How did Japanese players get Celebi in Pokémon Crystal?

In Japanese Crystal, Celebi waited behind the Mobile System GB. The player received the GS Ball from a woman at Goldenrod's Pokémon Communication Center, the online hub, carried it to Kurt in Azalea Town, waited a day for his examination, and placed the returned ball at the shrine in Ilex Forest, where a level 30 Celebi appeared.

Western players read about it and could do nothing. The GS Ball event was fully translated and adapted in the Western releases, relocated to the ordinary Goldenrod Pokémon Center, which strongly suggests it was planned and then abandoned when the Mobile Adapter GB stayed in Japan. On an original Western cartridge, the GS Ball was unobtainable without cheating, and Celebi reached the West only through separate distributions that skipped the event entirely.

The wait lasted seventeen years. Crystal's release on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, on January 26, 2018, included the GS Ball event in every language version, awarded after entering the Hall of Fame, the first time overseas players could legitimately obtain the ball, and with it this Celebi, on anything like original hardware.

It makes the 3DS download a genuine historical object: the first Western Crystal that is complete, holding a scene its 2001 cartridge always contained but could never show.