THE LIBRARY

Her name is Kris, and Crystal's box said it plainly in 2000: for the first time, play as a male or female trainer. Every game since has kept the choice.

Crystal is a Game Boy Color game outright, the only one of its generation that refuses older hardware, and it tells you so on screen in plain language.

January 27, 2001: a ¥5,800 (about $48 at the time) cable that plugged a Game Boy into a mobile phone, Nintendo's first online service for a handheld, two years early.

A trade corner that matched strangers across Japan, a news service built from everyone's saves, battles by phone: the GTS and its siblings, in 2001, in Japan only.

Through the phone network, once: the GS Ball arrived by mobile download in Japan, was translated but never given in the West, and waited until 2018 to open.

North of Route 40 in Crystal: the first Battle Tower, the series' first structured post-game challenge, which grew into the Battle Frontiers of later generations.

In Japan it is Stadium Gold and Silver, the third Stadium, launched the same day as Crystal; in the West it is Stadium 2, and the Transfer Pak does the magic.

Gold and Silver together sold 23.73 million, the series' second-biggest generation; Crystal's 6.39 million made it the connoisseur's edition, then and now.

Same mascots, different boxes: Ho-Oh, Lugia and Suicune front both regions, but Japan reads Pocket Monsters where the West reads Pokémon. Full pairs pictured.

The cable itself says no: the Game Boy Advance link port runs on a different voltage and protocol, so Hoenn and Johto were sealed off from each other.

The clock survived but the sky did not change: Ruby and Sapphire kept timed events, tides and berries, and dropped the visible morning, day and night of Johto.

Berries stopped growing at exactly one year, a clock bug in early Ruby and Sapphire; Nintendo's fix travelled on a GameCube disc and a berry-bearing Zigzagoon.

September 16, 2004 in Japan: Emerald took both cover legends, made Wallace champion, restored animated sprites and built the generation's great post-game.

Seven facilities, seven rulesets, seven Frontier Brains: Emerald's island turned the Battle Tower's single idea into the richest post-game the series had built.

January 29, 2004 in Japan: Kanto rebuilt on the Game Boy Advance, with a wireless adapter in every launch box and an archipelago the original never had.

Every launch box, in both regions: Nintendo packed its new wireless adapter with the remakes so that no buyer could be left out of the Union Room.

Nine islands south of Kanto that no 1996 player ever saw: the remakes' own region, holding ruins, rocket warehouses and the keys to the third generation.

The remake pair mirrors Japan's originals, Red and Green. Masuda explained the leaf himself in 2004, and the famous WaterBlue trademark never existed.

Two tickets, two hidden islands: the AuroraTicket's moving triangle summons Deoxys, and the MysticTicket opens Navel Rock, where Ho-Oh and Lugia wait.

A map handed out at Pokémon Festa 2005 to Emerald players in Japan, and nowhere else, ever: Faraway Island is the only legitimate Mew of Generation III.

A paper card in a magazine: Nintendo Power issue 173 carried the Eon Ticket, scanned through an e-Reader to raise Southern Island and its roaming twin.

A GameCube disc that stores 1,500 Pokémon: sold in Japan in 2003, and in North America only through Pokémon Center, which made it scarce by design.

Swipe a paper card, change the game: Mossdeep's hidden trainers, custom berries, and one very famous ticket all entered Hoenn through the e-Reader's dot codes.

Two hundred and two of 386: Ruby and Sapphire's Pokédex was deliberately unfinishable alone, and completing it became the generation's group project.

Same mascots on both regions' boxes, Groudon and Kyogre, with distinct Japanese and Western packaging across the GBA generation. Pairs pictured.