>>56454763one of the better pokemon games. fun jrpg with a well-developed world. spritework and music are also excellent, and the RPG systems are super complex - genuinely shocking that this came out on the gameboy in 1999
this game is a bit of an oddball, as a surprising amount of the game's side modes are locked behind online services, about 15 years before such a thing was common. the game is even named "pokemon crystal" due to the crystalline apprarence of the mobile system GB. however, the service is both long-dead and wasn't even released outside of japan due to unpopularity, so localizations (and later ports to the 3DS) are just straight-up missing content. very obscure chapter of the series' history that's sort of been forgotten about, kind of like the e-reader in the following games
however, I think if you come at it from the perspective of some of the more recent pokemon games - where you just go from point A to point B to credits - you miss most of the world and the game loses a lot of its charm, though. it's like ffxiv/genshin players trying to go back to earthbound. this game has been a sacred cow for decades, but recently we've been seeing younger generations on social media come at it from this perspective and not enjoying it
you could also make the case that this is Objectively(tm) the best pokemon rpg because it doesn't have the haphazardly designed stat roll of the later games - or, rather, they're both present in a much more limited manner and don't have very much of an impact on gameplay
