after having plenty of time to stew on it: generation 2 is my favorite generation of pokemon games in the way of the mainline. though i'd been plenty exposed to it, like with all gens, the first time i actually got and really played a gen 2 game myself was my copy of Gold roughly around 2017, while i was still early in high school (one of the teachers handling the IT vocational stuff swapped a fresh battery in for me some months after i got it - shoutouts to him. i managed to make it to Goldenrod in a single stretch of game-left-on before that though during a family trip to visit my cousin and her wife in Maui) and ive been in love ever since.
i just find gen 2... super comfy. it hits right, y'know? there's something incredibly grounded about Johto, to me. it feels real in a way none of the other regions quite manage. there's hotspots of cultural importance that do their best to hold fast despite the rapid modernization of the world around them. there's a souvenir shop set up as part of a tourist trap to fleece you for your money and there's an everchanging open market in the Goldenrod Underground and there's occasional clearance sales sometimes at the department store. your mom is living her own life without you in the house, cooking for herself and going shopping and occasionally sending you stuff she thinks you'd like. the world has changed from the events of three years prior, and yet the ghosts of then still come back to haunt the present day. there is a guy that will make you buggy and comedically nonfunctional special Balls - there is still such a thing as artisan Poke Ball-making in a world where you can buy a full suite at the local convenience store for dirt fuckin cheap.
and of course shoutouts to the pokegear for just being a cell phone for getting the numbers of people you think are neat and also a portable radio for listening to the new radio shows (i am the kind of pokemon fan who actively watches the tv in Platinum just to see what's on. i like this stuff. bite me).
there's just something about it all that feels... right. it may not have the most stuff to do on its own by way of its postgame content being The Other Region Next To It That Has Spent Three Years Getting A Little Different, but there is enough at play to appeal to me specifically
