Last friday one of my favourite childhood games came out as virtual console game for the 3DS: Pokémon Silver.
I’ve talked about my love of the Pokémon games before, I have played every generation (and now I can honestly say that because I have White 2) and sunk a lot of hours into every game that came into my hands. I’m currently at 42 hours played in my Pokémon Moon and I’m only halfway through the Pokédex and I’m still playing regularly and I hope to “finish” the game before Ultrasun comes out. I have atleast 50 hours clocked in almost every Pokémon game and currently the savefile that is longest is Pokémon Black, with over 70 hours played. I’m pretty sure my original Blue playthrough and my original Silver file were atleast 50+ hours aswell, however I’ve saved over Blue and my original Silver cartridge doesn’t work anymore, so I can’t really check.
Out of the entire series Silver has always been my favourite. I really liked the story and being able to catch Lugia. The game was massive at the time and I remember playing it a lot. So when they announced they’d be bringing Gold and Silver to the 3DS I was super happy. It gave me the chance to relive the game again, like Blue, and hopefully capture some of the magic I had as a 11-year old playing this game.

Now comes the really interesting part. Silver is one of the games where the amount of Pokémon is still somewhat manageable. I think the Pokédex consists of 252 Pokémon total, instead of the crazy 800+ we have now. I also want to write more on my blog and I figured, why don’t I combine playing Pokémon Silver again with blogging about it? And thus my new series is born: Pokémon Playthrough. And today will be the first entry. So without further ado…

I’ve only played about 15 minutes so far to get started with the game. You start in your room and talk to your mom. However instead of going out of town you actually go talk to the Professor (in this case Professor Elm) to get your first Pokémon. In my very first playthrough of Silver as kid I chose Chikorita. This time I decided to pick something else and so I went with Cyndaquil. Because I want to get a bit more involved/attached to this game I decided to name atleast my starter Pokémon. I used to do this a lot but the last generation on the 3DS I just couldn’t bring myself to name stuff.
After you talk to your mom and get your Pokégear (which has a phone!) Professor Elm sends you to find mr. Pokémon who has a package. Once you get past the first town and to mr. Pokémon’s house you find a very familiar face… Professor Oak! He chats with you a bit and hands you a Pokédex, followed by mr. Pokémon handing you a mysterious Pokémon egg.
Just as you leave the house Professor Elm calls you in panic. Something terrible has happened at the lab and you’re to return immediatly! On your way back you are stopped by a mysterious redhaired boy who wants to fight and uses a Totodile. After you beat him you get back to the lab and find out that boy has stolen Totodile from the lab. Welcome to your rival (which you then get to name). The police talks to you and goes away, you deliver the Egg to Professor Elm and then your adventure can really start. One of the professor’s Aides gives you Pokéballs, you talk to your mom who offers to save money for you and then you can start catching!
This is the point where I kinda decided to pauze for a bit and think. I know there’s a glitch that allows you to get all three starter Pokémon and I had to decide whether or not I wanted to take advantage of this. In the end I decided not to. I want this playthrough to be glitch free so it stays the way it’s intended to play. I caught a Sentret and Rattata and went to the first town and saved my game there.
I’m aiming to get to the first gym this week and to catch every new Pokémon I come across in the process. I might name some of them, especially when I expect to use them in my endgame team, but we’ll see. For now I’m just really happy to be playing this game again and it’s probably the only non-MMO game I’ll be playing for the moment.