05/14/09 HeartGold/SoulSilver CoroCoro and Famitsu scans
The new CoroCoro feature about HeartGold and SoulSilver has been revealed.
The most immediately noticeable is the fact that the character designs are modified after all. Gold looks mostly the same as he used to, with modifications to his clothes and slightly changed hair (although that has admittedly been subtly different in every incarnation of him), but instead of using the perfectly serviceable female character from Crystal or anything remotely based on her, they have a new girl with brown rather than blue hair, although the sticking-out pigtails could be deduced to be inspired by Kris. She has a silly huge hat - what's with all the playable characters in Pokémon having silly huge hats nowadays? - and an even sillier bow on it. Okay, male character for me.
According to Serebii.net they are also introducing a secondary rival thing like in R/S/E and D/P/Pt: the opposite-gender playable character will have some sort of a role in the game. I'm not overly fond of that decision either, since it seems like an unnecessary modification to the original plot, but eh; if they think they can do something good with it, it could work out.
Another noticeable feature is that the screenshots show the trainer being followed by his starter in later locations - it appears this is not just, as I initially believed, a temporary gimmick for when you're going to Mr. Pokémon's house for Professor Elm. Presumably it will be possible when the starters have evolved as well - unless they go the full Yellow route and don't allow you to evolve the starter, but that seems absurdly unlikely - but I don't believe it will be possible for other Pokémon. It would be way too much work to make walking overworld sprites for all 493 Pokémon, besides that the starter deserves to be able to be somewhat special.
Also hidden on these pages is a screenshot of both the top and bottom screen of the DS - which can be seen clearer in the top left on this Famitsu scan - which shows that rather than the PokéGear being on the bottom screen as I had thought, the bottom screen normally shows what we know as the Start menu, plus a "check" button essentially corresponding to the A button, which presumably allows the game to be controlled fully using only the D-pad and the touch screen. I really like this; it always struck me as awkward in Diamond and Pearl how inconsistent the interface was, with most of the game requiring the use of the buttons on the DS but then battles, items, the Pokémon menu, etc. randomly utilizing the touch screen. This seems a lot more sensible to me. I'm guessing the menus open on the bottom screen and allow you to navigate them there; I'm still hoping the PokéGear will entirely open on the touch screen and for it to be possible to utilize it while traveling around the overworld on the top screen.
A shot of Sprout Tower shows we will have big, pretty images of dungeons as we enter them, like in FireRed and LeafGreen. The starter selection is now all 3D and fancy. The shiny Pichu given away for Platinum in an event can apparently activate an event in HG/SS involving the "Notched-Ear Pichu" from the twelfth movie in Ilex Forest. Interesting. Then we have a screenshot of Gold and his Totodile talking to a Team Rocket goon outside Slowpoke Well, as well as one where he is in front of Sprout Tower with his Cyndaquil, and a whole lot of new Sugimori art for Johto Pokémon.
Courtesy of PokéBeach, we also have scans apparently coming from Famitsu. One is linked above and contains nothing noteworthy about HG/SS other than the screenshot of the touch screen menu. The other is here and shows the player characters, and bigger versions of the Slowpoke Well, Sprout Tower and starter selection screenshots. Still nothing new or remarkable, but it's nice to see the bigger screenshots.
Comments
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Butterfree (Website)
Testing
PKStarstorm
People are only whining over the new girl because she isn't obvious jailbait. (oh yes I said that)
Butterfree (Website)
...and I, being a straight woman and all, am so unhappy if the player female character doesn't look like obvious jailbait, aren't I?
I think her hat looks silly. I also thought Lucas's hat looked silly in Diamond and Pearl and that Red's hat looked silly on the FR/LG overworld sprite. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for disliking her character design, and perfectly legitimate reasons for liking it but disliking Kris's character design. Why must people always antagonize those with a different opinion than themselves? "OH NO YOU DON'T LIKE HER CHARACTER DESIGN SO THEREFORE YOU ARE JUST MOURNING THE LACK OF PEDO POTENTIAL!"
People should stop whining that their opinion is objectively better than the other side's.
Maecenas
That's an excellent point. Another bit of news: according to several sources, Junichi Masuda mentioned in an interview that he's "considering" adding action-that is, non-RPG-elements to the series (if you already knew that, sorry. I didn't see it mentioned anywhere here and thought it might be relevant).
I suppose that the Sinnoh evolutions will still be in place, so it should be fun trekking through Johto with Yanmega, Magmortar, Ambipom, etc. I missed this generation the first time around, so I'm looking forward to this!
Blue Destiny
Agree with Butterfree
It does look exciting. Can't wait for it, but it olbiously won't be out in England any time soon....
Scyther
"Now do ypu honestly agree with Butterfree, or are you juat agreeing with her because she owns the site?"
Well, I'm sure that's what PKstarstorm is thinking, anyway.
I think it'd be kinda cool if the made a SSBB consiting only of Pokemon, but not actually being apart of the series; just a spinoff.
PunkPika
I looked at the pics and I do agree with most of what Butterfree is saying me I love the 2nd generation the most even now I'm playing them (had to re-buy all but gold due to battery deaths T_T) and the only thing I didnt like what that they didnt put in the damned safari zone...best place ever...but I personally cant wait till it comes out but I hope that america doesnt opt out the pokewalker I would love that to be used instead of the whole pikachu GS mystery gift thing...anyway sorry for the rant just couldnt help but put my voice out there. ^__^
I like
Palkia
I like the female character, especially her hat and bow! ;_;
Lyra
I AGREE WITH I LIKE. LYRAS HAT IS AWSOM