Man, Pocket Monsters Go! Go! hits that sweet spot between nostalgia and actually still being fun to play. The second you boot it up on your Game Boy Color, you're back in that world of chunky pixels and that weirdly satisfying battle jingle. I forgot how much I missed the simplicity of just wandering through tall grass, hoping to run into something cool—though I swear the first monster I caught was always a Rattata.

It’s got all the old-school charm: trading with friends (if you can find someone else still playing on a GBC), grinding your team to ridiculous levels, and those gym battles that somehow still feel tense even when you know exactly what’s coming. The sprites are tiny but full of personality, and yeah, the strategy is pretty basic compared to modern stuff, but there’s something satisfying about steamrolling the Elite Four with an overleveled starter.

If you’ve got a working cartridge and a spare AA battery or two, this one’s worth revisiting—just don’t blame me when you lose track of three hours trying to evolve your Eevee.