After Pokemon Silver on my awesome purple Gameboy Color, I basically fell out of the loop for several years until I picked up LeafGreen and went through that a couple times. Now, I'm back into the swing of things with the most content-heavy Pokemon game to date. So far, it's pretty darn good.

I was a little worried about things feeling too familiar, but with the look and feel of D/P/Pl, it manages to feel mostly fresh, kind of like meeting a friend you lost contact with for a decade and finding out that they're not a heroin junkie. ...Maybe a more pleasant surprise than that.

The music is really, really good. That's surprising to me, considering I'd heard a lot of anger about the music being "nothing compared to the original" or "crappy and fake sounding." Whatever that means. I'd have to say quite the opposite, actually; the music is a refreshing take on some of the older tracks. Goldenrod City now sounds bouncy and parade-like. The National Park opens with somber piano, leading into a softer rendition of the familiar melody. The Ruins of Alph now sounds a lot more foreboding--and so on. There's an option you can get to turn on the original music, but I'll never use it. It's too hard to go back.

There are some drawbacks, though. Battle menus seem to have a couple extra steps thrown in for no real reason. One pretty big example is the main battle menu, which has the screen divided up into the "fight" option on top, with "Pokemon," "Bag" and "Run" at the bottom. Now, the top of the screen has the outlines of the four attack buttons visible, but you're required to hit "Fight" before you can actually select an attack. It doesn't ruin the battles, but it does bog things down a bit.

You run into the same thing when swapping out Pokemon in battle. You're given the Switch menu, but when you choose what to swap in, you get the equivalent of an "ARE YOU SURE?" panel. (What it actually gives you is a "Summary, Moves, etc." page, but if you're choosing to swap something in, chances are good that you know its stats and what moves it has.) Streamlining the process would have been nice.

One other thing I just don't get is why the Pokemon are still basically using NES-quality sound effects for their roars and squeals. I'm pretty sure all the 251 from the GBC releases have the exact same battle cries, which is strange, because that's one of the first things I would have expected to change.

Anyway, a few admittedly minor gripes aside, HG/SS are a very worthy addition to the Pokemon brand, and I'd say they're enough to keep me interested in the series for another couple years now. Just when I thought it was safe...

(Note: I didn't mention the Pokewalker, true. That's because I haven't used it yet. I plan to, because I do quite a bit of walking, but the peripheral hasn't become a part of my life yet.

Edit: Yeah, I realize that sounds really stupid. FORGIVE MEEEEEEE!)