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Pokémon Silver is the first Pokémon game I've ever played, and looking out to the sea in Cherrygrove City is one of my first Pokémon memories (and the inspiration behind the name for this website).
I didn't own many Pokémon games as a child, Pokémon Silver and Pokémon FireRed being the only ones I had from the Game Boy era. The rest I borrowed from kind friends, who let me play their Sapphire version while I watched in awe as they used Espeon and Umbreon to make their way through Pokémon Colosseum on the GameCube.
I was too young for Pokémon Red and Blue when they came out and I don't remember ever completing Pokémon Silver when I eventually got it for Christmas, years after it was released. I remember the shock from a random encounter with Entei on Route 39, attempting to navigate Dark Cave without Flash (terrible idea), and being forever stuck on the Radio Tower door puzzle. I may have got to the Hall of Fame at some point, but I doubt I ever caught Lugia or beat Red.
Look at this baby Nidoran♀! Look at it!!!
Then, many years later, as soon as I had access to a little disposable income, I got a Nintendo 2DS with Pokémon Ultra Sun and a virtual copy of Pokémon Silver. Despite my dislike for the console, I completed Silver – and, a few years later, Crystal, as well. The Virtual Console games were particularly attractive because they could (and still can, as of 2024) connect to Pokémon Bank, so I had never had a strong desire to go back to the Game Boy Color, a console I never owned.
Following AbsolBlogsPokemon's inspiring Professor Oak challenge, the Generation 2 itch came back. In the past, it was quickly quashed by the idea of having to play on the 2DS Virtual Console. However, this time, I had recently purchased a modded Game Boy Advance (backlit and rechargeable) and there was suddenly an option to get a modded Game Boy Color and re-live the OG Johto experience – minus the eye strain and battery waste. So the eBay hunt began and, in Autumn 2024, I started two brand-new playthroughs of Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver.
The exciting premise of this new adventure is that because these Pokémon will likely never leave these games (as there is no direct connection to Generation 3, Pokémon Bank, or HOME), I will ignore many of my usual self-imposed restrictions around legendary or one-time encounter Pokémon. Often I will either not catch them (what if I want to shiny hunt them later!) or catch them and transfer them up to train them "properly" in later generations. With this playthrough, I instead plan to catch them and (sacrilege!) add them to my team.
There are multiple reasons why I started two games at once – I want to take advantage of the bonus EXP from traded Pokémon, ensure access to a wider pool of version exclusive Pokémon I wouldn't normally use, and have the option to get trade evolutions.
While this is a pretty vanilla run – the only restriction being to stick to Generation 2 Pokémon – my aim is to revisit this generation and all it has to offer rather than set myself a particular challenge.
By complete chance, I found out that if it's between 11:00 PM and 12:59 AM in-game, Mom will not let you set daylight saving time on the Pokégear and will claim that she lost the instruction booklet...
Since I decided to catch and train pretty much all available Pokémon introduced in Generation 2, I've made a rough plan to try and split them equally across the three games, with Crystal (which, at the time of writing this, I haven't yet started) being reserved for new Pokémon I will only have access to in the Gold and Silver post-game.
Still, that's a lot of little guys to keep track of and it's a completely different experience from my usual "choose your team of 6 and get it over with". There's a lot of going back and forth to the PC and a lot of trading involved, but it keeps things interesting. While I find myself being pretty much consistently under-levelled, because of the big pool of Pokémon I have access to, I can always find a winning strategy.
Getting enough items meant hunting down Metal Coat on wild Magnemite and King's Rock on wild Slowpoke, but it is so much fun to casually go through the Gold and Silver early-to-mid game with a Scizor or Politoed in your team. You'd think they would be overpowered, but because of the lackluster Generation 2 movesets and because I'm not focusing on the same 6 Pokémon, the challenge is definitely still there.
Amongst other things I tend to do to keep the stakes high, once I've chosen a team of 6 to take on a Gym, I don't go back to the Pokémon Center to heal between battles, meaning I have to defeat trainers and Gym Leader with those 6, or reset and try again.
Is there anything funnier than Minimize vs. Minimize?
The portability of the old Game Boy systems sometimes made for some magical moments, like defeating Morty while on a walk
By slowly replaying these games, I keep finding myself learning new trivia or noticing game choices that didn't make sense to me as a 10-year-old.
For example, I didn't realise that Sunkern and Sunflora have pretty different level-up moves, so depending when you use the Sun Stone you could raise two completely different Sunflora. You can wait until Sunkern learns Synthesis (Lv. 31) and Giga Drain (Lv. 46), or you could evolve it right away and get Sunflora to learn Petal Dance and Solar Beam, instead! In a game where re-learning moves was not yet introduced as a feature, this makes for some interesting decisions.
I decided to raise two different Sunflora, meaning that one of them will have to stay a Sunkern for a looong time.
The Olivine City Gym was always a mystery to me. As a child, I couldn't understand why I had to go through all the trouble of getting to Cianwood City and finding the remedy for Amphy, only to end up in an empty Gym, with no puzzles and no trainers.
After talking to the Gym attendant at the entrance, this now feels like a deliberate choice. He says he doesn't know much about the Steel-type (a newly introduced type in this game), instead of the usual suggestion about which type advantage would benefit you.
Obviously this is less of a problem nowadays, but the lack of trainers in the Gym meant that if you didn't already know what moves would be supereffective against Steel Pokémon, you also can't test type match-ups beforehand, going in blind against a new type with lots of resistances.
A rolling list of things I would like to go back and do eventually:
Go back and collect important Pokégear numbers (frustratingly, the Pokégear has very limited memory when it comes to numbers)
Collect all the TMs and teach them to key team members before important battles
page originally created June 2025 | last updated September 2025
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