I liked hearing these experiences. I found it quite interesting how your teams were built.
Thanks, and you’re welcome! If you want even more details, I have written some more detailed posts about my teams on S/M and UM, I have also written performance reports (for an in-game tier thread) for my teams om US/UM, I can give you the links to them if you want to read more about my teams.
When I look at this and compare to what I use, I can definitely understand why you think there's an unbalanced difficulty curve. One of the scenarios I have a fond memory of was the Totem Togedemaru fight. I heard many people had issued with the fight, while my Mudsdale meanwhile simply OHKOed it with High Horsepower. I did have a little more challenge on a future run where the leading Iron Head made a flinch. It's crazy to see how a couple of team changes messes with the dificulty.
The main thing I had in mind when I mentioned the unbalanced difficulty curve was the level jumps, but yeah, some of the Totems are in a similar camp. The jump from regular wild Pokémon and trainers to Totem Pokémon could be fairly big in some instances.
One side note was that while this was easy in my experiences, it never felt brain-dead easy. I still had lots of times where I had to really think In some battles. Ultra did feel harder than others I have played, but not to anything noticable.
I agree with this, but in the opposite way. I thought they were harder than a general Pokémon game, but never super hard or impossibly challenging. Apart from Ultra Necrozma. And the Battle Tree, but that’s for a different discussion. Though I'd say that it was a good thing that it was hard since Battle Facilities are supposed to be really challenging and they absolutely nailed it with the Tree.
Most people are just genwunners but for gen 5 and 4.
The new games are gud.
I think it has to do with the fandom cycle. In the past, other generations were the general top favorites. During the Gen 3 and early Gen 4 days, players hated those generations while Gen 2 was loved and people craved for G/S remakes. During the Gen 5 and early Gen 6 days, players hated those generations and craved for R/S remakes. Now, Gen 6/7/8 are hated and people crave for D/P remakes… and some even crave for B/W remakes already. This is just how it is. Some people are “genwunners” (ugh, I really despise that word) for the older generations and it has always been that way. I wonder if this will continue in the future. If I am still a Pokémon fan in 5-10 years, it will be interesting to see if Gen 6/7/8 are the ones getting the love then. If anything, this might be happening already as I'm seeing more love for Gen 6 nowadays compared to how it was in the past.
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I was not a fan how they implemented overworld encounters in SwSh. You have both overworld and random encounters, but most of the encounters are the same as the overworld. So there's not much reason to do random battles- until you learn that certain Pokemon are only obtainable through random battles. But those Pokemon are so obnoxiously rare. Sizzlipede can be found as a 1% encounter as a random at Motostoke outskirts for example, did you know? Not to mention that its also hard to hunt overworld when the visible Pokemon go after you especially in the Wild Area, and you can't even use repels to stop them. Do you wanna know how bad this system is read the comment section for this video.
You know your encounter system is bad when people encourage you to obtain through time traveling rather than playing the game naturally. I'm hoping they just remove random encounters as a whole for the next installment.
I agree to an extent. I prefer the system in S/S over how it was in past generations, but there’s still room for further improvement. Personally, I think they should keep the “random” encounters but make sure that there are no exclusive Pokémon that can be found through them so that all Pokémon in an area can be found through regular overworld encounters.
I've already discussed some of the points, but there are some things I'd like mention again.
I knew I would get more replies, and I knew they would be about HG/SS rather than B2/W2. And it is from you! Which I am actually happy about, because I like discussing things with you even if we don’t always agree with each other. So here we go again! I will also repeat things I have said in the past.
Level Curve: Wild Pokemon levels are atrocious, yeah, especially when you encounter a Lv. 3 Pidgey in Pallet Town. But HGSS did fix a lot of Gym Leader's Pokémon's levels, for example, look at
Janine's team compared from GSC to HGSS.
The issue is that those changes are not enough. There’s not much progression between the Kanto Gym Leaders, which mean they don’t give that much training in the end. Combining this with both wild Pokémon and regular trainers in Kanto being weak, it means that you won’t get much training during the Kanto part of the games. When I played through HG/SS, I think my teams barely grew by 10 levels during the Kanto part of the game. And that’s just too little for an entire region. Then there’s also the giant jump to Red all out of nowhere, with awful training spots to prepare for it.
Story: HGSS had the theme of trusting Pokemon. This is shown with Pokemon following you, the Kimono girls using your trust as a way for them to summon Ho-oh/Lugia, and Silver. Yes, Silver initially wants to become stronger in order to be different than Team Rocket, whose Father is the leader that abandoned Team Rocket. But after failures, against the player and the champion, he learns that using brute force is not going to separate himself from Team Rocket or his Father, so he begins to treat his Pokemon like friends and he evens lets his starter follows him like the player. Silver even apologizes to Elm for stealing the Pokemon. So yeah, compared to Blue, Silver does go through a lot more change, and that makes him feel really different. It also gave identities to the Rocket Executives. And we're talking about games with bad storylines, let's not forget XY and SwSh.
If this was the theme of the games, they failed to show it in good way. I never felt that the games were about “trusting Pokémon” when I played them, everything was just so badly executed. If their aim was to have that theme, then they failed hard in my eyes.
Already said my thoughts on Silver but here they are again: too little, too late, too much of the important stuff happens off-screen, and it was poorly executed on the whole. As far as jerk rivals go, I think the only good one in the series is Klara (and possibly Avery, don’t know about him as I haven’t played Shield). Bede was okay but not quite perfect.
I wouldn’t say they gave “identities” to the Rocket Executives, they gave them names and unique designs, but they still have no memorable personality or character. I can still barely tell who is who without looking them up.
As for the other games you mentioned, I agree that X/Y had a pretty bad story. But it had some good parts at least, which I don’t think HG/SS had. And I like the story of S/S, as I have said before. It wasn’t perfect but it was enjoyable, I liked having a simpler and more down-to-earth story after the crazy stories of Gen 7. Regarding simpler stories, I thought S/S did way better than HG/SS.
I’d say that on the whole, I think HG/SS actually made the G/S/C story worse. They pretty much did an US/UM in terms of story, but on a much smaller scale. I have more to say on this subject but I’m saving it for a future post I’m planning to make when I can find the time for it.
Regional Dex/Encounter Rates/Distrubution: HGSS did fix a lot from the original GS in terms of encounter rates. The evolutionary stones were available prior to the post ending, meaning Flareon, Vaporeon, Arcanine, Ninetales, Jolteon, Victreebel, Poliwrath, and Vileplume were obtainable prior to the post game. Which is already a huge improvement, since Fire was already so limited in the original GSC games. The games also allowed you to obtain Murkrow, Houndour, Misdreavus, Slugma, and Larvitar increasing type variety. It also did have a small expansion featuring Pokemon that had evolutionary lines introduced in Gen 4, like Yanmega and Mamoswine making those lines even more useful. While other Pokemon like Honchkrow and Mismagius could not be obtained until the post game, you could still evolve them in DP and Pt, as soon as you got them, which is something FRLG went out of their way to prevent you from doing until you completed the side quest on the Sevii Islands.
Not really. Stones, sure, but they required you to play the Pokéathlon first which was meh. As for the other Pokémon you listed, weren’t most of them only available through the Safari Zone? Which is also acceptable, but Pokémon that are supposed to be native to a certain region should’t only be available through a Safari Zone. As for the Pokédex expansion, small is the right word for it. Why did they not include all the evolutionary relatives to the Johto Pokémon? They only included 5 which is way too little. As for trading over Pokémon and evolving them in other games, that’s not a good point since that can be done for every other game as well… except FR/LG, I give you that.
The issue with the distribution is that they did not fix many of the issues G/S had with Johto Syndrome. Far too many of the Johto Pokémon are still too rare or uncommon, notably the swarming ones which only have a 1% chance to appear outside of Swarms, and Swarms are post-game only. HG/SS also ignored most of the changes Crystal did to the Pokémon distribution. I know FR/LG and OR/AS did the same, but I’d say it didn’t matter that much for them. Yellow and Emerald just shuffled around the encounter rates for fun, while Crystal attempted to fix an issue G/S had, which HG/SS shamefully didn’t follow up on.
Poorly executed features: Walking Pokemon did provide some gameplay benefits, like you could get accessories that you could use to dress up at the Celedon/Goldenrod department store. Pokeathlon was a lot of fun though. You had a whole section of mini games and you could get ribbons from- there were even a whole selection of stats that vary depending on nature, and you could even adjust them via apricot drinks! Each Pokemon had its own stats that could vary depending on factors like what form it is in. Its very impressive that they went all out to include an entirely new mini game features full of complex stats and mechanics. The Battle Frontier was probably copied and pasted due to wanting to maximize compatibility with Platinum.
I’d hardly call getting accessories “gameplay benefits”. Maybe if there had been Contests like in D/P/P or just something else than just the dress-up (which I had forgotten existed). The following Pokémon could have been good if it they had picked up actual useful items… but I’d guess that would make Pickup as an ability completely obsolete. I don't know what to make out of it. If it had just been possible to turn it off like in the Isle of Armor, I would have been satisfied.
I disagree about the Pokeathlon, I didn’t find it very fun, but that’s subjective. I did find it poorly executed though, I disliked how the touch screen didn’t react properly to my commands. Never really understood the stats and how to change them either, I just breezed through everything with Pokémon that already had high enough stats.
The Battle Frontier was probably copypasted to maximized capability with Platinum, that’s for sure. That doesn’t excuse them for not making new Frontier Brains or a new set of Stat trainers though.
And lastly, you might wanna look at Tamashii Hiroka's review of GSC, she loves these games and their remakes to death, and will defend against anyone who calls them the worst in the series. Her review provides some interesting points on your criticism:
-video-
Very interesting. Sadly I don’t really have the interest to watch that video and I really don’t have time right now, but if you really want me to watch the video and voice my opinions about the things that are said in it, I can get it done at some point next week and get back to you about it afterwards.
This was actually my favorite part of Gen 7. Having a boss that required you to think of complex strategies is something that the games was sorely missing. Pokemon is full of combinations of unique items, Abilities, moves that can create countless combinations, but the game never has you to do that. Until Gen 7. Having a boss fight in which I had to come up with strategy to counter things like Salazzle and Ribombee was really fun. That being said, it was not perfect, some like Raticate were jokes, while the totem Lurantis was probably the most difficult yet.
Fair enough. I guess I just wasn’t too fond of them making unfair boss battles all of a sudden when the games had gone for 6 generations without ever having too much of those. I don’t dislike the Totems though, I thought they were actually quite fun, but they were still unfair. However, I have a strong dislike for the SOS mechanics in general (for regular wild Pokémon), it is easily one of my least favorite features in the series.
And on the topic of Pokedex distrubution, I really think Kanto has some of the worst distributions yet. There are far too many Poison, Normal, Rock and Bug types, with several Poison types being Grass/Poison, too many Normal/Flying, too many Rock types being Quad weak to Grass/Water, and far too many weak Bug types- Pinsir and Scyther are the only Bug types with BST higher than 500. On the other hand, there’s far to little Ice, Fire, Ghost, and Dragon, with the former having 3/5 being Water/Ice, while the latter two only have one line each. I think it’s far worse for Kanto than it is for Johto and Sinnoh, since the latter two had remasters which improved their Pokedexes drastically. Kanto has had two remasters, and none of which improved its regional Dex at all. Let’s take a look: FRLG: No Cross generational evolutions allowed at all, even through trades. Which means the game only has the original 151 Pokémon, which means types like Ghost and Dragon only have one line still. Steel and Dark type options are abysmal, with the Magneton being the only option for Steel, while Dark has 0 members. Easily the worst regional Dex, especially since they had options to improve the type diversity.
Let’s Go: Now Let’s Go did actually have more options thanks to the Alola forms. Still very limited, since you only have two Dark types, Alolan Muk/Persian and Alolan Raticate, with Alolan Muk being only one with a viable stat distribution. Again, would have been better with cross generational evolutions, but had to leave them out for no good reason. Better than FRLG, but still bad.
So my unpopular opinion is this: I think Kanto deserves much more attention for its awful regional Dex, more so than Johto and Sinnoh, since Kanto had two remasters that did not either change the awful distribution even when they had two opportunities to do so.
Partly agree here as well. While Kanto has pretty bad distribution in terms of types, the Kanto games do at least focus on their own Pokémon, which many other regions fail at (notably Johto, but also Alola, D/P Sinnoh, as well as Kalos and Galar to an extent). I definitely agree that if there’s another (proper) Kanto re-remake in the future, they need to do a Pokédex expansion of some kind. I could sort of forgive FR/LG for not having one but not LGP/E.
DPPT and SM have the strongest storylines in any mainseries games
I don’t think saying S/M having the strongest story in the series is unpopular. If anything, it feels more like a popular opinion since S/M is generally seen as having one of the best – or the very best – story in the main series games. Which I also agree with. But saying that D/P/P has one of the strongest stories in the series is definitely unpopular, I give you that.
I will second the ORAS love, though. Wouldn't call either Gen VI game the best ever, and in fact I am firmly in the "Pokemon peaked in Gen V" camp, but that doesn't mean it's been all downhill ever since, and the 3D era has produced more than its share of excellent moments.
I mostly agree with you. I also like OR/AS (more about that further below), and Gen 5 is my favorite. While I think the games have been getting worse after Gen 5, I would’t say they have gotten downright bad. Maybe LGP/E, but I don’t really know as I haven’t played them. The games have became worse, but it's not like they went from the top to the bottom in an instant, it is more that they have gone down a bit. From the newest generations, Gen 6 is my second favorite and Gen 7 is my third favorite. My overall generations rank is: 5 > 6 > 7 > 4 > 8 > 3 > 1 > 2. I'm not sure if I will continue with Pokémon for all eternity forward though, I have been losing interest lately and been thinking about qutting the series. But I'm not sure yet, it depends on how the future of the series turns out.
Now, as for some other topics that were brought up, I want to say some things about them as well. This is not a reply to anyone specific but just some general thoughts on some subjects:
Starters
I’m not sure about my favorite starter trio overall, but I think I'd say either Kalos or Alola. Though I’m also very fond of Unova as said earlier, as well as Hoenn, Sinnoh and Galar. Why are there so many good starters? Though I guess that’s actually a good thing.
My favorite fully evolved starter from each region are these: Venusaur, Typhlosion, Swampert, Infernape, Serperior, Greninja, Primarina and Cinderace.
My favorite fully evolved starters for the three types are these: Serperior for Grass, Infernape/Cinderace for Fire, and Greninja/Primarina for Water.
I don’t think any of those choices are particularly unpopular though. So here’s an unpopular opinion I have regarding starters: I like Charmeleon better than both Charizard and Charmander. That red color is just so cool, despite red not being one of my favorite colors. I feel that Charmeleon is an underrated Pokémon (probably one of the very few underrated Pokémon from Gen 1), it and MCX are the saving graces of the Charmander line IMO.
DP Remakes
I was okay with a potential future D/P remake in the past (before Dexit), but now I don’t want them to happen anymore. If they happen, chances are I won’t get them. Or the one I would have gotten, which would have been (or is going to be) FanPearl and not PanderingDiamond since I no longer get both games from a pair. The reason whether I get FanPearl or not depends on how the potential D/P remakes handle Dexit.
I have seen many good reasons as for why D/P remakes will be bad or why they won’t happen, and I find myself agreeing with many of them. But while there’s some potential evidence as for why we won’t be getting D/P remakes, there’s also some potential evidence that they might be on their way, and maybe even soon. So we’ll have to see what happens. I'll try to keep an open mind, but it isn't all easy.
Remakes and what they included (or not)
My unpopular opinion here which I have stated before is this: I think OR/AS are great even if they didn’t keep everything from Emerald, and I think HG/SS are garbage even if they “kept everything from Crystal” (hint: they didn’t). It is also interesting how this discussion tends to come up pretty often here, I have seen it multiple times before.
I also wanted to say something short on everything from Emerald that was not included in OR/AS, so here we go:
Battle Frontier: I liked the Battle Frontier in Emerald and I wouldn’t have objected to it being brought back in OR/AS. But I don’t feel that it is a requirement. Besides, I had already played through it once in Emerald (as well as the new Frontier in Platinum), so I was kind of satisfied after that. Playing through the Maison (not the Chateau, why do people mix them up? It’s ok though since I sometimes mix up the Battle Institute and the Battle Agency) again, with new teams compared to X/Y as well as some of the new Megas were fun enough for me. Though I don’t understand why they should have brought back the Tower? The Maison is essentially the Tower 3.0 anyway. And at least they made it make sense as for why it was there, as opposed to how HG/SS handled the Platinum Frontier.
Desert Underpass and obtaining both fossils: This was just a minor area that made no real difference. You could catch Ditto here, but since Ditto could be caught at some Mirage Spots in OR/AS, they had a replacement for this. As for getting both fossils, it was kinda cool but you could only get the second fossil after beating the game so that’s not super helpful if you wanted both during the main game.
Terra/Marine Caves and getting to catch both Groudon and Kyogre: Catching both cover legends only happened in the Johto games apart from the third versions, so I don’t see the need to do it in OR/AS. As for other legends, OR/AS has plenty through the Mirage Spots and I find that to be a good enough replacement.
Artisan Cave/Safari Zone extension: Basically just alternate areas and alternate ways of obtaining additional Pokémon. OR/AS does that through the new DexNav Pokémon and the Mirage Spots, so that’s fine.
Gym Leader rematches: This is just a glorified training spot and while I think they are cool, they aren’t necessary since OR/AS has epic training spots already. The irony here is that OR/AS manages to have better training spots than HG/SS despite the latter being the ones with Gym Leader rematches.
Updated Gym Leader rosters: As someone who doesn’t play Pokémon for the “difficulty” or even for the main game (in the past, at least), it doesn’t really matter to me either way. I don't recall the majority of them being too different in Emerald either, but my memory might be wrong.
Magma Hideout: I don’t see the need for it when you only face one of the teams in each game anyway.
New character desings: A vast majority of the new designs for the characters in OR/AS were better than the ones in R/S/E IMO.
Faraway Island and Mew: This would have been cool, but as said earlier, they gave us a ton of legendaries to catch on the Mirage Spots instead. And Deoxys at the end of the Delta Episode! The first time ever we got a mythical to catch without needing an Event. So OR/AS had a replacement here too.
Overworld trainers challenging you to double battles: Not a major feature and not necessary.
Updates to wild Pokémon encounters: Fun but not necessary (unlike for HG/SS, they would have been better if they had kept most of the Crystal updates).
Move Tutors scattered around the region: I preferred having all MTs in one area, and for all of them to be infinite and not just one-time only as the scattered ones were in Emerald. Random tidbit: I still haven't used my Sleep Talk MT in Emerald since it is one-time only and it can be used on practically everything from a competitive or semi-competitive standpoint. Or could, at least. Not sure how the metagame has changed since 2006, maybe not everything has the potential to run a ReSTalk set nowadays.
Apart from the Battle Frontier, I’d say all the things from Emerald that weren’t included in OR/AS are minor at best. While some would have been cool, the majority of them doesn’t make a difference. And as for OR/AS on the whole, I think they are really great games, but not perfect. While they might have been better if they had kept at least some of the bigger features from Emerald, the fact that they didn't include them does not make them bad. And I think most of their issues on the whole are minor. They are my 4th favorite games in the series on the whole, I'd take them over Emerald any day.
