Tama's Pokemon Generation 2 (GSC) 100% Completionism Checklist

Last time we went over how to 100% complete Gen 1 and all the mileage you can get out of a really thorough Gen 1 playthrough. Now it is time for Pokemon Crystal and Pokemon Stadium 2, aka Gen 2. Gen 2 is fewer games than Gen 1 since there are no Japanese exclusive Stadium games here, and you don’t need to complete all Johto games for the Pokedex, but it is a much larger campaign and it introduces a few new mechanics and with those there are new objectives. We have held items, Mystery Gift, the PokeGear with the radio and phone, the daily and weekly events, Shiny Pokemon, and breeding. So naturally it follows that in moving up to Gen 2, we’re going to be taking full advantage of the new things these features allow us to do and incorporating them into our 100% playthrough.

Unlike Gen 1, this assumes a mostly or fully glitchless run, save for some optional novelties you can perform. I think for Gen 1 the glitches are so easy and well known, and good movesets and Pokemon are so difficult to get without them that the temptation to abuse them is really too much to ignore for a lot of people. But in Gen 2 you really have to go out of your way to perform Arbitrary Code Execution or save abuse. The base game is more stable and is less unforgiving with getting what you need because there’s breeding built in and the game gives you way more chances for repeat TMs, so we’re just going to assume you’re going to be breeding for all of your Pokemon the old fashioned way. It is always possible to do ACE whenever you want if you have Gold and Silver so I’m not going to say that you can’t do it, like if you really want to incorporate it go ahead. But I’m just saying that I’m not going to be writing contingencies for doing things with and without glitches like I did for Gen 1. The main way glitches are going to impact your playthrough is if you did them in Gen 1, you probably have lots of Earthquake TMs and stuff to go around, which will make team building here in Gen 2 a little easier. How strict you want to be with that is again going to be fully up to your discretion.

GEN 2 CHECKLIST:

Supplies-

2 GameBoy Colors, link cable, Crystal version with working save battery (add onto this batteries and soldering tools if you need to replace batteries), Pokemon Gold OR Silver, N64, HDMI upscaler if no RCA input available or HD is desired, transfer pak (2nd transfer pak preferred for Pokemon management), Pokemon Stadium 2, GB screwdrivers, at least 1 completed Gen 1 game with access to all starters, legendaries and fossils (preferably Yellow), Pokemon Pikachu GS 2, save management or backup device

Optional: a copy of Night on the Galactic Railroad, Gameboy Printer and paper, some kind of LED screen for shiny hunting to prevent washed out colors, 3DS and Virtual Console copy of Crystal, 3DS Homebrew

Save backups are essential on any retro game playthrough that relies on a save battery. The N64 Transfer Pak can also occasionally jeopardize save data. Be smart, make backups often.

I don’t actually recommend playing on the Gameboy Tower within Stadium 2 for gen 2 due to the way it loads the game. It pauses to load new areas and menus and it’s more tedious. You could try Super Gameboy 2 on the SNES instead for Gold and Silver. However, Crystal is not Super Gameboy compatible and does not have a unique border in Gameboy Tower. For this reason I actually recommend getting a modded Gameboy Color to play Crystal on or a Gameboy clone with a backlit screen, helpful for shiny hunting. You may want multiple Gameboys and games with changed batteries in order to take advantage of Mystery Gift features for daily item and decoration chances. For this whichever devices you use will need to be infrared capable. Additionally, may want additional copies of Stadium 2 for more storage and daily mystery gift chances. And along those lines, you may want the Pokemon Pikachu GS 2 for easy Miracle Berries.

1. Beat Pokemon Crystal

• Crystal is the most aesthetically complete of the Gen 2 games, since you can play as a girl, there are in-battle animations for each Pokemon, unique overworld tilesets, plus other additional unique content that isn't in Gold and Silver like the Battle Tower and Suicune storyline.

• Crystal does not give you access to all the Pokemon so you will need to play at least one other game in the gen to trade yourself the Pokemon you’re missing to complete the dex. 

• Arbitrary Code Execution is impossible in Crystal.

Sub-objectives:

• Raise 3 teams for Pokemon Stadium 2. Unlike Gen 1, these do not need to be raised as you play through the game as now you have access to breeding and will want to do so to build these teams to take advantage of Egg Moves. But you should still plan your teams before you begin the playthrough in order to know which TMs to save for which Pokemon. Max use for most new TMs will be 2 if you are playing the minimum number of games required, but you may have access to more via tradebacks if you did a glitched run of Gen 1 or saved more TMs for Gen 2 during your Gen 1 run. Additionally some TM moves can be passed down through breeding. 

• Because you don’t need to raise these during the story, you can plan an additional team to be your main game playthrough team. This can be anything you want to raise, but you should keep in mind that the movesets will be limited due to saving TMs for your Stadium teams. You should allow this team to learn HM moves in order to quickly get around all parts of Johto to participate in time based events. Also make note of what held items you will need to track down for your Stadium teams and avoid using consumable held items prematurely like Berry Juice.

  

  Sample of how you can use spreadsheets to plan your Pokemon and movesets.

• See Battle Tower Notes below for additional Battle Tower team building and sample teams.

  • Team Building Notes:

    • There are more purchasable TMs this time around due to multiple Department Stores and Game Corners. 

    • Goldenrod Department Store: Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Headbutt, Rock Smash, Plus Return or Frustration each Sunday. 

    • Goldenrod Game Corner: Thunder, Blizzard, Fire Blast

    • Celadon Department Store: Hidden Power, Sunny Day, Protect, Rain Dance, Sandstorm

    • Celadon City Game Corner: Double Team, Psychic, Hyper Beam

    • Goldenrod City has a move tutor each Wednesday and Saturday outside the Game Corner: Ice Beam, Thunderbolt and Flamethrower. Requires 4000 coins per move

    • Blackthorn City has a move deleter.

    • There is a Stadium 2 exclusive move relearner that can be used on one member of your team after clearing Gym Leader Castle Elite Four.

    • Evolution stones are obtainable from phone trainers in Crystal or trading from Gen 1.

    • You may also plan ahead the Pokemon’s nicknames in order to get specific hue shifts once they appear in Stadium. 

    • Stat EXP training - Not necessary, but optional. Recommend at least using vitamins. Can use the Box Trick. 

    • DV/Shininess Breeding or Resetting - Gender, Shininess, and Stats are all controlled by DVs in Gen 2 and can be passed down through Breeding. Because of this, you can fairly easily get shiny Pokemon and manage the aesthetics of your teams.

  • Breeding Notes:

    • In Gen 2, Pokemon hatched from eggs will know all moves from level 5 or below in their learnset.

    • If both parents know a move the baby can learn via level up, the baby will be born with that move. 

    • If the father knows any moves that are TMs or HMs (and in Crystal, moves that are taught by a Move Tutor) that the baby is also compatible with, it will inherit the move.

  • Little Cup: Level cap is Level 5. Limited eligible Pokemon.

  • Poke Cup: Level cap is Level 50-55.

  • Prime Cup & Gym Leader Castle can use the same team. Prime Cup is at level 100 and Gym Leader Castle scales to your level.

  • In addition to this, you may want to raise 3-30 Pokemon for the Pokemon Crystal Battle Tower depending on how many different levels you want to try the challenge at. More info in the Battle Tower section.

• Watch Night on the Galactic Railroad

• Catch all Pokemon in each area to work on the Pokedex as you go - Stadium 2 has limits. Stadium 2 will not let you withdraw Pokemon from another TID from the Pokemon Lab until you have 150 caught in your Pokedex. You can use the Doduo/Dodrio Gameboys later to evolve Pokemon for the dex, but you will want to start filling out your Pokedex as early as possible to get access to Stadium 2’s lab features sooner. 

  • Phone numbers for outbreaks you will want to keep until you get each outbreak Pokemon: Bug Catcher Arnie for Yanma, Hiker Anthony for Dunsparce, and Fisher Ralph for Qwilfish. If you don’t have these, you can also check the Pokemon Talk radio show each day from 10am - 4am to see if there’s a swarm.

  • Phone numbers for evolution stones: Picknicker Gina for Leaf Stones, Schoolkid Alan for Fire Stones, Lass Dana for Thunderstones, Fisherman Tully for Water Stones

  • Wild Pokemon holding evolution items: Magnemite for Metal Coat, Horsea or Dratini for Dragon Scale, Slowpoke or Poliwhirl for King’s Rock, Clefairy for Moon Stone

  • Can get a Moon Stone every Monday night at Mt. Moon with Rock Smash

  • Must win Bug Catching Contest for Sun Stone

  • No repeatable method for Upgrade, obtained in Silph Co in Kanto

  • Friendship raising - Haircut brothers in Goldenrod underground (see weekly events), massage from Daisy Oak in Pallet Town (daily, 3PM - 4PM). Can check friendship in Goldenrod. Additionally, having your cartridge Pokemon participate in the Stadium 2 minigames raises their friendship, which is only applicable to Pokemon that appear in those minigames.

  • Get all the roaming legendaries, enjoy the hunt!

  • New to this Gen, you will need to breed for the new baby Pokemon as well

• Find all items on each map: Use guides and itemfinder to find ‘em all if needed. In Johto, returning to previous areas once HM moves are obtained is necessary. Each time a new HM move is acquired, sweep back through all previous areas to get missed items. Don’t forget to enter the Goldenrod Department store basement multiple times for all items, and to solve all Ruins of Alph puzzles for all items.

• Complete item collections:

  • Unique held items, including battle items needed for Stadium and Lucky Egg for training. This will require transferring certain Pokemon up from Gen 1.

  • Room Decorations - use Blue Moon Falls TID checker to find out which room decorations it’s POSSIBLE for you to obtain between all the games that you own and their TIDs. Some may be impossible, these can be skipped, or if you really want to, you can reset other games for new TIDs to try to get them all!

  • Use Pokemon Pikachu GS2 to obtain Miracle Berry

• Talk to all NPCs, read all signposts, etc.

  • In Goldenrod Pokemon Center, give lady Eon Mail (Mystery Gift-only item) in exchange for Revive at least once

  • Find all optional Suicune encounters - Cianwood City, Route 42, Route 36

  • Restore Moomoo Farm’s Miltank to full health by giving it 7 berries

  • At the Lake of Rage after defeating Team Rocket in Mahogany, show the Fishing Guru a Magikarp larger than 3’6” to beat Ralph’s record and earn an Elixir

  • Take the Red Scale to Mr. Pokemon for an EXP Share

  • NPCs in Violet City have unique dialogue before and after moving Sudowoodo. Many NPCs in Kanto have unique dialogue before and after restoring power to the region (for example, The Copycat). NPCs at the Lake of Rage have unique dialogue before and after defeating Team Rocket.

  • Get one of each evolution stone by showing Bill's Grandfather a Lickitung, Growlithe, Oddish, Pichu, and Staryu at the Sea Cottage

  • NPC in the Celadon Condominiums will only give you the TM for Curse at night

• Battle all trainers in the game

  • Including hidden Ace Trainer sisters on Route 34

  • Including trainers that can only be fought at night, such as Policemen

  • Optional: Cycle through phone contacts to rebattle each possible phone contact at least once

• Do each in-game trade in order to collect unique Trainer IDs for the GSC lotto: Onix, Machop, Voltorb, Dodrio, Aerodactyl, Xatu, Magneton

• Once you reach Ecruteak City, trade with Gen 1 (or use Stadium’s “Move Pokemon” for mass transferring) to receive unique trainer IDs from the Gen 1 games for the Lucky Number Show.

• Receive all Gift Pokemon

  • Max out Shuckie the Shuckle’s friendship to 150 points and gain approval of Kirk, its original trainer, to keep it

  • Complete the quest to give Kenya the Spearow (obtained on Route 35) to man on Route 31 in exchange for Nightmare TM

  • Answer Quiz Questions correctly in Dragon’s Den for Extremespeed Dratini

  • Defeat the Karate King in Mt. Mortar for Tyrogue

  • Reset the Odd Egg in Goldenrod in order to get a shiny baby Pokemon

  • Receive the Eevee from Bill in Goldenrod and breed it to obtain all the Eeveelutions

• Participate in all daily/weekly events. Do each at least once, but if you want to, you can participate in all of them whenever they are occurring multiple times for true slice-of-life gameplay. For example, you could stop every time you get a phone call for a rematch and go back to that trainer. You could pick up your unique Pokeballs from Kurt every day and harvest all the daily berries, and participate in the Bug Catching Contest every week. This way you get the experience of Johto as a living place with fresh opportunities each day.

  • Daily: Radio Shows in Goldenrod - Buena’s Password from 6PM - 12AM. Do this enough times to earn Buena’s Phone Number for your PokeGear. Lucky Number Show - Use all the unique TIDs you collected from playing Gen 1 & 2 to try to win the grand prize!

  • Daily: Interact with your phone contacts for rematches and items as often as possible

  • Daily: Drop off Apricorns at Kurt’s in Azalea Town and receive unique Pokeballs

  • Daily: Harvest Apricorns and Berries from trees all around Johto and Kanto

  • Daily: Trainer House Battles in Viridian City

  • Daily: Grooming from Daisy Oak in Pallet Town, from 3PM - 4PM

  • Weekly: Visit the shops in the Goldenrod Underground - Bargain Shop on Monday Morning, Younger Hairdresser on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, Older Hairdresser on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Herb Shop on Saturday and Sunday

  • Weekly: Bug Catching Contests on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Keep participating at least until you win 1st prize enough to evolve all Sun Stone Pokemon (Bellossom and Sunflora). If you can’t win with Scyther, Pinsir, Butterfree or Beedrill, try a level 18 Metapod or Kakuna

  • Weekly: S.S. Aqua Cruise on Wednesday and Sunday in Vermillion and Monday and Friday in Olivine. The first trip after beating the Elite Four and trips from Vermillion and from Olivine all feature a different trainer set respectively, so to fulfill the battle all trainers requirement you must at least complete the S.S. Aqua 3 times. Repeatable for extra exp.

  • Weekly: Rival Rematch at the Indigo Plateau on Monday and Wednesday. Repeatable for extra exp.

  • Weekly: Lapras appears in Union Cave (at least once)

  • Weekly: Clefairy dance on Monday nights outside of Mt. Moon, repeatable for Moon Stones! 

  • Weekly: Move Tutor in Goldenrod on Wednesday and Saturday. You’ll probably end up needing this for your Stadium 2 teams.

  • Weekly: Obtain all day of the week sibling items - Monica of Monday on Route 40, Tuscany of Tuesday on Route 29, Wesley of Wednesday at the Lake of Rage, Arthur of Thursday on Route 36, Frieda of Friday on Route 32, Santos of Saturday in Blackthorn City, Sunny of Sunday on Route 37

  • Weekly: On Tuesdays and Thursdays you can talk to but not battle your rival in Dragons Den, do this at least once

  • Occasionally: Camper Todd may call to tell the player about the Goldenrod Department Store’s bargain sale, good time to stock up on Vitamins!

• Fully explore all optional caves: Ruins of Alph, Dark Cave, Union Cave, Slowpoke Well, Mt. Mortar, Whirl Islands, Mt. Moon, Rock Tunnel, and Mt. Silver

• Cannot collect all phone numbers, PokeGear does not have enough memory. Will need to rotate different numbers in and out to achieve different goals.

• Complete the Unown Dex and collect all the different forms of Unown

• Optional: Shiny hunt as much or as little as you like. You could plan out specific Pokemon on your teams that you’d like to get as shinies and chain breed for shinyess, try to get all shiny gift Pokemon or stationary Pokemon by soft resetting for full odds, plan to breed or hunt a shiny from all egg groups, or go completely crazy and try for a shiny living dex. 

• I recommend at least getting a shiny of each of the following Pokemon to use in the Stadium 2 minigames since they allow you to use your own Pokemon if a gameboy game is inserted, and you can use Pokemon not normally seen in some of the minigames this way: Golbat, Hitmontop, Scizor, Girafarig, Mr. Mime, Donphan, Cleffa or Igglybuff, Omanyte, Delibird, Chansey, Eevee. Also transfer in a Pikachu from Yellow to use in the Pichu minigame.

• Max out your money with Mom and in your bag - If you use the Elite Four to Stat Exp Train and have a Pokemon holding an Amulet Coin, this will probably happen without deliberate effort.

• Clear the Battle Tower on Route 40 - This can be done as needed to obtain 5 vitamins, which will assist with training your Pokemon for Stadium. You can treat it as a means to grind vitamins, or you can attempt to build different 3 Pokemon teams to clear it at each level, from 10 to 100. Levels 60 to 100 can only be accessed after clearing the Hall of Fame. I recommend raising at least 6 Pokemon, 3 for the Tower at level 10 and 3 for the Tower at level 100.

  • Courtesy of im a blisy, the official Nintendo Power Player's Guide for Pokemon Crystal contains this walkthrough of the the Battle Tower with sample teams for level 10 - 40:

    

    

    

• Optional: Obtain PokeRus! It’s not necessary, and it may be impossible since it is very rare. But if you’ve gotten lucky enough you’ll really have 100%ed this game and it will speed up Stat Exp training.

• Optional: Dump save data to virtual console to transfer your Pokemon up to Gen 7 or up

• Novelty: Check the radio in the Ruins of Alph, Lake of Rage before beating Team Rocket, and during the Team Rocket Radio Tower Takeover after earning the 7th badge.

• Novelty: Obtain Dragonbreath from Clair twice

• Novelty: Save abuse to change the color of your sprite (Red girl or Blue boy). Will need to do this at the very beginning of the game after creating a character and change only lasts until Slowpoke Well.

• Novelty: Cut the tree on Route 35 before battling Bug Catcher Arnie to trap yourself

• Novelty: Use the GameBoy Printer to print Ruins of Alph stamps, boxes, and diploma for completing the Pokedex. Visit the Photo Studio in Cianwood City

• Novelty: Buy a Slowpoke tail as a souvenir from Mahogany Town before defeating Team Rocket, and a Ragecandybar after

• Novelty: There are many opportunities for impossibly low level fully evolved Pokemon in the wild. Collect some!

• Novelty: Play with IRL friends and swap mail, Mystery Gift

• Novelty: Hatch an Egg on the S.S. Aqua so that the Poke Seer in Cianwood City names the FAST SHIP as the caught location, otherwise impossible to obtain Pokemon there, and otherwise impossible to see the location name since the map doesn't display it.

• Novelty: Talk to the Right side of the staircase leading up to the roof of the Celadon Condominiums 

• Novelty: Mystery Gift with Carrie from Pokemon Stadium 2 and face all of her possible teams in the Trainer House

2. Play Gold OR Silver Version

• You do not need to play them both to complete the Pokedex, only one. All 3 missing Johto Pokemon are available in both games. You do need to finish whichever one you play because the Super Rod to get Remoraid is in Kanto.

  • Mareep is on Routes 32, 42, & 43

  • Girafarig is on Route 43

  • Remoraid is on Route 44 via Super Rod

• The only Pokemon exclusive to Gold is Mankey and the only Pokemon exclusive to Silver is Vulpix, but both can also be transferred in from Gen 1 games, which this guide assumes you have available to you. 

• Restart the game at least once for the other two Johto Starters you are missing.

• However if you would like to play all through Gold AND Silver for more games to Mystery Gift with each day, that’s also fine. You will have access to more duplicate exclusive TMs as well the more times you play through more of the game and trade them over.

• If you really want to for any reason, ACE using the Coin Case exploit is only possible in Gold and Silver.

• There are also unique In-Game trades in Gold and Silver for additional unique TIDs for the Lucky Number Show.

3. Beat Pokemon Stadium 2

• The Pokemon you raise in-game are for R2 in order to use the same team for Poke and Prime cup. You can beat R1 with rentals, OR you can register the team for Poke cup and then use the saved version to beat R2 once the Pokemon are already level 100. Because you can now breed Pokemon, you may desire to use the same Pokemon in Little, Poke and Prime Cup at different levels.

• You will want to use the Doduo and Dodrio GameBoys to help with breeding and raising Pokemon. Doduo is unlocked by clearing Little, Challenge, Poke & Prime Cup in R1 OR Gym Leader Castle in R1, and Dodrio is unlocked by meeting the same requirements in R2. I recommend doing Gym Leader Castle for both because it is the faster of the two options and you will have to make fewer teams without having speed up available. Note that neither is usable with a Gen 2 game that hasn’t cleared the Elite Four once.

• Getting unlimited access to the Pokemon Lab features requires having 150 Pokemon registered in the Pokedex. Once this is accomplished, you can also use the Hue Shift feature to Shiny hunt Pokemon Eggs.

• Challenge Cup is a fully randomized mode that you can’t prepare for so expect that to be the most frustrating and take the longest to clear. It tallies your attempts so you can try to beat it in fewer attempts and not reset for better Pokemon, or quit over and over until you get the best options.

Sub-Objectives:

• Beat Little Cup R1

• Beat Challenge Cup R1

• Beat Poke Cup R1 (Register team to the cart)

• Beat Prime Cup R1 (With rentals, or leveled up Pokemon if you registered your PokeCup Team)

• Beat Gym Leader Castle R1

• Beat Rival R1 - earn Baton Pass Farfetch’d

• Beat Little Cup R2

• Beat Challenge Cup R2

• Beat Poke Cup R2

• Beat Gym Leader Castle R2

• Beat Prime Cup R2 

• Beat Rival R2 - earn Earthquake Gligar

• Who’s The Best - Win vs hard computers in a tournament, or have a party and play against real people. Use your own Pokemon from your GameBoy games as noted in the Crystal section for unique Pokemon options.

• Get 100 Eggs in Hard Mode of Egg Emergency

• Clear Earl’s Pokemon Academy - Get Gold Stars in All Test Battles

4. Complete the National Pokedex

• You will need to transfer in the following Pokemon from Gen 1: All 3 Gen 1 starters (alternately you can inject the PKNY event Starters), Vulpix & Mankey if not caught in Gold & Silver, Kabuto & Omanyte, All Gen 3 Legendaries (Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos & Mewtwo).

• There are considerable new trade-evolutions in Gen 2 so you will need to take advantage of a 2nd Gen 2 game to complete them.

• Aerodactyl is available via In-game Trade within the Gen 2 games on Route 13.

• Many Kanto Pokemon can also be obtained much easier or earlier in the game by trading in from Gen 1. Time-Capsule trading becomes available once you reach Ecruteak.

• Celebi and Mew can be considered fully optional because they’re mostly unattainable without glitches, outside of Virtual Console versions or homebrew distributions. You can also go get the Mew & Celebi save data from Project Pokemon, burn it to a cart and trade it over. Or convert Cart Save data to activate VC Celebi event.

• If you did a method to obtain Mew in Gen 1, you can just trade that over as well.

Resources/Further Reading:

Setup and supplies:

https://www.gbxcart.com/ 

An inexpensive cart/save dumper for GameBoy/GameBoy Advance games. If preferred, you can use the GameBoy Operator instead, these do the same thing. A Monster Brain also works if you prefer not to fully dump the save and just back it up.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Game+Boy+Cartridge+Battery+Replacement/27213?srsltid=AfmBOoqGj8bf0z3XWnwl48Aa44onlFPhGzhsJmZXXEzwW3Jp8Y4apn0i 

A walkthrough on how to replace the batteries in your cartridges.

Team Planning:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_breeding#Passing_moves_down

An overview of how passing moves down through breeding works.

http://www.psypokes.com/gsc/breeding.php

A list of the different egg groups in Gen 2 and which Pokemon are in them, as well as a more detailed explanation of move inheritance with an example. At the bottom of the page it also lists how many steps each species of Pokemon requires to hatch.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/littlecup.shtml

A list of the Pokemon eligible for Little Cup.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/pokecup.shtml

A list of the Pokemon eligible for Poke Cup.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/primecup.shtml

A list of the Pokemon eligible for Prime Cup.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/gymcastle.shtml

An explanation of the restrictions for Gym Leader Castle.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/prizes.shtml

A list of the Pokemon available as prizes in Stadium 2, as well as an explanation of how to unlock and use the Move Relearner, which is a feature exclusive to Stadium 2 in Gen 2.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/rby_gsc_stats

A detailed explanation of how DVs are inherited in Gen 2 and how Stat Experience Works. This is not necessary to fully understand for a successful Stadium 2 run, but it may be helpful if you wish to try to get max stats on your Pokemon. Guide by NixHex et all.

https://www.math.miami.edu/~jam/azure/compendium/boxtrick.htm
An explanation of how to use the box trick in Gen 1 for Stat Exp training and max stats.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/stat-experience-training-in-rby-gsc.3467090/
A thread also by NixHex detailing the optimal place for Stat Exp training in Gen 2. Basically, if you are going for max stats at level 100, the Gen 2 E4 is preferable to the Gen 1 E4.

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/hue-previewer
A tool to preview the Stadium 2 nickname changing hues for different nicknames/species of Pokemon based on your trainer name and ID.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CreSBofzryi1LM0DCnwTmhACItqE4iQw
Feanen's original gallery of the various possible Stadium Hues, to help you pick which ones to aim for.

http://www.psypokes.com/gsc/items.php
A list of all items in Gen 2 including held and evolution items and how to obtain them. Useful to make sure you have gotten all unique non-consumable items as well as for planning how you’ll obtain your held items for your teams in Pokemon Stadium 2. Note that you may need to use the Mystery Gift Calculator in Gameplay Resources section below to figure out if you can obtain a Scope Lens or reset a 2nd Gen 2 Pokemon game for a TID that can.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_by_wild_held_item_(Generation_II)

A list of all Pokemon and which held items they are holding in Gen 2. This includes all items held by Gen 1 Pokemon when transferred up to Gen 2, which is the only way to obtain some unique held items.

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/shinies/dv-breeding

A breakdown of how to increase Shiny odds by breeding in Generation 2. Includes a calculator to tell you what the odds are for your two parents (not necessary but still very helpful) and an explanation of using Pokemon Stadium 2 to shiny hunt eggs. 

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/egg-previewer

Here is a tool to preview what color your Pokemon’s eggs will be so that you know ahead of time what the contrast will be to a shiny egg in Stadium 2.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/a-guide-to-the-crystal-battle-tower-wip.3448854/

A thread by Destiny Warrior that contains a team for the Level 10 Battle Tower as well as a breakdown of strategies used. This is the actual guide that my Battle Tower Team is from, now that I have found it.

http://www.psypokes.com/gsc/battletower.php

A list of all the oppontent Pokemon at all levels of the Battle Tower Challenge.

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/general/lucky-egg

A guide for how to optimize Lucky Egg hunting (a held item that increases exp gain that is only obtainable by stealing from wild Chansey). This is useful for raising Pokemon to high levels in the post-game.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18LiLVShewK603VtFlzDVqFoC_Wg2PI4g-wZ2KL3Qw_s/edit?gid=657131768#gid=657131768
A Google sheet from 2021 with teams planned for Stadium 2. This was shared with me via Twitter by Materious17, but the original author is not noted in the sheet, so I do not know who made this.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/452036-pokemon-stadium-2/faqs/13442
A comprehensive guide for team building in every Stadium 2 cup, by DonaldMick. This covers a lot of bases and has sample teams for every cup as well as an explanation for how they’re used.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Game_Boy_Tower

An explanation for how the Doduo and Dodrio gameboys are unlocked, which are extremely useful for building teams as well as Pokedex completion.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Stadium_2

This page features a list of all mechanic changes from the Gameboy Games to Stadium 2, which is useful for planning movesets.

https://pastebin.com/p1ksZiue

My personal notes from my own Crystal playthrough from 2016 which include what Pokemon I raised and how I bred for each one.

https://www.twitch.tv/collections/d1JqEuQPRBXk8g

A collection of my past vods from my own Crystal playthrough including the Battle Tower and Stadium runs

Gameplay Resources:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9gear#Trainers 

A list of trainers whose Phone Numbers you can register in your PokeGear, how to obtain these numbers, where they are located, when you can rematch them, and any extra functions they may have in each version of the game. This is helpful because you cannot have all phone numbers saved at a time and will need to curate different trainers to accomplish different goals.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_decorations_in_Generation_II

A list of all room decorations in Generation 2 and how to obtain them. Some Mystery Gift decorations will not be possible to receive unless you deliberately create additional save files in other Gen 2 games to receive them. See this explanation:

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/general/mystery-gift

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/mystery-gift-calc

Use this calculator to figure out which decorations and items it is possible to obtain using the TIDs and games you have available.

https://www.serebii.net/crystal/dailyevent.shtml
A fairly comprehensive list of time-based events in Gen 2. Only omits the Rival appearing at Dragons Den on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Daisy’s massages daily from 3PM - 4PM.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Days_of_the_week
A breakdown of everything you can do in Gen 2 by day of the week. For Monday it lists all time based events possible on Monday, and so on. Can be used to make sure you don’t miss anything each day.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/minigames.shtml

A list of all Pokemon that you can get only if you use your own Pokemon in the Stadium 2 minigames.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dragon%27s_Den#Master's_quiz

The Dragon Den’s Master Quiz answers to obtain the Extremespeed Dratini.

https://archives.glitchcity.info/forums/board-10/thread-7524/page-0.html

A breakdown of Roaming Pokemon mechanics in Gen 2 from IceFlame and advice on how to hunt and catch them.

https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/academy.shtml

An explanation of Earls Pokemon Academy and what is required to earn a gold star in each test battle.

Pokedex Completion:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mass_outbreak#Generation_II

A list of Pokemon obtainable by mass outbreak in Generation 2 and which Trainers will call you to let you know.

​​https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/In-game_trade#Generation_II
A list of all In-Game Trades in Gen 2.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Gift_Pok%C3%A9mon#Generation_II
A list of all Gift Pokemon in Gen 2.

http://www.psypokes.com/gsc/happiness.php

An explanation for how happiness works in Gen 2 to assist you with evolving happiness based Pokemon.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Unown_Mode

An explanation of the Unown Dex and a list of which puzzle entrances result in which Unown.

https://www.serebii.net/crystal/interactable.shtml

A list of interactable Pokemon in case you want to shiny hunt them. Good for soft resetting. You can also reset the Koffing and Voltorb encounters in the Goldenrod Rocket Hideout floor trap, although they are not mentioned here.

​​https://www.serebii.net/crystal/unobtainable.shtml

A list of Pokemon you will need to trade into Crystal from other games.

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/general/gs-ball-celebi

A page that details all the various ways Celebi can be obtained in Gen 2 in the current day, both with external devices and without them.

https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/category/73-english/
Links to data containing actual preserved giveaway Celebis for Gen 2. Burn this data for an authentic Gen 2 Celebi. Also available here are other Gen 2 era event Pokemon, such as Pokemon with special moves, should you want them.

NEW! https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/distribution-station
Blue Moon Falls now has as an in-browser event Pokemon distribution tool! Get some PCNY Distribution Pokemon like Celebi, Mew, and more!

Novelties:

https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/gsc-save-converter

A save converter to convert cart GSC saves to VC saves and back again.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/vc_natures

If you wish to transfer your Pokemon up through the Virtual Console version when you are done with your cartridge, you can manipulate what natures they will get in Gen 7 using this chart. Guide by WMAR.

https://glitchcity.wiki/wiki/Change_player_color_glitch

A save abuse glitch you can use at the beginning of the game to change the color of your player character’s sprite up through Slowpoke Well, at which point it reverts to the default.

https://glitchcity.wiki/wiki/Clair_gift_glitch

An oversight you can exploit to obtain 2 Dragonbreath TMs from Clair.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSZHF4sdFUmF0ttnVfgwFrKzfa99gm1OEy0UJ9KkFWvBA4fFKPyNcwWyfqaGS5CbFGtuk0M67cKEWI8/pub

A comprehensive guide by Reddit user Pikmin34 that explains where to get many underleveled evolved Pokemon across the series, which in Gen 2 is not so much useful as it is novel.

This can keep you busy anywhere from a few months to a year depending on how many full odds Shiny Hunts you would like to work into your playthrough and how lucky you get. Having Stadium will make all of it more tolerable as it makes it way easier to trade Pokemon around between games. Unfortunately the Doduo and Dodrio gameboys are less useful in Gen 2 due to them not being usable on any game that hasn't cleared the Elite Four.

Now doing all of the above is a pretty thorough gen 2 experience, I think you will have gotten a lot of mileage out of the original Johto games if you go to the trouble to do all this. But if you want to really live the Gen 2 life, eat sleep and breathe the games, and fully relive the Gen 2 era, here are a few extra things you can do just for the vibes:

Extra hard core additional objectives:

• Play Pokemon Puzzle Challenge, the only Gen 2 era spin off game

• Beat Stadium 2 cups on NSO using only Rentals and save states

• Get a Pocket Pikachu GS 2 to 1 million steps

• Enjoy other nostalgic new millennium things while you work on this, 00s anime (rewatch Orange Islands, Pokemon Johto and Movies 2-4), 00s movies, music, other 00s games, read the Johto arc of Pokemon Special Adventures, buy some gel pens, etc. Feed your inner child or if you’re a fetus that was born after the early 00s, consider it an anthropological exercise in imagining what the time period was like historically

• Get a CRT TV to play these on, you can find them locally on Facebook marketplace

• Draw your team to commemorate your playthrough or commission an artist to do it

• Take a field trip and play the game outside in nature for full immersion
  
  UPDATE 11/22/24: A new tool for adding PCNY event Pokemon to your save data was added to Blue Moon Falls so it was added as a link in the Resources.