(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Yung Dramps]

Y'know, I just realized something about Archer that makes his team in HGSS EVEN WORSE.

In FRLG's postgame, Archer makes an appearance as the head of the Sevii Islands branch of Team Rocket. You eventually fight him, and while his team is still not a masterpiece or anything, it's already better than what he has 3 years later in HGSS. He keeps his signature Houndoom, but now has an evolved Weezing and the redundant Houndour is replaced with a Golbat. Again, still not great, honestly still pretty bad even, but after a freaking 3 year time skip you'd expect him to get stronger, catch/steal some more Pokemon, maybe even develop the pragmatism to pretend to give a shit and have his Golbat evolve. But no, he got straight-up WEAKER. I fucking despise this incompetent stooge with all my heart and soul, he makes Lysandre look terrifying by comparison!! But no no no, it's the newer games that are too soft with their characters amirite guys?? Haha, look at the funny Hop (more like Galarian Hau XDDDDDDD) who actually has a really well-rounded, constantly changing team who gets the bloody mascot legendary by the end of the game, let's laugh at how stupid and annoying he is while praising our supreme leaders Petrel and Archer and Lance and insert complete mental breakdown here

 

[Merritt]

In FRLG's postgame, Archer makes an appearance as the head of the Sevii Islands branch of Team Rocket.

This has never been confirmed as far as I'm aware. It's by far one of the most popular fan theories, due to both using a Houndoom and Koffing line Pokemon and the admin stating that he will resurrect Team Rocket, but it's not official. You might as well claim that the Rocket grunt in the same warehouse is Archer since he uses two Houndour and no Pokemon Archer does not have in Johto.

Regardless, the reason why Archer's got the team he does in HGSS is partly out of GF's attempt to make a faithful recreation of the original GSC. In those games, Archer ran with a level 33 Koffing, too low to have evolved.

 

[Siggu]

If there's something to complain about Archer's teams, is that in Let's Go he doesn't have unevolved Pokémon in any of his three battles, unlike HGSS.

 

[Worldie]

If there's something to complain about Archer's teams, is that in Let's Go he doesn't have unevolved Pokémon in any of his three battles, unlike HGSS.

I would actually argue that most of Let's Go bosses actually have stronger, better designed teams than anything in the main titles lol.

Even the route "masters" (who though do get some candy help I believe) have pretty challenging movesets there.

And then, there's the TRR in USUM. Now, some of those fights are actually pretty bullshit if you're going to TRR episode straight after the main story.

What can I say, at least in the latest games they seem to have learned how to give (most) boss fights coherent and somewhat challenging teams.

Sadly, the whole "monoelement" part (even for the "bad team" who seems to keep sticking to mostly use poison & dark pokemon) is still, always, going to be a terrible nail in the difficulty, due to how easy for the player it is to deal with multiple pokemon sharing weaknesses.

 

[Yung Dramps]

This has never been confirmed as far as I'm aware. It's by far one of the most popular fan theories, due to both using a Houndoom and Koffing line Pokemon and the admin stating that he will resurrect Team Rocket, but it's not official. You might as well claim that the Rocket grunt in the same warehouse is Archer since he uses two Houndour and no Pokemon Archer does not have in Johto.

Regardless, the reason why Archer's got the team he does in HGSS is partly out of GF's attempt to make a faithful recreation of the original GSC. In those games, Archer ran with a level 33 Koffing, too low to have evolved.

Bulbapedia's page on Archer seems to claim what you consider a fan theory as fact, so maybe they're wrong I dunno. Also the whole underleveled Koffing thing is kinda laughable when Petrel (or in GSC, the generic executive who'd later become Petrel) uses a Level 32 Weezing and there's all kinds of other examples of trainers that have Pokemon too low-leveled to be at the stage they're at for the sake of a challenging boss fight (Lance and Ghetsis come to mind).

If there's something to complain about Archer's teams, is that in Let's Go he doesn't have unevolved Pokémon in any of his three battles, unlike HGSS.

How is this a bad thing exactly? He's a big bad guy, not having NFE mons is cool for him.

 

[Siggu]

How is this a bad thing exactly? He's a big bad guy, not having NFE mons is cool for him.

It's a bad thing in that he's got a better team in the prequels than in the sequels, and unlike FRLG where it's only implied it's Archer (there are too many coincidences for that Admin to not be him), here it's completely obvious.

 

[Yung Dramps]

It's a bad thing in that he's got a better team in the prequels than in the sequels, and unlike FRLG where it's only implied it's Archer (there are too many coincidences for that Admin to not be him), here it's completely obvious.

I was actually considering bringing that up in my post. Archer's final Let's Go team is probably his best team ever outside of Stadium 2, and considering it's another Gen 1 remake designed for more inexperienced players to get into the series that's really, really sad.

 

[IronGrahn]

Not only Archer. It bothers me that Ghetsis had his whole team reduced by two levels between BW and BW2! One would expect that after being haunted by the fact that he lost to a mere child would make him train and get stronger, but he actually got weaker?
Sure, you battle a Kyurem-B or -W right before Ghetsis. But that isn't a problem as you get auto healed in between?

 

[Pikachu315111]

Not only Archer. It bothers me that Ghetsis had his whole team reduced by two levels between BW and BW2! One would expect that after being haunted by the fact that he lost to a mere child would make him train and get stronger, but he actually got weaker?
Sure, you battle a Kyurem-B or -W right before Ghetsis. But that isn't a problem as you get auto healed in between?

I don't really feel that's as bad as (1) they're following the level curve and it just so happens to land that it would make sense for normal mode to lower his Pokemon's levels by a bit and (2) I think there was genuine complaints that Ghetsis was too hard, notably his Hydreigon, so they pretty much nerfed him. Not only are his Pokemon's level are lower but his Hydreigon is a Physical Attacker (while its Attack stat isn't bad it's Special Attack is higher) but it's also using a Life Orb that slowly draining away its HP.

Remember it's shaky whether in-story "levels" actually exist or its a pure game mechanic. Sure, in-game characters may make reference to Levels though how much is that in-story or ludonarrative dissonance (like maybe in-story an NPC is telling the main character to train up to evolve a Pokemon but that's not helpful for the player controlling the main character so for us it's get "translated" as telling us get our Pokemon to a certain level). This is notable especially in battles as I personally always took the levels not as the NPC or wild Pokemon specifically trained to be at that level but a visual indication how strong that trainer or Pokemon is at that moment in the story (or how much effort they're putting into the battle). It's why the villain team higher-ups aren't using high level Pokemon from the start or low-level grunts suddenly have high level Pokemon later in the game, it's why sometimes characters you may have battled only a few minutes ago suddenly are using Pokemon that are different levels, it's why some character are using Pokemon that are underleveled to have evolved to the stage they're at.

One could also maybe say the levels may represent not exactly the strength of the Pokemon but how well skilled the trainer using the Pokemon needs to be. It's not your Pokemon leveling up but your skill as a trainer, as your Pokemon get stronger you see the level of which Pokemon you can command. Would actually explain why Badges let you command higher level Pokemon traded over to you or why in SwSh's Wild Area you can't catch the high level Pokemon; the Pokemon knows you're not at the point you can command them properly. Likewise, whenever you're battling another trainer and see the level of their Pokemon that indicates where you and that other trainer stand against each other. Are you on equal ground, are you the underdog, has your training made you the stronger one?

 

[DreamPrince]

While we’re on the topic of GF being sleazy on Pokémon Home, there’s actually another annoyance. It’s about Gmax Pikachu and Eevee. They are locked behind a paywall since you need Let’s Go to obtain both of them, effectively making them 120$. Yet they are both allowed in BattleStadiumSingles and VGC.

On the other hand, Ash-Greninja was obtainable for free from the SM Demo which is still available for download, but was not allowed in BattleSpotSingles and VGC in Gen 7. What is up with that?

 

[Yung Dramps]

While we’re on the topic of GF being sleazy on Pokémon Home, there’s actually another annoyance. It’s about Gmax Pikachu and Eevee. They are locked behind a paywall since you need Let’s Go to obtain both of them, effectively making them 120$. Yet they are both allowed in BattleStadiumSingles and VGC.

On the other hand, Ash-Greninja was obtainable for free from the SM Demo which is still available for download, but was not allowed in BattleSpotSingles and VGC in Gen 7. What is up with that?

Probably because they figured they'd never actually be viable so there was no harm in allowing them for the low ladder kiddies, and so far that has held true for both metas. Ash-Greninja was a form of an already great Pokemon with super duper high stats post-transformation (the full potential of which we even got to see firsthand in Gen 7 OU). Now glass cannons like Ash-Gren are usually not as good in BSS or VGC as they are in Smogon formats, but they certainly have more potential than LC Pokemon whose only distinguishing traits are alt forms with gimmicky special moves.

 

[DreamPrince]

Probably because they figured they'd never actually be viable so there was no harm in allowing them for the low ladder kiddies and so far that has held true for both metas. Ash-Greninja was a form of an already great Pokemon with super duper high stats post-transformation (the full potential of which we even got to see firsthand in Gen 7 OU). Now glass cannons like Ash-Gren are usually not as good in BSS or VGC as they are in Smogon formats, but they certainly have more potential than LC Pokemon whose only distinguishing traits are alt forms with gimmicky special moves.

Arash Ommati has been using Gmax Pikachu on his team recently to good success. Also keep in mind that Ash-Greninja needs to KO a target to transform. That's a huge limiting factor. And if overpowered ness over post transformation was a problem, then Mega Salamence and Metagross should be banned because they have BST of 700 after Mega evolving.

 

[R_N]

While we’re on the topic of GF being sleazy on Pokémon Home, there’s actually another annoyance. It’s about Gmax Pikachu and Eevee. They are locked behind a paywall since you need Let’s Go to obtain both of them, effectively making them 120$. Yet they are both allowed in BattleStadiumSingles and VGC.

On the other hand, Ash-Greninja was obtainable for free from the SM Demo which is still available for download, but was not allowed in BattleSpotSingles and VGC in Gen 7. What is up with that?

That is odd. I figured it was available in at least the "anything goes" year but no, even there it's the only "standard" pokemon not allowed. And it's not like Dusk Lycanroc or the Cap Pikachu were barred off either.
Maybe they specifically consider it a Mythical pokemon for...some...reason?

Alternatively I guess since Battle Bond is basically bringing a second mega...they don't you to abuse that fact? Or third, in the case of years/compeittions where you can bring a Primal. So they just flat banned it every year.

 

[Worldie]

Arash Ommati has been using Gmax Pikachu on his team recently to good success.

Well, the issue is that GF *expected* them to be just a meme pick for kids that'd not be good, and honestly so did I. I can't really blame them on this oversight.

I give credit to Arash actually doing work with G-max pikachu to be fair.

 

[DreamPrince]

Well, the issue is that GF *expected* them to be just a meme pick for kids that'd not be good, and honestly so did I. I can't really blame them on this oversight.

I give credit to Arash actually doing work with G-max pikachu to be fair.

For Eevee, sure, since Eevium Z is gone. Pikachu has had some success in the past thanks to Light Ball, like Ashton Cox using it in the 2016 to win a regional.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Probably edging on wishlisting but it's just something so obvious I can't believe it wasn't done: why wasn't Tyranitar given a Gigantamax that makes it look like Godzilla? Like, that's the most obvious Gigantamax they could have done. Heck, with Butterfree acting as Mothra they just needed to have a Gigantamax Hydreigon to be King Ghidorah to have the Godzilla trifecta.

 

[CoolMan6001]

Something that annoys me is that with all of the new moves that became TMs, most of them retain their laearnsets from past gens. If the moves are new TMs can their distributions at least let new evolution families learn them. Give Magical Leaf to more Psychics, or hand out Spikes/Toxic Spikes to more things.

Very Few new TMs were actually given a revamped move distribution, like Play Rough. (Which is what I think is a somewhat of a good model for the other new TMs to folow)

 

[R_N]

I was talkign about how regional forms work and now I'm thinking about how annoying that whole thing is.

1. If only a pokemon's evolved form is the regional form, then you while it is in that game it will ALWAYS and ONLY become that form. IE: Every single Pikachu in Alola will become Alolan Raichu, even if that Pikachu had just been ported over from another game. USUM corrected this by having you evolve them in Ultra Space, but SWSH currently has nothing of the sort.
Which, by the way, means that there'll be no way to get galar-marked Alolan Raichu, Marowak or Exeggutor unless the DLC has special "alola" areas.
2. If you had a standard version of that regional Pokemon and you bred it in that region (or ported over eggs, presumably), it will always default to the regional version. So if you had a normal Ninetales and bred it in Alola, the offspring will always be alolan Vulpix. If the parent holds an everstone, you sidestep this "issue".

But this feels so arbitrary on both ends. The first issue would be resolved just fine by just making a separate internal version of Pikachu (& Pichu, I suppose), Cubone, Exeggcute & Mime Jr that tracks "origin". Give them a special mark so you can tell them apart at a glance and avoid confusion. You can't even say that'd be wasteful when there are currently like 9 versions of Pikachu in the code because every single Cap Pikachu takes up its own spot in the code and so do the special g-max pikachu, eevee & mewoth.
And as for the latter issue I just... I don't....why does it work this way to begin with? With the exception of the 4 examples I listed in point 1 all regional forms are explicitly different forms. Why does it not just work like any other given form, like Shellos? If the parent is Alolan Ninetales/Vulpix, just produce Alolan Vulpix no matter what. If the parents is Kanto Ninetales, always produce Kanto Vulpix. Why bother with the ever stone mechanic at all? It's going to be really silly in gen 9 when Cursola start producing regular Corsola, you know what I mean?

 

[Yung Dramps]

So everybody and their dog knows how much DPP's Great Marsh sucks. Awful movement, boring layout, barely functional binoculars, etcetera etcetera, we've all complained about it if we've ever touched Gen 4 in any capacity. Well, just a few days ago I made a terrible realization.

Y'know how recent games have neglected the safari zone completely? Well, ya ever noticed that trend started right after Gen 4? In fact, the only Safari Zones after DPP were both in remakes of old games that had them, and ORAS' Safari barely counts since it goes back to normal catching mechanics. I guess there's also the XY Friend Safari, but that also has normal catching mechanics and a bland square layout, so it too doesn't really count.

If circumstantial evidence is anything to go off of, the Great Marsh was so dreadful that it may have single-handedly killed the entire Safari Zone concept, which up until DPP's release had been a series staple.

 

[Kurona]

So everybody and their dog knows how much DPP's Great Marsh sucks. Awful movement, boring layout, barely functional binoculars, etcetera etcetera, we've all complained about it if we've ever touched Gen 4 in any capacity. Well, just a few days ago I made a terrible realization.

Y'know how recent games have neglected the safari zone completely? Well, ya ever noticed that trend started right after Gen 4? In fact, the only Safari Zones after DPP were both in remakes of old games that had them, and ORAS' Safari barely counts since it goes back to normal catching mechanics. I guess there's also the XY Friend Safari, but that also has normal catching mechanics and a bland square layout, so it too doesn't really count.

If circumstantial evidence is anything to go off of, the Great Marsh was so dreadful that it may have single-handedly killed the entire Safari Zone concept, which up until DPP's release had been a series staple.

If that was the case I think they would have just gone back to the older, normal version. I think they just felt that most players didn't like the Safari Zone in general and nixed it... can't say I mind

 

[Merritt]

So everybody and their dog knows how much DPP's Great Marsh sucks. Awful movement, boring layout, barely functional binoculars, etcetera etcetera, we've all complained about it if we've ever touched Gen 4 in any capacity. Well, just a few days ago I made a terrible realization.

Y'know how recent games have neglected the safari zone completely? Well, ya ever noticed that trend started right after Gen 4? In fact, the only Safari Zones after DPP were both in remakes of old games that had them, and ORAS' Safari barely counts since it goes back to normal catching mechanics. I guess there's also the XY Friend Safari, but that also has normal catching mechanics and a bland square layout, so it too doesn't really count.

If circumstantial evidence is anything to go off of, the Great Marsh was so dreadful that it may have single-handedly killed the entire Safari Zone concept, which up until DPP's release had been a series staple.

GSC didn't have a safari zone and HGSS introduced one.

Granted, the system there was incredibly terrible, requiring that your setup exist for real world days to boost appearance rates. Honestly, while the Great Marsh was a pain to navigate it was the HGSS Safari system that I'd call the worst.

 

[Siggu]

In fact, the only Safari Zones after DPP were both in remakes of old games that had them

HGSS had a Safari Zone even though the originals didn't.

(They were meant to have a Safari Zone... but that was on a different location)

I personally never really liked the very RNG-dependant Safari Zones. I barely even acknowledge the ones in RSE and DPP (the latter of which is interestingly less annoying on a certain emulator because it makes the deep mud tiles stand out from the others).

 

[R_N]

I think gen 4 was the last hurrah because everyone just hated the safari zone.
See also: roaming Pokemon. They spent 2 more generations trying to "improve" them: BW1 and XY only had 1 per file each, tornadus/thundurus were on 1 of 3 routes per time zone with a weather modifier, the birds only needed to be found 12 times and then became stationary. But BW2 and ORAS got eid of them entirely and they arent present at all in Gen 7 or 8.

Sometimes they so just drop something if it sucks.

 

[DreamPrince]

Well I have praised SwSh for making competitive cartridge players, there are few flaws for it.

They have a new tier system, no-ball, Pokeball, Great Ball, and Master Ball. You gain points in order to advance to tiers. One thing though. Once you reach Master Ball, you are stuck there. You get rating system instead, which goes up whether or not you win, but never your tier. What’s the point? You could have implemented this without tiers and it would still could have worked. Not to mention in the other tiers, you gain more points from winning; when you lose you lose less than points than you would have won, So it feels less special getting into Master tier.

The other gripe is with your ranking. I managed to get to the top 1200 in ranked doubles, which they now show you before select a team. Knowing my ranking, I declined to choose a team in order to work on a project. When I come back, I discovered that my rating dropped. This has never happened to me before, and I’m not sure why my rating had to drop at all. So if I want to know my score, but don’t want to battle. I’ll lose points. But if I want to learn my score, I have to battle, and If I win, it’ll be replaced by a new score, which I’ll want to know. What’s worse because of the PGL removal, you can’t see rankings till Home comes out.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Why are gen 2 major NPC teams so terrible? Why are gen 2 major NPC teams so terrible? Why are gen 2 major NPC teams so terrible?

Like yeah I get it blah blah Gen 2 was meant to be a sequel to Gen 1 so they gave just as much focus to Kanto mons blah blah. Well even putting that aside (which I won't), these teams still suck.

very frustrated wall of text

Falkner- Natu, Murkrow, Hoppip, Hoothoot, heck even Zubat I could've accepted since it got Crobat as a new evolution. But nope, a Pidgey and a Pidgetto. Nice going loser, first Gym Leader and we already have a team with no Gen 2 mons.

Bugsy- Again with no gen 2 mons, but I guess there's Scyther which did get Scizor as an evolution. But even then they had plenty of new Bugs to put in for the other 1-2 slots: Pineco, Yanma, Ledian/Ariados or their pre-evos all would've worked fine. But nope, motherfucking Kakuna and Metapod. Which should've evolved several levels ago. Yippee...

Whitney- FINALLY, A GEN 2 GYM LEADER WHO ACTUALLY USES A GEN 2 MON!!!!! Team works fine and is notoriously strong against the inexperienced, could've used an additional Pokemon like Girafarig or Furret or something but it's fine.

Morty- WHERE. THE. FUCK. IS. MISDREAVUS. They made a Ghost type gym but didn't include THE ONE NEW GHOST?! In fact, none of the trainers or Morty himself use that Pokemon in either the original GSC or HGSS. Heck, in the latter they coulda even given him Mismagius, would've caused some overlap with Fantina and might have been too much in conjunction with Gengar but good lord it's better than Gengar line spam. Remember kids: Fantina (A Gen 4 leader) and Allister (A Gen 8 leader) have more Pokemon derived from the cast of Gen 2 than the actual Gen 2 Ghost leader.

Chuck- An absolute disgrace of Gym Leader design. A whopping 2 Pokemon at gym number 5, awesome team bro. As for Pokemon selection, copy-paste the first half of my Morty rant with every mention of Misdreavus replaced with Hitmontop.

Jasmine- Ya could've evolved at least one of those Magnemites girl. Also, what about Forretress or Skarmory? Those woulda been cool.

Pryce- W-why is your ace lower-leveled than the ace of the previous gym leader? Why are all your Pokemon lower leveled than Jasmine's in OG GSC? You come l-later.. and are supposed to be harder... ...Let's just please move on.

Clair- Considering there were only 2 dragons at this point they did the best they could while sticking to her type I guess. In HGSS one of her Dragonairs is replaced with Gyarados so that's actually pretty cool.

Archer- I've already ranted about this guy, but in short: He's a joke. He has to be a joke character. There's no way they seriously intended him to be threatening with... that team.

Will- I like this one. All the Pokemon are cool and strong. One of the Xatus could've gone for Espeon, but really that's a nitpick compared to the bullshit the other trainers pull.

Koga- This one's alright too.

Bruno- Pretty neat team honestly, even has a Hitmontop... wait. The Kanto Elite Four member has the Johto Fighting type... but not the Johto Gym Lead- I AM GOING TO SMASH SOMETHING I SWEAR TO GOD

Karen- Where's Sneasel? What about Tyranitar? Oh who cares at this point...

Lance- The worst Champion team, no ifs and or buts about it. The final challenge of this region and half of his team is the same fucking Pokemon. Oh, and no Gen 2 mons yet again, although I guess it's more forgivable since he's technically Kanto champion and there weren't many Dragons at this point. I mean, it's not like there was a Dragon type evolution to an old Gen 1 Pokemon introduced this generation that was also the ace of the canonical relative to Lance also introduced this generation that could've patched up the glaring weakness to Rock types...

But if they did add a Pokemon like that, it would be pretty wild, no?

None of this is getting into the Kanto gym leaders btw. Silver is cool I guess, but why the final rematch in HGSS doesn't give him Weavile and Magnezone I dunno.