Unpopular opinions

FRLG always gets snubbed because "Kanto bad!! Kanto overrated!!" despite undeniably being the best iteration of Kanto and being one of the best games in the series overall. The only true flaws with FRLG are the unecessary trade and evolution restrictions, but it has probably the best postgame of any game in the series; Sevii Isles 4-7 I feel are so different from any other location in the game. It also very naturally integrates Johto Pokémon into the Sevii Isles. I also love how many call-backs there are to Gen 2: the remastered Violet City, Azalea Town and Lake of Rage music, as well as the Togepi egg and Team Rocket prelude (and I am absolutely offended that FRLG flawlessly set up HGSS's storyline and there is not a SINGLE mention in HGSS of the Sevii Isles).

I personally would consider FRLG the best remake out of the three.

Agreed.
 
FRLG always gets snubbed because "Kanto bad!! Kanto overrated!!" despite undeniably being the best iteration of Kanto and being one of the best games in the series overall. The only true flaws with FRLG are the unecessary trade and evolution restrictions, but it has probably the best postgame of any game in the series; Sevii Isles 4-7 I feel are so different from any other location in the game. It also very naturally integrates Johto Pokémon into the Sevii Isles. I also love how many call-backs there are to Gen 2: the remastered Violet City, Azalea Town and Lake of Rage music, as well as the Togepi egg and Team Rocket prelude (and I am absolutely offended that FRLG flawlessly set up HGSS's storyline and there is not a SINGLE mention in HGSS of the Sevii Isles).

I personally would consider FRLG the best remake out of the three.
While I like the post game of FrLg myself, I dislike that it feels more like main game content because you can't interact with RSE nor Colosseum/XD until you do the main post game missions. Not to mention, you can't get fight Mewtwo nor get other region Pokemon per trade from other FRLG cardridges.
That was a pretty dumb move.

Wish they did a little more. You can't even get Eevee to evolve into Umbreon or Espeon unlike in RSE where you don't get Eevee.
 
FRLG always gets snubbed because "Kanto bad!! Kanto overrated!!" despite undeniably being the best iteration of Kanto and being one of the best games in the series overall. The only true flaws with FRLG are the unecessary trade and evolution restrictions, but it has probably the best postgame of any game in the series; Sevii Isles 4-7 I feel are so different from any other location in the game. It also very naturally integrates Johto Pokémon into the Sevii Isles. I also love how many call-backs there are to Gen 2: the remastered Violet City, Azalea Town and Lake of Rage music, as well as the Togepi egg and Team Rocket prelude (and I am absolutely offended that FRLG flawlessly set up HGSS's storyline and there is not a SINGLE mention in HGSS of the Sevii Isles).

I personally would consider FRLG the best remake out of the three.
Also keep in mind that every game except Ruby and Sapphire had featured Kanto in some capacity. A big selling point of Kanto was that you can obtain the Kanto Pokémon missing from Ruby and Sapphire. Tamashii Hiroka stresses that they failed in that regard because you have complete the Post game entirely to trade with Ruby and Sapphire, so for a collector or for someone who had played Pokémon previously, it means playing through the entire Kanto region again instead of playing just for the sake of catching Pokémon. which is incredibly tedious since they tried to keep it the same as much as possible, which is really boring for a veteran player, especially since it was a risky time to be a Pokémon fan back then.

And let’s not forget my biggest complaint: 0 Dark types and 1 Steel type line in the entire game before the post Game.
 
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And let’s not forget my biggest complaint: 0 Dark types and 1 Steel type line in the entire game before the post Game.

Though can you really punish FRLG for that?
  • Dark-type: Even if they did allow cross-gen evolutions from the start, that would still have only resulted there being one Dark-type and it would be Umbreon which means not only having to use the only Eevee you get for that but it's also designed to be a tank so not like you'll see much offense power there. Also, while there's no Dark-types, there are Dark-type moves: A lot of Pokemon naturally learn Bite, a few good others get Feint Attack and Pursuit, and a lot of Pokemon can learn Thief whose TM you find in Mt. Moon early on (showing they probably knew of the lack of Dark-type so tossed you an early bone). Only other thing they could do was change a Pokemon-type to Dark, like maybe make the Mankey family Fighting/Dark. "They could have put in Dark-types from other gens" you know the point of the remakes is trying to recreate the experience of that generation and that includes limiting it to the Pokemon (families) that existed at the time. Granted, you technically did only find Murkrow, Sneasel, Houndour, and Misdreavus in Kanto which looking back feels utterly astounding (you'd think at least Murkrow, Houndour, and Misdreavus would be found elsewhere in Johto but nope, and of course they didn't fix that problem in HGSS unless you count their inclusion (minus Sneasel) in the Safari Zone); maybe they could have put a special event/make it a 1% encounter in/close to the location you found them in Gen II (Route 7 for Murkrow & Houndour, Route 22 for Sneasel & Misdreavus).
  • Steel-type: There may have been only 1 Steel-type in Kanto but it's a pretty good one: the Magnemite family. I guess in theory they could have made Steelix available early on (though Scizor you'd still need to wait till Safari Zone for Scyther). Okay, sure, Sabrina would be easier if there was a Dark-type or a bulker Steel-type, but that just means you'd just need to defeat Sabrina the old fashion way with just overpowering her (plus you now got some Dark-type moves to help).
  • Other One Offs: Also it wasn't uncommon for Kanto only having one family of a certain Type, may I remind you the Ghastly family were the only Ghost-types and Dratini the only Dragon-types?
For better or for worse, FRLG was meant to both recreate the Gen I experience but also modernize it with recent mechanics. So that translated to the limited dex, keeping the wild distribution and trainer teams, but now all Pokemon have separate offense stats and Abilities (plus some other little things like more Moves). If you truly want a more modern take on Kanto, well like it or not Let's Go is kind of it. But hey, at least FRLG remember to add in a postgame Battle Tower, seriously there's no Battle Facilities in Let's Go?
 
Though can you really punish FRLG for that?
  • Dark-type: Even if they did allow cross-gen evolutions from the start, that would still have only resulted there being one Dark-type and it would be Umbreon which means not only having to use the only Eevee you get for that but it's also designed to be a tank so not like you'll see much offense power there. Also, while there's no Dark-types, there are Dark-type moves: A lot of Pokemon naturally learn Bite, a few good others get Feint Attack and Pursuit, and a lot of Pokemon can learn Thief whose TM you find in Mt. Moon early on (showing they probably knew of the lack of Dark-type so tossed you an early bone). Only other thing they could do was change a Pokemon-type to Dark, like maybe make the Mankey family Fighting/Dark. "They could have put in Dark-types from other gens" you know the point of the remakes is trying to recreate the experience of that generation and that includes limiting it to the Pokemon (families) that existed at the time. Granted, you technically did only find Murkrow, Sneasel, Houndour, and Misdreavus in Kanto which looking back feels utterly astounding (you'd think at least Murkrow, Houndour, and Misdreavus would be found elsewhere in Johto but nope, and of course they didn't fix that problem in HGSS unless you count their inclusion (minus Sneasel) in the Safari Zone); maybe they could have put a special event/make it a 1% encounter in/close to the location you found them in Gen II (Route 7 for Murkrow & Houndour, Route 22 for Sneasel & Misdreavus).
  • Steel-type: There may have been only 1 Steel-type in Kanto but it's a pretty good one: the Magnemite family. I guess in theory they could have made Steelix available early on (though Scizor you'd still need to wait till Safari Zone for Scyther). Okay, sure, Sabrina would be easier if there was a Dark-type or a bulker Steel-type, but that just means you'd just need to defeat Sabrina the old fashion way with just overpowering her (plus you now got some Dark-type moves to help).
  • Other One Offs: Also it wasn't uncommon for Kanto only having one family of a certain Type, may I remind you the Ghastly family were the only Ghost-types and Dratini the only Dragon-types?
For better or for worse, FRLG was meant to both recreate the Gen I experience but also modernize it with recent mechanics. So that translated to the limited dex, keeping the wild distribution and trainer teams, but now all Pokemon have separate offense stats and Abilities (plus some other little things like more Moves). If you truly want a more modern take on Kanto, well like it or not Let's Go is kind of it. But hey, at least FRLG remember to add in a postgame Battle Tower, seriously there's no Battle Facilities in Let's Go?
One is better than none. Even it would have been small, anything is better than 0. Anyway, now looking at it, a lot of Alolan Forms were given the Dark type, including Muk, Persian, and Raticate. Then you have Alolan Sandslash and Dugtrio for Steel types, Alolan Marowak for Ghost type, and Alolan Exeggutor for Dragon types. All of these are relatively rare types in Gen 1, and this makes me wonder if the types for the Alolan forms were chosen as a result of wanting more types for Let’s Go, since limiting to Gen 1 only means 0 Dark types and 1 Steel type line all over again.
 
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If you truly want a more modern take on Kanto, well like it or not Let's Go is kind of it. But hey, at least FRLG remember to add in a postgame Battle Tower, seriously there's no Battle Facilities in Let's Go?
eh, Let's Go was not designed as a game with postgame.
There's... basically nothing to do after you beat it. Sure you can fill the pokedex and catch mewtwo, and you have higher level rematches with gym leaders... but that's it.
The Master Trainers were a "cool idea done terribly" (albeith some of them are pretty clever), and well, it doesn't even have a GTS or battle spot, which is a pretty clear indicator that the game was mostly designed as "finish then drop" kind.
 
I don't mind Zubat in caves, I really like it. I actually did a "Zubat-Locke" in Ruby, where I would catch every Zubat I came across by having a team of Zigzagoons pickup items which I'd sell for Pokeballs. It was... surreal and catchartic to say the least

However, Tentacool is the far worse offender for a repeat encounter, even so long back as Gen 1, there were over 20 water types, yet it was always Tentacool. I find Gen 3 to be the worst in this regard, Tentacool every other water tile, even with the multitude of other waters, like Staryu, Whishcash, Wailmer, even Feebas (I'm leaving out the Clamperl line and the Chinchou line as they are deep sea exclusive), Tenta is omnipresent
 
eh, Let's Go was not designed as a game with postgame.
There's... basically nothing to do after you beat it. Sure you can fill the pokedex and catch mewtwo, and you have higher level rematches with gym leaders... but that's it.
The Master Trainers were a "cool idea done terribly" (albeith some of them are pretty clever), and well, it doesn't even have a GTS or battle spot, which is a pretty clear indicator that the game was mostly designed as "finish then drop" kind.

But the fact they have Gym Leader rematches (which not all main core series do, or if they do it's a roundabout thing where all we want is to just go up to the Gym Leader and rechallenge them) and the Master Trainers (including battles with Red, Blue, and Green (sadly no Oak even though the opportunity was hanging right there in front of them)) show GF had some interest in post game content. The Master Trainers notably probably took some work to do, figuring out the right configuration of Moves, Level, IVs, & EVs to assure a challenge but still beatable (and as we've seen with Metapod they clearly didn't care if some challenges were a test of patients...). So, with them doing all that, was a Battle Tower really that out of a question? The Battle Tower is even more structurally than the Master Trainers, even if they don't create set teams for all the NPCs just having a pool of all the fully evolved Pokemon (& maybe some prevos they could think of a could moveset for) with variants of each that all the NPCs randomly select 3 Pokemon from would have been something, better than nothing. Heck, if doesn't even need to be a Battle Tower, hey, I know, instead of an arcade you can't do nothing in they could have change the Game Corner into a "Battle Corner" and imply Team Rocket were running an illegal betting ring within it.

I don't mind Zubat in caves, I really like it. I actually did a "Zubat-Locke" in Ruby, where I would catch every Zubat I came across by having a team of Zigzagoons pickup items which I'd sell for Pokeballs. It was... surreal and catchartic to say the least

Okay, now all you need to do is teach them to work together and make a Schooling Zubat (40/150/130/130/135/50//635).

If you're wondering how I got those stats, I did the following:
  1. I added the Base Stat increases of Wishiwashi School form to the Pokemon: +0 HP, +120 Atk, +110 Def, +115 SpA, +110 SpD, -10 Spe, +445 BST.

    Now, since Wishiwashi Solo Form has the lowest BST of all Pokemon, 175, these new stats are probably WAY too high. So let's even things out:

  2. I divide the new Pokemon's BST with Wishiwashi School form's BST of 620.
  3. Take the resulting answer & round up to the nearest tenth (we'll call this "X").
  4. Divide Atk, Def, SpA, & SpD by X.
  5. Spe there's two calculations: Normally it'll be Spe multiplied by X. BUT if that results Spe having a higher number than the Pokemon's original Spe stat, use this formula instead: Spe = (10/X) + (new Spe stat).
  6. Round all answers to nearest number divisible by 5.
  7. Add up the stats to get the new BST.
  8. You just made a Schooling Pokemon!
I'm sure there's probably some math wiz out there screaming at me "THERE'S A BETTER WAY!" but this is how I figured it out. But if you have your own (and possibly better) method feel free to share.
 
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my main issue with Kanto remakes is how they constantly refuse to consider adding any pokémon to the region. I know it was the first Pokémon game so it'd only have its own pokémon, but would there really be any harm in adding Johto pokémon? It already happened in GSC (and then later with HGSS), it wouldn't be a massive retcon, and it'd add more diversity.
 
FRLG always gets snubbed because "Kanto bad!! Kanto overrated!!" despite undeniably being the best iteration of Kanto and being one of the best games in the series overall. The only true flaws with FRLG are the unecessary trade and evolution restrictions, but it has probably the best postgame of any game in the series; Sevii Isles 4-7 I feel are so different from any other location in the game. It also very naturally integrates Johto Pokémon into the Sevii Isles. I also love how many call-backs there are to Gen 2: the remastered Violet City, Azalea Town and Lake of Rage music, as well as the Togepi egg and Team Rocket prelude (and I am absolutely offended that FRLG flawlessly set up HGSS's storyline and there is not a SINGLE mention in HGSS of the Sevii Isles).

I personally would consider FRLG the best remake out of the three.

I dunno. It is the best iteration of Kanto but it's still the Kanto experience, which felt outdated to me after the vibrating Hoenn or the upcoming Sinnoh. The Gen 2 callbacks were, most likely, hints for the upcoming Johto remake. Also, no wild Hoenn mons aside from the limited event Deoxys....

For better or for worse, FRLG was meant to both recreate the Gen I experience but also modernize it with recent mechanics. So that translated to the limited dex, keeping the wild distribution and trainer teams, but now all Pokemon have separate offense stats and Abilities (plus some other little things like more Moves). If you truly want a more modern take on Kanto, well like it or not Let's Go is kind of it. But hey, at least FRLG remember to add in a postgame Battle Tower, seriously there's no Battle Facilities in Let's Go?

Let's Go feels like an even more obsolete experience with the removal of post gen 1 Pokemon and current mechanics (items, abilities, etc.). If they really wanted it to dumb down the mechanics so it can "feel more like the original", the og game is in the 3ds eshop and 6 times cheaper.
 
If they really wanted it to dumb down the mechanics so it can "feel more like the original"
Let's be honest, they wanted to dumb down the mechanics because Let's Go had the aim of being
- Extremely family friendly (meant for parents to be played with very young kids, hence the co-op mode)
- A introductory game for Go players to get them to try the mainline ones (hence the go-like mechanics like candies and go catching system)

It had actually nothing to do with "reproducing the original gen 1 experience" :bloblul:
 
Let's be honest, they wanted to dumb down the mechanics because Let's Go had the aim of being
- Extremely family friendly (meant for parents to be played with very young kids, hence the co-op mode)
- A introductory game for Go players to get them to try the mainline ones (hence the go-like mechanics like candies and go catching system)

That's the problem. All the Pokemon main games already serve as a gateway to the franchise (and RPGs in general) due to how accesible, highly customizable and how welcome is the difficulty overall. Lowering it further isn't going to help matters, and taking mechanics away isn't preparing you for the mainline titles.
 
But hey, at least FRLG remember to add in a postgame Battle Tower, seriously there's no Battle Facilities in Let's Go?
Not really. As a Facility player, I don't count the Trainer Tower in FR/LG as a true Battle Facility. It is very different from the traditional Battle Towers (and their likes) to the point that it's not a real Facility. While it offers a bit of a challenge, I don't recall that was very difficult. I think I was able to beat it even with members of my in-game teams. I really like FR/LG on the whole, but I won't deny that they have some issues, the lack of a real Battle Facility is one of them. Even R/S did at least have the basic Battle Tower.

It is interesting to see how none of the Kanto games released so far have had any sort of real Battle Facility. R/B/Y had nothing, FR/LG only had the Trainer Tower, and LGP/E had nothing. FR/LG and LGP/E are also the only games released after Crystal (which introduced the first Battle Tower in the series) to not have any real Battle Facilities. I'm not including S/S among those games though. Despite the heavy nerfs to the Tower in Gen 8, it is still similar to the Facilities of the past and you can do a self-imposed challenge there. But that's also something I think is negative because if you have to do a self-imposed challenge to make a Battle Facility difficult, then that's a problem. The DLC also introduced Restricted Sparring and Endless Dynamax Adventures... but those are DLC only and not in the base game. In the end, I consider the nerfs to the Gen 8 Tower to be a big issue. Perhaps that is an unpopular opinion of mine: I think the nerfs to the Battle Tower in S/S is one of their biggest issues and it feels like they don't get enough criticism for it. I still had fun with the Tower in Sword, but I really miss the more exciting challenges that the Facilities of past generations had to offer. All the way from the Crystal Tower to the Tree in the Alola games. If I return to the Sword Tower in the future, I will probably try Classic instead of Dynamax or Unranked in the hopes that it will give me more of a challenge.
 
In the end, I consider the nerfs to the Gen 8 Tower to be a big issue. Perhaps that is an unpopular opinion of mine: I think the nerfs to the Battle Tower in S/S is one of their biggest issues and it feels like they don't get enough criticism for it. I still had fun with the Tower in Sword, but I really miss the more exciting challenges that the Facilities of past generations had to offer. All the way from the Crystal Tower to the Tree in the Alola games. If I return to the Sword Tower in the future, I will probably try Classic instead of Dynamax or Unranked in the hopes that it will give me more of a challenge.
To be fair, there was one big issue with facilities, which is that they were required to do to obtain important PvP items, and "normal" people really really really hated them. Facilities in general are enjoyed by a minor part of the playerbase, which is probably why it was decided for a more facerollable one as main one, and have actually challenging ones as DLC.
While I myself do not agree with this and would have much rather had just difficulty modes in Tower instead (kinda like the old ones had "normal" and "super" modes), I definitely can see the reasoning for this design.
In fact I have yet to hear a VGC player that didn't hate the fact you had to go through "RNG facility that cheats by reading your inputs and countering your team"(tm) and actually enjoyed playing them. And most of them just faceplanted in singles with hyperoffense teams until they had enough BPs, then never touched them again.

Like, honestly, before DLC happened and actually brought sparring and dynamax adventures, we weren't expecting anything at all, we thought that the Tower would be it, since the chunk of playerbase that actually enjoys the facilities is extremely small, to the point they are basically a waste of design time.
 
Subsequently, I'm not a fan of how most romhacks try to stuff themselves will all Gen 1-7+ mons
Because most of the time this happens
-No rebalancing of mons
-Poor sense archetype/habitat locations
-poor rep for the mons cuz....it's kinda impossible to show off 700+ different mons among trainers
Yeah, and it does not help the fact that any romhack that have all Gen 1-7+ mons ends up pandering to the anti-Dexit fans.

While a few like Radical Red have several rebalancing, it was mostly buffs to lesser used Pokémon, and no nerfs for the most obnoxious Pokémon to deal with at all. Romhack that have Mega Evolution, Z-Moves and Dynamax (though the latter tend to be restricted to Max Raids, with some G-Max forms becoming new Megas to compensate) without considering to rebalance the most broken elements about Megas can end up making an even bigger balancing nightmare as well.

Popular rombacks like Radical Red have their strong merits, but the rest ends up falling flat. I end up sticking with fan regions with new Pokémon, even those that go full-on B/W route (i.e. only new Pokémon, no returning Pokémon at all until at least post-game) over bloated romhacks every day.
 
Yeah, and it does not help the fact that any romhack that have all Gen 1-7+ mons ends up pandering to the anti-Dexit fans.

While a few like Radical Red have several rebalancing, it was mostly buffs to lesser used Pokémon, and no nerfs for the most obnoxious Pokémon to deal with at all. Romhack that have Mega Evolution, Z-Moves and Dynamax (though the latter tend to be restricted to Max Raids, with some G-Max forms becoming new Megas to compensate) without considering to rebalance the most broken elements about Megas can end up making an even bigger balancing nightmare as well.

Popular rombacks like Radical Red have their strong merits, but the rest ends up falling flat. I end up sticking with fan regions with new Pokémon, even those that go full-on B/W route (i.e. only new Pokémon, no returning Pokémon at all until at least post-game) over bloated romhacks every day.
Honestly probably why my hack is just "Emerald but with every mon obtainable", despite mechanics changes
 
Not really. As a Facility player, I don't count the Trainer Tower in FR/LG as a true Battle Facility. It is very different from the traditional Battle Towers (and their likes) to the point that it's not a real Facility. While it offers a bit of a challenge, I don't recall that was very difficult. I think I was able to beat it even with members of my in-game teams. I really like FR/LG on the whole, but I won't deny that they have some issues, the lack of a real Battle Facility is one of them. Even R/S did at least have the basic Battle Tower.

To add on to this, The teams are always the same every time you go through it. This could be changed in the Japanese version(and the Trainer hill in Emerald that was just a copy/paste of it), via using e-cards. But outside of Japan FireRed and LeafGreen, (and Colosseum and Emerald) removed all e-reader compatibility from the coding of the games, and as a result also never released the sets of cards meant for those games(or even the second wave of Ruby and Sapphire cards, because the e-reader was pretty much a flop everywhere BUT Japan).
 
I think DPmakes would be an awful choice for 25th anniversary games and would rather they be released at a later point in exchange for a collection or something.

A while back I made a post talking about why I thought SM was an amazing anniversary game. Aside from balancing its status as a new region, SM strikes a healthy balance between doing that and celebrating all the old gens, with every one from 1-6 having some kind of fun nod in the game towards it whether it be new forms for certain Pokemon, character cameos and more, keeping a decent balance amongst these callbacks.

At a conceptual level, Gen 4 remakes go directly against this philosophy. Not only does remaking Gen 4 basically shut out everything that came after unless unprecedented revamps were made to the region itself to incorporate way more Gen 5-8 fanservice, but it also gives one particular generation disproportionate representation during an anniversary year. Look at all the marketing stuff we've seen so far: Musician deals, merchandise, entire months being equally marked off to celebrate individual generations, and eventually go through every single one of them, because the entire point of a big anniversary is to celebrate the entire franchise (good example of this is Sonic Generations, like dude they even put in a stage from 06 like damn). By suddenly releasing a random-ass remake during this time GF is basically giving the message "This generation and its fanbase matter more than everyone else, for it is the only one worthy of getting a shiny HD remake during this time frame." If they did it in 2022 it wouldn't stick out cuz its like "ok the celebrations of the full history are done, back to business as usual".

Now, the first retort to this is "Game Freak panders to Gen 1 all the damn time, what would make this so egregious?". Well my answer to this is simple: It just simply is far more important in the tapestry of Pokemon's history than any other generation. I know that answer will piss people off, but it's the truth. I myself generally like Platinum and have never touched any version of Kanto, and I acknowledge this is just a fact. For as good or bad as any given gen from 2-8 is, they are all "Just another Pokemon generation". They didn't revolutionize the industry, they didn't start enduring trends, and they certainly didn't begin a worldwide juggernaut that has endured for nearly 3 decades. The closest thing you can argue for Gen 4 is that it made some big changes for the main games themselves, namely the introduction of online play and the physical/special split, but that's only relevant in the context of Pokemon itself, and even then one of those is only applicable to a hardcore subset of the community. Compared to something like the original Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy 7 or even Gen 1 whose impact and fame are at least tangentially known even by people who aren't really into their franchises or even gaming as a whole, you have to be a pretty serious Pokefan with a good knowledge of the series' history to really appreciate the things Gen 4 brought to the table.

I also wanna quickly address the argument that Gen 4 deserves special treatment because this year is its 15th anniversary; simply put, this does not compute with the release schedules of past remakes that have never explicitly correlated with major anniversaries for the games they were based on. The closest is HGSS which happened to come out on the 10th anniversary of Gen 2 in Japan, but even then as far as I can tell there were absolutely 0 references in that games' marketing to this milestone, at least not in any of the big ad campaigns. Oh yeah, don't forget that since DP only came out outside of Japan in 2007 the 15 year anniversary milestone wouldn't even make sense for those territories
 
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I don't mind Zubat in caves, I really like it. I actually did a "Zubat-Locke" in Ruby, where I would catch every Zubat I came across by having a team of Zigzagoons pickup items which I'd sell for Pokeballs. It was... surreal and catchartic to say the least

However, Tentacool is the far worse offender for a repeat encounter, even so long back as Gen 1, there were over 20 water types, yet it was always Tentacool. I find Gen 3 to be the worst in this regard, Tentacool every other water tile, even with the multitude of other waters, like Staryu, Whishcash, Wailmer, even Feebas (I'm leaving out the Clamperl line and the Chinchou line as they are deep sea exclusive), Tenta is omnipresent

How many Zubats did you eventually use in your team? Sounds wild lol. Also gave me the idea for a Nuzlocke variant (a Bluelocke/Garylocke where I can only catch Pokemon that Blue uses in the games or Gary in the anime - might even extend it to include manga Blue's mons), so thanks for that!
 
I think DPmakes would be an awful choice for 25th anniversary games and would rather they be released at a later point in exchange for a collection or something.

A while back I made a post talking about why I thought SM was an amazing anniversary game. Aside from balancing its status as a new region, SM strikes a healthy balance between doing that and celebrating all the old gens, with every one from 1-6 having some kind of fun nod in the game towards it whether it be new forms for certain Pokemon, character cameos and more, keeping a decent balance amongst these callbacks.

At a conceptual level, Gen 4 remakes go directly against this philosophy. Not only does remaking Gen 4 basically shut out everything that came after unless unprecedented revamps were made to the region itself to incorporate way more Gen 5-8 fanservice, but it also gives one particular generation disproportionate representation during an anniversary year. Look at all the marketing stuff we've seen so far: Musician deals, merchandise, entire months being equally marked off to celebrate individual generations, and eventually go through every single one of them, because the entire point of a big anniversary is to celebrate the entire franchise (good example of this is Sonic Generations, like dude they even put in a stage from 06 like damn). By suddenly releasing a random-ass remake during this time GF is basically giving the message "This generation and its fanbase matter more than everyone else, for it is the only one worthy of getting a shiny HD remake during this time frame." If they did it in 2022 it wouldn't stick out cuz its like "ok the celebrations of the full history are done, back to business as usual".

Now, the first retort to this is "Game Freak panders to Gen 1 all the damn time, what would make this so egregious?". Well my answer to this is simple: It just simply is far more important in the tapestry of Pokemon's history than any other generation. I know that answer will piss people off, but it's the truth. I myself generally like Platinum and have never touched any version of Kanto, and I acknowledge this is just a fact. For as good or bad as any given gen from 2-8 is, they are all "Just another Pokemon generation". They didn't revolutionize the industry, they didn't start enduring trends, and they certainly didn't begin a worldwide juggernaut that has endured for nearly 3 decades. The closest thing you can argue for Gen 4 is that it made some big changes for the main games themselves, namely the introduction of online play and the physical/special split, but that's only relevant in the context of Pokemon itself, and even then one of those is only applicable to a hardcore subset of the community. Compared to something like the original Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy 7 or even Gen 1 whose impact and fame are at least tangentially known even by people who aren't really into their franchises or even gaming as a whole, you have to be a pretty serious Pokefan with a good knowledge of the series' history to really appreciate the things Gen 4 brought to the table.

I also wanna quickly address the argument that Gen 4 deserves special treatment because this year is its 15th anniversary; simply put, this does not compute with the release schedules of past remakes that have never explicitly correlated with major anniversaries for the games they were based on. The closest is HGSS which happened to come out on the 10th anniversary of Gen 2 in Japan, but even then as far as I can tell there were absolutely 0 references in that games' marketing to this milestone, at least not in any of the big ad campaigns. Oh yeah, don't forget that since DP only came out outside of Japan in 2007 the 15 year anniversary milestone wouldn't even make sense for those territories
So basically you and many people here were already tired with the constant Gen 1 pandering, but then you quickly consider the Gen 4 remakes to be the absolute worst of pandering? Especially since we have no idea what else TPC would celebrate the 25th anniversary with.

I'm sorry but that is a really unpopular opinion. Many people are already tired of Gen 1 because of the perpetual pandering to the point where it did directly harm several things or did outright controversial decisions, such as the following:
  1. The Gigantamax distribution + signature Z-Move distribution, where it was only Gen 1 + current Gen (7 for Z-Moves and 8 for G-Max), barring one or two jarring exceptions for G-Max, to the point it really doesn't feels natural at all and moreso pandering.
    1. Following Gigantamax, the very fact that Pikachu, Eevee and Meowth have a G-Max form while you could just use a fully evolved Pokémon, though Pikachu and Meowth have their own in-game niches.
  2. The decision that Charizard and Mewtwo have two Mega Evolutions and the other Kanto starters not having more than one
  3. The fact that Alolan forms were only Gen 1 while there is no harm to bring other Generations before Gen 7 (something that was avoided in Sword and Shield thankfully), even if, again, doesn't feels all that natural despite the overall good execution.
  4. Heavy focus on Kanto Pokémon (and surprisingly, Johto Pokémon to lesser extent) even in other regions during Pokémon Journey, although thankfully Galar Pokémon do have increased focus recently.
  5. Completely lock off cross-generational evolutionary relatives in Let's Go even in post-game, despite the very fact that there is no problem with Alolan Forms and Mega Evolutions of Gen 1 mons being put in that game, making it even more isolated.
  6. A disturbing amount of Gen 1 Pokémon available in Alola, especially when we already have the Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow and Green VC released and Gen 6 already had a fair amount of Gen 1 Pokémon available.
  7. The constant spam of Zubat, Geodude and Tentacool in caves, rocks and water respectively despite the very fact that it annoys people a lot. Their Gen 5 counterparts are not necessarily any better, since they were directly inspired by Gen 1 Pokémon, but the main point still stand.
  8. Almost every evil team going with Poison spam (and later Dark spam) just like Team Rocket, especially if those are Zubat and / or Koffing lines, making them a lot less unique than they should be. This hurt Team Flare the most, and thankfully Team Skull and Aether Paradise avoided this pitfall, while Team Yell makes sense with Dark-type.
  9. The Pika Clone practically made just because of Pikachu's popularity, which deals more harm than good to the Pika Clone concept as a whole. There is a reason why Mimikyu is a fan favorite, as it is not just mimicking Pikachu in a way that feels more sense and thus sincere, but also have a good in-game lore of why it resembles Pikachu.
  10. And finally, not related to the above (except the Pika Clones, I guess), the fanbase also being part of the problem, with so many people having enough with GF pandering to the Gen 1 despite the results it caused above, but the very fanbase also have a tons of Gen 1-only tributes going on, some of which feels... eerily safe.
Be careful of what are you talking about. The Gen 4 remake may going to be the worst thing in your eyes, but TPC and GF relied on Gen 1's "nostalgic" foundations to the point it become clear that it become less and less sincere, and more and more for sake of "first installment nostalgia".
 
I agree. Game Freak should give it a rest with the Gen 1 nostalgia. There are other generations and if Gen 7 can work as an ''anniversary generation'', a remake of Gen IV* has no reason not to. There's also literally nothing stopping them from giving Charizard a new form or making Pikachu/Eeveee front of center mons even as they also honor other generations. GF did relatively well with Mega Evolutions, don't make excuses for them when they've shown they can multitask. A DPP remake can damn very well do these things and thus live up to being the ''anniversary generation'' while staying true to its roots. GF just needs to lose their fetish for randomly making certain mons and features unobtainable without trading and/or special events.

Honestly, an unpopular opinion I have is that people are too quick to make excuses for Game Freak (and I say this with great respect for what they've accomplished). It's like the ''b-but muh kids play Pokemon doe!11!'' refrain that pops up whenever someone suggests Pokemon can simply have an optional difficulty setting. In fact, an easy mode could be part of the package PRECISELY for this dumb stereotype of a super inattentive kid who throws the game away the moment they lose a little while a hard mode can be there to reward ''veteran'' players. GF can walk and chew gum at the same time, no need to make excuses for them. The genwunners won't crap themselves if you make a Gen IV remake the anniversary game and it's not as if they're taken that seriously by anyone else either. Besides, if you want to pacify them, just throw some Gen I mons into DPP and you're done.

If you make the Kanto starters and their Megas available in Gen IV as well as make Pikachu/Mewtwo/Eevee easily obtainable - not unlike in Gen VI, incidentally, so don't even try telling me Game Freak hasn't done things like this before - I seriously doubt even the genwunners (a loud minority whom I see more mockery of than support for nowadays) are gonna complain too much, if at all. Not rocket science.

*I honestly think Gen IV is overrated but there's no doubt they're one of the most popular generations out there.
 
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  1. And finally, not related to the above (except the Pika Clones, I guess), the fanbase also being part of the problem, with so many people having enough with GF pandering to the Gen 1 despite the results it caused above, but the very fanbase also have a tons of Gen 1-only tributes going on, some of which feels... eerily safe.
Case in point, Pixiv Red being a thing

The Sonic fanbase suffers the exact same issue with >Classic misnostalgia crash, in art/fangames, and >Constantly recycling old memes and fanbase jokes

Fanbase jokes from 2006 aren't new, quit acting like it's pinnacle humor

Heck, it's the main reason I didn't do a sprite mod for Sonic CD's Decomp. I feel like I'm ironically perpetuating nostalgia crashing
 
So basically you and many people here were already tired with the constant Gen 1 pandering, but then you quickly consider the Gen 4 remakes to be the absolute worst of pandering? Especially since we have no idea what else TPC would celebrate the 25th anniversary with.
To be honest I think you misunderstood Yung Dramps 's post.

He's not saying that "gen 4 remakes would be terrible, and gen 4 pandering is the worst".

He said 2 distinct things that have nothing to do with it:
1) Pandering gen 1 makes sense the most, because despite everything it *is* the most important Pokemon generation as it's, well, the first. Obviously they've kinda overdone with it, but it still remains the only "special" generation.
2) Doing any sort of actual remakes as your "big 25th anniversary title" is just a terrible idea because it just spotlights an arbitrary generation when you should be trying to emphatise the entire franchise and/or its evolution.

And to be fair I also agree with both points.
 
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