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The Positives of your Least Favorite Pokemon Game and the Negatives of your Most Favorite

Favourite (PLA): I vastly preferred pre-Daybreak's shiny hunting method to post-Daybreak's. Like, yeah, it was broken both literally and figuratively, but they should've let us have our fun. ;_; Also, no option to change the backwards-ass controls and no compass on the UI, which is just lazy.

Least favourite (XY): Klefki. Fuck yeah.
 
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Favourite:
Crystal:
- The level curve, while being ever so slightly better than G/S, still sucks
- So does the move distribution (Flamethrower/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam postgame only wtf?)
- No Mareep line :mad:
- Still no Houndour in Johto :mad:

Least favourite:
Sun/Moon/Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon
- The introduction of regional forms is really cool
- Not requiring HMs to remove/traverse obstacles is neat
 
Favorite:
Black 2 and White 2 - The story was a downgrade from Black and White. It felt safe in almost every way. I did enjoy seeing how characters changed though.

HeartGold and SoulSilver - They didn't improve the weird gym teams and the level curve is still a mess. On top of that the game's poor Pokémon distribution and lack of evolutionary stones stuck.

Platinum - Not letting the player access the postgame areas unless they have seen every Pokémon in the regional dex is a really baffling design choice. There's a reason they didn't do it before or since.

Sun and Moon: The pacing was terrible. There were constant interruptions and unskippable cutscenes throughout the entire game. The first island in particular is a slog on replays.

Least Favorite:
X and Y: The selection of new Pokémon, while small, was excellent. There were only a few designs I would say were weak.

Diamond and Pearl: Sinnoh is one of the best regions in term of design and lore. I love how there were so many optional areas with often useful rewards.

Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee: The Pokémon following mechanic was perfected. The remastered soundtrack was solid and the addition of Alolan forms were nice too.
 
Pemderp63 said:
Favorite:
Black 2 and White 2 - The story was a downgrade from Black and White. It felt safe in almost every way. I did enjoy seeing how characters changed though.

HeartGold and SoulSilver - They didn't improve the weird gym teams and the level curve is still a mess. On top of that the game's poor Pokémon distribution and lack of evolutionary stones stuck.

Platinum - Not letting the player access the postgame areas unless they have seen every Pokémon in the regional dex is a really baffling design choice. There's a reason they didn't do it before or since.

Sun and Moon: The pacing was terrible. There were constant interruptions and unskippable cutscenes throughout the entire game. The first island in particular is a slog on replays.

Least Favorite:
X and Y: The selection of new Pokémon, while small, was excellent. There were only a few designs I would say were weak.

Diamond and Pearl: Sinnoh is one of the best regions in term of design and lore. I love how there were so many optional areas with often useful rewards.

Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee: The Pokémon following mechanic was perfected. The remastered soundtrack was solid and the addition of Alolan forms were nice too.
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A brief counterpoint for HGSS only: evolutionary stones are relatively easy to access (the racing mini-game and PokeGear calls are there), some fairly cool mons were added to the region in the Safari Zone, and the Pokewalker - if you have it - can give you crazy access to some.

I will say the lack of evolution spots for Magneton in Kanto and the inability to get a Shiny Stone to evolve Togetic pre-E4 are criminal.
 
aegon the unlikely said:
A brief counterpoint for HGSS only: evolutionary stones are relatively easy to access (the racing mini-game and PokeGear calls are there), some fairly cool mons were added to the region in the Safari Zone, and the Pokewalker - if you have it - can give you crazy access to some.

I will say the lack of evolution spots for Magneton in Kanto and the inability to get a Shiny Stone to evolve Togetic pre-E4 are criminal.
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relatively easy with the big caveats of:
-pokegear calls are completely random. I think i got like...one stone phone call in all my time with HGSS
-the evolution stones from the Pokethalon are still only available in the post game (& honestly kind of expensive)
-the pokewalker ones are either event only (the GTS one you cant get any more, for example) or post game only and both's access to stones are rare

so still not great, honestly
 
R_N said:
-the evolution stones from the Pokethalon are still only available in the post game (& honestly kind of expensive)
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Bulbapedia and Serebii tell me that you can purchase Fire/Water/Thunder/Leaf/Moon Stones from the Athlete Shop before the National Dex… but only on certain days of the week, and the problem of them being pretty pricey is still there. So you can get them, but you kinda have to grind for ‘em
 
Esserise said:
Bulbapedia and Serebii tell me that you can purchase Fire/Water/Thunder/Leaf/Moon Stones from the Athlete Shop before the National Dex… but only on certain days of the week, and the problem of them being pretty pricey is still there. So you can get them, but you kinda have to grind for ‘em
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Sorry you're right, I was looking at the wrong part of the shop listings where they add more of them all to the rotation (so theres 2 days you can get fire stones and so on). It's the Dawn, Shiny & Dusk stones that are definitively post game because they arbitrarily made them more "special"
 
Pemderp63 said:
Platinum - Not letting the player access the postgame areas unless they have seen every Pokémon in the regional dex is a really baffling design choice. There's a reason they didn't do it before or since.
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Oddly enough, that's one of the things I enjoy most about the Sinnoh games.

It finally made the Dex legit relevant without making it annoying by forcing catches like RBY. It also made trainer battles more relevant because if you battle every trainer in the game, you automatically get a full dex.

Ever since I had to run all over the place to slather honey around and get a Burmy to evolve into Wormadam only to bump into a trainer I had skipped near Lake Valor with one, I NEVER skipped a trainer battle.
 
Pemderp63 said:
Platinum - Not letting the player access the postgame areas unless they have seen every Pokémon in the regional dex is a really baffling design choice. There's a reason they didn't do it before or since.
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Actually I don't see it as nearly as much of an issue in Platinum as it is in DP (and BDSP), because the Pokémon are way better distributed and, save for Manaphy, you don't really have to go out of your way to see them all. In DP and BDSP you have outliers like Drifloon (if you don't fight the Gym Trainer before Fantina), the other legendary (similar to Manaphy) or Riolu (both instances are in optional areas).
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Oddly enough, that's one of the things I enjoy most about the Sinnoh games.

It finally made the Dex legit relevant without making it annoying by forcing catches like RBY. It also made trainer battles more relevant because if you battle every trainer in the game, you automatically get a full dex.

Ever since I had to run all over the place to slather honey around and get a Burmy to evolve into Wormadam only to bump into a trainer I had skipped near Lake Valor with one, I NEVER skipped a trainer battle.
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Yeah I've never been a player who deliberately skipped trainer battles so I've always really liked that feature in Plat especially. It would be nice if you could get more specific hints to find the last few entries if you missed them, but overall I'm totally fine with gating postgame behind a fully 'Seen' Pokedex in a game where you can see everything via trainer battles (besides Rotom, which is absolutely an annoyance in Plat for new players). [EDIT: Suspicious Derivative pointed out that you have to battle Azelf and Uxie too, which I agree is also bad and annoying!]

What I really don't like is getting through an entire Pokemon game, looking at my Dex, and seeing that entire chunks are still blank. It's especially annoying in games where certain Pokemon are super overrepresented in trainer rosters; why not spice things up with some of the unseen Pokemon? It also sucks when a version exclusive gets this treatment, like how the Dex entries for Vullaby and Mandibuzz will always stay blank for someone playing Pokemon White, unless you trade for one.

Your mileage will vary of course: some people like the mystery of a fully unknown entry, but I prefer having enough information to find the Pokemon for myself, without having to guess at the relevant location or blindly evolve stuff.
 
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I would have been okay with seeing all Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex to unlock the post-game areas if it wasn't for the legendaries. The games basically force you to catch Azelf/Uxie and release Mesprit in order to access the post-game. I generally prefer to wait with catching all optional legendaries until I have done other things in the post-game, so I do not approve of it. Apart from that, I would have been okay with it since I always battle all optional trainers and I never had any problems with seeing all the non-legendary Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex. But because of the legendaries, I consider it a negative for the Sinnoh games. I'm glad they didn't do this in any other games.
 
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Suspicious Derivative said:
I would have been okay with seeing all Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex to unlock the post-game areas if it wasn't for the legendaries. The games basically force you to catch Azelf/Uxie and release Mesprit in order to access the post-game. I generally prefer to wait with catching all optional legendaries until I have done other things in the post-game, so I do not approve of it. Apart from that, I would have been okay with it since I always battle all optional trainers and I never had any problems with seeing all the non-legendary Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex. But because of the legendaries, I consider it a negative for the Sinnoh games. I'm glad they didn't do this in any other games.
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What's funny is that Dialga and Palkia's brief appearance at the Spear Pillar is enough to register them as "seen" in Platinum but following the lake trio around the Distortion World for an extended period, including several instances where they're right in front of your face... isn't.
 
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Suspicious Derivative said:
I would have been okay with seeing all Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex to unlock the post-game areas if it wasn't for the legendaries. The games basically force you to catch Azelf/Uxie and release Mesprit in order to access the post-game. I generally prefer to wait with catching all optional legendaries until I have done other things in the post-game, so I do not approve of it. Apart from that, I would have been okay with it since I always battle all optional trainers and I never had any problems with seeing all the non-legendary Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex. But because of the legendaries, I consider it a negative for the Sinnoh games. I'm glad they didn't do this in any other games.
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That is a fair point. All the cutscenes with them really should count towards them being seen.
 
Least fav: Colo showing that just cuz you're an "adult" (he's 17, so no) protag, doesn't mean story is automatically better :psysly:
But legit, I do like
The twist of the mayor being evil. Screw his skill swap Slaking though, the level jump was baaad enough

Fav: Explorers of Sky not doing a special episode of Team Skull (no not the pathetic yet funny team). The fact freaking Sunflora, a character no one gave a cent about got it still makes me mad. Even Bidoof and Team Charm had something remotely relevant to the main plot, so Sunflora not I'm just...aaaaagh
Seriously, Team Skull almost died, and then is just...nonexistent post game
 
-s about Favorites
OR/AS
  • Lack of Trainer Customization - It makes sense that Gamefreak didn't do this at the time, but this would have been cool :pirate:.
  • Super Secret Bases reduce Trainer AIs to 3 Pokémon max - In RSE these trainers had six Pokémon each, which makes it odd that they have three in these games instead. However, you can also face off against Trainer AIs at anytime you want using the Vs. Recorder Mock Battle System, so this isn't all that bad of a thing.
  • Creativity is required to make more memorable matches - ORAS are often regarded as some of the easiest Pokémon games to play through when you just use a regular team of favorites, but it can be difficult if you make challenges off it, just as any other Pokémon game. However when you do this, your run ends up being less relatable to the average person. The average person won't see through the potential of what you can do in Pokémon games (esp Gens 6 and 7) and could often not have as good of experiences because of it. I loved the Wally and Zinnia matches in this game. They were very special and very memorable, but so many people disregarded them for being too easy and it's saddening how that's all that matters.
US/UM
  • Removal of the National Pokédex - This wasn't horrendous because all Pokémon at the time were still programmed into the games, but it would've been fun to try completing a National Pokédex in Alola.
  • Marshadow - As someone who played Anything Goes during Gen 7, I've experienced the large about of impact Marshadow has made on the metagame and it's usually unanimously agreed upon by everyone who played before its release that Anything Goes was much better without this Pokémon. Its dual typing and STAB moves were just too much for a fun metagame to handle and teams had to compress themselves being primarily balance all the time due to how centralized Marshadow became. On top of that, it doesn't really have a solid lore, it backfired with what it was given in the I Choose You movie, and has all around not shown to be very special elsewhere. This Pokémon currently just exists but one of the greatest concepts in Pokémon battling significantly worsened with its presence.
  • Background Trainer Models being added to the game and/or Pokémon 3D models not being scaled properly - In Gen 7, the improper scaling really showed because trainer models were included in the game with them in the background and the 3D models had to zoom out a just to fit those trainers in. I battled off against Team Rainbow Rocket only to find Maxie being taller than his Groudon and it sorta killed a lot of the magic in fighting a Groudon. At the end of the day, it's still a Groudon though and it's able to decimate through teams if left unchecked but it would've been cool to see a much larger Groudon!
  • Z-Moves - This one is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it was a great idea to give all Pokémon something to work with. On another, these were a little overboard and they broke the scale of balance a fair bit in competitive. Competitive as a whole was rougher to handle than in generations before this, but Z-Moves were one of the biggest factors to that.
Conquest
  • No online PvP :pirate:
  • It would've been really cool if there was a battle mode where you can customize the opponent's team based on what you've obtained in your gallery and then face off against that team right away. This is probably too much to ask but you can technically customize the opponent's team; Doing so just takes a long while (possibly days irl) because it's done through a story mode.
    • sI3L9ao.jpg
  • Advertising and Marketing SUCKED for this game - Pokémon Conquest is a great Pokémon game, but many people don't know it exists. It's all because the game came out very late in the DS era and had to compete with Black 2 White 2 for advertisement.

+s about Least Favorites
Sw/Sh
  • Although Calyrex is busted in competitive, there are a lot of things that are cool about this Pokémon. It has some high tier legendary battle themes, sick lore about how it thrives off worship but is weakened without it, and has a great character arc in the Crown Tundra DLC for Sword and Shield.
  • Out of all the Gigantamax formes that were considered for the game, Gigantamax Garbodor just happens to be one of them. It's a perfect Pokémon to symbolize how I feel the concepts of Gigantamax, Dynamax, and Eternamax are! Hooray! c:
  • Gamefreak made a giant wedding cake into a Pokémon...
 
Resurrecting this thread to make a point about Platinum's regional dex. Platinum's dex is good overall but I don't think it's better than B2W2's as I wrote about here.

This is mainly due to Pokemon distribution. But more specifically, I want to bring up Ice types.

It's been written about before but Sinnoh of all regions should have had earlier Ice types. If they weren't going to change DP's encounter tables Platinum should've at least added the new Ice types earlier in the game.

And there doesn't seem like a great reason why Snorunt and Swinub shouldn't be available earlier, say around the second or third gym. I wrote about Snorunt here where I don't think adding it around then would've been game breaking at all. I could probably say something similar about Swinub.

Just disappointing and has become one of my biggest gripes against my favorite game over the years.
 
Wukong said:
Resurrecting this thread to make a point about Platinum's regional dex. Platinum's dex is good overall but I don't think it's better than B2W2's as I wrote about here.

This is mainly due to Pokemon distribution. But more specifically, I want to bring up Ice types.

It's been written about before but Sinnoh of all regions should have had earlier Ice types. If they weren't going to change DP's encounter tables Platinum should've at least added the new Ice types earlier in the game.

And there doesn't seem like a great reason why Snorunt and Swinub shouldn't be available earlier, say around the second or third gym. I wrote about Snorunt here where I don't think adding it around then would've been game breaking at all. I could probably say something similar about Swinub.

Just disappointing and has become one of my biggest gripes against my favorite game over the years.
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Sinnoh was the first core series region that I think could make an argument in favor of being “the region most associated with the Ice-Type”, an oddly specific distinction that I would currently say goes to Galar but Sinnoh’s definitely up there. Problem is, it’s got the same problem all these other regions do- Ice-Types just come way too late and are too weak in their base forms to account for that. Something like Spheal in Hoenn or Snover here can evolve fairly quickly, sure, but as the game gets stronger, Ice tends to get weaker, with their biggest wins in most games being against the equally late Dragon-Types offensively.

Platinum’s roster of Ice-Types is unironically one of the best in the series, at least in my opinion, and aside from Flint in the League I do think their matchup spread is at least passable given what the Type is normally working with. Should you be able to get them at a reasonable time, all of Abomasnow, Glalie, Froslass, Mamoswine, Weavile, and Glaceon range from decent to excellent in my opinion. But again, they’re bad defensively and they come late, so, like… it’s really hard to justify.
 
Thanks for bumping this thread.

My overall favorites and least favorites haven’t changed since my last post in this thread (five years ago!), but I might as well make a “Switch Edition” of this, because why not? Here we go!

Least favorite things about my favorite Pokémon game on the Switch:

Legends: Z-A
- Can’t get trade evolutions without trading (some can be caught in the wild, but not all).
- Some Mega Stones can only be obtained through online Ranked Battles.
- Some Pokédex requests are grindy, notably having to catch 50 Pokémon of each type and winning a total of 1000 trainer battles.
- The Pokédex doesn’t automatically open up when you register a new Pokémon.

Favorite things about my least favorite Pokémon game on the Switch:

Legends: Arceus
- You can get all trade evolutions without trading!
- Linear open world region design.
- The Hisuian forms and evolutions.
- The game does a great job at focusing on and showcasing the Sinnoh Pokémon.
 
"- Some Pokédex requests are grindy, notably having to catch 50 Pokémon of each type and winning a total of 1000 trainer battles." 50 Pokemon is quite easy. 1000 battles was horrible
 
Here's my Switch games edition (Disclaimer: I have neither played nor intend to play the ILCA games, so I'm only talking about the ones I've played):

Legends: Arceus
  • The opening tutorial is pretty bland, even if it's not the worst (see below for that).
  • Paras, Staravia, Remoraid, and Hippowdon are 4 mons I didn't have an issue with until this game decided to make them into total pests.
  • Noble battles can get both drawn-out and irritating, especially Electrode and Avalugg.
  • The closest thing to DLC the game got was an extra sidequest that takes about 2 hours at most to complete (and ruined the fun trick you could use to find Shiny mons more easily in Mass Outbreaks).

Scarlet/Violet
  • Tons of glitches and performance issues when the games were first released (even though I personally hardly had any, and it plays infinitely better on Switch 2, but you should still fix them before releasing the game).
  • Breeding is definitely a downgrade. The day care/nursery feature was better.
  • We were robbed of plenty of opportunities for more quality cross-gen evolutions and Paldean forms. A few obtainable mons off the top of my head that could have been top candidates for the former: Venomoth, Ariados, Furret, Mightyena, Volbeat, Illumise, Swalot, Kricketune, Lumineon, and Gumshoos. As for the latter: Grumpig, Flygon, Luxray, Beartic, and Mienshao.

Legends: Z-A
  • The most boring and drawn-out opening tutorial in the series.
  • The Wild Zones are kind of bland and nowhere near as fun to search for Pokemon in as Hisui was.
  • Lumiose is pretty cluttered and can be tedious to navigate, certainly more than Hisui and Paldea were. Doing parkour with a phone was fun for about 10 minutes at most before I began to wish I could just get my Miraidon back.
  • As cool as most of the new Megas are, I would always prefer to see actual new Pokemon and regional variants instead of just new bootleg Super Saiyans.
  • Mega Starmie. Don't bastardize one of my favorite mons like that!

Sword/Shield (Note: I actually think these games are all right, but they're eons worse than the ones in my favorites.)
  • The stadiums and Dynamax helped make the Gyms a lot more memorable than they would've otherwise been.
  • The Wild Area was fun to explore and a solid introduction to open world areas.
  • The DLC, particularly the Crown Tundra, helped prop up the quality of the overall experience.
  • Dynamax Adventures can turn into a colossal crapshoot in short order, but if you succeed, you can catch Legendary mons more easily here than anywhere else in the series (including Shiny ones - I caught a Shiny Kartana there once).
  • Introduced the best Electric rodent and pseudo-legendary.
 
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Favorites (USUM (or UPUS if you're Gireum Red (aka "Kanto Pandering, in MY 20th Anniversary celebration game?! This game sucks!")), ZA, B2W2, and SwSh)

USUM: It's really hard for me to find something I hate about USUM, so I'll just mention the fact that Gyro controls are the default wormhole travel settings.

ZA: ZA has the worst pacing in the whole series. I thought that finishing the 3 side missions ended the tutorial, but apparently reaching Rank F was when the tutorial ends. No wonder Rank E-A felt like a slog. I also find the sneak mechanics iffy at times.

B2W2: Multiple forced tutorials, plus some of the postgame stuff (the Battle Facilities) has a too high of a barrier of entry, making battles one sided at times. Also "Gen 5 last good one" people.

SwSh: Without the DLC, little to no side content other than the Battle Tower and raids.

Least Favorite (Yellow)

Yellow: Despite it's beyond outdated mechanics, tedious grinding, and flawed battle system, it's still nostalgic for me. (Grew up with VC Yellow and Gold)
 
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