Why Did It Take Me 20 Years To Complete The Pokédex On Pokémon Crystal

I have been a fan of the franchise all my life. My favourite generation out of all of them is Generation II and Crystal is one of my favourite games. I’ve played it so many times, but never completed the Pokédex in Crystal before...until now.

The first time I completed the Pokédex was in Diamond and since then, I was able to complete the Dex in future generations using a combination of many things. Even though there are many more Pokémon than there was in 2001, it’s a lot easier to complete the dex in my opinion with a combination of trades, events and third party devices.

Internal Battery

I went on a trip down memory lane during the three British lockdowns. When it occurred to me that I had never completed the dex. As much as I loved the generation 2 games there was an underlying issue with the internal battery. Once the internal battery died, it’s bye-bye to your Pokémon and save files.

Imagine if I did complete the dex and then one day I open up the game to find out that everything hade vanished. I was already upset as a child when it happened, but this would have traumatised me even more.

I’m so glad that the generation 2 games are available to play on the 3DS. It was great to relive my childhood without the fear of my savefile suddenly disappearing. I was now able to complete my childhood dream of completing the dex. I did it by myself, and I knew for a fact that they were all legit because I caught and hatched them by myself.

Trading Exclusives

Like with every Pokémon gam, each game have their own exclusive Pokémon which requires trading. There’s several Kanto Pokémon that require trading over from Red, Blue and Yellow.

Gen 1 and 2 remain the only generations that can inter trade with each other and there is no way for gen 2 pokemon to move over to the Gameboy Advance games. As this was one of my favourite games, this was really frustrating. It’s a relief that all my cartridge genration one games still work.

On top of that you needed a trading cable to be able to trade. Nowadays you can do it wirelessly with somebody near you or anywhere all over the world. I used my old 3ds console with Silver in to trade With my other 3DS with the other games on it.

Not Knowing What I Know Now

When I was a child with no access to the internet, the only way to get information was kids on the playground and magazines. I remember thinking that I needed a Moon Stone and Sun Stone to evolve Eevee into Espeon and Umbreon at the time. Of course a simple search on google would tell you that it needs max happiness day or night.

Event Only Pokémon

Without trading, a lot of Pokémon were only available through events or a hacking device. Since I didn’t have any of those, I never got to see Celebi. Of course, there is a glitch that helps make it possible to hatch Celebi out of an egg, but by the time I found out about it my internal batteries for all my Johto games were long since bust. I know there’s emulators but I found it hard to get immersed with emulators with the exception of rom hacks, I think they’re cool. The glitches present in gen 2 are still available in the virtual console as far as I know and the Celebi event is available in Crystal on the virtual console. When I got my Celebi in Crystal, I decided then to try and complete the pokedex on the game I love the most.

Time Constraints

As a kid, I thought I didn’t have the time to complete the dex as best as I could because of school. As an adult, I have a lot more commitments and I also played a lot more games over the years to the point dex completion became less of a priority and leaned towards enjoying the storyline. Hatching and grinding in Crystal is a pain in the ass and the best way to do it is to make a Pokémon hold an Experiance Share and battle the Elite Four and Red over and over and over again. In later games including the remake it’s a lot easier to level up your Pokémon.

Slow & Steady Wins The Race

Gen 2 have a lot of my favourite Pokémo. It really annoys me when Genwunners ignore the influence and impact generation 2 had. A lot of the Pokémon in generation 2 were also planned to be in generation 1. 190 were planned to be in generation one including Ho-Oh, Herracross, Skarmory and I think Houndoom as well.

Sword and Shield have divided the fan base once again. Simplifying the games, cutting out favourite post-game content and cutting a lot of the Pokémon out was the final straw for many fans. I’m not sure if we will see a Generation 9. I know people who have already boycotted generation 8 due to the national dex. I have played Shield and I love Alcremie and Wooloo, but like I said earlier, with everything being so accessible, it dosen’t feel much of an effort.

In Crystal, I know that when my Pokémon are as high level in this game is because I worked hard for it. For me, Pokémon Crystal has given me the most rewarding experiance because of Johto and Kanto are connected. Now that I’ve completed the Dex for Crystal, I feel like I’ve truly completed the game.