Little things you like about Pokémon

[Suspicious Derivative]

I've been doing the same thing for Gen IV and V games and it makes them feel so much more enjoyable to replay since you're really able to get the full experience, especially in Platinum where you can use all of Rotom's forms in-game. People have even set up GTS servers too which has been a lot of fun - I never got to use it back in the day so it's cool to be able to make full use of it now.

I agree, some events just make the games more enjoyable, and to me, it makes them feel more complete. There's the Rotom forms in Platinum as you mentioned, and I think the Sinnoh map just feels a lot more complete when you have unlocked Newmoon Island, Seabreak Path and Flower Paradise.

I didn't use the GTS a lot during the Gen 4 days (didn't have Wi-Fi during the first half of it, was burnt out on Pokémon during the second half) but I used it a lot in Gen 5. However, I don't have any real reason to use it nowadays since I have completed the Pokédex on all of my games and I have access to almost every Pokémon I need on my games. Still, it is really cool that it is up and running thanks to fans setting it up again after it was officially closed.

Part of me really wishes they'd made it so that if you used Memory Link and had performed the trade in BW, the Gigalith would have the OT and ID number of the BW player. But maybe that'd have been too difficult to program, idk.

This would have been amazing. It might have been possible since there are many other things in B2/W2 which change or are added if you have used Memory Link, but I don't know.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I never knew the Rotom appliances used to be event-exclusive.

Gen 4 Rotom just keeps becoming more of a legendary Pokemon.

 

[Siggu]

I've been doing the same thing for Gen IV and V games and it makes them feel so much more enjoyable to replay since you're really able to get the full experience, especially in Platinum where you can use all of Rotom's forms in-game. People have even set up GTS servers too which has been a lot of fun - I never got to use it back in the day so it's cool to be able to make full use of it now.

Yeah, the only problem is that, for the Gen IV games, you need an insecure Wi-Fi connection to connect...

But for Gen V, if you get a DSi-enhanced game, it's all great.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Yeah, the only problem is that, for the Gen IV games, you need an insecure Wi-Fi connection to connect...

I have to use my phone's hotspot, it's a total faff

 

[Yung Dramps]

Detective Pikachu's best scene by leaps and bounds and a jaw-dropping showing for my favorite starter. I'm still riding the high of watching this for the first time years later.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Since the Johto games are being discussed again in the unpopular opinions thread, here's something I feel was one of the better changes HGSS made: every gym in Johto, except for the Cianwood Gym, requires you to do something before you can access it.

-Violet Gym cannot be challenged until the player has cleared Sprout Tower*
-Azalea Gym cannot be accessed until the player defeats Team Rocket in the Slowpoke Well
-Goldenrod Gym is closed until the player obtains the Radio Card*
-Ecruteak Gym cannot be challenged until the player meets Morty in the Burned Tower*
-Olivine Gym is vacated until Amphy is healed
-Mahogany Gym is locked until the player defeats Team Rocket in their hideout
-Blackthorn Gym is blocked until the player defeats Team Rocket in the Radio Tower

*In the original GSC the Sprout Tower can be skipped entirely and the player doesn't actually need the Radio Card at any point in the game (source: me, having done both of these things) - Burned Tower is completely optional in GS, but not in Crystal.

I think it's fun that not all the gyms can be immediately challenged the minute you arrive in a new town. It prompts you to explore locations more thoroughly and gives you an actual impetus to talk to NPCs and enter buildings. The Unova games do something similar which I think is partly why I like the plot of those games, and ORAS later tweaks things to prevent the player from skipping gyms as they could in RSE. On the one hand this is a bit railroad-y, but it's a naturalistic way to force the player to actually engage with the game world without feeling too hamfisted. Yeah I just think this is neat.

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

*In the original GSC the Sprout Tower can be skipped entirely and the player doesn't actually need the Radio Card at any point in the game (source: me, having done both of these things) - Burned Tower is completely optional in GS, but not in Crystal.

Getting past Snorlax?

 

[Siggu]

Getting past Snorlax?

That's probably the reason it was made mandatory.

Speaking from experience, it was very easy to completely ignore the existence of the Radio Card until you cannot wake Snorlax up.

 

[pika pal]

Getting past Snorlax?

I think Snorlax only blocks a shortcut since Diglett Cave goes to Pewter but you can go their via Fuschia -> Cinnabar -> Pallet -> Viridian, and Lavender via Saffron City. It's convenient, but theoretically you can get everywhere in Kanto without waking up the Snorlax in GSC, unlike RBY where they were specifically placed at intersections you couldn't navigate around to progress since they blocked Surf, so the Card is only mandatory for the Snorlax itself.

Side note, that Snorlax is a detail I like, with the implication is it's the one Red didn't catch (he has one on his team so presumably he did catch one), with 3 years to itself eating and growing to explain the level difference.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Getting past Snorlax?

Ah I just knew someone would pull me up on this. Yes - Snorlax.

Technically my post was correct. I should have said that it's the EXPN Card you need, not the Radio Card. But, yes, you do need the radio in general.

I think Snorlax only blocks a shortcut since Diglett Cave goes to Pewter but you can go their via Fuschia -> Cinnabar -> Pallet -> Viridian, and Lavender via Saffron City. It's convenient, but theoretically you can get everywhere in Kanto without waking up the Snorlax in GSC, unlike RBY where they were specifically placed at intersections you couldn't navigate around to progress since they blocked Surf, so the Card is only mandatory for the Snorlax itself.


Side note, that Snorlax is a detail I like, with the implication is it's the one Red didn't catch (he has one on his team so presumably he did catch one), with 3 years to itself eating and growing to explain the level difference.

You can't go to Cinnabar from Fuchsia, it's blocked off. You have to go via Pallet and approach from the south for the Route 19 beach to be cleared. EDIT: and apparently you need the Volcanobadge. Curious to try that for myself now.

 

[jordanthejq12]

Wow, Johto talk is pretty popular right now.

Here's a good one: Gold and Silver, and their remakes, are the only paired games in the series that send you to completely different dungeons for their respective box legends. I love that. They get to actually play differently beyond the small handful of mons gated off from the other version, and it facilitates the setup where both box legends exist in both universes, but the version difference is which one you pick up as part of the main story and which one you grab halfway through the Kanto section.

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

I absolutely love that GS made both box legendaries available in both games, and just made one available significantly earlier than the other. Now that they don't seem to be doing third versions anymore, it's an approach that I'd like to see come back. I guess what PLA did kind of counts.

That said, GS did still have some version exclusivity in that Lugia could only have Aeroblast in Silver and Ho-Oh could only have Sacred Fire in Gold. This was because the off-version legendary was caught at too high a level to still have its signature move. It's not a bad compromise between full sharing and full exclusivity, but the introduction of the Move Reminder in Gen III kind of eliminated it as an option from then on. Unless they wanted to just be like "this mon can't learn this move naturally but happens to somehow know it on capture in this game," which I guess they could do.

 

[Nokocchi]

That said, GS did still have some version exclusivity in that Lugia could only have Aeroblast in Silver and Ho-Oh could only have Sacred Fire in Gold.

Two things to add to this:

-In Crystal neither have their Signature move

-For the non-Virtual Console Gold/Crystal Lugia and Silver/Crystal Ho-oh, you could actually let them learn the moves via Stadium 2, which had a move-relearner available as a repeatable reward after beating the Elite Four and Champion in the Gym Leader castle if you used a team of only Pokemon from your gameboy titles(only one pokemon among your party could use it, and only one move could be relearned, and works with both Gen I and Gen II games).

 

[R_N]

I love the progression of the move reminder
Gen 1: None, just catch a new one it's fine.
GSC: None, but there was breeding for most of them so egg moves could kinda sorta circumvent it
Stadium 2: Fine yo ucan have a move reminder but you better be ready to beat the Champion every. Single. Time. And you dont forget to actually bring it!
RSE: Grind Luvdiscs for Heart Scales to give to the guy, how simple and easy
FRLG: Grind...Paras to give Mushrooms to the guy. Ahhhh that's...not great, actually, considering that they're pretty annoying to find.
XD: For some reason XD, and only XD, has a move reminder and it costs 1000 pokecoupons per pop which is frankly the second most ridiculous behind Stadium 2.
Gen 4: Heart scales again; leads to an interesting aspect, however, that you can only use it in full in HGSS after beating the game but you'll see some Heart Scales throughout Johto iirc.
Gen 5: Heart Scales again but now there's a bunch more options than just Luvdisc
Gen 6: Heart scales but I'd like to mention this was the weird point where they decided to have a bunch of moves learned at both high levels...but also level 1. Gen 6 also introduced the concept of Pokemon Memory, so a variety of "unique" or egg moves can now be reminded.
Gen 7: Heart scalesssss. At the very last part of the game but lets you learn any move in the learnset
SWSH: Available in every Pokemon center, for free!. Lost the ability to learn the entire moveset for obvious reasons. Unless you're a stone evolution which lol, lmao.
BDSP: Back to the Heart Scales to one guy at the mid game, but after 10 uses it's free forever, pretty rad
LA: Cut the middle man, you can just do it in the menu at any time.

we've come so far

 

[Nokocchi]

FRLG: Grind...Paras to give Mushrooms to the guy. Ahhhh that's...not great, actually, considering that they're pretty annoying to find.

There is a small hallway in Mount Moon that has a 100% Paras encounter rate. Said hallway is also often sited in online guides as by far the best place in the game to grind for Attack EVs without having to pay any attention to what you are encountering(might want to have the sound on in case of a Shiny, though)

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

Move Reminder history

Digging up Heart Scales in the Sinnoh Underground is actually not too bad, so DPP was kind of ahead of its time in terms of convenience. But still not as good as the Alola games, where you can easily farm them at the restaurant in Konikoni City.

 

[Worldie]

we've come so far

I can't wait for SV to change it over again, because GF...

I definitely think Arceus' variant is the best, though with the way level 1 moves work in the main series, I think it'd need some change (maybe could be something you unlock after beating the game or after beating all gyms).

 

[R_N]

I can't wait for SV to change it over again, because GF...

I definitely think Arceus' variant is the best, though with the way level 1 moves work in the main series, I think it'd need some change (maybe could be something you unlock after beating the game or after beating all gyms).

I dunno I think level 1 moves work fine in Gen 8 , unless you're a stone evolution in which case, bit of right and left not fully meeting here.

And even then that was mostly an "issue" because the wild area was effectively your third route and had stone evolutions just lying around

 

[DrPumpkinz]

• Move relearner is easily accessible from the start of the game
• Move relearner can teach moves that would otherwise be prevo-exclusive
• Most stone evolutions don't learn new moves through level-up after evolving

Any two of these can work fine together, but all three at once cannot. One of them has to go.

 

[R_N]

It occurred to me that I never actually checked how stone evolutions worked in LA and looking it up now I see that they just...have normal level up movesets.
Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu all the same, down to the very level. Same applies to all evolution line

I guess that's one way of approaching it

 

[Worldie]

It occurred to me that I never actually checked how stone evolutions worked in LA and looking it up now I see that they just...have normal level up movesets.
Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu all the same, down to the very level. Same applies to all evolution line

I guess that's one way of approaching it

Updating the stone evo moveset would definitely the best way to remove the issue. I don't quite think the reason for their skewed moveset exists anymore anyway... it used to be "evolve early but give up power" yadda yadda anime powers, but at this point there's plenty of exceptions to this rule anyway on top of certain Pokes that can only evolve via stone due to previous conditions not existing anymore anyway.

 

[Scorpio]

I’d say there ought to be two Move Relearners; one that operates like the ones from Gens 3-6 who can be found earlier in the game and offers free services, and one like the ones in Gens 7 and 8, to the point of being able to teach a stone evo its prevo’s level-up moves, found right at the end of the game, but costs something (whether it be Heart Scales or just money). That would be the most balanced, IMO.

 

[Siggu]

I’d say there ought to be two Move Relearners; one that operates like the ones from Gens 3-6 who can be found earlier in the game and offers free services, and one like the ones in Gens 7 and 8, to the point of being able to teach a stone evo its prevo’s level-up moves, found right at the end of the game, but costs something (whether it be Heart Scales or just money). That would be the most balanced, IMO.

The simple solution would be to have Move Relearners be like the ones in Gen 8 until you beat the game, upon which you can use start to it to teach moves of a higher level as in Gen 7.

 

[SillierCrayon]

Also in Gen 8 I don't think you can have a pokemon relearn TM or TR moves (can't remember which).

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Also in Gen 8 I don't think you can have a pokemon relearn TM or TR moves (can't remember which).

You are mistaken, that is not the case at all, at least in Sword and Shield. When you teach an individual Pokemon a move via TR in Sword and Shield, it is effectively permanently etched into the individual mon's learnset in that even if you replace the move, you don't need to use the same TR on it again to have it learn it again: you can go back to the move relearner to have it relearn the TR move. So for example, when you teach a Dragapult Psychic Fangs, if you replace Psychic Fangs but want Dragapult to learn it again later, you can just visit a Pokemon Center's move relearner and have the relearner re-teach Dragapult Psychic Fangs.

This isn't the case with TMs technically, but TMs in Sword and Shield are infinite use anyway so it's not like that matters much. That being said, if we're talking that thing we call BDSP, TMs aren't relearnable via the relearner NPC despite being one-use and you need to use the same TM again on a mon if you want them to relearn a move. But in Sword and Shield a TR move is effectively etched into a Pokemon learnset in such a way that a move relearner can reteach a TR-learned move to an individual Pokemon at any time.