I don't know his work or characters that well, outside of what they showed in the Jim Carrey biopic (and the R.E.M. song, haha) , so I appreciate your analysis here!
I know what you mean about Gold and Silver. Everything you mentioned, plus events that happened on specific days of the week, "mystery gift" functionality via IR, and more stuff I'm forgetting. There were also radio stations you could "listen" to (read text) that made the world feel alive.
Even in gen 1, trading/battling revived link-cable culture, which I'd only ever seen people use for Tetris, years before.
Shigeru Miyamoto stated that "Kirby" was chosen partly in honor of American lawyer John Kirby, who defended Nintendo in the Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. case
I don't know his work or characters that well, outside of what they showed in the Jim Carrey biopic (and the R.E.M. song, haha) , so I appreciate your analysis here!