Getting to the Gold, Silver and Crystal chapter of Pokemon Adventures was pretty exciting from the get go to me, seeing an arc that was as long as the previous 2 combined, based on the game that had 2 regions collide, it seems like it was setting up one of the most ambitious and largely scoped bits that the manga as a whole would explore, and while that ultimately proves to be true to an extent, I couldn't help but feel that the way it was handled felt a bit off in the end, as if too much was going on at once without a true sense of focus. Immediately the reader gets introduced to 2 new main characters, both of which prove to be a bit more entertaining overall than their counterparts from the Kanto region, being far less generically heroic and bringing forth a really chaotic energy to their interactions with the world that brings a very unique flavour to the way that the Pokemon world is explored. I also like the way that this doesn't try particularly hard to follow that standard "trainers beat the gym leaders" concept this time around either, with them acting almost exclusively as important and powerful figures that have a lot of sway on the events without even being framed as an obstacle in the slightest. The pacing for the first section is also rather good, with the rivalry between Gold and Silver feeling like a more constant and bitter presence, with almost everything that each of them do being brought back around to attempting to upstage and bring down the other one, all while never forgetting to show just enough common ground between them so they're not just total enemies. It's a good dynamic that feels pretty well conceived and a great way to drive the plot forward.

The issues with pacing really reveal themselves after the first stretch of the arc when we're introduced to the 3rd protagonist, Crystal however. After having this fast paced, intense scramble in the first section, a certain big event happens and then the perspective changes to her instead, completely ignoring the presence of these other two characters for quite a while. It essentially feels as if it resets the narrative and makes the reader go through another escalation while knowing in the back of their minds that there's an entire other plotline that hasn't been touched in ages. It overall just feels like a very poor way of handling interweaving plotlines when there's really not much of actual crossover for a decent chunk of time past this. It ends up making the entire middle section of the arc feel extremely plodding, further exacerbated by the fact that it feels as if there's also a lot of focus spent on the other goings on in the 2 regions explored here, with a bit too much going on for it to feel as if it all fits within 90 chapters. There are also a few other issues, such as the fact that the villain reveal of this is framed as a huge twist when it's the most obvious thing ever, the fact that the climax of the arc feels pretty weak, with the section directly beforehand feeling like a far better collision of all the forces in play. Still though, despite the pacing issues and some really poorly handled concepts sprinkled in throughout, this still does some things extremely well and manages to be another fun Pokemon adventure, even if it's not quite as good as the others thanks to its glaring flaws and general sense of biting off more than it could chew.