Unpopular opinions

[Tmi489]

Especially for stat-lowering moves, I feel like it makes so much more sense for those to "fail" rather than "miss", since you can't really avoid sound based moves, and weak moves like String Shot would realistically have a high fail chance even if they did hit.

growl et all can fail for reasons other than missing and it makes it more clear
plus why can moves like boomburst and bug buzz miss

hile ORAS had fixed some problems on Hoenn, a few were intact (overreliance of water route in late game)

its an essential identity of the region and by changing it you change how the region looks too much

 

[didls]

I used to hate the water in Hoenn, but I don't mind it much now. It's a nice opportunity to explore a whole half of the region that you were locked off from and I like that.

That said, coming off of HGSS, which included everything from Crystal and more, I was disappointed in ORAS not having any elements from Emerald that weren't in the "Delta Episode", which just felt like an attempt at putting everything from Emerald into one segment to avoid having to incorporate it into the game. It's not even just the frontier; the areas that Emerald added (Desert Underpass, Terra and Marine Caves, and Artisan Cave), all of which were very minor but also very atmospheric but were completely ommitted in ORAS. The gym leader rematches being gone is a bummer too. I also recall seeing a YouTube comment after ORAS was revealed saying "Steven should be the champion of Omega Ruby and Wallace the champion of Alpha Sapphire" which I totally agree with.

I also wish that instead of copying the Battle Chateau from XY, they had remade the Battle Tower from RS. It makes no sense to put up another building after having just removed the Tower, while building the Frontier. But hey, I guess it's just a parallel universe :/

So I hope future DP remakes take what HGSS did and apply it even more; include everything from Platinum, while also adding new areas, trainers, and route changes to improve Sinnoh.

 

[Yung Dramps]

on the note of ORAS: "oras didnt retain emerald's features" is just code for "I'm still mad about the battle frontier being axed". Not like you cant be justified for not liking that but stop pretending like anyone gave a shit about artisan cave

 

[Merritt]

on the note of ORAS: "oras didnt retain emerald's features" is just code for "I'm still mad about the battle frontier being axed". Not like you cant be justified for not liking that but stop pretending like anyone gave a shit about artisan cave

what

I'm more annoyed by losing the Gym Leader rematches that Emerald had than Battle Frontier to be honest. Roxanne could have finally evolved her Nosepass that holds her back so much in Emerald rematches but noooooo.

 

[ttr]

I used to hate the water in Hoenn, but I don't mind it much now. It's a nice opportunity to explore a whole half of the region that you were locked off from and I like that.

That said, coming off of HGSS, which included everything from Crystal and more, I was disappointed in ORAS not having any elements from Emerald that weren't in the "Delta Episode", which just felt like an attempt at putting everything from Emerald into one segment to avoid having to incorporate it into the game. It's not even just the frontier; the areas that Emerald added (Desert Underpass, Terra and Marine Caves, and Artisan Cave), all of which were very minor but also very atmospheric but were completely ommitted in ORAS. The gym leader rematches being gone is a bummer too. I also recall seeing a YouTube comment after ORAS was revealed saying "Steven should be the champion of Omega Ruby and Wallace the champion of Alpha Sapphire" which I totally agree with.

I also wish that instead of copying the Battle Chateau from XY, they had remade the Battle Tower from RS. It makes no sense to put up another building after having just removed the Tower, while building the Frontier. But hey, I guess it's just a parallel universe :/

So I hope future DP remakes take what HGSS did and apply it even more; include everything from Platinum, while also adding new areas, trainers, and route changes to improve Sinnoh.

on the note of ORAS: "oras didnt retain emerald's features" is just code for "I'm still mad about the battle frontier being axed". Not like you cant be justified for not liking that but stop pretending like anyone gave a shit about artisan cave

Yeah one of the bigger things that kinda disappointed me with OR/AS came from not including the Team Magma Hideout in Jagged Pass that Emerald added. It made more sense to: (1) have two bases for the two rival teams, and (2) have Team Magma and Groudon in well... magma. It always seemed odd that one of the teams did not have a base, and Emerald fixed that. Giving Team Magma and Groudon a more thematic place to be located is understated in my opinion, it makes Team Magma's goals different, and the split plot in Emerald reflects that (Archie's plan is weird in Sapphire, really fits to have the team liking land doing volcano stuff). OR/AS fixes the plot issues though in my opinion, making both Archie and Maxie trying to make a mega/key stone out of the Meteorite.

Anyways, that was one of the changes that I really thought Emerald improved on over OR/AS, but OR/AS does have its charm in taking Ruby and Sapphire and amping up the games and mixing in Mega Evolution. For a quick comparison:

"YOOOOOOOOOOOOO whats up"

Versus:

"what, this is how I stand"

I'd say OR/AS is having a little more fun. I think that the character changes to both the characters and the region as a whole really improves OR/AS and makes it a different. I see OR/AS and Emerald as their own separate things, each taking the same base of R/S and making their own changes to the underlying region and story.

Responding more specifically to Yung Dramps, The Battle Frontier vs. Battle Maison does stand out to me as not really doing enough, R/S already had the Battle Tower! They could have at least reskinned the Maison to the Battle Tower, keep the trainer sets and say the Chatelaines are there as visiting leaders while they are still scouting the Frontier Brains. Even keeping the Maison, they also could have had a Frontier Brain like Anabel as a opponent in the Maison if you defeat all of the Battle Chatelaines. It's nice that the Frontier/Tower got a few references, but they could have done more than just Control+C, Control+V the Battle Maison. (According to Bulbapedia, the names and quotes of trainers was changed from X/Y, kept the battle sets (which copied the Battle Subway), so why not add 1 building and actually create the tower (or part of it).

Note on Archie's Pictures

To be consistent in my argument regarding OR/AS's character, US/UM went back to the old styles for Episode RR, which had this 3d model:

and I think Archie here still gives off the awkward vibe of his original art, I used the original art because I just find the original art to be so funny. He's just vibin. no pose, no action, just standing.

 

[DreamPrince]

on the note of ORAS: "oras didnt retain emerald's features" is just code for "I'm still mad about the battle frontier being axed". Not like you cant be justified for not liking that but stop pretending like anyone gave a shit about artisan cave

To be fair, Emerald did have some other useful features that did not make ORAS. Both Hoenn fossils could be obtained in Emerald, but not in ORAS. Rematches have already been mentioned, but one place that did not make the cut was Faraway Island, the event place where you can catch Mew. They did not bring back in ORAS because the old sea map was Japan only for whatever reason, and it would have been easier than ever to distribute it thanks to streetpass, which they did for the Eon Ticket. And then there’s the lack of Safari Zone expansion Pokémon that Emerald had. I really wanted to catch a Mareep in ORAS.

what

I'm more annoyed by losing the Gym Leader rematches that Emerald had than Battle Frontier to be honest. Roxanne could have finally evolved her Nosepass that holds her back so much in Emerald rematches but noooooo.

To be fair, Roxanne used Probopass in BW2 during the World Tourney.

 

[Codraroll]

To be fair, Emerald did have some other useful features that did not make ORAS. Both Hoenn fossils could be obtained in Emerald, but not in ORAS. Rematches have already been mentioned, but one place that did not make the cut was Faraway Island, the event place where you can catch Mew. They did not bring back in ORAS because the old sea map was Japan only for whatever reason, and it would have been easier than ever to distribute it thanks to streetpass, which they did for the Eon Ticket. And then there’s the lack of Safari Zone expansion Pokémon that Emerald had. I really wanted to catch a Mareep in ORAS.

There were also a small handful of other things. I'm sure DHR-107 would know of more points, but here are some I noticed:

• Gym leader rosters were updated in Emerald, but the RS rosters were used in ORAS.
• Overworld trainers challenging you to double battles.
• Updates to wild Pokémon encounters.
• Move Tutors scattered around the region.

Pretty sure there are other minor things too, that I don't remember at the moment, but which add up when you compare the experience of playing the three games. It made ORAS feel like less of an improvement than it could have been.

 

[didls]

on the note of ORAS: "oras didnt retain emerald's features" is just code for "I'm still mad about the battle frontier being axed". Not like you cant be justified for not liking that but stop pretending like anyone gave a shit about artisan cave

There is more that was axed from ORAS than just the Frontier, which is... exactly what I said in my post. Hell, I even said they should have included the Battle Tower instead.

The areas Emerald included would have been perfect for the main game, especially the safari zone expansion since it would allow you to use more Johto Pokémon.

Being able to obtain both cover legends in ORAS would have been great too, as they both got cool new primal forms, but depending on which version you get, you'll never be able to reset for a competitively viable one unless you buy the other (which also wasn't a problem in HGSS since both Ho-Oh and Lugia were ontainable.)

I also would have liked to see them incorporate "hidden" Pokémon like Elgeeyem into the game more, since their inclusion kind of breaks the immersion, for me. But having Elgeeyem available in Desert Underpass would make a lot of sense and I wouldn't mind it as much.

I'm also kinda surprised you reacted so strongly to this post when you liked one of my last posts which said basically the same thing.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Aside from the lack of Battle Frontier and New Mauville, I take ORAS Hoenn over Emerald Hoenn anyday:

- I love Mauville city got the Lumiose treatment, with a lot more to explore.

- The "rarer than a shiny" Mirage Island that had the miserable reward of Wynauts and a single berry was replaced by the far wider Mirage Spots, with new Pokemon and rare items.

- Scorched Slab is an actual dungeon now, and it has a legendary.

- Sea Mauville offers other areas to explore as well as having hidden lore regarding Devon shady practices.

- Unpopular opinion here but: SAFARI ZONE MECHANICS ARE DEAD.

I might be missing some more aspects but yeah, ORAS for life. However, did seriously people got mad with that 7.8 score?

Last time I checked, 7.8 is still great

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

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.

 

[Yung Dramps]

In all fairness I kinda forgot about gym leader rematches not being a thing and I myself am genuinely disappointed those weren't implemented, that's what I get for posting past 1 AM lul. For what it's worth I'm basically convinced and have been for a long time that they were planned but scrapped for whatever reason seeing as you still register the gym leaders in the DexNav.

I stand by my statement in regards to everything else

 

[Rapti]

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.

Then you might as well not have random encounters then
The fact is that it should work the other way around, random encounters should exclusively feature pokemon that you can't encounter in the overworld, that way not only you increase the amount of pokemon that can appear in a route, you reward people for throughly exploring a route and you make it so random encounters actually matter if you wanna finish the pokedex
it also give you an excuse to put really tiny pokemon in regular routes, trust me overworld encounters make tiny pokemon difficut to see among the grass, as random encounter you have an excuse to not being able to see them

 

[didls]

Just my opinion (Unpopular? Maybe.) but it always annoyed me how people would clamor about HGSS being "the best remakes" (Even though there are only 3, what a distinction!) when FRLG are right there. In fact, I see many people ranking FRLG as the "worst remakes", which honestly baffles me.

Given, FRLG does have some major problems; trade and evolution restrictions were downright backwards and made no sense at all, and as much as I love Gen 3, they really suffer from how incomplete Gen 3 is nowadays, with the limited availability and inconvenience of link cables. They also lack a facility, but I can let that slide since RBY didn't have one either, though at least they changed the trainer rosters of Trainer Hill that they copied from Emerald. I also see them faulted for not having the special/physical split, which I can totally see, but personally the lack of a special/physical split never bothered me and I actually prefer it on a mechanical level.

The main thing I love about FRLG is the post game. IMO, the Sevii Islands is the best post game of any Pokémon game (The only games I have not played are USUM and SWSH). The homages to Gen 2 are amazing; the remixed Gen 2 music, Togepi egg and Rocket storyline, which perfectly sets things up for HGSS and I am gutted HGSS didn't even reference the Sevii Islands, aside from maybe an NPC or two. There are also many high-level trainers that get you at the right level for the E4 rematch. In fact, the Kanto games have a very good level curve in general.

FRLG also benefit from being based in Kanto. Kanto doesn't have much geographical diversity (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; it has a constant aesthetic and looks very realistic in certain depictions.) but it's designed perfectly. All of the intersections in the middle of the region make for the perfect balance between linear and non-linear gameplay and it's just a very enjoyable region IMO.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

View attachment 282233

I used the original art because I just find the original art to be so funny. He's just vibin. no pose, no action, just standing.

He's A-posing to assert dominance.

Also, I assume whichever team isn't the villain has a base... somewhere, and we just never see it because it isn't important. Though it is still weird for Team Magma to have a base off the coast of Lilycove protected by a blockade of Wailmer.

 

[pokemon4eva]

I don't think many people are on camp "FRLG are the worst remakes" (granted, I was one of them until LGPE took that title for me), I see it on many people's top tier lists. While I don't think it's the best, FRLG were indeed the most needed remakes, considering that original RBY are very archaic even compared to GSC.

I have a personal experience: Gold was my first Pokemon game, but halfway in my adventure I also got Pokemon Red and started playing it....and I felt quite the difference in both titles. I still liked playing it though.

 

[ttr]

He's A-posing to assert dominance.

I love the A-pose, how else will the grunts know who's in charge. I also realized that he looks like he's doing the Tory power stance, which makes it even funnier to me.

see here:

They probably spent hundreds of thousands of pounds just to have a consultant tell them to stand like this

lmao

Also, I assume whichever team isn't the villain has a base... somewhere, and we just never see it because it isn't important. Though it is still weird for Team Magma to have a base off the coast of Lilycove protected by a blockade of Wailmer.

And I agree that it is not too important for the other team to have a base that you see, I think its nice that Emerald used the region and placed characters a bit more thematically throughout it. Team Magma and Groudon hiding in a volcano (which as they are inside, has actual magma), while Team Aqua and Kyogre decided to chill in or near the water. It still works to have Groudon hiding in a deep sea lair, waiting to be found, but that always felt to me like it was designed for Kyogre, similar to how the meteorite plot feels designed for Team Magma in R/S.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Then you might as well not have random encounters then
The fact is that it should work the other way around, random encounters should exclusively feature pokemon that you can't encounter in the overworld, that way not only you increase the amount of pokemon that can appear in a route, you reward people for throughly exploring a route and you make it so random encounters actually matter if you wanna finish the pokedex
it also give you an excuse to put really tiny pokemon in regular routes, trust me overworld encounters make tiny pokemon difficut to see among the grass, as random encounter you have an excuse to not being able to see them

I wouldn't mind if they got rid of random encounters altogether. For a long time now, I have felt that REs are an ancient and outdated system that does not belong in a modern RPG, getting rid of them or making them 100% optional would be the best move. I still think they can stay, but only as long as they are optional and there are no exclusive Pokémon locked to them. I'm happy that both S/S and LGP/E are moving away from the random encounter system, the new system isn't perfect yet but improving it even further should be easy. If they choose to do that.

I don't agree that it should work the other way around. As someone who likes completing the Pokédex, I'd much rather prefer it if there were no exclusives locked to random encounters, it would just make everything simpler. They can still increase the number of Pokémon that appear in a route, they don't need REs for that. And there are other ways to reward people for exploring, having large places with many optional areas that lead to interesting stuff is a better way of doing that IMO.

You are right about tiny Pokémon though. But I think that can be solved in another way: just remove the actual grass and make all Pokémon roam on the field without grass (like they do in caves). Then even the smallest Pokémon can be visible in the overworld.

They also lack a facility, but I can let that slide since RBY didn't have one either, though at least they changed the trainer rosters of Trainer Hill that they copied from Emerald.

Just a small correction here, but it was actually the other way around. FR/LG were released before Emerald and they had the Trainer Tower first, which Emerald semi-copypasted into Trainer Hill. Speaking of which, it is another feature from Emerald which wasn't in OR/AS that I don't miss as I never cared much for it.

Apart from that, I agree with pretty much everything you said. FR/LG are my favorite Pokémon remakes along with OR/AS. Out of them, I think FR/LG were better in terms of remakeness (improvements over the originals), while I find OR/AS to be better as actual games. I really like FR/LG and I think they are underrated, many Kanto fans seem to prefer R/B/Y or even LGP/E but I'll gladly take FR/LG over these any day.

 

[PokemonCrusader]

GSC/HGSS are the worst games in the series. They completely mismanaged every advantage they had. Even their positive points were tainted by horrible decisions.

Let's see:

1. The new Pokemon. While there are some solid designs (Espeon, Umbreon, Heracross, etc), most of them are either Baby Pokemon or single stage Dex filler. But the biggest sin is that most of them play second fiddle in their region or they are not even in Johto! They are either only available at night or in the early morning, they are hard to obtain (trade evolutions),annoying to evolve (happiness) or locked into postgame. Nothing like a new game that hides away the largest selling point but throws the common Kanto Pokemon in your face! And the ones that are available largely flounder. Take Ledian. Great design but unusable.

2. Mismanagement of new assets. Sure, Dark and Steel Types expanded the gameplay but good luck using those types in your playthrough. Unlike XY, which proudly showcased the Fairy Type, GSC hides away these two new types. Actually using them to win Johto Badges? Nah. That is a luxury. The cell phone. Great idea. But locking stones behind the cell phone was imbecile. Sell them in the stores. We know how the cell phone works. Same deal with happiness evolution for Espeon and Umbreon. Use the Sun and Moon Stones. Game Freak apparently believed we needed constant reinforcement to remember they invented happiness evolutions. The Bug Catching Content. No Johto Pokemon in it despite debuting several new bugs.

3. The level curve. Enough said.

4. The addition of Kanto. Cool concept but it was an empty shell. Everything unique about Kanto was either stripped or downscaled. Sure, fighting the full teams of the Kanto Gym Leaders was exciting but that could have been done in Johto in some room.

5. Speaking of Gym Leaders. The Johto Leaders used only four Johto Pokemon for no discernible reason. Metapod and Kakuna? Really?!

So much wasted potential.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Proudly second PokemonCrusader’s post.

A snapshot of terrible HGSS design: hey put a level 41 Kingdra that is borderline unwallable at the eighth gym.

So should we balance this out with some mid to high level 30 wilds?

NAH JUST THROW SOME LOW-TO-MID-LEVEL 20s BELOW BLACKKTHORN, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE WE PUT IN SOME COSMETIC FEATURES THAT IN REALITY DO NOTHING BEYOND SOME SILLY TRAINER CARD STAR INVOLVING GOLDEN LEAVES OR ARE GIVEN TO YOU WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE ONE TRUE FINAL BOSS LEFT WHICH IS INSANE TO GRIND FOR

In all seriousness, as much as recent installments get flack for being too easy, I don’t have to rip my hair out to enjoy them. HGSS just doesn’t work.

 

[Siggu]

GSC/HGSS are the worst games in the series. They completely mismanaged every advantage they had. Even their positive points were tainted by horrible decisions.

Let's see:

1. The new Pokemon. While there are some solid designs (Espeon, Umbreon, Heracross, etc), most of them are either Baby Pokemon or single stage Dex filler. But the biggest sin is that most of them play second fiddle in their region or they are not even in Johto! They are either only available at night or in the early morning, they are hard to obtain (trade evolutions),annoying to evolve (happiness) or locked into postgame. Nothing like a new game that hides away the largest selling point but throws the common Kanto Pokemon in your face! And the ones that are available largely flounder. Take Ledian. Great design but unusable.

2. Mismanagement of new assets. Sure, Dark and Steel Types expanded the gameplay but good luck using those types in your playthrough. Unlike XY, which proudly showcased the Fairy Type, GSC hides away these two new types. Actually using them to win Johto Badges? Nah. That is a luxury. The cell phone. Great idea. But locking stones behind the cell phone was imbecile. Sell them in the stores. We know how the cell phone works. Same deal with happiness evolution for Espeon and Umbreon. Use the Sun and Moon Stones. Game Freak apparently believed we needed constant reinforcement to remember they invented happiness evolutions. The Bug Catching Content. No Johto Pokemon in it despite debuting several new bugs.

3. The level curve. Enough said.

4. The addition of Kanto. Cool concept but it was an empty shell. Everything unique about Kanto was either stripped or downscaled. Sure, fighting the full teams of the Kanto Gym Leaders was exciting but that could have been done in Johto in some room.

5. Speaking of Gym Leaders. The Johto Leaders used only four Johto Pokemon for no discernible reason. Metapod and Kakuna? Really?!

So much wasted potential.

I... wouldn't go all out and say they are the worst (IMO that goes to Yellow), but that it's overrated is certainly something I agree with (and mostly for the same reasons you've stated). HGSS more than GSC, as while it might look pretty, it's still the same flawed game underneath.

 

[Sonikku A]

I guess it's unpopular that I don't like ORAS redesigns for Archie and Maxie?
It felt weirdly gimmicky, and odd cuz Archie was redesigned WAY more into a pirate caricature...while Maxie gets glasses
Neither really are present in the game either, nor crazed enough to suddenly sport "anime" wear. Though to be fair, Adventures Manga handled both sides way better (Archie actually takes advantage of his basic looks to run the media corps undercover)
Then again not really a fan of human designs after early 4, and especially when Sugimori stopped doing them after BW

 

[Nokocchi]

But locking stones behind the cell phone was imbecile.

That was introduced in Crystal and carried over to HGSS. It was much worse in the original Gold and Silver , with the 4 elemental evolution stones being locked in the post-game via an NPC that only gives you one of each over the course of 4 IRL days.

At least with Crystal(but not HGSS), constantly switching daylight savings time on and off(in the languages that added it, since not all of them did, inlcuding the original Japanese version) can get you an arbitrary number of evolution stones with little effort, same with any other items(or swarm Pokemon) that require a phone number.

 

[jordanthejq12]

Don't forget GSC's limit of eight numbers. Sure, you'd want to get rid of Youngster Joey yammering on about his Rattata or Picnicker Liz calling the wrong number over and over again, but there are many more than eight useful callers, either for swarms, Stones, or even good-XP rematches.

 

[DreamPrince]

Don't forget GSC's limit of eight numbers. Sure, you'd want to get rid of Youngster Joey yammering on about his Rattata or Picnicker Liz calling the wrong number over and over again, but there are many more than eight useful callers, either for swarms, Stones, or even good-XP rematches.

Oh Wow, I did not know that. They must have removed this from HGSS, because I never noticed this in the remakes.

 

[Worldie]

you'd want to get rid of Youngster Joey yammering on about his Rattata

I will stop you right here peasant, noone trashtalks Joey's top percentile Rattatas and lives to tell the tale, fite me