Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver

All those things I just said about FireRed and LeafGreen apply to HeartGold and SoulSilver, the remakes of Gold and Silver that launched on the DS. If you’re building off one of the most ambitious games Pokémon has ever had but with better tech and design, you’re bound to come up with a marquee Pokémon game. HeartGold and SoulSilver stand the test of time by polishing what was already one of the series’ most impressive feats. They take everything the original Gold and Silver aspired to and wipe away the dust, allowing them to shine beyond so many other Pokémon games over a decade later. While Scarlet and Violet and Legends: Arceus have been taking the series in new, exciting directions, HeartGold and SoulSilver feels like the perfection of what came before it. In retrospect, it makes sense that the games that followed all seemed to be, in one way or another, trying to carve a new path for the series, because when you’ve finally nailed what you set out to do initially, the only place to go is somewhere new.