Generation 2

Generation 2 is the second installment to the series. It features 100 new Pokémon, a new region and story. This generation allows you to travel back to the Kanto region, and features a reformed Team Rocket. Years later, a remake of these games titled Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver were released, featuring having Pokémon walk behind you and adding compatibility with Gen 4 games.

Mechanics
One of the biggest changes between the jump from Gen 1 and Gen 2 in terms of mechanics was the Special stat split (Not to be confused with Gen 4 Physical, Special Split). It became the now separated Special Attack and Special Defence respectively. This change buffed and nerfed many Pokémon.

Another big change was the addition of two new types being Dark and Steel. This was done to prevent the Psychic and Normal types from dominating. The new Dark type changed some types of moves like Bite to become Dark type and was immune to Psychic type attacks along with being able to do super effective damage to Psychic as well. Steel type was added to partly nerf the Normal type which it resisted. Steel became known as the best defensive type in the game, resisting 10 out of the then 17 types.

The glitch where Psychic was super effective to Ghost (supposed to be the other way around) was fixed and added strong bug moves too like Megahorn. Critical hits were no longer calculated based on speed and was now a fixed rate on all Pokémon.

Another new mechanic added was the addition of day and night cycles, friendship and Pokémon breeding. This allowed players to catch specific Pokémon at different times along with evolving Pokémon at different times. New evolutions to old Pokémon were introduced as well. Pokémon breeding was mainly useful for getting baby Pokémon, pre evolutions that we’re incapable of breeding. Players needed to have two Pokémon of the same egg group and had to be opposite genders to breed or using a Ditto which can breed with any Pokémon not in the undiscovered egg group.

Development
This generation was well known for adding Kanto region as a post game location, allowing players to battle gym leaders of that region. At the time, Gamefreak was struggling to fit the entire region and may have considered quitting on the idea. Luckily Satoru Iwata (Previous President of Nintendo) found a way to shorten the code and was able to help Complete it.

Trivia

 * Many pokemon from this generation we’re planned for generation one but due to constraints on the old hardware prevented it and were added into Gen 2 instead
 * The original name for these games was going to be Pokémon 2, but later changed to Pokémon 2: Gold and Silver to finally Pokémon Gold and Silver
 * Pokemon Crystal is the first game to add a female Playable character in Kris
 * These games were originally planned to be the last games in the series but due to the popularity Pokemon was continued till this day