Official Pokémon Gold and Silver Adventure Guide

Official Pokémon Gold and Silver Adventure Guide is a strategy guide published by Versus Books. Out of all of Versus Books' strategy guides, it is volume 16 overall. This guide covers only the walkthrough/strategy portions of the game - it does not have listed Pokémon movesets and base stat totals.

Blurb
''Detailed maps and Walk-through! Our complete walk-through features maps of every game area, from start to finish! Every item and trainer is listed, every Gym is extensively covered, and every secret is described in-depth!

Full Rosters for Every Trainer Only Versus Books lists the rosters of virtually every trainer you'll face in Gold and Silver. Now you'll know how to prepare for difficult battles, and how to avoid the ones you just can't win.

Exact Appearance Ratios of Every Game Area! Know at a glance which Pokémon appear in each area, in which versions, and at what times of the day. Get the exact odds of running into the Pokémon that you need to catch.

Detailed Explanations of All of Gold & Silver's Mysteries The Q&A section gives you the answers to all of your Gold/Silver questions. Learn the new ways to evolve, the secrets of Breeding, the tricks to catching Legendary Pokémon. 

Content
The Official Pokémon Gold and Silver Adventure Guide opens with a section titled "What's New in Gold & Silver?". This section provides details on several new features introduced in Generation II, such as new Pokémon, new moves, the addition of the Steel and Dark types, the new way that the bag is organised, the Pokégear, different times of the day and days of the week, new methods of evolution, the split of the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense, genders, held items, Mystery Gift and new HM moves. This leads into several other introductory sections, explaining concepts such as capturing and trading Pokémon, evolution, and strategies for raising strong Pokémon.

Following the introductory section is the walkthrough, which is the bulk of the book's content. A selling feature of this book is percentage-based encounter rates for Pokémon in every area, which other strategy guides, such as Prima's Official Strategy Guide, do not include. The maps are presented in chronological order based on the storyline of the game, pointing out hidden items, helpful NPCs, items sold in every town's Poké Mart, strategies for defeating major characters such as Gym Leaders and, and strategies for using Pokémon found in each area. This section of the guide covers both the Johto and Kanto regions found in the game.

The walkthrough section is followed by a "Pokémon GS Q&A" section. This section addresses details such as tracking the legendary beasts, how to evolve into  or, how to obtain  and other baby Pokémon, how to obtain the various evolutionary stones, details on game-exclusive Pokémon, details on Pokémon that may only be encountered by using , information on Pokémon outbreaks, charts depicting which Pokémon evolve when traded with certain held items and which Pokémon evolve by friendship, how to evolve , information on which Pokémon may only be obtained by trading from the Generation I games, solutions to the Ruins of Alph puzzles, and details on Pokémon that may be found with held items, either when captured in the wild or traded over from the Generation I games.

The final section of the guide is an appendix, which lists every move and its effect, information on each TM and HM, a graph depicting when certain events happen depending on the days of the week, and a type chart.

Errors

 * For unknown reasons, certain Pokémon are shown as ??? in the capture lists, such as and.
 * This book gives many errors on how to increase or decrease a Pokémon's friendship, found on page 11.
 * The book states that using a Pokémon in battle will increase its friendship. The act of using it alone does not increase friendship.
 * It also states that giving the Pokémon held items is a method to increase friendship (this is only true for the, which would not be introduced until Generation III anyway).
 * It also states that using healing items on a Pokémon will increase its friendship. While the book correctly states that herbal medicine will decrease friendship, using regular healing items does not affect friendship.
 * The book states that leaving a Pokémon in a PC box will decrease friendship. While walking around with a Pokémon does increase friendship, it will not decrease friendship if it is put into the PC.
 * Similarly, the book states that not healing a fainted Pokémon immediately or leaving it fainted will decrease friendship. While friendship does decrease when a Pokémon faints, leaving it fainted for an extended period of time will not decrease friendship further; nor is it affected by taking damage in battle at all, as long as the Pokémon does not faint.
 * On page 40, it is stated that the can be used to evolve  into . In reality, it is  that evolves into Bellossom by use of the Sun Stone.
 * On page 103, it is stated that evolves into  when traded holding a King's Rock. In reality, it is  that evolves into Slowking by this method.
 * On page 105, it is stated that if a is captured wild in  and traded to Gold & Silver, it will be holding a "Bent Spoon". The name of the item is actually.
 * On page 105, the book states that wild may be found holding a "Thick Bone". While the English name of the item is actually the, the Japanese name is "Thick Bone", so this may be a translation error.

Related articles

 * Pokémon Gold and Silver: Official Nintendo Player's Guide
 * Pokémon Gold & Silver: Prima's Official Strategy Guide