Pokmon Gold Version and Silver Version (????????? ?? Poketto Monsuta Kin Gin?

, "Po cket Monsters: Gold & Silver") are the second installments of the Pokmon series o f role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo; de veloped for the Game Boy, the games were enhanced for its successor, the Game Bo y Color, and marketed for the latter console. They were first released in Japan in 1999, Australia and North America in 2000, and Europe in 2001. Pokmon Crystal, a special edition version, was released for the Game Boy Color roughly a year l ater in each region. In 2009, Nintendo remade Gold and Silver for the Nintendo D S as Pokmon HeartGold and SoulSilver. The games introduce 100 new species of Pokmon, and follow the progress of the cen tral character, whose name the player may choose, in his quest to master Pokmon b attling. Both games are independent of each other but feature largely the same p lot and, while both can be played separately, it is necessary to trade between t hem and their backward compatible predecessors in order to fully complete the ga mes' Pokdexes. The Johto Saga of the Pokmon anime is based on the new region intro duced in the games. Pokmon Gold and Silver continued the enormous success of its predecessors as Pokmo n began to form into a multi-billion dollar franchise. The games almost matched the sales of Pokmon Red and Blue and went on to jointly sell millions of copies w orldwide. By 2010, the recorded sales of Gold and Silver were at 23 million unit s sold. Like Pokmon Red, Blue and Yellow, Pokmon Gold and Silver are played from a top-dow n perspective, or third-person, with players directly navigating the protagonist around the fictional universe, interacting with objects and people. As the play er explores this world he or she will encounter different terrains, such as gras sy fields, forests, caves, and seas in which different Pokmon species reside. As the player randomly encounters one of these creatures, the field switches to a t urn-based "battle scene", where the Pokmon will fight.[2] There are two main goals within the games: following through the main storyline and defeating the Elite Four and Lance to become the new Champion,[3] and comple ting the Pokdex by capturing, evolving, and trading to obtain all 251 creatures. A major aspect of this is developing and raising the player's Pokmon by battling other Pokmon, which can be found in the wild or owned by other Trainers. This sys tem of accumulating experience points (EXP) and leveling up, characteristic and integral to all Pokmon video games, controls the physical properties of the Pokmon , such as the battle statistics acquired, and the moves learned.[4] New features While Pokmon Gold and Silver retain the basic mechanics of capturing, battling, a nd evolving introduced in Pokmon Red and Blue, new features were added. A time sy stem was introduced using a real-time internal clock that keeps track of the cur rent time and day of the week. Certain events, including Pokmon appearances, are influenced by this feature.[2] New items were added, with some designed to explo it a new mechanic: Pokmon being able to hold items.[5] A new type of item able to be held was the berry, which comes in varieties and can restore health or cure status effects. Other held items can give boosts to the Pokmon during battle. Mor e specialized Pok Balls were introduced, which make Pokmon catching easier in cert ain situations.[6] A new item called the Pokgear (???? Pokegia?) was introduced, functioning as a watch, map, radio, and phone, allowing the player to call other characters who offer their phone number. Trainers will call for a rematch and o thers will call about rare Pokmon that can be caught in a certain area.[7] The games introduce Raikou, Entei, and Suicune, a new type of legendary Pokmon th at wander around Johto, changing locations frequently.[8] They can be tracked by the Pokdex once encountered, and will always attempt to flee, but will retain HP

loss. In addition there is the possibility of encountering a shiny Pokmon, which have a different coloration than normal Pokmon of their species, and appear very rarely.[9] Two new Pokmon types were added, the Steel-type and the Dark-type.[10 ] Steel-type Pokmon have very high defense and resistance to other types, while D ark-type Pokmon are immune to Psychic-type moves and are strong against Psychic-t ype Pokmon, as well as having few weaknesses.[4] In Gold and Silver, new moves we re added, but Pokmon knowing these moves are not allowed to be traded to the firs t generation games. To solve this, a move deleter was introduced, capable of era sing moves known by the Pokmon. Another major change was the splitting of the Spe cial stat into Special Attack and Special Defense, which increased aspects of st rategy.[4] With the introduction of Pokmon breeding, Pokmon are assigned to one or two breedi ng groups. When a male and female Pokmon that share at least one breeding group a re left at a Pokmon Daycare, they may produce an egg, which will hatch into a you ng Pokmon.[11] The young Pokmon will inherit the species of its mother, and moves from its father. However, legendary Pokmon, among certain other species, cannot b reed.[12] Plot Pokmon Gold and Silver are set in the region of Johto, situated to the west of th e Kanto region from the previous Red and Blue games, and three years after the c onclusion of the previous games. The design of Johto was inspired by Japan's Kan sai and Tokai regions, with many of the region's temples and more traditional Ja panese aesthetics finding their way into Johto. Goldenrod City is analogous to O saka, with its Magnet Train linking it to Kanto's Saffron City much like the Shi nkansen links Osaka to Tokyo. Additionally, Ecruteak City is similar to Kyoto, i ncluding its two large towers which are shown to resemble the temples of Kinkaku -ji and Ginkaku-ji, with Kinkaku-ji's iconic phoenix statue inspiring the Pokmon Ho-Oh.[13] Story As with the previous games, the player character (only a boy in Gold and Silver, the option to play as a girl player character was added in Crystal) receives hi s first Pokmon, a choice between Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile, from the reg ion's local Pokmon scientist Professor Elm and then begins his journey to win the eight Gym Badges of the Johto region and then challenge the Elite Four and Cham pion to become the region's new Pokmon Master.[10] Opposing them is their mysteri ous rival, a boy who stole one of the other Pokmon from Professor Elm and regular ly challenges the player to test his strengths.[7] The player also encounters th e villainous Team Rocket, having reunited to seek out their previous leader Giov anni to return the group to their former glory.[6] After the player defeats Team Rocket once and for all and defeats the Elite Four and Champion of the Pokmon Le ague on Indigo Plateau, the player can then travel to the Kanto region from the previous games and challenge the Gym Leaders there, discovering how much has cha nged in the three years following the events of Red and Blue. After defeating th e Kanto region's Gym Leaders, the player is allowed to enter the trecherous Mt. Silver area, home to very powerful Pokmon, and deep within Mt. Silver's caves is hidden Red, the protagonist of Red and Blue, who the player can challenge for th e most difficult battle in the game.[14] Development and release Gold and Silver were first publicly showcased at the 1999 Nintendo SpaceWorld Ex po in Japan, becoming the most popular exhibit at the program. Unlike the previo us game in the series, Pokmon Yellow, the new titles were announced to be more th an a small upgrade to Pokmon Red and Blue. Instead, they would feature a new stor yline, a new world, and new species of Pokmon. Gold and Silver were designed for the Game Boy Color, allowing them full color support and more detailed sprites.

Other additions that were shown included Pokmon breeding, held items, an in-game gadget known as the PokGear, a real-time internal clock, and backward compatibili ty with the previous games in the series.[15] During an ABC News interview, president of Creatures Inc. Tsunekazu Ishihara gav e insight into the brainstorming process for developing new Pokmon species. He ex plained, "[t]hese ideas for each of these monsters came from the imagination of the software developers at Game Freak who get these ideas from their childhood e xperiences, including from reading Manga, the name for Japanese comic books. Ide as come from scary experiences they had as kids, catching insects, and so forth. So from these experiences in childhood, these ideas for Pokemon came out."[16] In the same vein as the Pokmon Mew of the Red and Blue versions, the exclusive Po kmon Celebi was implemented in the Gold and Silver games but is only accessible a fter attending a Nintendo promotional event. The first official event offering C elebi was Nintendo Space World 2000 in Japan, in which 100,000 attendees would b e awarded the rare Pokmon. In order to be selected, players had to send in a post card to enter a lottery for one of 100,000 certificates of Celebi, allowing them to enter the event and obtain it.[17] In an interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, Ishihara stated that Gold and Silver started development right after Pokmon Red and Green were released in Japan. The original intention was to release the game in 1998, even synchronizin g with the supposed end of the anime's first season. Development issues, worsene d by Game Freak being sidetracked with Pokmon Stadium and the localization of the first generation, led the game to be postponed, and the original release slate was taken over by Pokmon Yellow. Programmer Shigeki Morimoto stated that part of why development took three and a half years was due to despite being a small tea m of only four programmers, "we were very greedy in terms of all the features we wanted to include in the games." Ishihara declared that Gold and Silver were su pposed to be the last in the series - "I didn t intend to make any more Pokmon titl es. I even thought that once we entered the twenty-first century, it would be ti me for me to do something else entirely." - and most of the licensed merchandisi ng, including the Pokmon Trading Card Game, were to "ensure Gold and Silver were successful."[18] The games were announced for release in Japan in November 1999 and at the same t ime a U.S. release date was estimated for September 2000.[19] Nintendo announced the release of the Pocket Pikachu Color, a full-color portable digital pet simi lar to the one released the year before. The unit was made compatible with Gold and Silver, allowing the transfer of in-game currency known as "watt points." Po cket Pikachu Color was slated for release in Japan on November 21, 1999, the sam e day as the release of Gold and Silver.[20] In addition, an officially-licensed Pikachu-themed Game Link Cable developed by Kemco was set for release in Japan on November 18, 1999. The product functions like a normal Game Link Cable and co nsists of a yellow cable with a figure of Pikachu on one end, and a Pok Ball on t he other.[21] Anticipating high sales, Nintendo set its first production shipment for the game s in Japan at three million, predicting that eventually more than eight million copies would be sold in the country alone.[22] However, they were soon forced to cut the first shipment number in half following an earthquake in Taiwan, which Nintendo claimed had damaged their cartridge manufacturing facilities. Regardles s, speculation arose that Nintendo was instead using the event as an excuse to l imit shipment and keep the demand high.[23] As a precursor to the North American release, Gold and Silver were displayed for audiences to interact with at the 2000 American International Toy Fair in New Y ork City.[24] To further promote the games, Nintendo modified five Chrysler PT C ruisers to resemble the new Pokmon Lugia and had them driven around the U.S. The vehicles had fins and tails attached to them and were painted with logos and ima

ges of the Pokmon franchise. In addition, they were equipped with a television se t hooked up to game consoles which allowed spectators to play Pokmon Puzzle Leagu e, Hey You, Pikachu!, and Pokmon Gold and Silver.[25] The television series Pokmon GS, based on the games, was announced to be a part of the fall lineup on Kids' WB. The show would feature the same protagonist Ash Ketchum in a new region with different Pokmon species from the games.[26] The Americanized names of the 100 n ew Pokmon were kept confidential by Nintendo, with the company releasing names pe riodically. The domain names 'pokemongold.com' and 'pokemonsilver.com' were regi stered for this very purpose,[27] and such names released included Chikorita, Lu gia, Ho-Oh, Togepi, Hoothoot, and Marill.[28] In May 2000 Nintendo announced the official North American release date of Gold and Silver to be on October 16 of that year.[29] Nintendo started accepting preorders for the games in August,[30] and announced that consumers who pre-ordered one of the games would receive a free CD-ROM with a Pokmon-themed web browser de veloped by MediaBrowser which featured floating Pokmon species and links to Pokmon sites. The application was available for download on the official Pokmon website .[31] The games broke record sales as approximately 600,000 copies of them were pre-ordered in just two months, compared to Pokmon Yellow's number of 150,000.[30 ] As the release date neared, retailers such as Electronics Boutique reported re ceiving shipments of games earlier than October 16, and opted to sell them immed iately; first giving them to pre-orderers and then selling the leftover copies. The games were obtainable as early as October 11.[32] Reception Pokmon Gold and Silver continued the enormous success of its predecessors, beginn ing the formation of Pokmon into a multi-billion dollar franchise.[35] As of Apri l 2000 roughly 6.5 million copies of the games had been sold in Japan. Silver pr oved to be the slightly more popular version, edging out Gold by approximately 1 00,000 copies.[36] By the first week of their release in the U.S. the games had eclipsed Pokmon Yellow's previous record sales of a little over 600,000 copies; s elling a combined total of 1.4 million copies to become the fastest selling game s ever.[37][38] The commercial success was expected, as Peter Main, the executiv e vice president of sales and marketing, stated "There's no question about it; k ids love to play Pokemon. [sic] So far in 2000 the best-selling game in America for any home console is Pokemon Stadium(TM) for Nintendo(R) 64, and the best-sel ling game for any handheld video game system is Pokemon [sic] Yellow for Game Bo y Color, but Pokemon [sic] Gold and Silver will eclipse even those impressive sa les totals. We project sales of 10 million units total of these two games in les s than six months time."[38] By 2010, the recorded sales of Gold and Silver were at 23 million units sold.[39] Reviews from critics were mostly strong, with many saying that the extended leng th of gameplay and the new features were valued additions that kept the sequels as interesting as the original games. Craig Harris of IGN gave the games a "mast erful" 10 out of 10 rating, stating that "As awesome as the original Pokmon editi on was, Pokmon Gold and Silver blow it away in gameplay elements, features, and g oodies. There are so many little additions to the design it's impossible to list them all."[2] There was particular praise given to the innovative internal cloc k feature, with Frank Povo of GameSpot, noting "The first major addition to Pokmo n GS is the presence of a time element... Although it may sound like a gimmick, the addition of a clock adds quite a bit of variety to the game." Povo went on t o give the games a "great" 8.8 rating.[11] Nintendo Power listed the Gold and Si lver versions of it combined as the sixth best Game Boy/Game Boy Color video gam e, praising it for its new Pokmon, features, and full-color graphics.[40] Overall, Gold and Silver were stated to be solid gaming additions that would ple ase a large audience. "After playing the game dozens of hours, I really can't th ink of a bad point to make about Pokmon Gold and Silver. Nintendo and Game Freak

have tweaked the original and built a sequel that's long, challenging and tremen dous fun to play. There's a reason why Pokmon is so popular, and Pokmon Gold and S ilver is going to help the series move further into the 21st century," said Harr is.[2]