The game can be found here
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Tropes used in Pokémon Crystal Kaizo:
- 100% Completion: You can obtain all 251 Pokemon in the game. And it's made easier, since by the end of Clair, you can see almost 240 Pokemon already, apart from some legendaries, but by the end, you will eventually see 251 Pokemon, or 252 if you fight the optional boss, but you can only catch 251. However, to even get 100% in the Pokedex, you would have to beat all of the Kanto Gym Leaders, since there are wild Pokemon exclusively located in the Mt. Silver area. Certain legendary Pokemon can be obtained in Crystal Kaizo by trading one of those exclusive Pokemon. As for the roaming legendaries, they can be very difficult to encounter since their levels are actually a bit lower than the wild Pokemon beyond Ecruteak, but, you won't need to rely on RNG to encounter them for the first time if you fight Red and Blaine, since these two trainers have Raikou and Entei respectively. However, this still makes Ho-Oh one of the hardest Pokemon in the game to catch, as you can only get it by capturing all of the legendary beasts, and then climbing one of the most difficult dungeons in Crystal Kaizo.
- Action Bomb: Any Pokemon (wild or trained) that can learn Self-Destruct or Explosion will have it in their movesets. Special mention goes to the super nerds, whose entire gimmick is using Pokemon with Explosion or Self-Destruct, and will often use it during their first turn.
- Adaptational Badass: Every trainer in the game, with notable examples such as Bugsy and Bruno, who were particularly easy bosses in the original, Team Rocket, who had very limited and weak Pokemon back then, and all the way down to some Bug Catchers.
- Adaptational Villainy: A downplayed example, but long after Team Rocket's stint in the Slowpoke Well, you can see a Slowpoke Tail lying around in their headquarters, next to a female grunt with a Slowbro, leaving in some scary implications. And the final executive has a Slowking...
- Boss in Mook's Clothing:
- Bug Catcher Arnie has a team of four Pokemon that cannot be run down only by Fire types. The sole female Rocket grunt in the hideout has a full team of six pretty powerful Pokemon.
- The Pokefan with the Pikachu gang. His highest leveled Pokemon is a Light Ball Pikachu at level 127, the highest level in the game, along with some wildcards Thick Club Cubone and stick Farfetch'd. He is a pushover compared to any boss you encountered, even to Cool Trainers, but he can be an unexpected surprise.
- Can't Catch Up: The learnsets of every Pokemon are modified with powerful moves, but these changes are usually coded for fairly low levels, which makes it all but impossible for trained Pokémon to acquire them naturally. As a result, for the most part, Pokémon that are trained from their base form won't be able to compare to those caught in their mid or final evolutionary levels, some of which can be acquired way later than their base form. This change encourages you to catch a wide variety of new Pokémon in the area, while also reducing the Forced Level-Grinding that could happen otherwise.
- Composite Character: More like composite movesets, as not only do Pokémon have access to Gen 1 movesets, but some Pokémon have access to moves from later generations. For example, Aerodactyl can learn Rock Slide as a default set, but it gets it in Gen 3. This also includes events, so you might see Lovely Kiss on Pokémon you wouldn't expect to have it, but they come from obscure Gen 2 events. Espeon can learn sing, but only from a Gen 6 event Eevee.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- The bosses, and even Pokemaniacs, have access to shinies (though considering the subpar DVs shinies have in the Gen 2 games, this makes their pokemon actually slightly weaker if you get pokemon with high DVs). After Victory Road, all of the bosses will have Pokemon above level 100, whereas the player cannot, even when some Non Player Characters can do the same, though not as high as the bosses. However, the player does have Gym Badges to boost their stats. And the highest leveled enemy in the game is level 127, while the bosses on average are on level 120, which means they have stats slightly less than the badge boosted Pokemon, while the bosses on level 127 are slightly higher.
- There are some powerful non-legendary pokemon that you cannot obtain until after you beaten the Elite Four and all the Kanto Gym leaders, such as Tauros, Skarmory, and Aerodactyl, yet trainers throughout the game will be using them.
- There are quite a few held items that you cannot obtain without cheating but boss trainers will still have, such as Miracle Berries, the Quick Claw, Focus Band, and Bright Powder, as well as trainers often having Leftovers on multiple pokemon (whereas you can't obtain any Leftovers until you can access Kanto, and can only get a single Leftovers at that until you can finally access Mount Silver to find wild Snorlax with them). Their pokemon will also have moves that you won't be able to obtain until much later into the game (such as opposing Nidoking always having Lovely Kiss, while you can't get a Nidoking with one until you encounter wild Nidoking in Kanto), and moves you'll never be able to obtain at all (such as several opposing pokemon having Double Team, and opposing Aerodactyl having the now one-turn Sky Attack and hugely buffed Ancient Power, while the ones you can catch just get Wing Attack and Rock Slide).
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: A meta example; all the boss trainers have their teams consist entirely of shiny pokemon. However in the Gen 2 games, shininess is determined by having a specific set of DVs, and these DVs are not great (only the Attack DV can have the max value of 15, while the other non-HP stats have their DV locked at 10 and HP's can only go up to 8). As a result, if the player goes through the effort to get pokemon with good DVs (or just uses a save editor to max them out), the player's pokemon will actually have a statistical advantage even before the player's badge boosts are factored (at least until the endgame trainers start using pokemon over level 100).
- Disc-One Final Boss: Champion Lance and, by extension, the Elite Four, are the last enemies you face until you complete Johto... and then Kanto unlocks, and you have to fight eight more gym leaders, and one true final boss.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: Route 27 and Route 26, which are the routes that leads to Victory Road. There, you will fight against the most dangerous Cool Trainers in the game, as well as some very tough Level 100 enemies apart from a Bird Keeper, many of which will gang up on you, which means you are forced to fight against more than six Pokemon, and it is the only point in the game where that happens (something Team Rocket couldn't pull off). After you get past the route, you enter the Victory Road, which is much harder than the original, but relatively tame compared to most other areas... up until you encounter your rival for one last time before the Pokemon League. where he introduces Pokemon over level 100.
- Disc-One Nuke:
- Relatively speaking, the Odd Egg's Pokemon are this, particularly the pseudo legendary hatched from the egg. Larvitar and Dratini comes with a fairly extensive movepool right from the get go, and ends up evolving into a Pseudo Legendary with powerful stats spread. While they need tons of grinding to get online, you won't be able to get a comparably powerful Pokemon until way late into the game.
- Similarly enough, the Goldenrod Game Corner had an Abra that could be bought for 100 Coins, or 1000 Pokedollars. The Abra line won't be available normally until a bit later into the game. They have a massive speed, and special attacks, and you could easily use the Elemental Punch TM on it and you get a fairly useful all around sweeper.
- The Bug catching contest allows you to catch Bug type Pokemon, but the most notable on the list is Heracross, who comes with Submission(and only Submission) which is buffed into a useful general purpose fighting type move with 80 BP. While this renders it helpless against opponent that resists or is immune to fighting type moves, Heracross have an extremely powerful and well distributed stats spread, and is able to handle any kind of Normal typed threats in your way, including the upcoming Whitney battle.
- Explosion users are somewhat annoying to capture due to their tendency to explode, but they can be acquired fairly early into the game, and comes with a powerful niche that can last them over the entire game. In particular, Voltorb have a strong utility with its speed, come with a practically optimized movepool, and can be acquired as early as Union Cave. Exeggcute can be acquired right from the start by using Headbutt from Male Nidoran, can be evolved at Goldenrod, and have the most powerful Explosion for most of the game.
- Easter Eggs: The Safari Zone is actually accessible right at the start, though you won't encounter any Pokemon in there.
- Elite Mooks: Cool Trainers, who are usually much more dangerous than any trainers in the surrounding area. Female Team Rocket grunts are usually much tougher than the already difficult male grunts, with the female grunt who guards the Slowpoke Tail password having a full team of six. Gym trainers count as well, as they can be considered extensions of the Gym Leader.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Unlike the original, about 95% of the in-game trainers are completely unavoidable, and all of them have both decent Pokémon and AI, so you are in danger of losing at all times. Even wild Pokemon have really dangerous movesets, and are somewhat close to the trainer's levels, and if you can't escape from them, chances are they will bring you down too.
- Forced Level-Grinding: Played With. The level curve is rather steady, but it increases towards Level 100. You can gain access to Lucky Eggs around Mahogany Town, and near the end of Johto, you can fight high level Magikarp which give off EXP comparable to Blissey. Averted around Kanto, where 98% of all wild Pokemon are at level 100 and have good movesets, so you can just capture them instead.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: One of the changes in Crystal Kaizo is incorporating story elements and game elements together. Team Rocket for example, was mentioned in the past to exploit Pokemon for evil purposes, and they abandon Pokemon not considered popular or useful to them. Hence the upgraded high quality teams, and the lack of Golbat and Raticate (except in Blue Kaizo, where they are very rare, but at that point, a useful threat). Also the lake of rage that had Magikarp in the original have all evolved into Gyarados, when all of the Magikarp are forced to evolve. Though even after the signal has stopped, when you surf or fish with the Old Rod or Good Rod, you will encounter nothing but Gyarados. But if you bring in the Super Rod, which is only obtainable in the post-game, therefore, after the incident, you can actually fish for Magikarps. The Pokemaniacs always searches for extremely rare Pokemon, and one of them brings up the topic about shiny Pokemon. So all of them have unique shiny Pokemon that the Gym Leaders do not have.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- All the Legendary Pokemon qualifies, with each of them(except for Suicune) being available rather late into the game, requires you to go out of your way to catch, and have a strong movepool, but the best example is Snorlax. Snorlax is only catchable in the final room of Mt. Silver in the same place you are going to fight Red, had a fairly low encounter rate and catch rate, and comes with Selfdestruct and can hold Leftovers as a hold item, making it a challenge to obtain. When you DO get it, its by far the best Pokemon in the game.
- Mewtwo as well, since the only way to get Mewtwo is to trade one for Snorlax. Somewhat of a lesser example since despite its extremely powerful stats, it come with only Recover and Psychic in its movepool.
- Kaizo Trap: As far as an RPG example can go, there is one Fire Breather in Union Cave that you must battle, or else, he will block the way, and you will have to exit the cave. However, you'll only get one chance, since this trainer is blocked off by another Fire Breather. The Fire Breather with the Koffing will move in to attack you, and you must fight the Fire Breather with the Magby, to avoid being forced to backtrack. The HM moves also function as a method to defuse some lesser examples. Make sure your Pokemon has them, to bypass some unexpected obstacles. This includes Fly.
- Lethal Joke Character: Certain trainers have the gimmick of using Pokemon that are normally very weak at insanely high levels, turning what would be a complete pushover into a genuine threat. For example, Picknicker Tiffany has Sunkern, Cleffa, and Igglybuff at level 99, at a point where your Pokemon will likely be in their early 50s.
- Mythology Gag: There are a lot of references to the anime and the manga. Some examples include the shiny Noctowl on Falkner's team, the Nidoqueen in Whitney's team, where she had a Nidorina in both the anime and manga. And there are Pokemon boss teams that are heavily inspired by Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2. And Leader Blue still has Mew as his signature Pokemon from Blue Kaizo.
- Nerf: Revives, Ethers, and Elixirs, have been nerfed, so that they don't work during battle. They do work outside of battle. This actually makes the boss fights have serious consequences if you lose a Pokemon or run out of PP, and even some trainer battles if you aren't fully healed. This includes the PP restoring Mint Berries, but they do work if they are held by a Pokemon.
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Nintendo Hard: Even more so than Blue Kaizo, as the AI is actually quite competent with the movesets, and every trainer in the game has improved AI, teams, movepools, items, etc. New ones include a series of gigantic ice puzzles in the Ice Cave, a mandatory excursion through Mt. Mortar, which is every bit the giant maze, and even has a nasty Kaizo trap near the end, some tricky usage with accessing an area using Fly, and an utterly brutal Pokemon League challenge where you face THIRTY different Pokemon, newer strategies, and top of the line type synergy. And this game has 4 super bosses. The only thing the enemies can't do is use Revives or Ethers during battle, but you can't use Revives or Ethers during battle, making all boss fights have serious consequences if you lose a key Pokemon needed to face them. - Olympus Mons: Surprisingly still rare among boss fights, with Pryce being the earliest. Lt. Surge, Blaine, Blue, Red, and the very last Rival Fight have legendary pokemon.
- One-Hit Kill: Averted in Johto, unless you count Explosion inflicting the damage. However, in Kanto, some trainers have OHKO moves, usually the ones with horns, but be cautious of Fissure as well. No major boss uses OHKO moves.
- Palette Swap: Shiny Pokemon, which are used by major bosses, and Pokemaniacs. One of the Pokemaniacs even comment on shiny Pokemon.
- Retcon: Some bosses have different signature Pokemon. Falkner and Bugsy for example, have Noctowl and Shuckle as their highest leveled Pokemon, though Pidgeotto and Scyther are still present on the teams. And some bosses uses multiple mains instead, such as Morty, Pryce, and Elite Four Will. The latter will no longer have two Xatu, and instead has an Espeon, Slowking, Exeggutor, and Alakazam.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Like Blue Kaizo, Crystal Kaizo has the Stat Experience system completely disabled. While this does make the player's pokemon much weaker than they would be normally, both the player's and opponents' pokemon having no Stat EXP has the side effect of everything becoming a lot more frail; all but the tankiest of pokemon will struggle to survive more than three hits even when they're resisted, and 2HKOs from neutral hits and OHKOs from super-effective hits are the norm, and pokemon having both strong STAB moves and strong coverage moves are commonplace fairly early. Critical hits being a lot less common than they were in Gen 1 and held items like Leftovers now existing does make this less extreme than it was in Blue Kaizo, and endgame opponents with levels well beyond 100 can have their pokemon be a bit bulky from all those extra levels, but for the most part the gameplay is dominated by striking first and hard before the opponent has the opportunity to do so.
- Status Effects: Your will see a lot more status effects in this game, such as Thunder Wave and Hypnosis, and sometimes Toxic. Almost every trainer will use a status move every chance they can get, and some bosses incorporates status as their strategies, such as Morty, Erika, and Koga.
- Stone Wall: Bugsy's Shuckle embodies this, as well as Koga and Brock's Shuckle, where its only form of offense is Toxic stalling, and it always packs Leftovers.
- Troll: Some of the tricks and traps in Crystal Kaizo. That Snorlax in front of Diglett's cave? A Ditto in disguise.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: One of the notable ones is actually a trainer battle with Bug Catcher Arnie, who does use a bit more variety than you'd expect from a Bug Catcher, and effectively functions as a litmus test to see if you caught some well varied Pokemon. Falkner, Bugsy, Morty, some of the rival fights, and the Executives counts as well, each introducing new factors than the last. The Rival fight at the end of Victory Road especially qualifies.
