True. Didn't know the world for barbels.
The problem is that dragonite has loads of elements from early dratini, if anything dragonair is somehow the odd one in the chain, not by much as he still looks as a developed dratini with orbs but dragonite spots several dratini traits in RBY.To clarify, I don't necessarily believe in the Dragonair > Gyarados theory myself, for reasons stated above. I just thought it'd provide an interesting point of discussion for the people claiming Dragonite doesn't work as the Dratini line's final evolution.
I liked Lucario in his debut, but my problem is that he's being over-exposed at this point.I would actually love a Dragon/Water split evolution for Dragonair, but that's getting into speculation / wishlisting and if people want to fan design that or whatever they should PM.
Unpopular opinion: Lucario is stupid and really overhyped. I hate the attention it gets. Zororark is cool, though.
I fully agree with this; but I'd also like to add that one of the big major draws of Gen 4 was it's evolutions to pre-existing Pokémon such as Togekiss, Mamoswine and Gliscor. But in DP, not only are these not in the in-game dex, but some of them are just absolutely asinine to obtain in the aftergame. The more notorious examples include when you needed to use the dual slot option - you needed this to get the Magby and Elekid families as well as their Gen 4 evolution items, and even then the items were (iirc) only on them as a chance rather than 100%. And then even WORSE is that you have Tangrowth, whose pre-evolution Tangela is unobtainable in DP by any means even with Dual Slot - it has to be transferred through the Pal Park. When a new Pokémon games' big draw is an evolution of previous Pokémon, the fact you can't even get it within those games without the help of previous games and the fact that the games never even so much as give you a sign they exist never mind how to get them is just downright stupid. Thankfully this is another thing Platinum fixed up, with all the new evos being in the dex.I personally feel Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are the worst main series Pokemon games. This is primarily due to technical issues within the game, such as ridiculously slow battles and a mediocre music engine that ruins several tracks in the game. I also hated the sprites used in this game and the limited number of Pokemon in the pokedex (IIRC there were literally only 2 fully evolved fire-type pokemon you could catch pre National dex, which is laughable). I'm very glad that Platinum was able to mitigate a majority of these issues.
^Honestly thought this would go better in the "Little things that annoy you" thread lol.I fully agree with this; but I'd also like to add that one of the big major draws of Gen 4 was it's evolutions to pre-existing Pokémon such as Togekiss, Mamoswine and Gliscor. But in DP, not only are these not in the in-game dex, but some of them are just absolutely asinine to obtain in the aftergame. The more notorious examples include when you needed to use the dual slot option - you needed this to get the Magby and Elekid families as well as their Gen 4 evolution items, and even then the items were (iirc) only on them as a chance rather than 100%. And then even WORSE is that you have Tangrowth, whose pre-evolution Tangela is unobtainable in DP by any means even with Dual Slot - it has to be transferred through the Pal Park. When a new Pokémon games' big draw is an evolution of previous Pokémon, the fact you can't even get it within those games without the help of previous games and the fact that the games never even so much as give you a sign they exist never mind how to get them is just downright stupid. Thankfully this is another thing Platinum fixed up, with all the new evos being in the dex.
I'd imagine the replay value would depend how you play. Though the selection is limited there's still 50 in the original and even more in XD (and in XD they have the PokeSpots which give you a few more options). Do you go through with a "core" team or do you keep switching our Pokemon to purify as many as you can at a single time. Do do you purify the Shadow Pokemon when they're ready or do you keep them as Shadow Pokemon so that you have access to their Shadow Moves? If you're going through with a core team there's plenty of combinations you can do, sure some may say one is effective over another but why not give some Pokemon you wouldn't a try, I mean you're limited anyway so when would there be a better opportunity?I will say that, from my observations (correct me if I'm wrong), having the same, limited selection would really hurt the replay value, although the chaotic randomness of the RNG means the game certainly retains some of it. So I can certainly see why some wouldn't be so happy. (Although let's be fair here: the main series has replay value issues of its own, stemming from that one save file you get. If you want to play through the region again, hope you're willing to dump every mon you care about into the Bank en masse before you delete the entire file.)
Honestly the difficulty came from catching the Shadow Pokemon; it's not hard to knock out their (Dakim would knock out Entei for you if you let him since his Pokemon love using Earthquake).the level curve wasn't the only thing that added to difficulty, because i remember fighting Dakim and his Entei level 30/40 something and thinking it was practically unbeatable. :/ the underground was also hard as fuck, honestly the whole game had a really high difficulty... XD was no different. did anyone actually beat Snapple or Lovrina on their first try? :|
Well they're going to need a new battle gimmick eventually so maybe then they'll have a proper free-for-all. Though I would imagine it would require a bit or work to plan out, they might have to write another rule set for certain moves.I don't really like Free For Alls. The way Multis are set up it just doesn't work out to me because you're still technically on someone else's side; if you take out the opposing two before you can take out your 'ally' for instance then there's no actual winner.
Yeah, honestly no matter how much you limit it Pokemon will always have luck/"hax" problems. If is not Quick Claw/King's Rock its someone landing a Critical Hit, an Ability with a chance of activating kicking in, a move with lower accuracy missing, the damage RNG just so happened to roll in a way that a Pokemon survived an attack that should otherwise have knocked it out, etc.. I like to see if that whenever there's a chance of something happening you're deciding whether the chance is worth taking or to do something else. I could use Quick Claw to possibly have my slow Pokemon attack first or I can give it an Assault Vest/Life Orb to defend better/hit harder. I could use Fire Blast for heavier damage but a chance of missing or use the much more reliable Flamethrower though it has less power. Honestly I don't think people should get upset if they lose a battle due to this as a lot depend on luck and the digital dice could have had easily rolled in your favor. I suppose its maybe GF's way of making sure that there's no one team that is undefeatable or maybe even replicating as best as they can that sometimes in life luck is or isn't on your side. *shrugs*^ On a similar note to this, I feel like some of the luck-based items such as Quick Claw and King's Rock shouldn't exist. Most competitive players frown upon these items in the first place, and as far as in-game NPCs go, the untimely activation of such items can, and usually will, cause a matchup to become ridiculously trivial. People whine about evasion on a daily basis, but a Double Team spammer is more manageable since it requires several turns to set up and is not a sure-fire strategy; these items can completely shift the momentum of the match in a single turn, and more often than not, you can't do jack about it. When you're playing through the Battle Tower in Emerald, and your perfect IV/EVd Latios dies to a Feebas's Mirror Coat over an untimely activation of Focus Band, you know these items are not quite balanced.
Is this really an unpopular opinion? From what I can tell it's actually pretty common to think that Diamond and Pearl are among the worst games in the main series because of everything you mentioned.I personally feel Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are the worst main series Pokemon games. This is primarily due to technical issues within the game, such as ridiculously slow battles and a mediocre music engine that ruins several tracks in the game. I also hated the sprites used in this game and the limited number of Pokemon in the pokedex (IIRC there were literally only 2 fully evolved fire-type pokemon you could catch pre National dex, which is laughable). I'm very glad that Platinum was able to mitigate a majority of these issues.
Well I've seen a large number of people say Diamond and pearl are the best games in the series as well as putting gen 4 as the best or second best generation of Pokemon, so I assumed these games were widely praised despite their large number of issues.Is this really an unpopular opinion? From what I can tell it's actually pretty common to think that Diamond and Pearl are among the worst games in the main series because of everything you mentioned.
I loved Gen IV the most aside from the slowness in saving.Is this really an unpopular opinion? From what I can tell it's actually pretty common to think that Diamond and Pearl are among the worst games in the main series because of everything you mentioned.
Pfft, I swear at some point in the Battle Facilities that the game intentionally starts out with a Pokemon that has an advantage over your first Pokemon.Have a Sturdy user :-). OK, jokes aside, if that thing happen, it means the game is showing the finger to you and is telling you it got tired of losing all the time.
I think they should go back to some items and change them a bit, or maybe add something to them. Some items aren't that useful and some are just copies of another, the Item Clause honestly doesn't seem to limit you much but rather asks you to just settle for a lesser version of the an item you already gave to another Pokemon. Not saying you can't get creative, that was the point of the Item Clause, but the more new held items they add either they are a copy of another item or get more situational.My issue with item clause is that it's almost too easy to get around for a generic case. Between the plates + Type items, all the random berries, overall lack of role overlap the "regular" game tends to lead to anyway, and things like Black Sludge v Leftovers. Choice Items and maybe Life Orb are the only items I find issue trying to assign when playing bu that clause.
One thing that I personally dislike are additions that only benefit Double Battles, like Florges only having abilities that would help partners, or Mega Audino getting an ability that is useless for it. I don't mind when they're optional additions like Helping Hand, one of multiple abilities, or Plusle and Minun just being Electric types, but I hate when a Pokemon is pretty much designed to be Doubles at the expense of its Singles potential. Audino's probably only getting one Mega, so barring a change to Healer (among other things) the Mega ultimately means nothing to the 50+% of the playerbase that mainly plays Single Battles.
I know VGC does Doubles since it goes faster by virtue of encouraging offensive play, but I still hate a Pokemon's play in Singles, the main battle style the game is evidently built around, is neglected or even hurt by building it to do well in Doubles (sometimes not even managing that)
I've never heard someone called a "genwunner" unless the person pretty much refuses to believe anything after Gen I (or II) is good. Okay, maybe a troll would call a Pokemon fan a genwunner but they're a troll so they're just trying to annoy people, they don't really care one way or another. That, everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you think Gen I (and/or II) is the best and no games beyond aren't then fine though I would think you're being a bit stubborn and close minded.I strongly dislike all the fans who go out of their way to call just about any, and every player who disagrees with popular opinion a "genwunner". This happens a lot on youtube. A couple of examples: "Somebody disliked this video, must be a bunch of genwunners." "I cannot stand mega evolution!" "Looks like we've got a genwunner over here folks!"
It's so unbelievably obnoxious seeing these hateful comments at just about every corner of the internet involving pokemon. I don't think we should come up with any names to call these people either. We will just end up creating a copy of the same problem. Why can't we all just get along instead?
I like the idea of Mega Pokemon though I do think its lacking a bit of focus, especially with the Primals and Mega "I don't need no Mega Stone" Rayquaza. It feels like with Mega Evolutions they're at the phase where they're throwing things at a wall to see what sticks instead of having a laid out plan and following it. Mega Evolution, in my opinion, is a way to have any Pokemon be able to compete with the likes of those considered OU or Ubers. They reached their pinnacle of power and pretty much only a Legendary or another Mega Pokemon could match them. Now obviously that's not always the case and other parts of the Mega Evolution mechanic does hinder this a bit, but I'm talking about conceptually and not in practice. If anything, a Mega Pokemon would let those who have a favorite Pokemon that's not looked upon being competitive have a chance of being competitive. Yes, you might not like its Mega Evolution, but its still your favorite Pokemon underneath it, its base form is the one you can play with in Pokemon-Amie. Mega Evolution is just a temporary power-up, think of it as Pokemon's version of Dragon Ball Z's Super Saiyan.Mega Evolution is fine and fun in my opinion, it added a lot to evaluate into team building composition, and Mega Rayquaza is the ultimate badass, stronger than its original form with a beast impossible to dislike design and extremely effective in wathever way you feel like using him, so technically winning with him makes you like using it as well. Heck Rayquaza normal design was meish to me, but mega Rayquaza is impossible to hate it's just pure awesomeness. I'm with your friend screw the regular form mega is just too good on every aspect to even compare it with the original.
Looking at it, what might be holding the Eeveelutions back is their stat layout. All Eeveelutions have a stat layout of 130-110-95-65-65-60. At first you think that with careful planning that they could make that work depending on the Eevee's type, but that's where the problem's start. First they try to not have an Eeveelution share the same layout, infact they often try to have each one have a vastly different layout. This has caused obvious problems which I could list but already this post is long. In addition one of these numbers go into HP, a stat which you really can't affect in battle aside from healing it. Once you're done training a Pokemon's HP what you see is what you get, you can't like boost its HP (even Mega Evolutions don't change the HP stat). So now if the Eeveelution gets 130 or 110 in its HP stat, well, I hope it gets a type and stat layout that makes it a good wall. If there's one Pokemon family that I think could use a total stat reconstruction, it would be the Eevee family. Get rid of the stat layout and give the stats you think would be right for it. Like you can keep Flareon a physical attacker, but it needs Speed and being its a Fire-type who cares about defense, just have it do as much damage as it can. And yes, Flareon is my favorite Eeveelution... at least it now has Flare Blitz...The Eevee line is a very good concept; one I absolutely love, but also one that is rather poorly executed battle-wise.
Appearance-wise I don't... really have a problem with them. Even the one that gets the most hate - which isn't saying much; most people love all of 'em - Sylveon, is my actual favourite of them.
Unfortunately, Sylveon is arguably the only one that's executed particularly well. It's a bulky special attacker which is rather uncommon in fairy-types aside from legendaries and megas. However, the rest find themselves either outclassed or without that little something to make them special. Vaporeon is a bulky water. Great. What significant thing does it have to make it special? ... uhm... well, it got Hydration in Gen 5??? Admittedly it's mostly the later ones that have this problem bar Sylveon; Jolteon having the best niche for the longest time as one of the fastest electric types with some power, but Flareon and Leafeon are really bad physical attackers with little coverage and even little physical STAB - and unfortunately both are really slow - Umbreon just sort of... sits there and does nothing; really could have used an ability, Glaceon is yet another slow, frail ice-type (thanks for messing up with this again GF), and Espeon... arguably not bad, but it's basically a worse Alakazam for the most part, only having a few moments of fame when Alakazam wasn't available (BW2), when Magic Bounce was a good ability (parts of gen 5 competitively) and then of course the baton pass teams that are nothing but irritating and trolly.
Honestly they suffer a lot from either having small movepools, badly distributed stats or having abilities so downright useless you have to wonder if GF even cared at all with the hidden ability system. It's a real shame because whenever I'm thinking about breeding Eevees I start thinking of the potential and options I have... but then I sigh, remember Sylveon is really the only particularly good one and just breed an Eevee ready to become yet another fairy.
I know this is largely from a competitive standpoint because even in-game there are better options half the time. Flareon is a really shit fire-type let's be frank, Espeon is harder to get most the time than Alakazam who completely outclasses it, walls aren't good in-game really so that's Umbreon out, there is certainly no hard task to find a good water-type replacement for Vaporeon, there are also plenty of good electric-type special attackers to replace Jolteon, fragile slow ice-types have never been appealing so goodbye Glaceon, and Leafeon... is just bad. Hell, a lot of the time you have to go through a lot of trouble to get them! Aside from Gen 1 it's surprisingly hard to find Fire/Electric/Water stones; being very scarce and requiring you to scour the region for them, friendship is always a hassle, and as for the gen 4 eeveelutions the ice rock comes late game in XY and DPPt, not to mention they're aftergame in BW2 and completely absent in HGSS! Again, Sylveon becomes the only good one to use - and it is a good one - but there's also Florges which is arguably easier to get along with Gardevoir.
At the end of the day, Eeveelutions either tend to fill a generic, outclassed role for their type or when they try to do something different for their type (leafeon, flareon) it is done extremely poorly and there was obviously a lot better that could have been done. I love the concept and the designs but aside from Sylveon and RBGYFRLG Eeveelutions, they just don't cut it on the battlefield.
At least every fully evolved Pokemon should be able to learn Earthquake. If not from weight I always saw a lightweight Pokemon who use Earthquake as striking the ground in such a way it caused shockwaves to move the tectonic plates causing them to shake a bit (like imagine someone karate chopping a stack of bricks in half).Even though it might not have made sense for some Pokémon to have it, I really enjoyed the fact that all fully evolved starters from gens 1-4 could learn Earthquake and was a little disappointed to not see that continue in Gen 5 (only Chesnaught and Emboar get it out of the gen 5-6 starters). I mean sure something like Greninja using Earthquake doesn't make sense but fuck man, Mankey can learn it. Ekans can learn it.