Game Design Blog #3 - Pokemon Gold and Silver/ The second generation

Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow were super successful. It became one of Nintendo's most beloved franchises to date. The second generation of Pokemon showcased Pokemon Gold and Silver. These games were to feature new storyline, new mechanics, new world, and full color added to the environment. The last generation was just for the Gameboy but Gold and Silver were made for the Gameboy Color to provide the full color support to the sprites.

The staff at Gamefreak had to come up with brand new ideas for new Pokemon. They took inspiration from their childhood and all of the Japanese comics they read growing up. The staff at Gamefreak began production on the 2nd generation of Pokemon right after the release of Red and Green. They wanted to release the new games in 1998 originally. Interesting enough the first episode of the Pokemon came out in 1997 which is a year after the release of Pokemon Red and Green. In the first episode of the anime the protagonist sees the Pokemon Ho-Oh which was not revealed yet until Gold and Silver were released. Since production began right after Red and Green were released they probably had an idea of what new Pokemon they wanted to add to the new games beforehand.

The reason for the late release on the games is because Gamefreak had to work on Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64 which is one of the most early Pokemon spin-off games. The United States would not see Gold and Silver until they year 2000 when it was displayed at the American International Toy Fair.

Reviews showed that Pokemon Gold and Silver were just as good if not better than their predecessors. Gamefreak added many new things to the games to expand upon the fun introduced in the last games. The time function in the game (which went by realtime) was interesting in that certain events happened depending on what time the player would play. It was unreal for a gameboy color game to implement such a system to a game. The games were twice as long as Red and Green with the players being able to visit the Kanto region and win 8 new badges(the region the players traveled in the first generation)

It was at this point businessman and gamefreak realized that everyone loves Pokemon and the franchise was here to stay.