What do you miss most from the Gen. I era?

I think for a lot of people here, there's a huge stigma of nostalgia attached to the Pokémon franchise and when you look back at certain aspects, you also associate a certain point of your life with it. Not that I'm taking anything away from the games themselves, not at all.


I remember when I first got Pokémon Red, my first game. Christmas of 1999 it was; I'd just turned 10. It'd been advertised on TV, but it had gone straight over my head and I was far more interested in getting the new Smackdown 2 and FIFA 2000 games for my PSone, along with a new TV for my bedroom. I think my parents had bought it as a psuedo-stocking filler, I don't think I'd asked for a lot that Christmas so they just used the 'budget' they gave for me and my sister up buying little things that we might be interested in, and after talking to one of her friends, convinced herself I'd benefit from having Pokémon Red as it was going to be the craze. Just flew over my head, even when I opened it I looked at it and wondered what the hell it was.

I remember thinking "oh, I know what this is.." and plugged it in whilst my grandparents came around thinking it'd be far more sociable to be head-buried in a game in their presence than upstairs being mesmerised by the new wrestling game. I chose Charmander, being familar with it from an advert from the television and begun to mess stuff up, beating Gary somehow and then spending time in Viridian Forest thinking I was a living King as Ember took everything apart. I still remember my eyes lighting up when I saw Pikachu in the forest and thinking "Yes, I must have this", the shock in my eyes when I couldn't realise why if I've fainted the bugger, I couldn't just lob a Pokéball at it and capture it fainted, etc etc. Needless to say, once I'd gotten into it, Red captured me to a point where, in my own unique little way, I bought Blue so I could start that instead and surpass what I'd done on Red. Choosing Squirtle, I eventually traded my Charmander away from Red so I could get a Diglett early on (to one of my friends who had worked out how to get past Misty) which ended up becoming my core Pokémon.

You didn't need to read that. ^^;

I think the thing I miss the most was a childhood ignorance, not fully understanding it. I mean now, we have dedicated websites (one of which I admin) who release any screenshots that filter through to the public, and the appeal kind of gets ruined when you know what you expect from a Pokémon game through experience and being far more knowledged to it. I suppose, the minute you dwell over to a competitive side where you're breeding for IVs, training them, you start to lose that naivity that made them so hard to complete. Daft little things really, I remember my only source of information for Gold and Silver was Nintendo Official Magazine which only came to my attention, despite by that time being a Pokénutter, when I saw a mutated Pikachu on the front cover of it walking, shiny front cover silver and gold, through Asda one day and thinking "What do they mean "The New Generation"?!", looking frantically through it and convincing myself that it was £4 that had to be spent.

I remember being.. amazed by the futurism, as I'd only bought Yellow (i remember that being an absolute twat to source, it sold out instantly) about 3 months prior. I remember looking at the new Gym Leaders and thinking ".. hell", and looking at Miltank, Steelix, Scizor, Pichu, Igglybuff and Cleffa wide eyed. I remember looking at Pichu and them saying that it's attacks were stronger than Pikachu but he was far more frail, etc etc.
But back then, you could let your imagination run riot. People didn't have the internet telling them that <insertPoke> was good, or it was crap, except the common knowledge that Mewtwo was a living beast that could wipe everything off of the face of the earth. It made sense, though, this one created Pokémon stronger than the rest, far stronger, and needing (if I recall correctly from Stadium) 6 Pokémon opposing him to stand a real chance of beating him. It made sense, you know, this little game ignorant of mythology, of further regions home to more traditional legends such as Groudon and Kyogre who controlled certain elements.

I think with this, as well, you got a sense of unity when you all talked about it on the playground, watching the anime, seeing your mates struggle with the Elite Four despite having Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres, just a brand new poison and craze that everybody contacted and fevered from. Anybody who says they didn't buy into the craze were lying, utterly, it was just unescapeable especially with the success of the anime and the TCG.

Part of me misses that at times, especially with my local friends; of them, only one knows I still actively play it and he's very casual with his approach. I meet up with friends I've met through my own website, who are more atuned to it, but it's not the same.

I miss Stadium too. Stadium, especially Stadium 2, had a Pokédex feature which allowed me freedom to see at ease what Pokémon learnt what, when they learnt it, what types they were good against, and just opened up my mind even more, especially seeing them in 3D on the TV.
 
I'd say misty but this is about the games. So... well, Robcore really covered it. What can I add? Oh! The epic music, definitely that awesome, epic music! Also, I remember I got started with Pokemon when I would watch the anime and play with these little figures that I loved to collect. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ScNBxHVPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
I had a mew like that. I loved that mew.
I've got a Bulbasaur and Gengar who came in those Pokéballs, still love them to the day.

I'm actually weird, I've never really played it with the sounds on, which I'm remedying now by playing through it again, and yes, I can definitely already appreciate how eerie and unexpected the music is. I think that whilst it's harsh, it's a brilliant harsh that captures the atmosphere, that it's meant to be harsh where things are spooky, things are weird because you're in a brand new world with no previous concept of what to expect. Wild beasts running riot, everything on edge. Just felt.. right?

In terms of originality, I think the longer Pokémon spanned/spans, the more people will pick up on unoriginal designs. How couldn't they? I think it does take things away slightly, but makes you appreciate the older generations more? Don't get me wrong, the majority of my favourites are from Gen II, but I love how raw and untamed it is when you think of things like Jynx, Golem, Rhydon and Taurus being the heavyweights of this generation alongside Alakazam, Chansey, Starmie and Mewtwo because there really isn't an awful lot of decent moves? Just.. the entire feeling it's the beginning of something unimaginable in potential.

Not just that, I've made no secret of my love for how far more natural and wild the Pokémon in Red/Blue/Green look from their sprites, rather than the curved off cute Pokémon as it's developed. To see a Charizard sprite, Dragonite sprite, Staryu sprite (ridiculous, but I don't think they've come close to matching how beautiful it is there), TAURUS, etc etc and think "My.. my god <33" is fantastic, and it plays to their concepts so brilliantly. Golbat isn't meant to look decent, it's a blood-sucking bat ffs. Look at bats in nature and tell me how many of them look lovely.
 
Well, what I miss most about Gen 1 was being a little kid, no questions asked.

As for the games themselves, there are quite a lot of things, the soundtrack, the glitches, the tms, the map, and overall I still think Gen 1 has the coolest pokemon. If i had to choose one thing though, I would have to say Hyper Beam no longer being the best move. It was powerful, intimidating, and had the most badass looking animation imaginable, now its just an indication that you're playing a scrub.
 
Might sound silly, but I actually miss the pretty epic beat that Thunderbolt made when it hit. It had it's own little tune!

The other music was pretty memorable too.
 
One of the biggest things I miss is actually something I never picked up on as a little girl (gosh, maybe 7 or 8?) when I really first started playing.

Pokémon started out as some serious fucking business. Kidnapping, a dead mother's ghost, the "artificial Pokémon", your rival's Pokémon's death; everything right down to the sprites gave the first generation this amazing, kind of dark, but real feel to it. Like you were really this trainer, out in the wild, out in the world with these creatures and these crazy people. No one will ever surpass Team Rocket as the coolest bad guys, no Pokémon will ever surpass Mewtwo as the ultimate... it was you and Pikachu against a mad world.

There were just so many things that gave the game so much depth.

Now it's cheesy teams in silly costumes with silly goals and themes about friendship or whatever. Fuck friendship; Pokémon is serious business with real shit going down.

Of course, it's what's happening with everything in our society: we're turning everything cute, friendly, softening everything for little kids. We're all about friendship and the value of teamwork and explicitly making these things the big "theme" or "message" you get out of it. The beauty of the first generation was that it didn't need Team Plasma derping around and talking about relationships. When you and your half-dead Pikachu get that last crit on your rival and become the champions, you feel the shit they're trying to shove down your throat in later generations. 5th gen is the worst, and for the first time going through a Pokémon game, and even just looking at some of the sprites, I felt childish, embarrassed to be playing a young children's game because everything was so toned down. I just feel like Pokémon were cooler back then.

Don't get me wrong, I love these games and I've come to love Black and White and gotten over most of the Pokémon I didn't like, but only from playing competitively. The games need that certain level of seriousness, intenseness, etc. back.

There was also really something to be said about the austerity of it; only 150 Pokémon, limited moves, just using the one you thought was the coolest in a simple battle screen.

But I probably just get too into video games, haha...
 
I haven't read through this entire thread, but there's one thing that's been lacking from every game since Ken Sugimori stopped designing every Pokemon and Team Rocket stopped being the only villains around. The games stopped really trusting the player. It's like how Final Fantasy XIII gives you the ability to do literally TRILLIONS of points of damage in a single fight, but the world you're exploring is literally a straight line. While every game review I see of a new generation of Pokemon games is like "veteran players will get the drill 8 badges bla bla bla bla" the first two generations were fairly non-linear games that relied more on having a genuinely intriguing world that you wanted to explore, whereas the emphasis on Evil Teams and Legendary Pokemon in recent games just leaves me in the middle of stories where I'm the hero because there's like 50 NPCs preprogrammed to make sure I don't do anything else. So I guess along with a more free-form game, I also miss the modesty of RBYGSC which unlike 99% of other JRPGs DON'T ask you to save the world at any point.
 

Volmise

.:The Firefly Light:.
is an Artist Alumnus
The simplicity. Now, I'm not saying natures, EVs (yes I know about Stat Exp.) breeding and hold items are bad, I quite love them, but what I miss the most is just grabbing a team of six Pokémon, slapping some STAB moves onto them with a status inflicting move or two and just going.

Of course, this is also before I found competitive battling, and as a result I have a tough time settling for my favorites, even for just a run through of the game. I end up looking at base stats and move pools now and discard a Pokémon if it's not deemed "good".
 
Started in R/S/E here, no money for a gameboy at the time and emulators were alien stuff here back then, but played them anyways.

I miss not overthinking and resetting the game because my starter got nature-trolled, and until this current gen, that the evil team didn't make any sense at all: Magma and Aqua were complete retards (derp, I create a drought and that's gooood...), Galactic couldn't take seriously because of their uniforms + hairstyle and even then their whole plan didn't make much more sense than the previous ones. Plasma at least had a point (even though we all know how the whole thing ended) and Rocket was just the crime sindicate of a mobster which I find a lot less ridiculous.

The design of the fire starter, seriously, screw Tepig and it's horrid line, thank god for Snivy. The rest of the designs though, I like some, hate some like every other gen except Sinnoh which I mostly loathed.

The last thing I miss is not being a fool little kid anymore. You know what I mean, instead of using that defensive pokemon as a setup fodder for your Gyarados's DD and rape the champion easily, you just ram your head against it foolishly making the fight that now you find faceroll-easy an almost daunting task. Things were so hard back then!
 
Getting pumped by my rival because my squirtle was docile natured.
I miss the awesome sprites and how the tune almost puts you to sleep.
I miss the bad quality on how the pokecenter looked like.



Yeah good times right.
 
How there are mistakes and conspiracies like how Cubone and Marowak were kangaskhan's pre-evos but were scratched at the last minute, butterfree's and venomoth's sprites were accidentally switched, ditto was a failed version of mew, and gangar is clefable's shadow. I think they were way more creative and mature, now they are just like "Let's make someone that kids will like."

I also how the anime has actually somewhat cool and didn't have stupid life lessons and treat your pokemon right.
 
Being someone who played from the very beginning, but was terrible at the game, I don't miss many of the mechanics. In terms of competitive battling, the Fourth and Fifth Gen ones are just so much better, anyway. Think of a choice scarfed Victreebel set with wrap, faster than you, you can't switch out, you can't move, you just have to watch your 'mon drown as you helplessly watch.. And, of course, not being able to attack on the wake-up turn. And Psychic wrecking everything...

However, I still love the first two generations for... a lot of things. Graphics, for one. Most mons nowadays seem... toned down. They look as if they were made out of rubber, and the animations don't help. They look cute, but that's it. And the moment that Golbat, Machoke and Mewtwo started to look cute, there was something wrong.
Actually, I also miss the static sprites. :/ I'm sure I'm alone on this, but I'm annoyed at how they do the same movement all the time, and that they look even more like machines. In Crystal, the animations were showcasing each Mon's unique feel, such as Haunter's fist disappearing... But now, they're just moving for the sake of movement. Not even like the XD games, where they at least had full battle animations... I don't know. Gimmicky graphics were never something I appreciated.

But most of all... The story. DPPt's story was idiotic, and B/W's story was retarded, if you can excuse my harsh words. Why does Pokémon have to have morality? Moreover, why does it have to be such childish, Black and White (*coughcoughpun*) Morality in a pretty, happy go lucky world? I agree wholeheartedly with the person who said that they felt as if they were playing a child's game for the first time. Ohh, friendship, ooh, save the world.
And, of course, all the useless tutorials. I figured out how to play RBY just fine as a 5-year-old, thank you. I even figured out type effectiveness (though not the complete list, but hey, the common ones). The only reason I never got that far was because I was scared of the caves... Why do you need a whole Gym dedicated to Type match-ups? Or have Pokémon Centers explained? Seriously.

And the music? The music was just so much more fitting... In B/W, the Rival Battle music sounds like something you'd play in the background of a comedy. It doesn't feel like a serious battle at all...
(However, solely from a musical/listening point of view, the pieces aren't bad. I like to hear them as they are, but in combination with Pokémon... they're a bit... y'know.)
 
I miss the mechanics, MAINLY because when you got around, it was a whole lot simpler.

Surely there could be more areas, but adding too much route length kills it for me... Like the new Heart Gold/Soul Silver kind of ruins the whole route between Victory Road and New Bark Town...

Also, they seem to add TOO MUCH to the new games... I liked the Gen 3 where they put in Tree Houses, then they stopped that... if only they stuck with simplicity like Gen 1, had your own personal house you can modify the way you want it (hideouts are awesome!!!), and just make it so you can get rares without having these stupid events and just make it ridiculously tricky to find them, like the Mystery Island they put in Ruby/Sapphire, but with the legendaries!

This whole Wi-fi event thing is crap, and not everyone can get on wi-fi all the time.

A lot of the new features they put in Pokemon games now are killing it for me.... even if I did get a Victini from the Pokemon wi-fi event, I still don't like their silly methods.

Gen 1 at least stuck to simplicity, and at least you can catch Mew (and any Pokemon) with glitches, but it's something Nintendo should've SERIOUSLY considered. There's a reason why glitches make the game more interesting/popular.
 
I'm glad to sat that I don't miss talking about Pokemon with my friends, because I can still do it (Heck, I pre-ordered Pokemon Black for my other last Valentine's Day and she loved it more than the flowers haha).

What I miss is battling in person. When I was young, we actually battled very similarly to the Smogon R/B/Y OU guidelines. I don't remember my team exactly, but I did make great use of SD Charizard >:) We'd get together and duke it out all recess. But then GSC came along. And we all very quickly figured out that the best way to win was through slow, grueling battles. Which were no fun at ALL. So we quit after that. But still, good times.
 

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
I miss Alakazam having good Special Defence, since Special was just one stat.
I also miss needing an entire team to take out Mewtwo.
 

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