémon HeartGold is a generation 4 game, there are 242 additional Pokémon. The graphics are so much better as 16-bit since the colors are vibrant and it’s not just black, white, and one primary color. This means that all sprites in the game, including shiny Pokémon, look just so much more realistic and awesome. The problem with 3D Pokémon games such as X and Y is that they look TOO realistic and their colors are less vibrant. A green or emerald Pokémon would become a fern-green color. However, HeartGold has the perfect graphics and sprites. I prefer HeartGold over SoulSilver due to the featured legendary Pokémon in each game. A legendary Pokémon is a Pokémon you can only obtain once because it’s the only one to exist. The legendaries you can obtain in HeartGold are way better in my opinion compared to SoulSilver. For example, the weather trio, the group of featured legendaries from generation 3, consists of Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza. Groudon is a ground-fire elemental dragon lizard type of thing, while Kyogre is a giant blue whale that controls the seas and the rain and storms. Rayquaza is in both games and is a flying green dragon-snake creature that halts the clash between Groudon and Kyogre. Kyogre is in HeartGold, and I prefer Kyogre over Groudon, especially the shiny form, a bright magenta variant.

HeartGold and Soulsilver both have only one minor glitch, but it doesn’t even affect gameplay. In the overworld map, if you jump off a ledge with your starter walking beside you while poisoning stops damaging it, your starter stays stuck in the air. This doesn’t do anything except reset the position of your starter Pokémon when entering or leaving a building. Otherwise, the game functions almost perfectly. The frame rate is high enough for players to not notice each frame at a time. When you encounter a Pokémon, for example, the screen brightness turns all the way until the screen is white, then returns to normal. It happens a few times, and it runs very smoothly. After the two or three times the screen blinks, the screen brightness turns down to zero. Then pieces of grass jump up from the bottom of the screen and then dissolve. The screen turns back to normal and you’re in the middle of the battle screen. All animations run super smoothly and you don't notice when framesmove from one to the next.

Not only is this single player, but you can battle online and trade with others too. In single player, you just go through your normal story and do cool things along the way. When you trade a Pokémon, you get the one that the other player offered. You can battle others online if you want a tougher challenge. In single player mode, there are events. For example, every Tuesday there are bug catching contests that you can do. Sometimes, exclusive Pokémon can be added for a short time. In multiplayer, new game modes could be out for a short time. I personally prefer single due to multiplayer being much harder, despite single player being so difficult itself.

In Pokémon HeartGold, the difficulty is pretty high.  For example, the third gym leader of the Johto region (the region you start the game in) has a very annoying Pokémon. This Pokémon is called a Miltank. Supposedly, it’s some weird pink cow that’s fat and stands up. It has three annoying moves. Rollout just does a giant amount of damage. However, at the start of the battle, if your Pokémon is a male, it falls in love with the Miltank and usually can’t attack. When Miltank is low on HP, it uses milk drink to fully restore it. So, to total things up with this Pokémon, you can’t attack 75% of the time, the Miltank does nearly half of your health, and it can fully restore its HP. Now, let’s say your starter was a female (15% chance of happening when you get it).  It would still deal nearly half your health and be able to fully restore HP. Another difficult Pokémon is Red’s Pikachu in the final battle of the game. After you get your Pokémon to level 70, it takes a very long time to level up regardless of who or what you battle. And guess what? He pops out a level 88 Pikachu. This is enough of a difference to one-shot sweep your team if you don't have the perfect type and moveset. When I think about it, the Miltank era in the game was extremely hard. I don't think I could ever defeat Red without leveling up my Pokémon that high. The difficulty rises extremely fast, and don't even get me started on multiplayer.

That indeed is one problem to the game; you can make it hard, but you shouldn’t make it too hard to where the CPU is basically cheating. At the beginning of the game, when you get your starter Pokémon, you have to battle 4-5 times to level up. Each battle takes maybe two minutes. This means you’ve spent 8-10 minutes leveling up once. From 5 to 6. You have to spend hours grinding wild Pokémon to get to the necessary level for certain gym and trainer battles. This is a huge problem with the game and I just wish it didn’t take a year to get to level 70 to even do much damage in the final battle against Red in the Kanto region. The entertainment makes up for it though. Sometimes, even grinding can be fun.

Unfortunately, you can only play this game on two devices: a 3DS and an emulator on a PC. The 3DS version costs $70 to $100 while using the emulator is risky due to possible viruses that can ruin a thousand-dollar computer. Not only can you screw up your PC, but it’s also usually illegal to use an emulator and download games you don't have. It just takes away from Nintendo, so don't do it. Save up for your own copy of the game. It’s worth it.

Overall, HeartGold is a magnificent Pokémon game, if not the best. Even if you’re not a fan of Pokémon, you should really try HeartGold. Don't think it’s for kids; more adults play this game, and it’s your loss if you think you’re too old. Play until the first two or three gyms and give it your opinion. HeartGold is a well-programmed game, but it is really time-consuming. For you patient fans out there, this is a game for you. And what if you’re not patient? HeartGold will teach you how to have patience. This is absolutely my favorite video game of all time, and there are plenty of reasons why it’s so fun and nearly zero reasons why it wouldn’t be. Even if I wasn’t biased, HeartGold would still be given a 4.5- to 5-star rating overall. 95% of ALL players love the game, not just Pokémon fans, and its rating is a 4.7/5, according to GameStop. If you aren’t interested, you’re clearly missing out on the greatest Pokémon game of all time.