2nd Gen Gold & Silver had different sprites.

[Palamon]

Gold and Silver are the only paired games to have completely different sprites. This truly made Gold & Silver different from eachother, as all the sprites were exclusive to that game. While Crystal had animated sprites, they were just differently shaded sprites from Pokemon Gold.

Here's a few examples of sprites from Pokemon Gold and then Pokemon Silver.

Not all sprites are different, though. The Legendary beasts have the same sprites in both Gold & Silver.

That being said, what did you think of this? I think this was really cool. It truly makes Gold/Silver unique, since they mostly had different sprites between eachother. Especially nowadays when the 3D models are all the same, just different textures. Before that, new sprites were only in the third version. Black/White and Black2/White2 also had no different sprites between eachother, so it's truly a thing of the past.

 

[Lunar]

I actually really like this, back in Gen 2 there was only so much they could do to differentiate between the versions (apart from the standard version exclusive Pokemon etc) so having different sprites was a unique way to create some differences between the two! I can't say I ever noticed it though, mainly because the gap between playing the original Crystal version, and then Silver on the VC was so long, but I'd say having two sets of the sprites for the different versions is a nice feature!

 

[Inner Rhymes]

I actually noticed this when i was younger. I absolutely loved how the Onix sprite in Gold version was shaped like the letter "G" and in silver it was shaped like the letter "S". Also, while black and white 2 did not have new sprites from its predecessors, didn't the sprites have a bit more personality to them via the animations? I could be wrong.

 

[enderkool]

I think it's really cool that the two games have different sprites. It really makes them seem different as oppose to X and Y where the only differences are pokemon that you can encounter.

 

[BH]

I played the fan translated Pokemon Silver first so it was my first gen 2 game that i played, so those sprites were the first i saw

Shame that HG & SS don't have different sprites from each other, and not like Gold/Silver were each game has their own sprites (Except the legendary Caniles)

 

[pkmin3033]

Ah, the days when Game Freak put actual effort into differentiating between the two versions...this is also yet another reason why sprites are better than models. I actually partially based my decision to get Silver instead of Gold because I preferred Silver's sprites when I saw them in a magazine!

 

[Sydian]

i appreciate them going out of their way to give both games a unique sprite, and iirc, crystal just kind of had a mix with spruced up colors and details. showed a lot of care, but i understand why that didn't continue in later games with the increase of critters lol. some sprites got the shaft though like silver eevee is bleh, i prefer gold eevee. then gold umbreon looks doofy and silver umbreon looks badass lmfao. so it's like. welp. and i think crystal, for the most part, kept the better of the two sprites, like umbreon and espeon. or in some cases, heavily improved from both gold and silver. i am Specifically looking at houndoom.