25 Awesome Truths About Pokémon Gold And Silver Gamers Will Find Fun
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These facts about Pokémon Gold and Silver prove the series still has hidden secrets that Nintendo has hid in plain sight.
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For the longest time, Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver were my favorite games in the series. Generation two just charmed me with it’s game-changing additions, cool but familiar Pokémon, and surprise inclusion of the original Kanto region. And who doesn’t love the Dark type? Second gen was my favorite gen for many years, all the way until Black and White came along (fight me). But since I was a kid at the time, I came to learn that there’s a lot about Gold and Silver that I never knew. If you were also a kid back then, chances are there are a few things that would surprise you as well.
For instance, did you ever wonder what happened to iconic locations like the Safari Zone or Cinnabar Island? Did Kanto experience some sort of massive natural disaster between games? And were Lugia and Ho-Oh just harder to capture? It turns out that they actually were, because there was a glitch working against you. There were also many hidden quests, characters, and attacks that the developers and censors were trying to hide from you. Now’s the time to reveal all these secrets.
So scroll on, if you dare, to find out some sinister truths about Johto, the land of myths and annoying roaming legendaries. Gold and Silver might be pleasantly nostalgic, but there’s nothing wrong with taking away a bit of your childhood, is there?
25 Not All Bad
Another fun fact about Dark-types is that the developers had a more extreme interpretation of them for their introduction in Gold and Silver. In Japanese, Pokémon’s original language, the word for the Dark type is actually closer to Evil type. Meaning that, at first anyway, they weren’t really meant to represent the night or shadows. They were literal embodiments of sinister intentions and underhanded battle strategies. Of course, later generations would expand the Dark-type to give it a more diverse and nuanced impression. Absol, for instance, actually tries to help humans but is seen as evil because of its severe appearance. Zorua is a tricky illusionist but really just wants to make friends. Pokémon like that flesh out the Dark type, but in generation two it was all evil, all the time.
24 Bye Bye Buddy
Your old Pokémon games are probably gone, and your beloved Pokémon with them. You might feel a desire to dig out your old Gold or Silver cartridge after reading this list, but it’s highly likely you’ll find that the save data is no more. That’s because Game Boy games use an internal battery to save game data. After all, there was no cloud or system memory in ’90s gaming. Like any battery, your Game Boy cartridge batteries are destined to lose power. When that happens, your save data goes kaput. Even more tragic is that your games have likely already gone away in the twenty years it’s been since the games were released. So your Feraligator, Entei, and other Johto friends are probably lost to the ravages of time.
23 Someone Actually Got Offended By This
When games are released outside of their country of origin, they have to go through the process of censorship all over again. Different cultures have different values, after all. It’s common for Japanese games to contain certain grown-up themes that Western parents would freak out over.
While Pokémon has never been in trouble for adult humor, Gold and Silver did have Firebreather Dick.
As a Firebreather, Dick’s entire character was that he likes Fire types. That’s it. Even so, Dick managed to raise someone’s ire with his name alone. We know this because Firebreather Dick was changed to Firebreather Richard in the DS remake. Because clearly, a guy named Dick in a video game has the potential to corrupt the nation’s youth. Fortunately for his fans, Dick was restored in all his glory for the 3DS Virtual Console release of Gold and Silver.
22 No One Will Miss This
The Safari Zone was torn down, burned, and all the Pokémon sent away. Notice how it isn’t present in the Gold and Silver version of Kanto? What happened in the two years between gen one and two? Did the people of Fuchsia City just decide to destroy a Pokémon preserve? Probably not.
The real reason the Safari Zone didn’t make it into Gold and Silver is that the team just ran out of time to put it in the game.
It was eventually restored Heart Gold and Soul Silver. But as a kid with an active imagination and a penchant for asking questions, I couldn’t help but draw some grim conclusions when I first noted its absence. In fact, much of Kanto seems to be gone in gen two, and there’s that horrible volcano incident on Cinnabar Island. It’s enough to give fans fuel for fan theories about natural disasters in Kanto…
21 Winking Without Consent
Some trainers in the original Gold and Silver were apparently too adult for Western audiences. We already saw what happened to poor Firebreather Dick, but the actual appearances of certain trainers that players battled on the various routes also needed to be altered from their original Japanese versions. In those releases, Fisherman smoked and Sages and Mediums appeared to be praying. However, both the cigarettes and prayers were removed for Western release. Even more bizarre are the Swimmer and Beauty, who were changed from winking at the player to not winking. But their poses remained the same, so it was literally just the winking that was a problem. Apparently winking is too spicy for American children. Even though we have full on 3D-modeled bikinis and jokes about the female anatomy in Sun and Moon.
20 Chimeras For Kids!
Since Mewtwo wasn’t able to be captured in the original Gold and Silver, the developers wanted to leave a piece of him behind. Literally. The Unknown Dungeon outside of Cerulean City is sealed up in Gold and Silver, meaning players cannot access Mewtwo’s lair. It might still be sitting there, it might be in Red’s PC box, or it could be spreading its reign of carnage and terror around some other region. However, there is an item called the Berserk Gene sitting right outside the cave. Due to Mewtwo’s history with genetics, it makes sense that the item has some connection to it. The item raises a Pokémon’s attacks but confuses it. Which seems an awful lot like the way Mewtwo itself acted. So…apparently it’s so easy to make your own horrifying genetic mutant Pokémon that even a ten-year-old can do it!
19 What Happens In Celadon…
It turns out the whole EA lootbox fiasco wasn’t the first time gambling in video games came under fire. Many fans of early Pokémon will remember the Game Corner. A staple of those first Pokémon games, the Game Corner was a casino in Celadon City where players could trade their Poké-dollars for coins to gamble with.
Rare Pokémon like Dratini could even be won if you were lucky enough to rake in the coins.
Unfortunately, European censors didn’t like the idea of gambling being present in a kids game. Game Freak seemed to not care at first, but eventually folded under the pressure and eliminated the Game Corner from Black and White on. So if kids want to gamble in modern gaming they’ll have to be content with lootboxes.
18 Supposed To Be A Good Guy
Drowzee’s Pokédex entry has some dark implications. “It remembers every dream it eats. It rarely eats the dreams of adults because children’s are much tastier.” The idea that Drowzee creeps up on innocent children has terrified fans for years. In fact, Drowzee and Hypno taking children and trapping them in endless nightmares just to taste their sweet fear has inspired countless fan art and even a song.
The truly bizarre thing is that Drowzee should actually be a helpful monster.
Drowzee’s design is inspired by the Baku, a Japanese mythological creature that looks like a Tapir. The Baku are known to eat the dreams of humans through our nostrils, but they tend to like eating bad dreams. Because of this, they are seen as benevolent creatures. So really, the kids should want Drowzee in their rooms at night. Wait that came out wrong.
17 The Light Screen Ceiling
Pokémon Gold and Silver introduced the concept of Pokémon genders. This opened the doors for a variety of new game features that took advantage of newfound diversity. Pokémon could mate and produce eggs. Certain attacks like Attract only worked on the opposite gender (they could only be progressive with one thing at a time). However, the introduction of gender also came with an odd bias.
In Gold and Silver, gender was determined by the Attack IV.
A side effect of it being that way was the female Pokémon could never reach the highest possible attack stat. Essentially, boys were always stronger than girls. A weird statement to make, especially in the generation that introduced the female playable trainer. It certainly wouldn’t fly in 2018.
16 Don’t Look At Me Like That You Monster
Heart Gold and Soul Silver were remakes for the Nintendo DS that brought Gold and Silver into the fourth generation of Pokémon. They introduced many of the newer monsters to Johto, including the cute balloon ghost known as Drifloon. Unfortunately, Drifloon wasn’t visiting with the best of intentions. As the Heart Gold and Soul Silver Pokédex says,
“It is whispered that any child who mistakes Drifloon for a balloon and holds on to it could wind up missing.”
Just imagine grabbing a balloon and then never seeing your parents again. Worst. Vacation. Ever. Maybe Poké parents should skip the trip to Johto and vacation in Alola instead. The worst thing there is a cuddly bear that might hug you until your spine breaks. You know…maybe just never travel in the Pokémon world ever.
15 Sound Decision
Lavendar Town is legendary for its creepy vibe and even creepier music in Red and Blue. Aside from being the literal Pokémon graveyard in game, it also spawned a creepy urban legend in real life. Stories say kids who heard the Lavendar Town song actually tried to end their own lives. Perhaps because it was so dark, Game Freak made the town a much friendlier and modern place in Gold and Silver. They even have a radio tower! …That’s built on top of the remains of the Pokémon graveyard. Seriously. They erected a business over the remains of Pokémon known for being vengeful. Because building on top of a burial ground is already a terrible idea. But hey, let’s anger the sinister cloud of poisonous gas with a creepy smile.
14 Everything You Know Is Wrong
There are things Pokémon veterans know as fact. Things that have been true since the beginning and will probably always be true. These things comfort us. They let us know that no matter how many weird Pokémon and overpowered battle mechanics they add to the games, we will always have some things that stay the same. One such thing is the knowledge that status effects make it easier to catch wild Pokémon. Well, this next sentence will shatter your belief in Arceus.
Status effects actually have no effect in the original Gold and Silver.
There’s a glitch in the game that throws off the capture rate calculation, making it so that status effects do not raise the likelihood of catching a Pokémon. All that time and effort you spent paralyzing Lugia was for nothing.
13 Won’t Someone Think Of The Children?
There was a quest in the beta for Gold and Silver that had players tracking down a missing child in the Burned Tower. Which is terrifying, as the tower is meant to be a sad place, the site of a great tragedy where lives were lost. While the quest never made it into the full games, clever fans have found remnants of it in text files. The mother of the lost girl says that “people have been known to disappear there.” Seriously, what is it with these games and doing horrible things to children? You got balloons kidnapping them, Drowzees giving them nightmares, and now them wandering off only to disappear forever. I thought the point of Pokémon was to give kids a colorful world of friendship and adventure. This is turning into some Five Night’s At Freddy’s stuff.
12 He Peaked Early
When you really think about it, Red ends up in a really depressing place. We all remember that the final battle of Gold and Silver pits Kanto protagonist Red against newcomer Gold. But wait…isn’t Red YOU from the first game? Because I remember ending Red and Blue as the Pokémon League champion. So why is Lance in that spot again? And why is Red just hiding away from the world on a cold mountain? It seems an awful lot like Lance took his title back from Red at some point, causing the poor boy to run away from society. He was too embarrassed to go home so he exiled himself to some bitter mountain peak to reflect on his failures (chief of which was not evolving Pikachu). Only 13 years old, and he’s already given up on life. Too real for me.
11 Bad Touch
People have apparently been sitting on Haunter for a long time. It’s always been a personal favorite of mine due to looking like an actual spooky ghost. But many players go for Gengar as soon as possible for its insane speed or just for its looks.
However, Haunter just might be the true powerhouse in the family.
According to the Pokédex, Haunter has a seriously poisonous tongue. “Its tongue is made of gas. If licked, its victim starts shaking constantly until its end eventually comes.” Which seems quite dangerous when you remember that Haunter licks people and Pokémon like all the time. So is it just always just ending lives left and right? Also, why isn’t the actual move Lick more powerful?
10 Like Father…
In a saddening bit of lore, the rival is revealed to be Giovanni’s abandoned son. It’s something only hinted at in the original Gold and Silver, but straight-up confirmed in Heart Gold and Soul Silver. Silver, as the rival is called by fans, is the son of Team Rocket’s boss, explaining his utter hatred of Team Rocket. After all, Giovanni abandoned him to go into hiding after losing to Red in the first gen. An event with Celebi in Gold and Silver shows the father and son’s history, including the moment Giovanni leaves him. He then appears to stay in seclusion until his reappearance in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon as the leader of Team Rainbow Rocket. That’s like five years of time in the world of the games! No wonder Silver ends up being such a jerk.
9 An Actual Dark Fact
Here’s a literal Dark fact: Dark type and Steel-type Pokémon were put into the game with ulterior motives. That is to say, GameFreak didn’t make them as some creative way to flesh out the Pokémon world. They were created for the sole purpose of taking the Psychic-type down a peg. Psychic types were overpowered in the first generation because they had no true weaknesses. They were weak to Ghost and Bug types, but both of those failed to produce any real contenders. The only Ghosts were also part Poison, which made them weak to Psychic. No Bug types were strong enough to match the likes of Mewtwo or Alakazam. As such, Steel and Dark were introduced to counter Psychic and bring some balance the game. And so it was that they managed to be really cool and awesome, until Fairy types came along and ruined everything.
8 If Only…
Houndoom is another one with a Pokédex entry that makes it seem more ferocious in battle than it actually is. Gold’s Pokédex states that “If you are burned by the flames it shoots from its mouth, the pain will never go away.” That’s literally the burn status effect. But forever. So why can the enemy just use Burn Heal and get off scot-free?
I wish Houndoom’s flame was that effective in battle.
It was always one of my favorite designs for a Dark type. However, even with a Mega Evolution, it just doesn’t quite stack up. But that’s video games. Just because something looks cool, doesn’t mean it will be the best item in the game. Unless you’re playing Pokémon Go. In that case, you can literally just hit your screen a lot and destroy anything.
7 Not Cool Man
I don’t remember this, but there is apparently a rather notorious moment among fans involving Silver attacking your player character. Not challenging you to a surprise Pokémon battle. Literally attacking you with his own two hands. It happens when players dress as a Team Rocket Grunt to infiltrate the radio tower. However, the disguise doesn’t last long before Silver shows up and rips our clothes off. Yup, he just straight up takes them in public. Of course, when you remember that his Team Rocket dad abandoned him, you can see why he might be triggered by seeing you in their outfit. Still, that’s extreme. And definitely not okay. I’m surprised the censors, in all their rage about Firebreather Dick, didn’t see anything wrong with this moment.
6 Dodrio The Secret Champ
Tri-Attack was weirdly overpowered in Gold and Silver. That’s right, it can actually do something amazing besides look kind of cool. Originally a merely decent attack associated with Dodrio, Tri-Attack carries the possibility of paralyzing, burning, or freezing the foe. However, Pokémon of a similar type as a status effect can’t be affected by it. Electric types can’t be paralyzed, Fire types can’t be burned, and Ice types can’t be frozen.
Gold and Silver broke that rule into tiny, pathetic pieces.
In those games, Tri-Attack made it so that any Pokémon can be hit with the status effects , regardless of type. And back then, there was no way to unfreeze without an item, effectively ending the frozen Pokémon’s battle. So for that one brief time in second gen, Dodrio became awesome.
Sergio is the Lead News Editor for TheGamer. But usually he asks people to call him “Serg” because he wants to sound cool like the guy from System of a Down. He began as a convention reporter for FLiP Magazine and Albany Radio’s The Shaw Report to get free badges to Comic-Con. Eventually he realized he liked talking to game developers and discovering weird new indie games. Now he brings that love of weird games to TheGamer, where he tries to talk about them in clickable ways so you grow to love them too. When he’s not stressing over how to do that, he’s a DM, Cleric of Bahamut, cosplay boyfriend, and occasional actor.
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