24 years later, Pokémon Gold and Silver remain unmatched

In the quarter-century that Game Freak and Nintendo have been churning out Pokémon games, there have been 39 installments in the mainline series. There are now over 1,000 unique Pokémon, over 64 gyms to defeat, and nine Elite Four rosters to conquer across the Pokémon universe — but somehow the largest, most adventurous entry in the franchise came back in 2000 with the launch of Pokémon Silver and Gold in the U.S.

Pokémon Silver and Gold were groundbreaking at the time for many reasons, adding a then-unheard-of 100 new Pokémon, a breeding system, new evolutions for fan favorites, and a time mechanic that made catching ’em all a real-life challenge. But the unique aspect of the RPGs, and something that hasn’t been repeated in any Pokémon game since, was the inclusion of a second region to explore. That brought new Pokémon to catch, gyms to battle, and events farther away from home than any trainer had every experienced before.

After beating the eight gyms in the new Johto region and then the Elite Four and Johto League Champion, all players expected the game to be over (or at least all players of younger ages who didn’t read anything going into the new game). That’s how Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow ended; why would this entry be any different?

But once players conquer the Johto region, they’re whisked back to their home of New Bark Town where their mentor Professor Elm hands them a ticket to take the S.S. Aqua over to Kanto and tackle the Pokémon League there, returning to all of the towns and gyms featured in the first generation of games and essentially getting two Pokémon adventures in a single game.

Playing this game at 8 years old was mind-blowing. More Pokémon? For free? The vastness of this Pokémon installment is partially why the remakes, HeartGold and SoulSilver, rank as high as they do Digital Trends’ top 50 games of all-time list.

To this day, the multi-region adventure of Pokémon Silver and Gold is lauded as the best post-game Pokémon experience by gaming websites like GamingBible and Screen Rant. Longtime fans still swear by these installments as the best in the entire series. That begs the question: Why has Game Freak never explored making a new two-region Pokémon title? With how the Pokémon universe has expanded since 2000, now is the perfect time to revisit the series’ most surprising moment and reinvent Pokémon once again.

The nine regions explored so far in the mainline series have already been linked in countless ways, and the series’ original region-exclusive Pokémon rules have slowly bled away over time. Over the course of all installments, players have battled multiple evil organizations to save the world, running into god-tier legendary Pokémon that technically created all life and the inhabited world. We’ve explored the ancient path when Pokémon were considered dangerous and untameable in Pokémon Legends: Arceus and looked into a future where Paradox Pokémon are born out of irresponsible time travel in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

At this point, it really isn’t all the farfetched (not to be confused with Farfetch’d) that Pokémon trainers might skip over to another region to battle Pokémon. It’d actually be pretty wild for them not to, right?