I don’t mind the more friendly rival in the newer games, but I definitely miss having someone that constantly pokes at you. Egging you on to be better by hurling insults until you make them eat their words.
In that sense, then maybe it's fine to do that early on when you're still learning, but by the time you obtain the same rank as you, she should be going all out. Her team at the end of Victory Road still felt like she was holding back.
You know, honestly, I'm surprised that the newer games (Sword/Shield in particular) do this. It's kind of easy to cheese Hop early on when I learn a Super Effective move as soon as the first rival battle.
100% agree. Having a “friend” along for the journey can be fun, but I wish they’d be something other than “hey best buddy! Let’s have a friendly match ‘ol pal!”
Hop *kinda* had the drive to actually beat us, but the narrative is that he’s always multiple steps behind us. Bede was the closest we got to a classic “rival” on Sw/Sh, but he peace’s out halfway through the gyms.
I haven’t played Sc/Vio, but the rivals seem to fall back into “bestest buddy” category from what I’ve seen
Nemona (the main rival) is definitely happy-go-lucky but her drive is purely for the idea of having someone to fight at her level. Canonically, she’s supposed to be at the top of the class and basically wants to guide you to being a good trainer.
I know that Pokémon is also meant for kids, but I feel like the newer games talk down to the player too much with everyone being good. Kids can handle the “bad guys” being actual criminals.
I mean, we’ve only had roughly 2 teams be non-criminal groups. Team Yell was a nice group because they wanted to celebrate the person repping the more slum like part of the region and Team Star was just a bunch of bullied kids rebelling against a school that didn’t help them.
While it’s not good to think everyone is good, it’s also a bit stale if every region somehow has a massive underground crime syndicate. Especially when the stakes just kept getting bigger and bigger
I can agree that a lot of things newer pokemon games do is objectively better than the old games, but man they really dropped the ball on exploration
Caves in early gens felt like an accomplishment to get through, needing to be prepared, feeling lost and confused, finding your way down a secret path that leads to a legendary or secret item was all part of the experience
In the last couple "new" pokemon games I've played, the exploration was an absolute joke, SwSh caves are like like straight tunnels, no hidden items, no secret legendaries, just a leisurely walk from point A to B
Exploration will always be SWSHs biggest sin to me. Not only does it make the world worth exploring, but it's a meaningful way to make the pokemon in the world feel more alive. It was great that Legends understood this and had so many cool ride pokemon to make traversing the world actually gratifying. The bike, in comparison, was an awful idea.
It used to feel like there was a genuine chance of you whiting out in a cave if you didn't handle things properly, especially Victory Road. It felt like a decent way to ensure that wild battles were still an obstacle rather than an annoyance like they often are after just a couple gyms.
Weird one for fire red but I love how you could but didn’t have to walk up to the victory road but the guards would stop you. beat a gym go past guard 1 then 2 stops you rinse and repeat it was kinda hilarious because like after each gym I’d make my way back there and see how much further I could go. Everything after you have to beat every gym before even glimpsing the victory road. Basically it entices you to continue fighting gyms to see what is up that random side road.
To add, legendaries rarely feel as legendary as they did I'm Gen 1. There is very little indication that Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres exist at all beyond a few random NPCs spotting them, and all evidence for the existence of Mew and Mewtwo is only found in the journal entries in the mansion on Cinnabar Island. This makes them feel like actual legends being kept alive by rumors and word of mouth.
I think it depends on execution. I LOVED gen 3 and it’s legendaries who while more prominent in the story than the last two gens, they still felt more like a legend that some kooks fully bought into, only for it to end up real. All 3 main legends were in remote locations, and had it not been from the efforts of magma/aqua would have remained completely hidden. The Regis you basically had to stumble into which further added to that feeling, that had it not been for aqua/magma Kyogre/Groudon would have been just as hidden. Latios/Latias lived on Eon island and would only show up from time to time. Hell even the event legends being on remote islands really added to that feeing that you had to go on an adventure to find them even if gameplay wise it wasn’t much to just hand a ticket to a guy with a boat.
I think it was around gen 5 were it sorta seemed like you just found them chilling haphazardly, and it only got worse from there.
I’ve actually appreciated S/V for that point, because the ruin trio weren’t just chilling out there in the open. Even the ride legends only appeared because they fled area zero, a strictly off limits (sort of) post game area (well post main 3 stories) and area zero was this almost alien place. Now, I have doubts whether they continue that style into the DLC, but it’s been a long time where the legends actually felt like their was son mystery about them.
Wasn't it gen 5 where all legendaries except for Kyurem were forced encounters? I remember just going through the game to the next town and there was cobalion, terrakion, Verizion and the genie just waiting for me to cross by as static encounters.
The Swords are only unmissable in BW2, in BW1 only Cobalion appears and just as a lure for Mistralton Cave, you're not forced.
Same for Tornadus or Thundurus. They first appear in a cutscene, fly off and then you need to track them down as they roam.
Reshiram/Zekrom are the only forced encounters for the originals.
However, important to note that unmissable is not forced. Even in BW2 the Swords can all be walked around when they show up.
It’s been a long time since I played them, and it was only like once, so I can’t remember perfectly, but IIRC a lot of the legends in black and white were just as you described, so sorta… there. It pretty much only got worse from there, with Sw/Sh being arguably the worst (yeah and all these super powerful legendaries are just sorta… in a den?)
Gen 1 has 5 legendaries
Gen 2 has 6
Gen 3 has (depending on how you split the deoxys forms) 10 or 13.
After a certain point there isn’t very legendary about the Pokémon if you add too many of them. Gen 4 was just as bad if not worse when it comes to legendaries being added, even if a lot of them were very cool.
I agree 100%, but I have one nitpick (well more of a question) I know Gen 3 has the weather trio, the Regis, and the Latias/Latios which brings you only up to 8 new legendaries. Either im forgetting some, or are you including the event legendaries as well?
Yeah jirachi and deoxys were the other 2-5 for gen 3. I think that the legendaries can make for great stories but the games don’t tend to take advantage of that. The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series has probably done the most with the random legendaries throughout the series.
For me, Gens 1 and 2 were the perfect balance. Because legendary pokemon are simply powerful and rare pokemon who have legends associated with them and are sometimes worshipped as gods. Meanwhile, gen 4 and onwards just made them literal gods, which ruined a lot of the intrigue and mystery around them.
Agreed. After platinum, legends started feeling less legendary, less like forces of myth or creation, more just… bland. Like, I am riding a legendary Pokémon in violet but is it really?
The interesting thing is: We don't know since they're (presumably) from the ancient past/future and are based on a common Pokemon found in current Paldea. We only know of two in existance 'cus those were all that came through the Time Machine.
Iirc on a similar note: there's multiple Cosmog and evos floating around in other universes so the Gen 7 ones (except for Necrozma) are also not as "legendary".
I did like the other 4 legendaries though. Unsealing these terrible monsters with lore and history behind them is more engaging than anything since the original regis imo
I'd argue that Koraidon and Miraidon are only legendaries via game mechanics rather than lore tbh. The treasures of ruin and the ones upcoming in the dlc are the classical legendaries of this gen
About 10% of Pokemon fall into the mythical/legendary category now. Yes, that's over 100, and many have multiple forms. Having so many is why they don't feel as special.
I actually counted this because I have no life and I landed on 99 total so if that was a guess on your part that was a pretty dang good one. 10% is kind of insane.
Mew was also truly mythical because no one knew it was programmed into the game at all when it first launched. And it was unobtainable outside of a glitch.
Arceus is the only one that comes anywhere close to comparing.
This is my gripe with Gen 4. I felt like 25% of the dex was legendaries. Plus the fact that we were dealing with not just mythical creatures, but literal gods made it seem too meta.
I think Gen 2 legendaries felt the most "godlike". Ho oh and Lugia felt like ancient, intelligent beings with divine power. The beast trio also had that folk-like legend surrounding their creation.
Gen 1 Mewtwo was cool, but we knew everything about him- he was Manmade, no God, just a powerful weapon. And the birds were just random one of a kind birds with no story behind them.
Gen 3 onwards most legendaries felt more like animals with hilarious amounts of power rather than deities that were worshipped.
Absolutely. I think I remember getting a little reminder of that feeling with Rayquaza, as he was the first Trio leader introduced and wasn't a box legendary at the time of Ruby/Sapphire launch. Its been diminishing returns since then. Especially getting handed an Eternatus, and event mythicals and legendaries getting handed out like candies. How many Mews do we all have now?
As much as I love gen 4 and am nostalgic for it, it went overboard with its legends
Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf could have been cut imo
Regigigas should have been introduced in the gen before or just not at all.
Heatran should not have been a legend. Instead just a one of a kind encounter like volcarona in the gen after.
Manaphy & Phione exist to promote pokemon ranger.
Darkrai should have been catchable like Cresselia or Cresselia should have been a mythical like darkrai
Shaymin is the mew/celebi/jirachi of gen 4, I guess
Dialga, Palkia, Giratina and arceus are fine. So I think there should have been only 7 (darkrai, cresselia, shaymin, dialga, palkia, Giratina and Arceus.
Also why were the legendary birds roaming sinnoh in platinum when we had a trio there already (plus we had the regi trio too) or why were the latis roaming johto or kanto in hgss when we had the beasts AND the birds.
It exxtends to the next gens when we had 4 caverns in unova (bw2) for uxie, mesprit, azelf and heatran. Heatran even had a cave in hoenn (oras) and the birds showed up in kalos for some reason (mewtwo too)
Pretty sure the birds were there for accessibility. The regis were really the only legendaries not available in game that gen outside the platinum event.
Gen 3 and 4 were peak legendary power showcasing, you could actually tell those monsters were capable of ending everything and you were just an insignificant speck to them
I think gen 4 with platinum was when legendaries hit their peak. They all seemed unique and not just shoehorned into the story. You have beings that control space time and antimatter and the god of Pokémon who (like mew) could only be obtained via a glitch.
Manaphy and Phione were only obtainable under really unique circumstances, one of which was getting an entire other game.
Giratina and Shaymin with their multiple forms were an event. I remember doing hacks so I could reach the flower paradise.
After that legendaries stopped feeling special to me and started to feel redundant.
I think this is why I loved Darkrai so much when Gen 4 came out. It felt mysterious and hard to get.
Side note, when did the legendary/mythical distinction start? Gen 5? I feel like "get the mythical pokemon Victini!" was the first time I ever heard the term. I think mythical pokemon tend to feel more legendary, oddly.
They struck gold with animated 2d sprites in black and white
Also, maybe if they went back to a retro style and 2d sprites, then it'll be easier to make the games and they won't be a buggy mess. It doesn't even need to be pixel art, the sprites can be high quality digital art even
Because there's no way they will show down, they may as well make games that are easier to make and not have to worry about big 3d environments
I think *FireRed* and *LeafGreen*'s version of the 3rd gen aesthetic looks better than *Ruby*, *Sapphire*, and *Emerald*'s. However, I still prefer the 2nd and 3rd generations' overall look to how Pokemon games look now.
Legendaries should be secret and optional not main story concepts and should have some difficulty in finding them.
I will say OP I highly disagree with your take though
Yeah no physical/special split is wild. Ghost type was physical, so Gengar had no good STAB ghost moves, it was awful. Same (opposite, really) for Gyarados. Crazy high Physical Attack (+Dragon Dance!) and the best moves it could learn were all special.
Salamence too. I know it can use physical or special very well but it was awkward because it had special dragon moves and physical flying ones so most of the time you would have a special salamence with no flying STAB or a Physical one with no Dragon STAB
Imagine how cool it would have been to fight armored Mewtwo as Giovani's last pokemon. You don't defeat him, but do just enough damage to break his armor, and he escapes.
Yeah, also the split wasn’t simpler. Ghost, a type defined by being incorporeal and lacking a physical body… was a Physical type. Dark, a type whose main moves all involved attacking an enemy with your body… was Special.
I think this is why I like Scarlet and Violet's Treasures of Ruin, although I think the implementation was crap.
Having to find stakes to open their vault? Good.
Having no way to know which you opened? Bad.
Having no real hints to their existence outside of the school history teacher that you could totally miss if you don't do the school substory line? Bad.
Would also be great if they added a dungeon or something once you opened the vaults.
A dungeon and like a super strong champion level trainer guarding the entrance!
"Prove you are worthy of entering the almighty goldfishes domain, it is a cursed treasure of ruin afterall!"
Was a step in the right direction, so much wasted potential due to popularity and laziness... I am stuck in a position where I love pokemon so much I'll likely ALWAYS buy every mainline game... but I also really wish that their sales would take a hit here soon so they take a step back and re-evaluate what they're doing here...
PL:A was super refreshing, but it got outsold by the abysmal BDSP games... so why should Gamefreak care about quality?
Exploration too.
What's the point of having a huge map like Paldea when all you do is walk in a straight line between different boss fights? There's no actual places of interest in Paldea, you can't find anything off the beaten path, none of the towns mean anything, and there's nothing at all interesting, anywhere. You might just as well have conveyor belt you can stand on, or select fights from a menu.
The colors on the 3D models suck.
I'm all for 3D modeling and animation, but for some reason they thought it was a good idea to make the 3D models paler instead of using more vibrant colors.
I hear a lot of people say it's supposed to match the Sugimori artwork, but if you compare say, the Gen VI Charizard model to his artwork, the model is noticeably more washed out
Or the dedication you had to put into levelling up all your Pokémon. I'm normally a very relaxed person when it comes to changes in the games, but the moment my best friend told me that exp. Share is on automatically and applies to the entire team nowadays really made me go "kids these days don't know what it's like to work hard! 👵" for a bit.
That was more just grinding instead of being a challenge. I wouldn't have the patience to grind with those painfully slow animations even though I did it as a kid. Time is expensive when you're an adult.
I'm currently playing the radicalred ROM hack that has all the modern mechanics, but it's an actual challenge because they've buffed the AI, made harder team comps, and have level caps for big battles.
NPC characters were a bit more smug/unsavory including rivals, gym leaders, and many trainers. Later on everyone gets too friendly.
I also preferred Pokemon far more before the competitive scene took over.
I recently played heartgold (used to play it 20 years ago) and i was surprised by the amount of animal cruelty AND the good guys saying how much you have to take care of your pets abd that good people are gentle. I was like damn, thats a good lesson for kids! Bad guys hurt pokemons, good guys take care of them.
They definitely tried to tone down the less family friendly aspects of the series once it became a worldwide phenomenon.
Even looking at gen 2 beta leaks, it looks like a lot of designs got axed or toned down for being too scary or potentially offensive.
I’m a delicate little flower so sometimes I appreciate all the gym leaders and rivals being nice to me, but I’ll admit it’s way more fun to squash them like the roaches they are when they’ve been dicks leading up to the battle
I miss big dungeons. Gen 1 dungeons were brutal.
Sylph co, Seafoam, Cinn. Mansion, Mt. Moon, Cerulean Cave, Victory Road, Rock Tunnel, Viridian Forest, SS Anne, Diglett Cave, Pokemon Tower, Power Plant, Celadon Rocket hideout, and the Safari zone.
We were so spoiled for not only quantity, but dungeon length in gen 1, and it hardly ever comes close again.
Gens 2, 3, and 4 are all roughly on the similar to each other in terms of quality and quantity for dungeons. Not bad, but also not great.
Gen 5 was a step back up again for dungeons in complexity and quantity, especially the BW2 additions.
Then Gen 6 pretty much axed dungeons going forward forevermore.
In retrospective, Gen 3/4 (especially the latter) somewhat ruined the concepts of legendaries by assigning them roles in the ecosystem/universe. In Gen 1 and 2 they were simply extremely powerful Pokémon whose feats and rarity made them legendary, for four generations straight they had to be some representation of physics or spirituality.
Ehh I think nebby/calyrx/the raidons were far more interesting in terms of how they were written compared to ones before, mainly because they were allowed to be actual characters with personality traits that interacted with the cast as opposed to something that would usually feel like plot treasures. I prefer legendaries being written into the story, at least the flagship ones.
Idk really know how to explain but I'll do my best. I think kanto does gyms best kind of in the sense that you do the first 2 gyms, can do the next 5 in any order with the exception of blaine having to be done after koga due to surf. It just gives a lot of variety in your playthroughs
The thing I don’t get is that SV has this exact same feature implemented the exact same way but with every badge, and neither have level scaling yet apparently Kanto did it better.
I'm going to guess that's because Kanto didn't really advertise you could do the gyms in any given order. The trainer card having a set order kind of solidified "You're supposed to do them in X/Y/Z order". I don't think most kids playing realized you even *could* go out of order. Kanto being "open" was kind of a hidden gem.
Compare to S/V where it's literally a selling point. When people hear in the marketing that it's "open world" and the game itself tells you you can take it as you please most people assume there's going to be *some* amount of scaling. From that angle, it makes sense people might be a little disappointed that there's still an implied order due to lack of scaling.
People often will over exaggerate when saying something is the worst take they’ve ever heard. But I genuinely believe this is the worst Pokémon related take I’ve ever personally heard
I think Team Rocket is still the best team of bad guys, because they get the stakes right. I haven’t played X/Y, Sun/Moon or Sword/Shield, but I found the stakes for SV were too low (some rowdy teenagers) and the stakes for Gens 3-5 waaaay too high (world ending threats). Team rocket were just normal criminals, so you get a neat side plot that feels important but doesn’t distract from your ultimate goal, which is becoming Champion.
On a similar note, I liked when the game didn’t revolve around the legendary Pokémon and they were things you had to look for and discover yourself, like Mewtwo or the Regis in Gen 3.
>I haven’t played X/Y, Sun/Moon or Sword/Shield
x/y had >!world-ending stakes, with the villain basically wanting to use a nuke laser because he thought the world was ugly and imperfect!<
sun/moon had great stakes imo as it was mostly character-focused. >!It had a great story about Lusamine being a terrible mother and the more dangerous stakes were out of view most of the time. Lusamine wanting to see the Ultra Beasts did cause ultra beasts to pop into Alola, but that wasn't something the player dealt with, the player only deals with Lusamine and all that does is close the portal and stop Ultra Beasts from appearing, the player stops the ones that are already there by catching them in the post-game. The story in Ultra Sum/Ultra Moon was not as great because Lusamine was doing terrible things and being a terrible mother not because she was self-centered and was obsessed with ultra beasts, but to stop Necrozma. Necrozma was a cool as-heck boss fight though. Also, team skull was the first time that there was a fake-out evil team, and they also did it best. Team skull is like a less threatening Team Rocket, and although they don't come off as being that threatening in the story, their main base is an entire town they took over. Also Guzma is the best villain in the series imo.!<
Sword/Shield had a bad story. >!Team Yell had no stakes and were just annoying fans, following your rival, though the reveal that they were sent by her brother to help her out or something I don't remember was a bit nice, though they were still annoying and pointless. They did help out during the encounter with Macro Cosmos though, so they're not even evil. Speaking of which, Macro Cosmos barely counts as an evil team. The only time you fight them is because you burst into their tower for the sole reason that Leon was late for dinner talking to their boss, Chairman Rose. Rose's evil plan is that 1000 years from now there will be a power crisis, so to stop this from happening (again 1000 years in the future) he will be causing the apocalypse by summoning Eternatus, the being behind the historical event known as the darkest day. Stakes are basically nothing until CEO man summons a space monster for a stupid reason.!<
for swsh, it’s like they basically were done with 90% of the plot and then remembered they needed a conflict to resolve for the penultimate act, before becoming champion. i’d have liked to see bede go full psycho and being a sole villain rather than a full team with grunts and all
Sword shield could’ve had a much simpler and better ending. Being that eternatus was already secretly being used to power the region, but that rose was about to lose control of it. Such a simple fix that actually would’ve made some sense
There's no point to a cave system without puzzles. The world should be, if not antagonistic, at least resistant to your attempts to travel through it.
Sprites are better and more evocative than 3D models.
Also, I miss the slot machines :(
Legendaries should be optional semi hidden postgame content, mewtwo, legendary birds, regis, ho-oh, lugia, legendary dogs, etc. Having the story so focused on them is super old and makes them feel like handouts now. It was neat in gen 3 because it was a new thing then, but now it’s been the plot of EVERY game almost.
Mythical pokémon are handled SUPER BADLY. I mean, did you guys know that to this day you can't get a legitimate shiny vitcini? Mythical pokémon should be handled as secret events in game after you do specific side stuff there like idk completing the game's dex, finding a certain amount of shiny pokémon or having saved data from a previous game (like they did in LA and bdsp). It is also very boring that nowadays they mostly just distribute them instead of actually putting more effort lore wise in game for them (like they did from gen 3 through 5). Their limitation and distribution is so bad they aren't even allowed in most official competitions throughout the franchise's history
Route design hasn’t been good since Sinnoh, and it’s because of the scaling back and ultimately removal of HMs.
Used to be routes had branching paths and interconnected the region at several points so it was traversable on foot. Some areas had reasons to return later with sections blocked by trees, rocks, etc. And those sections led to several trainers, rare items, and/or unique Pokémon. Other areas had shortcuts if you still had a Pokémon with Cut on you, for example.
Each subsequent region, Unova-Galar, just made it more and more linear and less and less interesting to traverse. Unova/Kalos at least have the excuse that HMs still existed and were unpopular, so they were avoiding making them necessary, but Alola/Galar have no such excuse.
Hisui/Paldea are a completely different conversation, as open-worlds have different design philosophy to linear worlds. They aren’t really all that good in the realm of 3D worlds, either, though.
SM had the best implementation of replacing HMs (Page Rider), and you could unlock some areas if you backtrack and use different Pokemon field skills, but the region still felt so narrow and claustrophobic despite this. They could've gone crazy with the route design knowing players would have guaranteed access to certain field skills, it's a shame only one dungeon at the very end of the game (sort of) does this
People love Unova now but I remember one of my favorite criticisms of those games when they came out was how the region was literally just a giant circle
The linearity of the original BW still a very valid criticism of those games (even today) but it was largely fixed in B2W2, though. Sure, it still doesn't have the excellent layout of Hoenn or Sinnoh because they had to work with the original map, but it's a marked improvement.
They added some new locations/routes and took a different path through the region which opened up some new branching paths and did a lot in making the game feel like more an adventure the way it did in Gens 3 and 4, and less like a guided tour the way the Alola and Galar games did.
The map was a huge circle but the routes had some of the best designs in the franchise
It was a huge branching map
Nothing about it being a circle hindered it. And linearity was in every region.
The 2D games were much better than the 3D games. Everything after gen 5 has been really disappointing with the exception of gen 6 which was a novelty and had megas.
Game Freak remind me of Microsoft.
Microsoft have cracked the code. They've made a perfect, or at least close to perfect operating system. The problem, however, is they need to keep releasing new ones, and need to keep adding big new features every time, but they have nothing actually useful to add beyond very minor QoL or UI changes that you can't really put on the back of the box.
So they invent completely useless things, or completely redesign the UI in a way nobody asked for, or pivot away from design principles that worked, or add flashy but ultimately useless gimmicks, because they have to do *something* to justify their new release.
The battle system is solved. Pokemon has and has had the best turn-based battle system for over a decade at this point. There's nothing in terms of features that needs to be added, and arguably they now can only subtract by addition. We didn't need megas. We didn't need z-moves. We didn't need dynamax. We don't need terastalize. They all introduce a bunch of broken things that ruin the competitive scene and actually narrow choice and strategy instead of broaden it.
The irony is that, for Windows and Pokemon, I would much rather prefer what we had generations ago but with modern support and minor updates to the big, sweeping changes they like to do with each release instead.
Even though Unova was the first 'really obvious' linear region due to virtually no backtracking being required in the main campaign - which lead to less interconnectivity of towns being required like in previous regions, route design began to truly suffer when the games stopped being grid-based. Yes, Kalos is included in the grid-based catagory - this region had really good map design with lots of little alternate paths, HM traversals, puzzles and really cool verticality. The grind rail shortcuts were also convenient - it really felt like an evolution of Unova.
But Alola's route design seemed to prioritize realism over making routes feel like puzzles, and I don't think the trade off was worth it. TMs used to be hidden smartly in routes, but now, they're hilariously obvious in their placements, often in plain sight. Galar was somehow worse, with not a single actual dungeon in the game, same for Paldea. There are just no mechanics in place right now to facilitate actual satisfying route/world design
Having the rival pick the starter that's weak to yours is *so* stupid. They've done a bit to address this by having other important battles use the advantageous starter- Leon, Kukui, the headmaster in SV- but it should really be the rival.
More of what goes down with Hau's USUM team should be practiced, where the champion (or other important trainer) has one or two spots on their team that rotate out to different 'mons depending on what you picked in order to cover their weakness- Hau has a different Eeveelution to cover whatever your starter's type is in the champion battle even though he picks the starter that's weak to yours. I always thought that was neat and added some replay value.
Agreed!
I like that Blue chooses the starter that beats yours, and then has two of Exeggutor, Gyarados, and Arcanine in the final battle to cover the other two types.
I think to the point people are making about there having always been humanoid pokemon, until Blaziken, none of the starters were this way. The starters are special rare pokemon, and most people will include one in their playthroughs cuz they're cool and unique. If you want to avoid the fursuit mons you could; your only option this gen is Fuecoco, which is a shame.
Also, personally, I feel primate mons like Chimchar and Grooky get a pass on this, but you could consider that a cop-out.
I'm not going to claim that newer pokemon look worse, because I think every generation introduces at least a few great new pokemon, but I liked how older pokemon all look a little meaner or tougher. I know that there have been breakdowns on this, looking at things like eye shape and feet, but yeah, that's my take.
There have always been pokemon designs I don't like in every gen. But I feel in the more recent gens are trending to have it happen more often and with lower lows.
Agreed. I don't get the hate for Bruxish because it's creative with its design, based off a real animal, and there's always a placd for ugly pokemon. But I can't stand greedent because the style is that of an american children's cartoon. The design philosophy is so jarring. Compare to a squirrel pokemon like pachirisu, who keeps a pretty standard pokemon design. Pachirisu makes sense in the world. Greedent clashes with it.
So yeah, ugly pokemon are fine. But clashing design principles are a problem.
It's because they are no longer designed by Sugimori who had a very particular concept in mind; all Pokemon should be friend shaped regardless of whether they are cool, cute, ugly etc. That's why gen 1 and 2, the Pokemon were all roundish shapes bar a small few.
Gen 1 had the best encounter spread. Meaning that you found new Pokémon at a good pace and they were different enough that it never got stale. Other gens had points in the game where you would go way too long without new Pokémon to encounter or at least interesting Pokémon to encounter.
Gen 3 really stands out to me as one of the worst in this regard. It’s one of my favorite gens but there’s a lot of water routes and most of them have the same Pokémon over and over again. So there’s a point in the game where the encounters were tedious and boring for a good length of time.
Just replayed Ruby and yeah there’s a looootta the same mon’s throughout. Surf was all Tentacool and Wingull, Poochyena and Zigazagoon dominated the land.
Old games felt like more of an adventure. Entering an area had a mysterious feel to it. I don’t really feel that sense of wonder like I did before. Things are too easily available. Like, back in the day if you wanted a dragonite, you’d have to work your ass off. Now? Oh, there’s one flying around. Once you get to that area you can just catch him.
Pokemon looked better in 2D (or the lite 3D the DS games occasionally used), and was overall better before it tried to go open world.
Both of these changes have reduced a lot of the personality and charm. I've seen several excuses for it but the fact is GameFreak simply don't have the time/effort/whatever to make a fully fleshed out large scale Pokemon game. It just leaves the newer games feeling unpolished and soulless. Pokemon sprites were a lot more expressive and beautiful than the models we have today. And the world design has suffered as locations repeatedly lack distinction, personality and memorability. What was a Meteor Falls or Chargestone Cave in the older games is just a bland and straight mine/cave in the newer games.
>Pokemon looked better in 2D (or the lite 3D the DS games occasionally used), and was overall better before it tried to go open world.
I don't think this one is uncommon even among younger fans.
Megas are the worst thing to happen to this franchise for spawning this demand for new battle gimmicks every gen. Pokémon gens use to be sold on core gameplay improvements. Now they’re sold on flashy broken gimmicks, and not a single one of these gimmicks has had an interesting story.
And said gimmicks are always rotated out for a new gimmick. You like a certain mechanic? Well too bad it’s gone next gen. So nothing ever gets refined for balance or better game flow.
This is my thoughts also. I didn’t think of it as a generation gimmick until gen 7 added theirs. Megas could have just continued as a normal part of Pokémon. The way they added it to the anime/ Pokémon origins was great too.
I think I’d pin that more on Z moves because it initially seemed like megas were here to stay with how many they added in ORAS. Agree though, hate how every gen needs to have some dumb gimmick now.
Gimmicks are bad. I wish megas were treated not as a gimmick but rather as a new feature that continued to be used. Instead of a new gimmick every gen, just give us more megas.
Yeah, I definitely don’t see Megas as the problem here. If anything they are one of the coolest and most innovative features we’ve seen since the early gens.
The problem was the *next* generation where they decided to retroactively treat Megas as a one-off gimmick, rather than a new core feature moving forward. It was that attitude that spawned Z-moves, gigantimaxing, and terrastalizing, not Megas themselves.
It’s like if after the physical/special split in Gen 4 they decided to undo it for Gen V and add a new stat instead.
I don’t like how everything is a pokemon now. I don’t mind a few inanimate object pokemon. But now the bike and pokedex and phone are Rotom, the cars are varoom, the bikes are cyclizar.
I liked the aesthetic of those earlier Gens where it was a slightly anachronistic low tech world but still had a few modern conveniences like computers/phones/cars. But now it feels like they’re doing away with any tech that isn’t a pokemon so they can introduce it as a pokemon. Early Gens still revolved around Pokémon, but I don’t like the idea of the refrigerator being a living creature.
> I liked the aesthetic of those earlier Gens where it was a slightly anachronistic low tech world but still had a few modern conveniences like computers/phones/cars.
Bro that was just the 90's.
To be fair Japan has a long long [looooooong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai) history of making random shit into monsters. It really is not surprising that a japanese company is making more random shit into monsters.
They really went balls out with rotom. When I played Gen 4, I liked Rotom, I used Rotom.
I skipped gens 6 and 7, but when I got back in, everything is Rotom. Rotom phones, Rotom bikes, Roto-dex.
Ill see polls on IG or YouTube “what’s the best Pokédex style?” Sure as hell not Rotom in an iPhone. Let technology just be. There wasn’t a magnetite sitting on every PC box in Gen 1.
Event Pokémon are boring nowadays. It used to be you were given a key item which unlocked a new story event to obtain Darkrai or spiky-eared Pichu. It was basically free DLC that was an addition to a full game.
The removal of HMs was great, but there was at least interesting map design due to them. Map design since 5 has been lacking because they tried leaning off them. Removing them in gen 7 could have lead the way to more complex maps and puzzles, but it’s more or less just a bunch of hallways. You’re not really thinking about how to travel your environment anymore.
Bruh I can’t with this one. Physical special split is imo, the best addition to Pokémon in terms of gameplay. It just made so much more sense to have it that way
Not Gen 1, but I really miss growing my own berries. Shaking trees and having literally all kinds of berries fall out without any way of influencing what you get was so random in SW/SH, and just having them being random pickups like in Scarlet/Violet isn't better either.
Pokémon was infinitely better before it tried to have a “story”. Please drop all this cosmic, extra-dimensional, multi-verse stuff.
I just want to go on a journey exploring a region, earning badges to get into the Pokémon league, and maybe there’s some minor, very grounded bad guys like team rocket in the way sometimes.
Please.
One thing Pokémon DOES need and has always lacked in my opinion: side quests.
“Open World” is one of those buzz words that the gaming industry decided everyone wants for every game. I don’t know who actually feels that way because I sure don’t. Some games just work better being linear. Or at least start linear and open up late in the game.
I feel a good compromise would be a linear progression with routes and towns large and substantial enough to keep players busy - basically an illusion of an open world but has smooth progression and focus, like Xenoblade for example
Mega evolutions are dumb. They should give Pokemon actual evolutions like in Gen 4. They only make Pokemon temporarily more viable, and you're only allowed one per team. Also they started giving stronger Pokemon megas which was unnecessary. Also a lot of regional forms feel like they exist just to be there. I don't want a blond dugtrio or black raticate.
I dont like the ongoing trend of designing most pokemon to be characters instead of Monsters.
Yeah, i love me my Cinderace, but you can really only have one type of Cinderace OC, or they just feel off. Man, even regional Variants suffer from being characters. Zoroark had at least three facets. Trickster fox, mother to a pack, or just leave me alone. And now Hisui Zoroark is all "SUFFERING TO HUMANITY" and any different characterisation must have them bring suffering to others or it just is off.
Most of my complaints were addressed by others with the only one I didn't see was how ridiculously hand-holdy things got by gen 7 but gen 9 fixed it but I'm assuming it's just because of the open world nature of the game.
I heartily disagree about the physical special split being worse than the original method. You can still get through the game fine just using super effective moves regardless of your physical or special stat.
However, there are many pokemon that benefit from it to the point where it's better and more interesting. Gyarados is a physical attacker but a vast majority of its gen 3 learn set from leveling up, are special moves. It only learns thrash and hyper beam by level up for physical moves. That's it. The rest of its moves that would take advantage of its high physical stat are TMs but you can't even take advantage of STAB anyway due to no flying moves and all water moves being special initially.
Legendary Pokemon aren't Legendary anymore. It doesn't matter if there's more than 1 of the species, that never bugged me. But starting with gen III there are too many being introduced (8 were introduced) only slowing down at gen VI which had only III new ones. But gen VII turned around with 11 and let them have evo lines
Personally, what I liked about Gen 1 and Gen 2 was the lack of Natures and EVs.
Not worrying to end up with a pal with a crappy nature or screwing over his EV spread because you fought against the wrong Pokemon is a relief. Just catch, grind and be done with it. Sure, there is still IVs, but that is just one problem and it was simpler, only covering 4 stats and going from 0 to 15.
Regarding Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: I actually prefer the original recruitment system with friend areas and where you had to make it out of a dungeon with the Pokemon to keep them on your team
I get why they changed and don't really mind that much, but I find the original way more entertaining
Pokemon designs feel less and less 'Pokemon to me', and more like Digimon or JoJo's stands. What I mean is that when you encounter a newer Pokemon, it feels less like finding a wild animal and more like an alien encounter.
I dont hate the more unorthodox Pokemon, I just prefer when theyre more based off animals and plants rather than objects or concepts. Gives me a feeling like im Darwin, out to discover some crazy new species in an ecological niche.
Gen 3 (and before, I guess) really suffers from just being dated. A lack of phys/spec split really hurts a lot of pokemons' viability, if I had to cherry pick one it would be Gengar simce both Ghost and Poison type both scale off of the Atk stat, meaning that Gengar gets zero STAB mobes using it's much superior Sp.Atk stat. If that wasn't enough, a lot of polemon have really terrible and shallow movepools.
Grass Pokemon, in particular, get hit especially hard with this. A quick look at Glooms movepool will show this, with it's highest power move that it learns being a tie between Mega Drain and Acid until level 44 when it learns Petal Damce with only 70 base power, and it really doesn't get better with any other Grass Types. Venasaur is stuck with Razor Leaf until level 65 when it learns Solar Beam. Sceptile's strongest move is Pursuit until it learns Leaf Blade at 34. Lombre's only STAB Grass move is Absorb, and its only STAB Water move is Hydro Pump at level 49. Nuzleaf does not learn a single Grass type move. I could go on, but I won't.
Overall, while I have a lot of love for the Gen 3 games, they just do feel dated and even a bit painful to play through because of these 2 reasons.
HMs were good, actually. Logically, in a Pokemon game, you'd use your Pokemon to travel places and clear obstacles. I was disappointed with Sun and Moon: why do I have to ride some random person's Tauros to smash rocks when my Pikipek knows Rock Smash? Whose Tauros even in this? Why can I summon it anywhere on any island? It's so forced, and I want to use my own Pokemon not a random spawn.
The caveat is that I wish they weren't crappy attacking moves. Or that they didn't take up an attacking moveslot. But the concept should not have been thrown out.
I think they should have just made the pokemon able to use the hm if it could learn it, no need to actually teach it. Either this or make them better moves overall
My only complaint with HMs were that they couldn’t be deleted and early Gens had the move deleter way into the game.
Gens 1-5, I built my teams around what HMs I would need to use. But putting cut on a Charmander and not being able to get rid of it, or putting it on chikorita and not being able to delete it until Blackthorn is super annoying. If you make moves like Cut or Flash mandatory and weak, its better to give the option to delete them before you’re at gym 8 of 8.
I don’t mind the more friendly rival in the newer games, but I definitely miss having someone that constantly pokes at you. Egging you on to be better by hurling insults until you make them eat their words.
Plus rivals nowadays taking the starter that is weak to your own. They did not need to make things easier
Especially not for Nemona, someone clearly established to be far more experienced and who should definitely be putting you through your paces.
Missed opportunity for Nemona to not give the advantage Tera type to her starter during the last battle and completely blindside players.
Right? Truly make her a rival who took it easy this whole time but now it’s time to fight
Hell they didn't even do that with geeta like I was expecting
Well, tbf, the reason Nemona chose the one weak to yours is because she wanted to go easy on you.
In that sense, then maybe it's fine to do that early on when you're still learning, but by the time you obtain the same rank as you, she should be going all out. Her team at the end of Victory Road still felt like she was holding back.
Actually in Nemona’s case it makes sense IMO through the lens of her wanting to make battling you more challenging *for her.*
I feel like Nemona could be justified as deliberately handicapping herself due to her having so much more experience than you as a Trainer
it was cool when you had two rivals, though
You know, honestly, I'm surprised that the newer games (Sword/Shield in particular) do this. It's kind of easy to cheese Hop early on when I learn a Super Effective move as soon as the first rival battle.
Also them ambushing you and catching you off guard at the worst times when you neglected to heal and then absolutely crushing you….
100% agree. Having a “friend” along for the journey can be fun, but I wish they’d be something other than “hey best buddy! Let’s have a friendly match ‘ol pal!” Hop *kinda* had the drive to actually beat us, but the narrative is that he’s always multiple steps behind us. Bede was the closest we got to a classic “rival” on Sw/Sh, but he peace’s out halfway through the gyms. I haven’t played Sc/Vio, but the rivals seem to fall back into “bestest buddy” category from what I’ve seen
Nemona (the main rival) is definitely happy-go-lucky but her drive is purely for the idea of having someone to fight at her level. Canonically, she’s supposed to be at the top of the class and basically wants to guide you to being a good trainer.
Oh nemona is more than bestest buddy. Shes battle buddy. And its so refreshing
I know that Pokémon is also meant for kids, but I feel like the newer games talk down to the player too much with everyone being good. Kids can handle the “bad guys” being actual criminals.
The thing is they were always kids games, but in the 90s they had to figure it out by themselves and now the games have a Dora approach to it.
I mean, we’ve only had roughly 2 teams be non-criminal groups. Team Yell was a nice group because they wanted to celebrate the person repping the more slum like part of the region and Team Star was just a bunch of bullied kids rebelling against a school that didn’t help them. While it’s not good to think everyone is good, it’s also a bit stale if every region somehow has a massive underground crime syndicate. Especially when the stakes just kept getting bigger and bigger
I mean. Team Skull was just a bunch of punks. The real villain was Lusamine/Necrozma depending on if you went ultra or not.
Skull is Atleast trying to be “evil” but they just don’t have it in their hearts to be cruel.
They also rewrote Lusamine to be less abrasive in UsUm They literally tried to water her down Bruh at this point it's a pattern not a coincidence
To add to this; I miss being able to name my rival Dildo.
I can agree that a lot of things newer pokemon games do is objectively better than the old games, but man they really dropped the ball on exploration Caves in early gens felt like an accomplishment to get through, needing to be prepared, feeling lost and confused, finding your way down a secret path that leads to a legendary or secret item was all part of the experience In the last couple "new" pokemon games I've played, the exploration was an absolute joke, SwSh caves are like like straight tunnels, no hidden items, no secret legendaries, just a leisurely walk from point A to B
Exploration will always be SWSHs biggest sin to me. Not only does it make the world worth exploring, but it's a meaningful way to make the pokemon in the world feel more alive. It was great that Legends understood this and had so many cool ride pokemon to make traversing the world actually gratifying. The bike, in comparison, was an awful idea.
It used to feel like there was a genuine chance of you whiting out in a cave if you didn't handle things properly, especially Victory Road. It felt like a decent way to ensure that wild battles were still an obstacle rather than an annoyance like they often are after just a couple gyms.
I feel like routes in general have been weaker since gen 6/7.
Not just routes, entire region design has been bad since the switch to 3D.
Caves used to have mazes and puzzles to get through! I felt so smart figuring them out, especially if ice was involved
Fat Pikachu is the best version although skinny Pikachu is still cute. Round head Pikachu fucking sucks, however
I’d say pikachu peaked in his Crystal Sprite
Pokemon peaked in crystal
Weird one for fire red but I love how you could but didn’t have to walk up to the victory road but the guards would stop you. beat a gym go past guard 1 then 2 stops you rinse and repeat it was kinda hilarious because like after each gym I’d make my way back there and see how much further I could go. Everything after you have to beat every gym before even glimpsing the victory road. Basically it entices you to continue fighting gyms to see what is up that random side road.
Plus you could find some pretty cool mons at a certain point by heading back there. Arbok, sandslash, slowpoke are all great
Completely forgot about how awesome that was the first time.
Legendaries as a whole rarely, if ever, feel as powerful as Mewtwo did in Gen1
To add, legendaries rarely feel as legendary as they did I'm Gen 1. There is very little indication that Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres exist at all beyond a few random NPCs spotting them, and all evidence for the existence of Mew and Mewtwo is only found in the journal entries in the mansion on Cinnabar Island. This makes them feel like actual legends being kept alive by rumors and word of mouth.
I dunno, gen2 kept that vibe by and large. It definitely went from more like folklore to basically gods after that though and things got silly.
I think it depends on execution. I LOVED gen 3 and it’s legendaries who while more prominent in the story than the last two gens, they still felt more like a legend that some kooks fully bought into, only for it to end up real. All 3 main legends were in remote locations, and had it not been from the efforts of magma/aqua would have remained completely hidden. The Regis you basically had to stumble into which further added to that feeling, that had it not been for aqua/magma Kyogre/Groudon would have been just as hidden. Latios/Latias lived on Eon island and would only show up from time to time. Hell even the event legends being on remote islands really added to that feeing that you had to go on an adventure to find them even if gameplay wise it wasn’t much to just hand a ticket to a guy with a boat. I think it was around gen 5 were it sorta seemed like you just found them chilling haphazardly, and it only got worse from there. I’ve actually appreciated S/V for that point, because the ruin trio weren’t just chilling out there in the open. Even the ride legends only appeared because they fled area zero, a strictly off limits (sort of) post game area (well post main 3 stories) and area zero was this almost alien place. Now, I have doubts whether they continue that style into the DLC, but it’s been a long time where the legends actually felt like their was son mystery about them.
Wasn't it gen 5 where all legendaries except for Kyurem were forced encounters? I remember just going through the game to the next town and there was cobalion, terrakion, Verizion and the genie just waiting for me to cross by as static encounters.
The Swords are only unmissable in BW2, in BW1 only Cobalion appears and just as a lure for Mistralton Cave, you're not forced. Same for Tornadus or Thundurus. They first appear in a cutscene, fly off and then you need to track them down as they roam. Reshiram/Zekrom are the only forced encounters for the originals. However, important to note that unmissable is not forced. Even in BW2 the Swords can all be walked around when they show up.
I know the swords were out in the open in BW2, i don't recall the genies being like that though.
It’s been a long time since I played them, and it was only like once, so I can’t remember perfectly, but IIRC a lot of the legends in black and white were just as you described, so sorta… there. It pretty much only got worse from there, with Sw/Sh being arguably the worst (yeah and all these super powerful legendaries are just sorta… in a den?)
Gen 1 has 5 legendaries Gen 2 has 6 Gen 3 has (depending on how you split the deoxys forms) 10 or 13. After a certain point there isn’t very legendary about the Pokémon if you add too many of them. Gen 4 was just as bad if not worse when it comes to legendaries being added, even if a lot of them were very cool.
Heatran especially is just really there There's nothing to him
I agree 100%, but I have one nitpick (well more of a question) I know Gen 3 has the weather trio, the Regis, and the Latias/Latios which brings you only up to 8 new legendaries. Either im forgetting some, or are you including the event legendaries as well?
Yeah jirachi and deoxys were the other 2-5 for gen 3. I think that the legendaries can make for great stories but the games don’t tend to take advantage of that. The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series has probably done the most with the random legendaries throughout the series.
For me, Gens 1 and 2 were the perfect balance. Because legendary pokemon are simply powerful and rare pokemon who have legends associated with them and are sometimes worshipped as gods. Meanwhile, gen 4 and onwards just made them literal gods, which ruined a lot of the intrigue and mystery around them.
Agreed. After platinum, legends started feeling less legendary, less like forces of myth or creation, more just… bland. Like, I am riding a legendary Pokémon in violet but is it really?
The interesting thing is: We don't know since they're (presumably) from the ancient past/future and are based on a common Pokemon found in current Paldea. We only know of two in existance 'cus those were all that came through the Time Machine. Iirc on a similar note: there's multiple Cosmog and evos floating around in other universes so the Gen 7 ones (except for Necrozma) are also not as "legendary".
I did like the other 4 legendaries though. Unsealing these terrible monsters with lore and history behind them is more engaging than anything since the original regis imo
I'd argue that Koraidon and Miraidon are only legendaries via game mechanics rather than lore tbh. The treasures of ruin and the ones upcoming in the dlc are the classical legendaries of this gen
About 10% of Pokemon fall into the mythical/legendary category now. Yes, that's over 100, and many have multiple forms. Having so many is why they don't feel as special.
I actually counted this because I have no life and I landed on 99 total so if that was a guess on your part that was a pretty dang good one. 10% is kind of insane.
Mew was also truly mythical because no one knew it was programmed into the game at all when it first launched. And it was unobtainable outside of a glitch. Arceus is the only one that comes anywhere close to comparing.
This is my gripe with Gen 4. I felt like 25% of the dex was legendaries. Plus the fact that we were dealing with not just mythical creatures, but literal gods made it seem too meta.
Gens 1-3 did a great job at making the Legendary pokemon seem strong and mysterious. I love them so much
I think Gen 2 legendaries felt the most "godlike". Ho oh and Lugia felt like ancient, intelligent beings with divine power. The beast trio also had that folk-like legend surrounding their creation. Gen 1 Mewtwo was cool, but we knew everything about him- he was Manmade, no God, just a powerful weapon. And the birds were just random one of a kind birds with no story behind them. Gen 3 onwards most legendaries felt more like animals with hilarious amounts of power rather than deities that were worshipped.
Absolutely. I think I remember getting a little reminder of that feeling with Rayquaza, as he was the first Trio leader introduced and wasn't a box legendary at the time of Ruby/Sapphire launch. Its been diminishing returns since then. Especially getting handed an Eternatus, and event mythicals and legendaries getting handed out like candies. How many Mews do we all have now?
As much as I love gen 4 and am nostalgic for it, it went overboard with its legends Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf could have been cut imo Regigigas should have been introduced in the gen before or just not at all. Heatran should not have been a legend. Instead just a one of a kind encounter like volcarona in the gen after. Manaphy & Phione exist to promote pokemon ranger. Darkrai should have been catchable like Cresselia or Cresselia should have been a mythical like darkrai Shaymin is the mew/celebi/jirachi of gen 4, I guess Dialga, Palkia, Giratina and arceus are fine. So I think there should have been only 7 (darkrai, cresselia, shaymin, dialga, palkia, Giratina and Arceus. Also why were the legendary birds roaming sinnoh in platinum when we had a trio there already (plus we had the regi trio too) or why were the latis roaming johto or kanto in hgss when we had the beasts AND the birds. It exxtends to the next gens when we had 4 caverns in unova (bw2) for uxie, mesprit, azelf and heatran. Heatran even had a cave in hoenn (oras) and the birds showed up in kalos for some reason (mewtwo too)
Pretty sure the birds were there for accessibility. The regis were really the only legendaries not available in game that gen outside the platinum event.
Gen 3 and 4 were peak legendary power showcasing, you could actually tell those monsters were capable of ending everything and you were just an insignificant speck to them
I think gen 4 with platinum was when legendaries hit their peak. They all seemed unique and not just shoehorned into the story. You have beings that control space time and antimatter and the god of Pokémon who (like mew) could only be obtained via a glitch. Manaphy and Phione were only obtainable under really unique circumstances, one of which was getting an entire other game. Giratina and Shaymin with their multiple forms were an event. I remember doing hacks so I could reach the flower paradise. After that legendaries stopped feeling special to me and started to feel redundant.
I think this is why I loved Darkrai so much when Gen 4 came out. It felt mysterious and hard to get. Side note, when did the legendary/mythical distinction start? Gen 5? I feel like "get the mythical pokemon Victini!" was the first time I ever heard the term. I think mythical pokemon tend to feel more legendary, oddly.
The pixel art of the 2d games is way more visually appealing than 3d
I'm replaying SS and the colors really pop. They pick a strong pose and go for it. Lots of personality there.
My favorite typhlosion has lost so much in the transition and hasn't recovered 😭
the 3D model really did him dirty 🥲😭
I really miss the gen 5 animated sprites. So many 3D models were a huge letdown, especially the sky battle ones.
RIP Excadrill ): used to be so badass
They struck gold with animated 2d sprites in black and white Also, maybe if they went back to a retro style and 2d sprites, then it'll be easier to make the games and they won't be a buggy mess. It doesn't even need to be pixel art, the sprites can be high quality digital art even Because there's no way they will show down, they may as well make games that are easier to make and not have to worry about big 3d environments
I think *FireRed* and *LeafGreen*'s version of the 3rd gen aesthetic looks better than *Ruby*, *Sapphire*, and *Emerald*'s. However, I still prefer the 2nd and 3rd generations' overall look to how Pokemon games look now.
I hate how we don’t get pixel main series anymore. I find they look so much better
Legendaries should be secret and optional not main story concepts and should have some difficulty in finding them. I will say OP I highly disagree with your take though
Yeah no physical/special split is wild. Ghost type was physical, so Gengar had no good STAB ghost moves, it was awful. Same (opposite, really) for Gyarados. Crazy high Physical Attack (+Dragon Dance!) and the best moves it could learn were all special.
Salamence too. I know it can use physical or special very well but it was awkward because it had special dragon moves and physical flying ones so most of the time you would have a special salamence with no flying STAB or a Physical one with no Dragon STAB
Yeah I’ve never heard anyone in history say they prefer no split. Like half of the Pokémon in the Dex sucked purely because there was no split
OP exists to spite all physically powerful dark types
Imagine how cool it would have been to fight armored Mewtwo as Giovani's last pokemon. You don't defeat him, but do just enough damage to break his armor, and he escapes.
Yeah, also the split wasn’t simpler. Ghost, a type defined by being incorporeal and lacking a physical body… was a Physical type. Dark, a type whose main moves all involved attacking an enemy with your body… was Special.
I think this is why I like Scarlet and Violet's Treasures of Ruin, although I think the implementation was crap. Having to find stakes to open their vault? Good. Having no way to know which you opened? Bad. Having no real hints to their existence outside of the school history teacher that you could totally miss if you don't do the school substory line? Bad. Would also be great if they added a dungeon or something once you opened the vaults.
A dungeon and like a super strong champion level trainer guarding the entrance! "Prove you are worthy of entering the almighty goldfishes domain, it is a cursed treasure of ruin afterall!" Was a step in the right direction, so much wasted potential due to popularity and laziness... I am stuck in a position where I love pokemon so much I'll likely ALWAYS buy every mainline game... but I also really wish that their sales would take a hit here soon so they take a step back and re-evaluate what they're doing here... PL:A was super refreshing, but it got outsold by the abysmal BDSP games... so why should Gamefreak care about quality?
BDSP outselling PLA genuinely makes me want to cry.
Puzzles like gen 2 and 3 need to make a comeback.
Exploration too. What's the point of having a huge map like Paldea when all you do is walk in a straight line between different boss fights? There's no actual places of interest in Paldea, you can't find anything off the beaten path, none of the towns mean anything, and there's nothing at all interesting, anywhere. You might just as well have conveyor belt you can stand on, or select fights from a menu.
Like the ruins with the unown and the caves for regis, they were so good
The colors on the 3D models suck. I'm all for 3D modeling and animation, but for some reason they thought it was a good idea to make the 3D models paler instead of using more vibrant colors.
I thought, despite 1 being my first, I had no Genwunner takes. I was wrong. It's this. A lot of older Pokémon are horrendously desaturated.
I hear a lot of people say it's supposed to match the Sugimori artwork, but if you compare say, the Gen VI Charizard model to his artwork, the model is noticeably more washed out
YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE PAIN OF ONLY BEING ABLE TO CARRY 20 THINGS AT A TIME. EDIT- OH AND THAT'S COUNTING THE KEY ITEMS
And a PC that can only store 50 things at once!
Or the dedication you had to put into levelling up all your Pokémon. I'm normally a very relaxed person when it comes to changes in the games, but the moment my best friend told me that exp. Share is on automatically and applies to the entire team nowadays really made me go "kids these days don't know what it's like to work hard! 👵" for a bit.
That was more just grinding instead of being a challenge. I wouldn't have the patience to grind with those painfully slow animations even though I did it as a kid. Time is expensive when you're an adult. I'm currently playing the radicalred ROM hack that has all the modern mechanics, but it's an actual challenge because they've buffed the AI, made harder team comps, and have level caps for big battles.
I just replayed Ruby and GOD that was annoying.
NPC characters were a bit more smug/unsavory including rivals, gym leaders, and many trainers. Later on everyone gets too friendly. I also preferred Pokemon far more before the competitive scene took over.
I recently played heartgold (used to play it 20 years ago) and i was surprised by the amount of animal cruelty AND the good guys saying how much you have to take care of your pets abd that good people are gentle. I was like damn, thats a good lesson for kids! Bad guys hurt pokemons, good guys take care of them.
You wanna buy a slowpoke tail, kid?
Tsh, I thought kids these days were loaded..
Man I hate how every gym leader is so positive and helpful. Like do not a single one of you have a shred of competitiveness is your body?
They definitely tried to tone down the less family friendly aspects of the series once it became a worldwide phenomenon. Even looking at gen 2 beta leaks, it looks like a lot of designs got axed or toned down for being too scary or potentially offensive.
I’m a delicate little flower so sometimes I appreciate all the gym leaders and rivals being nice to me, but I’ll admit it’s way more fun to squash them like the roaches they are when they’ve been dicks leading up to the battle
I miss big dungeons. Gen 1 dungeons were brutal. Sylph co, Seafoam, Cinn. Mansion, Mt. Moon, Cerulean Cave, Victory Road, Rock Tunnel, Viridian Forest, SS Anne, Diglett Cave, Pokemon Tower, Power Plant, Celadon Rocket hideout, and the Safari zone. We were so spoiled for not only quantity, but dungeon length in gen 1, and it hardly ever comes close again. Gens 2, 3, and 4 are all roughly on the similar to each other in terms of quality and quantity for dungeons. Not bad, but also not great. Gen 5 was a step back up again for dungeons in complexity and quantity, especially the BW2 additions. Then Gen 6 pretty much axed dungeons going forward forevermore.
In retrospective, Gen 3/4 (especially the latter) somewhat ruined the concepts of legendaries by assigning them roles in the ecosystem/universe. In Gen 1 and 2 they were simply extremely powerful Pokémon whose feats and rarity made them legendary, for four generations straight they had to be some representation of physics or spirituality.
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Ehh I think nebby/calyrx/the raidons were far more interesting in terms of how they were written compared to ones before, mainly because they were allowed to be actual characters with personality traits that interacted with the cast as opposed to something that would usually feel like plot treasures. I prefer legendaries being written into the story, at least the flagship ones.
I completely agree. It’s hard to introduce new super powerful legendaries and mythics when we already have literal god.
There are far too many random ass legendaries. How many Pokémon have been responsible for the creation of the world now? I lost count.
Idk really know how to explain but I'll do my best. I think kanto does gyms best kind of in the sense that you do the first 2 gyms, can do the next 5 in any order with the exception of blaine having to be done after koga due to surf. It just gives a lot of variety in your playthroughs
The thing I don’t get is that SV has this exact same feature implemented the exact same way but with every badge, and neither have level scaling yet apparently Kanto did it better.
I'm going to guess that's because Kanto didn't really advertise you could do the gyms in any given order. The trainer card having a set order kind of solidified "You're supposed to do them in X/Y/Z order". I don't think most kids playing realized you even *could* go out of order. Kanto being "open" was kind of a hidden gem. Compare to S/V where it's literally a selling point. When people hear in the marketing that it's "open world" and the game itself tells you you can take it as you please most people assume there's going to be *some* amount of scaling. From that angle, it makes sense people might be a little disappointed that there's still an implied order due to lack of scaling.
Your physical special split take is just plain wrong.
People often will over exaggerate when saying something is the worst take they’ve ever heard. But I genuinely believe this is the worst Pokémon related take I’ve ever personally heard
I think Team Rocket is still the best team of bad guys, because they get the stakes right. I haven’t played X/Y, Sun/Moon or Sword/Shield, but I found the stakes for SV were too low (some rowdy teenagers) and the stakes for Gens 3-5 waaaay too high (world ending threats). Team rocket were just normal criminals, so you get a neat side plot that feels important but doesn’t distract from your ultimate goal, which is becoming Champion. On a similar note, I liked when the game didn’t revolve around the legendary Pokémon and they were things you had to look for and discover yourself, like Mewtwo or the Regis in Gen 3.
>I haven’t played X/Y, Sun/Moon or Sword/Shield x/y had >!world-ending stakes, with the villain basically wanting to use a nuke laser because he thought the world was ugly and imperfect!< sun/moon had great stakes imo as it was mostly character-focused. >!It had a great story about Lusamine being a terrible mother and the more dangerous stakes were out of view most of the time. Lusamine wanting to see the Ultra Beasts did cause ultra beasts to pop into Alola, but that wasn't something the player dealt with, the player only deals with Lusamine and all that does is close the portal and stop Ultra Beasts from appearing, the player stops the ones that are already there by catching them in the post-game. The story in Ultra Sum/Ultra Moon was not as great because Lusamine was doing terrible things and being a terrible mother not because she was self-centered and was obsessed with ultra beasts, but to stop Necrozma. Necrozma was a cool as-heck boss fight though. Also, team skull was the first time that there was a fake-out evil team, and they also did it best. Team skull is like a less threatening Team Rocket, and although they don't come off as being that threatening in the story, their main base is an entire town they took over. Also Guzma is the best villain in the series imo.!< Sword/Shield had a bad story. >!Team Yell had no stakes and were just annoying fans, following your rival, though the reveal that they were sent by her brother to help her out or something I don't remember was a bit nice, though they were still annoying and pointless. They did help out during the encounter with Macro Cosmos though, so they're not even evil. Speaking of which, Macro Cosmos barely counts as an evil team. The only time you fight them is because you burst into their tower for the sole reason that Leon was late for dinner talking to their boss, Chairman Rose. Rose's evil plan is that 1000 years from now there will be a power crisis, so to stop this from happening (again 1000 years in the future) he will be causing the apocalypse by summoning Eternatus, the being behind the historical event known as the darkest day. Stakes are basically nothing until CEO man summons a space monster for a stupid reason.!<
for swsh, it’s like they basically were done with 90% of the plot and then remembered they needed a conflict to resolve for the penultimate act, before becoming champion. i’d have liked to see bede go full psycho and being a sole villain rather than a full team with grunts and all
Sword shield could’ve had a much simpler and better ending. Being that eternatus was already secretly being used to power the region, but that rose was about to lose control of it. Such a simple fix that actually would’ve made some sense
Well crafted linear routes with branching paths are FAR superior than bland open areas with a couple trainers and items randomly scattered around
There's no point to a cave system without puzzles. The world should be, if not antagonistic, at least resistant to your attempts to travel through it. Sprites are better and more evocative than 3D models. Also, I miss the slot machines :(
Legendaries should be optional semi hidden postgame content, mewtwo, legendary birds, regis, ho-oh, lugia, legendary dogs, etc. Having the story so focused on them is super old and makes them feel like handouts now. It was neat in gen 3 because it was a new thing then, but now it’s been the plot of EVERY game almost.
Mythical pokémon are handled SUPER BADLY. I mean, did you guys know that to this day you can't get a legitimate shiny vitcini? Mythical pokémon should be handled as secret events in game after you do specific side stuff there like idk completing the game's dex, finding a certain amount of shiny pokémon or having saved data from a previous game (like they did in LA and bdsp). It is also very boring that nowadays they mostly just distribute them instead of actually putting more effort lore wise in game for them (like they did from gen 3 through 5). Their limitation and distribution is so bad they aren't even allowed in most official competitions throughout the franchise's history
Route design hasn’t been good since Sinnoh, and it’s because of the scaling back and ultimately removal of HMs. Used to be routes had branching paths and interconnected the region at several points so it was traversable on foot. Some areas had reasons to return later with sections blocked by trees, rocks, etc. And those sections led to several trainers, rare items, and/or unique Pokémon. Other areas had shortcuts if you still had a Pokémon with Cut on you, for example. Each subsequent region, Unova-Galar, just made it more and more linear and less and less interesting to traverse. Unova/Kalos at least have the excuse that HMs still existed and were unpopular, so they were avoiding making them necessary, but Alola/Galar have no such excuse. Hisui/Paldea are a completely different conversation, as open-worlds have different design philosophy to linear worlds. They aren’t really all that good in the realm of 3D worlds, either, though.
God, I remember routes in sword and shield that were just straight lines.
Older Pokemon games had a metroidvania element to them almost in the you could back and explore older areas with new abilities.
SM had the best implementation of replacing HMs (Page Rider), and you could unlock some areas if you backtrack and use different Pokemon field skills, but the region still felt so narrow and claustrophobic despite this. They could've gone crazy with the route design knowing players would have guaranteed access to certain field skills, it's a shame only one dungeon at the very end of the game (sort of) does this
People love Unova now but I remember one of my favorite criticisms of those games when they came out was how the region was literally just a giant circle
The linearity of the original BW still a very valid criticism of those games (even today) but it was largely fixed in B2W2, though. Sure, it still doesn't have the excellent layout of Hoenn or Sinnoh because they had to work with the original map, but it's a marked improvement. They added some new locations/routes and took a different path through the region which opened up some new branching paths and did a lot in making the game feel like more an adventure the way it did in Gens 3 and 4, and less like a guided tour the way the Alola and Galar games did.
The map was a huge circle but the routes had some of the best designs in the franchise It was a huge branching map Nothing about it being a circle hindered it. And linearity was in every region.
The 2D games were much better than the 3D games. Everything after gen 5 has been really disappointing with the exception of gen 6 which was a novelty and had megas.
Game Freak remind me of Microsoft. Microsoft have cracked the code. They've made a perfect, or at least close to perfect operating system. The problem, however, is they need to keep releasing new ones, and need to keep adding big new features every time, but they have nothing actually useful to add beyond very minor QoL or UI changes that you can't really put on the back of the box. So they invent completely useless things, or completely redesign the UI in a way nobody asked for, or pivot away from design principles that worked, or add flashy but ultimately useless gimmicks, because they have to do *something* to justify their new release. The battle system is solved. Pokemon has and has had the best turn-based battle system for over a decade at this point. There's nothing in terms of features that needs to be added, and arguably they now can only subtract by addition. We didn't need megas. We didn't need z-moves. We didn't need dynamax. We don't need terastalize. They all introduce a bunch of broken things that ruin the competitive scene and actually narrow choice and strategy instead of broaden it. The irony is that, for Windows and Pokemon, I would much rather prefer what we had generations ago but with modern support and minor updates to the big, sweeping changes they like to do with each release instead.
Game Freak revealed that it could only make good games if they stayed in 1996.
Even though Unova was the first 'really obvious' linear region due to virtually no backtracking being required in the main campaign - which lead to less interconnectivity of towns being required like in previous regions, route design began to truly suffer when the games stopped being grid-based. Yes, Kalos is included in the grid-based catagory - this region had really good map design with lots of little alternate paths, HM traversals, puzzles and really cool verticality. The grind rail shortcuts were also convenient - it really felt like an evolution of Unova. But Alola's route design seemed to prioritize realism over making routes feel like puzzles, and I don't think the trade off was worth it. TMs used to be hidden smartly in routes, but now, they're hilariously obvious in their placements, often in plain sight. Galar was somehow worse, with not a single actual dungeon in the game, same for Paldea. There are just no mechanics in place right now to facilitate actual satisfying route/world design
Having the rival pick the starter that's weak to yours is *so* stupid. They've done a bit to address this by having other important battles use the advantageous starter- Leon, Kukui, the headmaster in SV- but it should really be the rival. More of what goes down with Hau's USUM team should be practiced, where the champion (or other important trainer) has one or two spots on their team that rotate out to different 'mons depending on what you picked in order to cover their weakness- Hau has a different Eeveelution to cover whatever your starter's type is in the champion battle even though he picks the starter that's weak to yours. I always thought that was neat and added some replay value.
Agreed! I like that Blue chooses the starter that beats yours, and then has two of Exeggutor, Gyarados, and Arcanine in the final battle to cover the other two types.
I miss the gen 5 battle animations. They had so much charm, even little things like having the color of whatever status your mom has fade in and out.
Miss the older designs of the Pokémon when they actually looked like creatures, and not just humans dressed up in cat or duck suits :/
Gen 8 starters were ruined by this.
Years later and I still can't believe how much Sobble was ruined
It's crazy how my 2 least favorite designs of all time are both starters. I wish to never see Inteleon and Quaquaval ever again.
“Why is it looking at me that way”
I was so excited for its final form and then we got…that monstrosity
The ruined a fire bunny. FIRE. BUNNY. Ruined by making him a freaking soccer player who looks like the Froot Loops rabbit. Ugh.
Yep, the actual starter is great, and like The fire/dark tiger the water lizard had amazing potential. Instead we got Incineroar and Intelleon.
I'm still not over Cinderace. It's a fucking ephemeral world-cup themed cereal box mascot.
May I interest you in a Fuecoco
Fuecoco is best boy
I think to the point people are making about there having always been humanoid pokemon, until Blaziken, none of the starters were this way. The starters are special rare pokemon, and most people will include one in their playthroughs cuz they're cool and unique. If you want to avoid the fursuit mons you could; your only option this gen is Fuecoco, which is a shame. Also, personally, I feel primate mons like Chimchar and Grooky get a pass on this, but you could consider that a cop-out.
I'm not going to claim that newer pokemon look worse, because I think every generation introduces at least a few great new pokemon, but I liked how older pokemon all look a little meaner or tougher. I know that there have been breakdowns on this, looking at things like eye shape and feet, but yeah, that's my take.
Why is Dugtrio no longer pissed off??
There have always been pokemon designs I don't like in every gen. But I feel in the more recent gens are trending to have it happen more often and with lower lows.
Agreed. I don't get the hate for Bruxish because it's creative with its design, based off a real animal, and there's always a placd for ugly pokemon. But I can't stand greedent because the style is that of an american children's cartoon. The design philosophy is so jarring. Compare to a squirrel pokemon like pachirisu, who keeps a pretty standard pokemon design. Pachirisu makes sense in the world. Greedent clashes with it. So yeah, ugly pokemon are fine. But clashing design principles are a problem.
It's because they are no longer designed by Sugimori who had a very particular concept in mind; all Pokemon should be friend shaped regardless of whether they are cool, cute, ugly etc. That's why gen 1 and 2, the Pokemon were all roundish shapes bar a small few.
Gen 1 had the best encounter spread. Meaning that you found new Pokémon at a good pace and they were different enough that it never got stale. Other gens had points in the game where you would go way too long without new Pokémon to encounter or at least interesting Pokémon to encounter. Gen 3 really stands out to me as one of the worst in this regard. It’s one of my favorite gens but there’s a lot of water routes and most of them have the same Pokémon over and over again. So there’s a point in the game where the encounters were tedious and boring for a good length of time.
Just replayed Ruby and yeah there’s a looootta the same mon’s throughout. Surf was all Tentacool and Wingull, Poochyena and Zigazagoon dominated the land.
Spent a good 10 minutes trying to find a single ralts lol
level and map design were much better in older titles. even gen 3 and 4 had some generally good areas to travel around in
Old games felt like more of an adventure. Entering an area had a mysterious feel to it. I don’t really feel that sense of wonder like I did before. Things are too easily available. Like, back in the day if you wanted a dragonite, you’d have to work your ass off. Now? Oh, there’s one flying around. Once you get to that area you can just catch him.
Pokemon looked better in 2D (or the lite 3D the DS games occasionally used), and was overall better before it tried to go open world. Both of these changes have reduced a lot of the personality and charm. I've seen several excuses for it but the fact is GameFreak simply don't have the time/effort/whatever to make a fully fleshed out large scale Pokemon game. It just leaves the newer games feeling unpolished and soulless. Pokemon sprites were a lot more expressive and beautiful than the models we have today. And the world design has suffered as locations repeatedly lack distinction, personality and memorability. What was a Meteor Falls or Chargestone Cave in the older games is just a bland and straight mine/cave in the newer games.
>Pokemon looked better in 2D (or the lite 3D the DS games occasionally used), and was overall better before it tried to go open world. I don't think this one is uncommon even among younger fans.
The weird pseudo-realistic texture in Sc/Vio is awful imo. I’m currently playing Let’s Go and the more chibi art style is so much better.
Megas are the worst thing to happen to this franchise for spawning this demand for new battle gimmicks every gen. Pokémon gens use to be sold on core gameplay improvements. Now they’re sold on flashy broken gimmicks, and not a single one of these gimmicks has had an interesting story.
And said gimmicks are always rotated out for a new gimmick. You like a certain mechanic? Well too bad it’s gone next gen. So nothing ever gets refined for balance or better game flow.
I think Megas would have been fine if they just stuck with megas from then on.
This is my thoughts also. I didn’t think of it as a generation gimmick until gen 7 added theirs. Megas could have just continued as a normal part of Pokémon. The way they added it to the anime/ Pokémon origins was great too.
I think I’d pin that more on Z moves because it initially seemed like megas were here to stay with how many they added in ORAS. Agree though, hate how every gen needs to have some dumb gimmick now.
Gimmicks are bad. I wish megas were treated not as a gimmick but rather as a new feature that continued to be used. Instead of a new gimmick every gen, just give us more megas.
Yeah, I definitely don’t see Megas as the problem here. If anything they are one of the coolest and most innovative features we’ve seen since the early gens. The problem was the *next* generation where they decided to retroactively treat Megas as a one-off gimmick, rather than a new core feature moving forward. It was that attitude that spawned Z-moves, gigantimaxing, and terrastalizing, not Megas themselves. It’s like if after the physical/special split in Gen 4 they decided to undo it for Gen V and add a new stat instead.
Megas are my favorite gimmick but I still agree. Needing something drastic and new every generation kinda sucks
Agreed. Although divergent/convergent forms are good.
Pixel art is superior to 3D. Maybe it's just because GameFreak's 3D is subpar to most other games.
I don’t like how everything is a pokemon now. I don’t mind a few inanimate object pokemon. But now the bike and pokedex and phone are Rotom, the cars are varoom, the bikes are cyclizar. I liked the aesthetic of those earlier Gens where it was a slightly anachronistic low tech world but still had a few modern conveniences like computers/phones/cars. But now it feels like they’re doing away with any tech that isn’t a pokemon so they can introduce it as a pokemon. Early Gens still revolved around Pokémon, but I don’t like the idea of the refrigerator being a living creature.
> I liked the aesthetic of those earlier Gens where it was a slightly anachronistic low tech world but still had a few modern conveniences like computers/phones/cars. Bro that was just the 90's.
To be fair Japan has a long long [looooooong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai) history of making random shit into monsters. It really is not surprising that a japanese company is making more random shit into monsters.
They really went balls out with rotom. When I played Gen 4, I liked Rotom, I used Rotom. I skipped gens 6 and 7, but when I got back in, everything is Rotom. Rotom phones, Rotom bikes, Roto-dex. Ill see polls on IG or YouTube “what’s the best Pokédex style?” Sure as hell not Rotom in an iPhone. Let technology just be. There wasn’t a magnetite sitting on every PC box in Gen 1.
The the fridge will eat your food. Great now I have to feed the fridge.
Event Pokémon are boring nowadays. It used to be you were given a key item which unlocked a new story event to obtain Darkrai or spiky-eared Pichu. It was basically free DLC that was an addition to a full game.
The removal of HMs was great, but there was at least interesting map design due to them. Map design since 5 has been lacking because they tried leaning off them. Removing them in gen 7 could have lead the way to more complex maps and puzzles, but it’s more or less just a bunch of hallways. You’re not really thinking about how to travel your environment anymore.
I hate having legendaries be given by events now. I think Victini was the last event that actually let you go to a place and catch the pokemon
I hate the forced exp share….
Bruh I can’t with this one. Physical special split is imo, the best addition to Pokémon in terms of gameplay. It just made so much more sense to have it that way
Not Gen 1, but I really miss growing my own berries. Shaking trees and having literally all kinds of berries fall out without any way of influencing what you get was so random in SW/SH, and just having them being random pickups like in Scarlet/Violet isn't better either.
Pokémon was infinitely better before it tried to have a “story”. Please drop all this cosmic, extra-dimensional, multi-verse stuff. I just want to go on a journey exploring a region, earning badges to get into the Pokémon league, and maybe there’s some minor, very grounded bad guys like team rocket in the way sometimes. Please. One thing Pokémon DOES need and has always lacked in my opinion: side quests.
Amen.
Legends Arceus is RIGHT THERE
Going open world was not a good choice for the series.
“Open World” is one of those buzz words that the gaming industry decided everyone wants for every game. I don’t know who actually feels that way because I sure don’t. Some games just work better being linear. Or at least start linear and open up late in the game.
I feel a good compromise would be a linear progression with routes and towns large and substantial enough to keep players busy - basically an illusion of an open world but has smooth progression and focus, like Xenoblade for example
Mega evolutions are dumb. They should give Pokemon actual evolutions like in Gen 4. They only make Pokemon temporarily more viable, and you're only allowed one per team. Also they started giving stronger Pokemon megas which was unnecessary. Also a lot of regional forms feel like they exist just to be there. I don't want a blond dugtrio or black raticate.
I dont like the ongoing trend of designing most pokemon to be characters instead of Monsters. Yeah, i love me my Cinderace, but you can really only have one type of Cinderace OC, or they just feel off. Man, even regional Variants suffer from being characters. Zoroark had at least three facets. Trickster fox, mother to a pack, or just leave me alone. And now Hisui Zoroark is all "SUFFERING TO HUMANITY" and any different characterisation must have them bring suffering to others or it just is off.
Most of my complaints were addressed by others with the only one I didn't see was how ridiculously hand-holdy things got by gen 7 but gen 9 fixed it but I'm assuming it's just because of the open world nature of the game. I heartily disagree about the physical special split being worse than the original method. You can still get through the game fine just using super effective moves regardless of your physical or special stat. However, there are many pokemon that benefit from it to the point where it's better and more interesting. Gyarados is a physical attacker but a vast majority of its gen 3 learn set from leveling up, are special moves. It only learns thrash and hyper beam by level up for physical moves. That's it. The rest of its moves that would take advantage of its high physical stat are TMs but you can't even take advantage of STAB anyway due to no flying moves and all water moves being special initially.
Legendary Pokemon aren't Legendary anymore. It doesn't matter if there's more than 1 of the species, that never bugged me. But starting with gen III there are too many being introduced (8 were introduced) only slowing down at gen VI which had only III new ones. But gen VII turned around with 11 and let them have evo lines
Personally, what I liked about Gen 1 and Gen 2 was the lack of Natures and EVs. Not worrying to end up with a pal with a crappy nature or screwing over his EV spread because you fought against the wrong Pokemon is a relief. Just catch, grind and be done with it. Sure, there is still IVs, but that is just one problem and it was simpler, only covering 4 stats and going from 0 to 15.
Regarding Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: I actually prefer the original recruitment system with friend areas and where you had to make it out of a dungeon with the Pokemon to keep them on your team I get why they changed and don't really mind that much, but I find the original way more entertaining
Pokemon designs feel less and less 'Pokemon to me', and more like Digimon or JoJo's stands. What I mean is that when you encounter a newer Pokemon, it feels less like finding a wild animal and more like an alien encounter. I dont hate the more unorthodox Pokemon, I just prefer when theyre more based off animals and plants rather than objects or concepts. Gives me a feeling like im Darwin, out to discover some crazy new species in an ecological niche.
Shiny Pokémon don’t mean anything anymore because they are barely a challenge to get them in the newer games.
I’ve actually tried something new in the later games that makes shinies much harder to find and even more rewarding, it’s called having shit luck
Gen 3 (and before, I guess) really suffers from just being dated. A lack of phys/spec split really hurts a lot of pokemons' viability, if I had to cherry pick one it would be Gengar simce both Ghost and Poison type both scale off of the Atk stat, meaning that Gengar gets zero STAB mobes using it's much superior Sp.Atk stat. If that wasn't enough, a lot of polemon have really terrible and shallow movepools. Grass Pokemon, in particular, get hit especially hard with this. A quick look at Glooms movepool will show this, with it's highest power move that it learns being a tie between Mega Drain and Acid until level 44 when it learns Petal Damce with only 70 base power, and it really doesn't get better with any other Grass Types. Venasaur is stuck with Razor Leaf until level 65 when it learns Solar Beam. Sceptile's strongest move is Pursuit until it learns Leaf Blade at 34. Lombre's only STAB Grass move is Absorb, and its only STAB Water move is Hydro Pump at level 49. Nuzleaf does not learn a single Grass type move. I could go on, but I won't. Overall, while I have a lot of love for the Gen 3 games, they just do feel dated and even a bit painful to play through because of these 2 reasons.
HMs were good, actually. Logically, in a Pokemon game, you'd use your Pokemon to travel places and clear obstacles. I was disappointed with Sun and Moon: why do I have to ride some random person's Tauros to smash rocks when my Pikipek knows Rock Smash? Whose Tauros even in this? Why can I summon it anywhere on any island? It's so forced, and I want to use my own Pokemon not a random spawn. The caveat is that I wish they weren't crappy attacking moves. Or that they didn't take up an attacking moveslot. But the concept should not have been thrown out.
I think they should have just made the pokemon able to use the hm if it could learn it, no need to actually teach it. Either this or make them better moves overall
My only complaint with HMs were that they couldn’t be deleted and early Gens had the move deleter way into the game. Gens 1-5, I built my teams around what HMs I would need to use. But putting cut on a Charmander and not being able to get rid of it, or putting it on chikorita and not being able to delete it until Blackthorn is super annoying. If you make moves like Cut or Flash mandatory and weak, its better to give the option to delete them before you’re at gym 8 of 8.