Pokémon SoulGold review after a full Hard mode run

My verdict: play it

SoulGold is the best Johto game I’ve played. I beat it on Hard with Hard level caps, postgame and all.

It takes the Heart & Soul remake, moves it onto pokeemerald-expansion, and keeps building. New areas, 702 dex entries, every Mega, legendaries as multi-bar bosses, and a postgame that kept me busy for weeks after the credits.

The downsides all come from how new it is. The first beta was 20 July 2026, v1.2 landed on 3 October, and three fix batches followed that month. It only runs right on accurate emulators, and there’s no Kanto. If you want HeartGold with a fresh coat of paint, play Heart & Soul instead.

What SoulGold is

It’s rahtak’s expansion of Johto, built on RHH’s pokeemerald-expansion with the Heart & Soul maps, by way of smithk200’s port of that remake. It’s a decomp project, so patches come fast.

There’s no Kanto, but there’s a lot more Johto:

• Goldenrod Shore and Routes 47 to 50
• The Vajra Desert, with Rinto Village and a Battle Pyramid
• Snowtop Mountain
• Kitakami, with the Lost Woods
• The South Johto Sea and the Abandoned Rocket Warehouse
• Meteor Island and Faraway Island
• New depths under Ice Path, Mt. Mortar, the Whirl Islands and Ilex Forest

The tileset is new everywhere, so even Route 29 looks different. I stood around on Route 29 for a minute just taking it in.

Elm offers nine starters at level 5, Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile, Sprigatito, Torchic and Popplio. The three lines that never had a Mega get one. Mega Typhlosion is Fire/Ground with Drought, Mega Meowscarada is Grass/Dark with Protean, and Mega Primarina is Water/Fairy. My pick is in the starter guide.

What it does better than HeartGold, SoulSilver and Heart & Soul

You get 702 dex numbers and 959 species and forms, including 118 Megas. All 608 non-legendaries are catchable in one save, and that’s what you need for Arceus. The only gaps are a couple dozen legendaries with no encounter, like Deoxys, Xerneas and the Galar box legendaries. HGSS had 493.

Megas use one stone per type: 18 “-tite” stones plus the Bondstone for your starter. A stone works for every Mega of its type, so Dragotite covers Charizard X, Dragonite, Garchomp Z and Baxcalibur. The 118 include the Pokémon Champions “Z” forms and the Legends Z-A Megas.

• Mega Ring: Oak, after the Team Rocket takeover in Goldenrod
• Bondstone: Elm, after the eighth badge
• Every stone: the Mega guide

If you played HGSS, you’ll feel the pacing fixes first:

• The Exp. Share shows up before Violet City and starts on.
• Elm’s aide gives you a Candy Jar. Every time a foe faints, it banks 90 percent of that foe’s EXP on top of what your team gets, and pays it out as Exp Candies.
• Chuck, Jasmine and Pryce scale to your 4, 5 or 6 badges. The old mid-Johto level dip is gone.

The Candy Jar alone saved me hours of grinding.

You don’t teach HMs. Own the HM and the badge and you’re set. Fly works from the Pokégear map without a Flying type. Followers, the radio, Cameron, Buena’s show, Apricorns and the Bug-Catching Contest are all still here.

Boss legendaries are the best idea in the game

Legendaries are boss fights. They have two to four health bars and a 10 percent stat boost, and several change form as bars break. Mewtwo cycles through Mega Y and Mega X. Kyogre and Groudon go Primal for three bars. Dialga, Palkia and Giratina switch to Origin Forme.

Win and you catch it with any ball. Lose or run and it stays put, so you can’t blow it.

In HGSS, Lugia meant False Swipe and 60 Ultra Balls. Here, Lugia in the Whirl Islands is a two-bar fight at level 65 in the story. Take the Rainbow Wing, beat the Director in the postgame, and come back for a four-bar level 80 fight. I wiped to story Lugia twice on Hard until I brought a Rocky Helmet user and a Thunder Wave setter. Way more fun than throwing balls.

Not everything is a boss. The Kanto birds, Celebi, the Regis and the lake trio are normal statics. The beasts roam, and the Roamer Tracker sits on the map’s R button. No shiny locks. Where to find each one is in the legendary locations guide.

Hard mode and the level caps

These are two separate settings. Difficulty is Normal or Hard. Hard gives gyms and the Elite Four tougher teams and makes them Doubles. Regular trainers stay the same, just with smarter movesets.

The Doubles switch changes everything. Here’s what I ran into on Hard:

• Falkner: On Normal, three ‘mons topping out at a level 12 Pidgeotto. On Hard, he brings Rufflet (Tailwind, Helping Hand), Noibat, Gligar and an Air Cutter Pidgeotto, four in all. That Tailwind means his whole side outspeeds you on turn two.
• Whitney: Maushold, Audino, Cinccino and Miltank at 27, all holding items. Audino sets both screens.
• Clair: Six level 58s with EV spreads, including an Assault Vest Hisuian Goodra and a Gyarados holding a Watertite.
• Lance: Six at 70 and 71, with a Choice Specs Archaludon and a Mega Dragonite.

Level caps are None, Soft or Hard. Hard gives zero EXP at the cap. Soft divides EXP over the cap by 4, then 8, 16, 32 and 64 for each level over.

The caps go 12, 19, 26, 34, 42, 45, 48, then 55 at the Rocket takeover, 58, 62 until you catch Ho-Oh or Lugia, and 70 until you’re Champion. Trainer scaling (trainers trail your party average) and wild scaling are separate toggles.

I ran Hard difficulty, Hard caps, scaling off. It was the right amount of pain. I lost gym fights I’d have walked on Normal, but two switch-ins per gym was enough and I never opened a damage calc.

Beat Unbound on Difficult or any Drayano hack? Play Hard. First hack? Play Normal with Soft caps. The full breakdown is in level caps and Hard mode.

The quality-of-life list

The options menu is three pages long:

• Overworld speed up to 4x, battle speed up to 3x
• Followers and autorun
• Shiny odds at 1/256 (default), 1/512 or 1/1024
• Dark battle and bag UI
• Battle music from Kanto, FRLG, RSE or D/P/Pt
• A trainer format override that forces Singles or Doubles

I set battle speed to 3x on the first route and never touched it again.

Most training tools you buy once:

• Every tutor move: Olivine tutor master, 44,444
• Every egg move: Blackthorn egg move master, 88,888
• Mints: Olivine beach café
• IV feathers: fishing and the Battle Factory
• Hyper Training: Rinto Village
• EX vitamins max a stat in one go
• Ability Capsules and Patches: Battle Factory for BP, open after Whitney

The DexNav comes with your first Poké Balls. The VS Seeker recharges every 200 steps. Hidden Grottos give you a ‘mon with two perfect IVs and its Hidden Ability every day.

Where it’s still rough

It’s three months old and you can tell. The October fixes covered a Simple plus Belly Drum overflow, a shiny Mega Greninja that could reset the game landing from Surf, and roamers fleeing while asleep. A few earlier fixes were marked “maybe fixed”. None of it stopped my run, but it isn’t settled yet.

Some things are still placeholders. The Mega Meowscarada follower sprite isn’t done. The Urshifu scrolls sit in the Rocket Arcade for now. And the game’s Docs button still says v1.2 after the 1.2.1 patch, so check the continue screen to see your real version.

Saves only go forward. Once you save on a newer version, you can’t go back. Patches come weekly, and Hackdex is the only official source. The official documentation site is good for encounters, trainers and TMs if you want to look something up.

What version 1.2 changed

If you played before October, 1.2 is mostly polish:

• Follower sprites for most starter Megas
• Fast HM and Battle Music options
• New Elite Four rematch and Title Defense teams
• A friendlier Battle Pyramid
• Shiny parents raise egg shiny odds
• Paradox Pokémon respawn after a Title Defense and no longer count for the dex

The friendlier Pyramid is the change I noticed most. The October batches fixed facility RNG and added the Mega Primarina and partner Eevee followers. The 21 October batch (1.2.1 on the continue screen) added the battle status screen on SELECT, PC box search, three chat frames and some missing egg moves. Everything is in the 1.2.1 changes page.

The postgame is a second game

Beat the Champion and you unlock:

• The Battle Tower on Route 40
• The Vajra Pyramid
• The Rocket Arcade in Goldenrod, which pays money instead of BP
• The Battle Café on Route 50. Its daily-challenge points buy the Galarian birds, the Forces of Nature and the Tapus.

Title Defense swaps the Elite Four rerun’s ending for a random level 85 challenger. After five defences, Lance, Steven, Elder Li, the Director and Leaf join the pool.

Innate abilities are how the postgame keeps you hooked. Every Pokémon gets up to three extra abilities at levels 75, 85 and 95. A level 95 Typhlosion runs Flame Body, Berserk and Heat Rush on top of Blaze. My Elite Four rematch team changed shape twice as innates came online.

There are 121 trophies, with Pokémon rewards from 15 to 100, Ash-Greninja and Zarude among them. A lot of legendaries are postgame only, including a four-bar Mewtwo at level 80.

Who should play it

Play SoulGold if:

• Johto is your region and you want more of it
• You like level caps and Doubles gyms
• You want every Mega in one game
• You want a real postgame, with facilities and bosses

Wait if you need Kanto, you’re on an emulator that isn’t supported, or you want a hack that’s done changing. Heart & Soul gives you faithful HGSS with Kanto. Unbound is complete and hasn’t changed since 2022. The Johto hack list puts them side by side.

This is the Johto hack I’ll replay, and the first one I tell people to try when they want Johto on a handheld. The roster and the buy-once training tools kill the grind. You give up Kanto and put up with patches and a strict emulator, and I’d make that trade again. Start with the FAQ to get your emulator and patch set up.