Humble Bundle gives access to Pokemon Crystal, the largest of the Pokemon Games

Humble Bundle gives people a good chance to try Pokemon Crystal, the longest story in a Pokemon game ever with 16 gyms and two different Elite Fours.

Humble Bundle has been doing their best to bring Nintendo games into their charitable inventory of games and recently they added the largest of all the Pokemon games with Pokemon Crystal.

Pokemon Crystal is a gigantic beast of a game, especially considering it came out on Game Boy Color 21 years ago.

First off, Pokemon Crystal is based on Pokemon Gold AND Silver, combining elements of both while adding an entirely new story focusing on the legendary Pokemon Suicune.

It’s also the first Pokemon game that lets you pick your trainer’s body type, changing your appearance in the game. Because of this, all the pronouns in the game were written in a gender-neutral format to avoid confusion. This also makes this game a good example to anyone I went to school with who claimed writing in a gender-neutral format is too difficult. Take that.

Crystal didn’t just take all the elements from the Gold and Silver Pokemon, however. This is also the first Pokemon game to feature animations in battle. Previously, you’d have a still image of a Pokemon fighting another one, and the pictures would shake or slide about to indicate they were attacking. Now every Pokemon is, essentially, an animated gif. I remember when this game dropped and it was a HUGE deal. Obviously, by today’s standards, it’s not a big thing but then? It was a huge change.

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The story was also way darker than most Pokemon games then and now. Team Rocket was cutting the tails off Slowpokes and selling them. People were constantly harassing other people. It just had a lot more aggression and darkness than most Pokemon games. It’s really interesting to rediscover.

Perhaps what makes this game the biggest Pokemon adventure ever though, is something that, curiously, no other Pokemon has attempted to do. After you beat the game, which takes place in the Johto region, and beat the Elite Four, you’re given a ticket to Kanto, the location from Pokemon Red and Blue (Green if you’re nasty). There you get to explore a cleaned-up version of the original map. Going up against stronger versions of the gym leaders like Misty and Brock before facing off against the Kanto Elite 4. Get all THAT done and you can unlock a battle against “Red”, the player character from the original game.

While Gold and Silver also had Kanto, the addition of animations, body type for your character and the entirely new story involving Suicune makes this the longest game with 16 gyms, two different Elite Fours, extra stories and hidden battles, and easter eggs.

Add to the fact that the game is compatible with the 3DS’s Pokemon Bank so you can transfer your Pokemon into Sword and Shield, at 9.99 it’s a huge steal.