Some Friday Hot Takes:
so in my continued replaying of Pokemon games, I started on the GBA games
FRLG used to be my favorite, but I couldn't get into it. After playing through almost every other game in the series and nuzlocking FRLG, I'm not terribly interested in a lot of the Pokemon. I do think that this burnout does NOT come from the Johto games
At the same time I'm replaying Ruby on cart and it's been a much more positive experience than I remember overall:
FRLG used to be my favorite, but I couldn't get into it. After playing through almost every other game in the series and nuzlocking FRLG, I'm not terribly interested in a lot of the Pokemon. I do think that this burnout does NOT come from the Johto games
At the same time I'm replaying Ruby on cart and it's been a much more positive experience than I remember overall:
- I like a lot of the Pokemon selection, and like playing as Pokemon that feel unique to the region (going back to playing sm Pokemon as a whole)
- Ralts' ability is an excellent introduction to abilities, because it tells you what each Pokemon you face's ability is
- I like the broken Pick Up. It makes replaying the games more fun because I can get more resources at my disposal than usual without breaking the game. I understand why they fixed it, and in some ways made it more useful, but it's fun to have the extra resources during a regular playthrough
- I feel like the game does do a lot of callbacks to Gen 1 in their own way, such as starting with a rock gym, making you go through a city you'll return to later for the gym, and going through a forest
- That said, I'm less forgiving of the battery issues. That is something they should have done without, by this point they knew it would affect the quality of future playthroughs.
- Also, they still needed to do something about hyping up certain Pokemon like the weather Pokemon and Keckleon who were clearly ass but had potential to be interesting
I mentioned I felt this way earlier, a lot of it is vibes, as HGSS is a fairly faithful remake
Aesthetic: to me, Crystal looks sm nicer. The sprites look great, contrasted with the white background. The Vileplume sprite goes crazy particularly in the last Team Rocket fight. I also like the artwork regarding the towns and routes. HGSS looks nice, but I prefer Platinum's in terms of Gen 4, and prefer Gen 3/s artwork style as well. Gen 4's is too refined. HGSS does have bigger caves, but honestly I didn't really have any more fun exploring them, they just took longer to traverse.
Differences:
A lot of subtle differences, like how they wrote Silver, and naming the Team Rocket sprites, didn't work well for me in the remake. Making more of Kanto felt cool, but I didn't like the vibe of the game as much, so I wasn't interested in the postgame. Catching more legendaries is cool, I just didn't care for the game so it didn't have a greatly positive impact on the experience. Stuff like Viridian Forest is cool to have, but it takes like 5 minutes to go through. Also, the Rock Climb HM was beyond disappointing. I mainly got access to trade evolution items and other stuff I didn't actually need or care about at that stage in the game.
Also, fuck the Safari Zone. That place is downright miserable, and makes me feel dumb for caring about catching all the Pokemon. I'd rather play at the stupid casino because they're basically the same thing, except the casino isn't a dumbed down version of regular gameplay.
Crystal also fixed some Pokemon locations and had easier access to the evolution stones, I also didn't care for the Pokeathlon lol. HGSS still makes many bad decisions as to Pokemon availability, although I do like access to Mareep and Girafarig
Power Level:
I have another rant coming about this below, but I kinda feel like Gen 4 screwed up the power level curve. A common critique of earlier generations, is that many Pokemon have bad movesets or take too long to get good moves. Johto especially is notable for being weaker than Kanto, many of the best tms in the game are locked behind the postgame.
The thing is, in Crystal, you didn't need them. Between the elemental punches and Badge Boosts, my teams I've used in normal playthroughs will be at the right power level to go through the Elite 4 with a little bit of grinding. All the Pokemon with "bad movesets" were still able to contribute, because the moves were strong enough against the competition they faced. Power is relative.
In Gen 4, the power level has increased greatly. Yet the tools you have access to have not. The Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Flamethrower are locked behind some dumb game at the Casino, alongside a few other valuable tms, which makes me want to complete the Battle Facilities in Platinum were resources are more readily available. Yes, you get access to the 70 Percent moves, but those aren't reliable and being forced to rely on them feels similarly to OHKO moves. I had to grind for awhile before the Elite 4 in HGSS because my team didn't have the tools to beat Lance and it was annoying. I can't enjoy the postgame if so many important resources are locked behind minigames.
Aesthetic: to me, Crystal looks sm nicer. The sprites look great, contrasted with the white background. The Vileplume sprite goes crazy particularly in the last Team Rocket fight. I also like the artwork regarding the towns and routes. HGSS looks nice, but I prefer Platinum's in terms of Gen 4, and prefer Gen 3/s artwork style as well. Gen 4's is too refined. HGSS does have bigger caves, but honestly I didn't really have any more fun exploring them, they just took longer to traverse.
Differences:
A lot of subtle differences, like how they wrote Silver, and naming the Team Rocket sprites, didn't work well for me in the remake. Making more of Kanto felt cool, but I didn't like the vibe of the game as much, so I wasn't interested in the postgame. Catching more legendaries is cool, I just didn't care for the game so it didn't have a greatly positive impact on the experience. Stuff like Viridian Forest is cool to have, but it takes like 5 minutes to go through. Also, the Rock Climb HM was beyond disappointing. I mainly got access to trade evolution items and other stuff I didn't actually need or care about at that stage in the game.
Also, fuck the Safari Zone. That place is downright miserable, and makes me feel dumb for caring about catching all the Pokemon. I'd rather play at the stupid casino because they're basically the same thing, except the casino isn't a dumbed down version of regular gameplay.
Crystal also fixed some Pokemon locations and had easier access to the evolution stones, I also didn't care for the Pokeathlon lol. HGSS still makes many bad decisions as to Pokemon availability, although I do like access to Mareep and Girafarig
Power Level:
I have another rant coming about this below, but I kinda feel like Gen 4 screwed up the power level curve. A common critique of earlier generations, is that many Pokemon have bad movesets or take too long to get good moves. Johto especially is notable for being weaker than Kanto, many of the best tms in the game are locked behind the postgame.
The thing is, in Crystal, you didn't need them. Between the elemental punches and Badge Boosts, my teams I've used in normal playthroughs will be at the right power level to go through the Elite 4 with a little bit of grinding. All the Pokemon with "bad movesets" were still able to contribute, because the moves were strong enough against the competition they faced. Power is relative.
In Gen 4, the power level has increased greatly. Yet the tools you have access to have not. The Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Flamethrower are locked behind some dumb game at the Casino, alongside a few other valuable tms, which makes me want to complete the Battle Facilities in Platinum were resources are more readily available. Yes, you get access to the 70 Percent moves, but those aren't reliable and being forced to rely on them feels similarly to OHKO moves. I had to grind for awhile before the Elite 4 in HGSS because my team didn't have the tools to beat Lance and it was annoying. I can't enjoy the postgame if so many important resources are locked behind minigames.
It actually took me awhile to come around to the Physical Special split and I still don't necessarily love it. Let's talk about it:
When Pokemon introduces new mechanics like abilities, the game gets more complicated: for example, before, you could earthquake a Weezing. Now, you can no longer Earthquake a Weezing. In the case of abilities, the introduction of the mechanic was positive, because it helped differentiate Pokemon. It gave them different roles, and added fun layers to gameplay where more creative strategies and complex interactions were feasible.
The Physical Special Split did the opposite of this: it ensured almost every Pokemon would get a useable strong STAB move. Before, a strong Physical Pokemon like Gyarados would think out of the box in terms of coverage options, now Gyarados gets to click an 80 BP super strong STAB like everything else. On that note, despite several Pokemon being claimed as useless before the PSS split, such as Kingler and Sneasel, they still sucked afterwards. The only differnce was now Pokemon like Gengar and Gyarados were even better than they were. When looking at the most popular OU pokemon, the only real benefactor of the PSS was probably Dragonite.
On top of this, it felt slightly poorly balanced in Gen 4. Some Pokemon would become too strong too early, while others would not be usable due to odd irregularlies in moveset availabilities.
I'd say Gen 5 showed why the PSS was necessary: the game was better balanced around it, the supporting moves and Pokemon were buffed so that they felt more usable again (a growing focus on Doubles helped), and most importantly, it gave Pokemon different roles, that was more than just getting stronger. I do think recent generations show the downside/the end result tho: everything gets 2-4 super strong attacks without drawbacks to click, which trivializes the main game, and the AI isn't set up or equipped to handle, and it reduces the game to who can outspeed and KO first.
When Pokemon introduces new mechanics like abilities, the game gets more complicated: for example, before, you could earthquake a Weezing. Now, you can no longer Earthquake a Weezing. In the case of abilities, the introduction of the mechanic was positive, because it helped differentiate Pokemon. It gave them different roles, and added fun layers to gameplay where more creative strategies and complex interactions were feasible.
The Physical Special Split did the opposite of this: it ensured almost every Pokemon would get a useable strong STAB move. Before, a strong Physical Pokemon like Gyarados would think out of the box in terms of coverage options, now Gyarados gets to click an 80 BP super strong STAB like everything else. On that note, despite several Pokemon being claimed as useless before the PSS split, such as Kingler and Sneasel, they still sucked afterwards. The only differnce was now Pokemon like Gengar and Gyarados were even better than they were. When looking at the most popular OU pokemon, the only real benefactor of the PSS was probably Dragonite.
On top of this, it felt slightly poorly balanced in Gen 4. Some Pokemon would become too strong too early, while others would not be usable due to odd irregularlies in moveset availabilities.
I'd say Gen 5 showed why the PSS was necessary: the game was better balanced around it, the supporting moves and Pokemon were buffed so that they felt more usable again (a growing focus on Doubles helped), and most importantly, it gave Pokemon different roles, that was more than just getting stronger. I do think recent generations show the downside/the end result tho: everything gets 2-4 super strong attacks without drawbacks to click, which trivializes the main game, and the AI isn't set up or equipped to handle, and it reduces the game to who can outspeed and KO first.
