Like many millennials, I have very fond memories of playing through the original and second generation Pokémon games. As a child, I 100% completed both Pokémon Red and Pokémon Gold, and I don’t even want to think about the amount of AA batteries I burned through doing it. There were few places I didn’t have my purple Game Boy Color with me. I’d bring it on car rides (even though I’d get motion sickness), I’d play at night with that goofy twirly light you plugged into the side—everywhere, all the time.

But now? I’m an adult with adult responsibilities and all the beautiful time-stealing nonsense that comes with it. My Game Boy has evolved into a Switch that maybe gets turned on twice a month. Pokémon Yellow became Let’s Go Pikachu. And all that got me thinking again about those original games. So when I picked up an Analogue Pocket, I couldn’t resist throwing Pokémon Gold back in and seeing how it held up.

Spoiler: it’s complicated.

Nostalgia Meets Reality

I’ve dabbled in the newer releases over the years, but never nearly to the extent I played Red, Yellow, and Gold as a kid. I got halfway through Sun, completely skipped Sword and Shield, beat Shining Pearl, and dumped a bunch of hours into Let’s Go Pikachu. Total? Maybe 100 hours combined across all of them.

My Gold playthrough alone back in the day was over 250 hours.

So I popped the cartridge into my Analogue Pocket, hit “New Game” (RIP my childhood save), and was instantly teleported back to those golden years. And then… it all kind of fell apart.

The Harsh Truth: Gen II Kinda Sucks Now

Don’t get me wrong—I still love the core idea of Pokémon: train your team of monsters, build your strategy, battle your way to the top. That loop is timeless. But some of the old mechanics? Woof.

First off: no running shoes. You’re crawling through Johto like your trainer’s got bricks in his shoes. You don’t even get a bike until you hit Goldenrod—your fourth major stop. I get it, it’s old-school, but it makes the pacing drag more than it needs to.

Then there’s the HM system, which has aged like milk. Remember having to waste a move slot on garbage like Cut or Flash? Or dragging around a dedicated “HM slave” because you didn’t want to screw up your main team? And they weren’t forgettable, either. You were stuck with them. If you’re actually using Cut in a serious match, you need divine intervention.

Storage boxes are another nightmare. Once you hit 20 Pokémon in a box, it’s full—and you can’t catch anything else until you switch boxes. But you can’t do that from the field. You have to schlep back to a Pokémon Center, load the PC, manually switch it, and then you can keep catching. That’s not even including the horror of realizing your box is full mid-battle—like when you’re about to catch Entei. Hope you saved, pal.

And speaking of Entei—roaming legendaries? What kind of chaos agent cooked that one up?

But Then… HeartGold Enters the Chat

Now, if you’re thinking, “Wow, this guy really hates Pokémon Gold,” hold your horses. Because while I’m no longer head over heels for the Game Boy version, I absolutely love Pokémon HeartGold.

The DS remake smooths out a ton of those rough edges. Not all of them, but enough that it’s honestly the version I recommend to anyone wanting to revisit Gen II. They modernized the pace, added smart UI improvements, made HMs slightly less annoying, and made the game feel more like an intentional experience rather than a charming relic.

It’s not just nostalgia—it’s actually fun to play.

Final Verdict: Skip the Cartridge, Play the Remake

If you’re craving that old-school Pokémon fix, I say this with love: go for the remakes. HeartGold and SoulSilver bring enough of that sweet nostalgic flavor without all the mechanical rot.

You might not get the exact same rush you did back in the day, squinting at a greenish screen in the back seat of your mom’s car. But you will get something that respects your time, your muscle memory, and the legacy of one of the greatest Pokémon generations ever made.