Concept: 1/5
Continue the remaking of old Pokémon games with updating Gold and Silver to HeartGold and SoulSilver. Overall, knowing how much money Pokémon games make there really wasn't a lot of new thinking put into these games. They just took a couple ideas from other games and put it into this remake. Most noticeably being having a pokémon follow you around from Pokémon Yellow. Nothing else really felt new.
Graphics: 2/5
The graphics are good for the Nintendo DS. Not amazing but it's still nice too look at. I especially liked the pictures they showed when you enter a new area, like the Ilex Forest, or the Ice Path. I feel like they set the world a little better and I'm more immersed. But that's about it. Otherwise it's just the DS pokémon engine... nothing really awesome.
Sound: 4/5
The sound is average. Does what it needs to do, the sound effects and songs are the same ones we've known since the beginning. So that's average, they are updated however from the original midi files to newer better sounding audio. But after you beat the game you can unlock the ability to play the original sound clips which is amusing and gives a good sense of nostalgia that I enjoyed.
Playability: 2/5
The playability is to be expected. It's another pokémon game. You have to wander from town to town beating gym leaders gaining Hidden Moves and the ability to use them outside of battle to unlock new areas of the map. You can still only carry 6 pokémon and they can only know 4 moves. Really a case of same old same old. This formula has not changed since the original. Which is the thing that really ticks me off. They've released more than a dozen games by now, and the formula is still exactly the same? Can we not get any innovation on this section of the game? Are the developers so unwilling to try something new? Or have they been trying things behind closed doors and discovering it doesn't work? I don't know but I can tell you this style of gameplay is getting really old really fast.
They did add a new gameplay element with the pokéwalker. But is a tamagotchi minigame with the element of you need to walk to gain things really new? I feel like they just took some other people's ideas and tried to fit them into the pokémon universe. Again where's the innovation? Where's the newness to the game? Why do I continue to feel like I'm playing the same thing over and over again and again?
Entertainment: 3/5
The game is entertaining. It's a pokémon adventure. It makes you feel like you're a kid again and that you can actually do some of these epic events and journey with friends on a wonderful adventure without fear of death like a normal rpg/quest with monsters/goblins/demons/etc. There is still a bit of fun to have in this game because of it.
X-Factor: 1/5
There's no new X-Factor to this game. It's a pokémon game and it'll be enjoyable on that basis. There's nothing that grabs you. Nothing that makes you think, "Oooh, this is surprisingly fun." There is no soul to this game. Just another game off the pokémon game factory line. Which makes good pokémon games. But it is again just another of the same.
Overall: 13/30 It's Ok...
This game is actually a bit of a weird overall rating. Because when I announced I was going to review games and explained my rating system I said that the rating this game received would make it best received by fans of the series. But as a fan of the series I felt like this was sort of just the same old same old. It's got differences from the others but I felt like I had played this before, just like the latest Zelda games. I felt like it was just another one in the series... nothing to write home about.
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