I don't think this would be nearly as much of a problem if they hadn't mostly had you fight Kanto mons throughout the games. The dex filler mons were mostly fine imo, but you just didn't encounter them enough.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. Johto was originally made to complement Kanto, so having a lot of Kanto mons would certainly make the Johto ones seem more forgettable. (then they actually were: I wouldn't exactly say they were memorable.)
It's definitely down to the low exposure people had to the Johto mons during the games. I played Colosseum and XD before Johto or Hoenn and didn't know which Pokémon were Gens II or III (I had Red as a young kid but then skipped to Colo), and I have an affinity toward most of the Gen II Pokémon since these were primarily the ones used in those games. They're not bad designs at all, and were very interesting to use in those games were their niches being put to the forefront in a double setting. Aipom being the only thing you get with Tickle is actually nice in doubles with its speed, for instance, or Piloswine being able to use both Earthquake and Blizzard.
Gen II just seemed to hate its own Pokémon. Relegating some of your new Pokémon to exclusively the post-game is extremely bizarre, especially when they ones chosen are every Dark-Type (except technically Umbreon). And then fan-favourite designs like Heracross were absurdly hard to locate and use despite being available earlier on, and most Pokémon were only available on one route which made them very easy to miss. There are a lot of flaws with the game that had repercussions for the perception of the designs that are independent from the designs themselves.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
You basically summed it up. Sometimes I genuinely wonder if the gen 2 dev team was ashamed or unhappy with the final dex so they consciously buried many of its Pokemon as to not disgrace players' screens. It's one of the few ways I can explain choices like the only new Ghost type not appearing at all in the Ghost gym.
Remember how Gen 6 made the Fairy type this huge event with not only lots of early-game Fairies but also every single old Pokemon who got retconned into that type being added to the regional dex? A far cry from Gen 2 locking off every non-Umbreon Dark to postgame, seriously what the hell????
A lot of the oddities and bizarre design choices about GSC compared to other games can be attributed to the fact that it wasn't really designed to be its own self-contained adventure. The Johto games are more of a sequel to the Kanto games in that back then they were essentially "Pokemon 2", a continuation of the original RGBY. It's not like all the games that came after in that everything from Ruby/Sapphire onwards is essentially a standalone, self-contained adventure and Game Freak designed most of the games from there with the mindset that they want to "recruit" new fans into the franchise with each new generation, showcasing new sets of Pokemon to be beloeved by fans each new gen, and vice versa.
Gen 2 likely wasn't designed with that mentality in mind. As I said, GSC is a sequel to the original Pokemon games, in other words "Pokemon: RBY Part 2", and as such, it essentially operates on the assumption that someone playing GSC already played Gen 1. In that sense, it was meant to draw in familiar players who were already fans of the original games, and wanted more Pokemon content because they loved playing the originals.
The reason Johto mons were designed to be so rare, in my opinion, isn't that the designers disliked the new Pokemon, but that they wanted the new Pokemon in GSC to feel more "special" to players. As I said, GSC being a sequel to RBY means that it's assuming the player is coming in from having played Gen 1, and Johto is a complementary region to Kanto. So as such, it basically treats the player with familiar old Kanto Pokemon that they saw in the originals, and players will be like "Yeah, I know that Pokemon", but then they suddenly find that rare "new Pokemon" that they see, like Natu, Wooper, Heracross, etc. and the player suddenly has a "WOW I found something new!!! This is awesome!!!' reaction to finding it, and give people that amazing rush of excitement when they find a new Pokemon that didn't exist in RBY. Like you found something remarkably new, and it's something you, the player, have found and discovered for yourself. It's supposed gives a sense of having an amazing discovery after being familiar with the original Gen 1 Pokemon. Of course, in hindsight, this didn't work as well as it was intended, but this was likely the specific intention they had in mind with why the Gen 2 Pokemon tend to be so uncommon in GSC and rarely seen in Trainer battles.
This mentality also likely applies to them designing the Kanto segment of the game: some new Pokemon like Houndour, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. were placed there so that players could still have more "new Pokemon" to discover and find when they go to Kanto. Like you go there, and you think it'll just be all the Pokemon you saw in RBY and the Johto segment of GSC, but then you see stuff like Houndour, and it just invokes more of that special feeling of still finding something new you never saw before in RBY.
This also further ties into GSC's weird level curve, which based on my experience it's designed with a bit of freedom in mind in terms of exploration, but the Johto segment I am inclined to believe was meant to be gone through with 3-4 Pokemon, up until the Kanto segment. In that sense, the Kanto segment isn't really a "post-game" in the traditional sense, but is more accurately described as the second half of the game, where you pick up 2 more Pokemon or so to round up to a full team of 6: so stuff like Houndour and Slugma are more "late-game inclusions" to a team that you use throughout the Kanto half of the game up to the Mt. Silver battle with Red. So the new mons here are more "late-game" than post game: the game was likely meant to have Kanto as a "Part 2" of the game, and the game's main story effectively ends with Mt. Silver.
That being said, this was moreso my analysis of what Game Freak was likely thinking with designing GSC, and I think this is the idea they were going for with the new Pokemon: they were meant to be "rare, but special discoveries" to people who came in off of RBY and were playing this for more Pokemon content after the first games. GSC was designed with the mentality that it's a sequel, and therefore is inherently attached to RBY and assumes you know and have played that game. Gen 2 mons unfortunately do end up being more obscure as a result because the general thing with sequels is that a lot of the things in sequels aren't quite as memorable as the original thing when it comes to a series, so the Gen 2 Pokemon and the way they were implemented resulted in them ultimately being, unfortunately, less memorable than the original Kanto Pokemon and the Pokemon that came in generations afterwards.
Gen 2 likely wasn't designed with that mentality in mind. As I said, GSC is a sequel to the original Pokemon games, in other words "Pokemon: RBY Part 2", and as such, it essentially operates on the assumption that someone playing GSC already played Gen 1. In that sense, it was meant to draw in familiar players who were already fans of the original games, and wanted more Pokemon content because they loved playing the originals.
The reason Johto mons were designed to be so rare, in my opinion, isn't that the designers disliked the new Pokemon, but that they wanted the new Pokemon in GSC to feel more "special" to players. As I said, GSC being a sequel to RBY means that it's assuming the player is coming in from having played Gen 1, and Johto is a complementary region to Kanto. So as such, it basically treats the player with familiar old Kanto Pokemon that they saw in the originals, and players will be like "Yeah, I know that Pokemon", but then they suddenly find that rare "new Pokemon" that they see, like Natu, Wooper, Heracross, etc. and the player suddenly has a "WOW I found something new!!! This is awesome!!!' reaction to finding it, and give people that amazing rush of excitement when they find a new Pokemon that didn't exist in RBY. Like you found something remarkably new, and it's something you, the player, have found and discovered for yourself. It's supposed gives a sense of having an amazing discovery after being familiar with the original Gen 1 Pokemon. Of course, in hindsight, this didn't work as well as it was intended, but this was likely the specific intention they had in mind with why the Gen 2 Pokemon tend to be so uncommon in GSC and rarely seen in Trainer battles.
This mentality also likely applies to them designing the Kanto segment of the game: some new Pokemon like Houndour, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. were placed there so that players could still have more "new Pokemon" to discover and find when they go to Kanto. Like you go there, and you think it'll just be all the Pokemon you saw in RBY and the Johto segment of GSC, but then you see stuff like Houndour, and it just invokes more of that special feeling of still finding something new you never saw before in RBY.
This also further ties into GSC's weird level curve, which based on my experience it's designed with a bit of freedom in mind in terms of exploration, but the Johto segment I am inclined to believe was meant to be gone through with 3-4 Pokemon, up until the Kanto segment. In that sense, the Kanto segment isn't really a "post-game" in the traditional sense, but is more accurately described as the second half of the game, where you pick up 2 more Pokemon or so to round up to a full team of 6: so stuff like Houndour and Slugma are more "late-game inclusions" to a team that you use throughout the Kanto half of the game up to the Mt. Silver battle with Red. So the new mons here are more "late-game" than post game: the game was likely meant to have Kanto as a "Part 2" of the game, and the game's main story effectively ends with Mt. Silver.
That being said, this was moreso my analysis of what Game Freak was likely thinking with designing GSC, and I think this is the idea they were going for with the new Pokemon: they were meant to be "rare, but special discoveries" to people who came in off of RBY and were playing this for more Pokemon content after the first games. GSC was designed with the mentality that it's a sequel, and therefore is inherently attached to RBY and assumes you know and have played that game. Gen 2 mons unfortunately do end up being more obscure as a result because the general thing with sequels is that a lot of the things in sequels aren't quite as memorable as the original thing when it comes to a series, so the Gen 2 Pokemon and the way they were implemented resulted in them ultimately being, unfortunately, less memorable than the original Kanto Pokemon and the Pokemon that came in generations afterwards.
It's not just the attempt of making the Gen 2 Pokémon feels more special and the "sequel things cannot be as memorable as the original" mindset, what GF did had instead reinforced that mindset even more. A lot of Gen 2 Pokémon were not even too useful in-game to begin with barring few exceptions, and those exceptions do ends up being either rare or absurdly difficult to find.
Even if they would be more common, people wouldn't use Sunflora over Victreebel/Vileplume, Magcargo over Rhydon, Qwilfish over Tentacruel, Girafarig over Alakazam, Misdreavus over the Gastly line, Ledian over Butterfree, Meganium over Venusaur, Noctowl over Dodrio/Pidgeot, Corsola over Kabutops or Omastar, Miltank over Tauros... you get the deal. The opposite case is much rarer (Tyranitar over Dragonite may be an obvious example unless you take availability into serious account), and overshadowed by the case I had just said.
Gen 2 Pokémon either have mediocre BST or awkward stat distribution, awful movepool, unfavorable defensive type combination, design too plain or outright embarrasing one, or even all of above. So I doubt Gen 2 Pokémon being easier to find in their debut generation would make them anymore memorable.
I wish people wouldn't do this "be honest, you all agree with me" thing when in fact I don't agree with them.
On a related note, here comes an opinion that I don't think is unpopular in the broader fandom, but I do think is unpopular here. I see a lot of posts here that more or less assert that a Pokemon without a competitive niche / good stats / whatever is a waste of time, and not worthwhile for Game Freak to have made. I get why Smogon would attract that kind of thinking, and I can agree that it might be better that those Pokemon have something noteworthy in their battling abilities, but let's remember that there are a lot of different reasons people might like or dislike certain Pokemon.
I'm here mainly for the designs and lore. Battling performance is secondary.
I 100% agree with you that designs and lore are way more integral to a Pokémon than their battling capability, but I also think it's entirely plausible to have every fully evolved Pokémon have an adequate individual niche over any other fully evolved Pokémon considering the amount of content in the franchise. I mean, Riolu was extremely viable, before they nerfed Copycat, as a Roar-Copycat Prankster phaser that could rack up extreme amounts of hazard damage, even in OU. Those sorts of niches are plentiful and with the number of different possibilities within the potential combinations of moves, abilities and the like present in Pokémon, every Pokémon could be the best at something. And I think Game Freak figuring out something that every mon is best at would be really great, because then every Pokémon has at least the smallest niche going at the highest level of play.
The go-to example for this always ends up being Dustox. The amount of Bug-Type Quiver Dance users that Dustox has to compete with basically makes Dustox an awful Pokémon with no discernible niche. Imagine being outclassed by Beautifly! Admittedly in Gen III ZU it's the best Whirlwind phaser thanks to an anti-meta typing, but realistically speaking this was neither intentional nor something that would endear Dustox to more people. If they're not interested in making it a good Pokémon, at least give it something like Spore to set itself apart from other Pokémon. Parasect and Dustox could comfortably compete as the best Bug-Type Spore user on different teams based on their differing secondary typings, and even that's enough to give a Pokémon a niche. As it is, Game Freak is content with letting Pokémon be comparatively useless compared with the rest of the roster.
But all of that aside, I agree with you. Kricketune is one of my all-time favourites because I had a plastic figurine of it as a kid and find the concept of a cricket (who are famed for making """musical""" noises) be able to make a true violin sound really cool. Kricketune is completely outclassed in-battle with nothing to set it above a Pokémon like Leavanny, but its lore and design are neat so hey it's good in my book. I just think Game Freak could also do more to not make it so dichotomous as choosing between whether you appreciate lore or battle prowess more.
No denying any of that, and there are plenty of Pokémon that I do really like for reasons that had nothing to do with competitive or even in-game values, such as Wigglytuff, Crabominable, Shiinotic, both Raichu (that's a different story in a good way in VGC, especially Kanto Raichu), Absol, Solrock, Lunatone, Seviper (and to lesser extent Zangoose)...
Of course the opposite can also be true, with something with plenty of competitive/in-game value but that I still don't have much regard to it from neutral to outright disdain - and not (just) because some are overpowered. Clefable (neutral), Blaziken (slight like but not a favorite), and Toxapex (admittedly I really don't like it, though competitive didn't helped their case) are among my list in that case.
Keep in mind that there are people who only judge Pokémon with only design and nothing else. Nothing wrong in theory but by then their reason to hate a Pokémon is simply as thin as "it's ugly" even when the accused Pokémon have much more values beyond appearance. Of course calling Stunfisk or Crabominable adorable by their appearance would make an unpopular opinion.
For things that have none of the following - interesting design, high in-game value, comparative uniqueness to other Pokémon with shared type, interesting lore, worthiness of rarity and obtain method - well, good luck guessing which Pokémon that didn't fulfilled any of the following is my favorites.
Deleted User 465389
Banned deucer.
(side note: finding this card cute is an unpopular opinion, which I do not find it, as it is ugly)
I think Stunfisk and Crabominable are cute, because they're so derpy. Stunfisk is flat with a blank stare and has a pug-like charm to it, and Crabominable has a goofy buck-toothed grin and a stupid haircut.
I wonder how one could go about nerfing dynamaxing without banning it. Maybe add a conditional ban like only very specific Pokémon can’t dynamax (for example, Gyarados, Excadrill, Hawlucha, Togekiss, etc) the same way that ubers does. Another way to be to make a meta game of the month where dynamax effects only have a 25% chance of happening or maybe even requiring a specific held item to dynamax. I wondear how that would work out.
dynamax is pretty broken. anything with a flying move can go airstream -> stab and start sweeping after just a little chip, especially if they have fighting/poison. double bulk helps offensive mons set up
a conditional ban would be a 'cOOOmplex bAn' and also would be too specific and would have to ban a majority of the meta, pretty sure its only in ubers to keep dyna in some smogon tier
only heavy drawbacks/nerfs to the moves themselves would balance dynamax because many of the side effects are ridiculously strong along with just everything else
this [balancing dmax] has been tried in a pet mod before, too
I also agree that just because a Pokemon is not that great in competitive battling does not mean it should not exist. That's like saying that Ganondorf and Little Mac should not exist because they are low tier characters in Smash. Obviously people would be really mad if not outright furious if Ganondorf was removed as a playable character, so saying the character was removed because they were bad competitively is not valid excuse, Especially for the casual fanbase.
Its also very hard to determine which Pokemon is good or bad because it is so subjective. Goodra has a BST of 600 but is RU. Does that make it bad Pokemon worthy of being Dexited? Not to mention Goodra has very valuable niche in VGC thanks to being Dragon type that has a better than average matchup against Fairy types thanks to amazing Special Defense and access to Poison type moves. That typing and Sap Sipper makes it an excellent check to Sun-Based teams, since it resists Grass/Fire types that are central to that archetype. As a result, Goodra is ranked higher than Kommo-o and Hydreigon is VGC Series 5 viability rankings despite Hydreigon and Kommo-o being in higher tiers in Singles.
Or look at Leafeon. Its untied in Smogon, but has had some marginal Success in VGC thanks to Chlorophyll and moves like Weather Ball, Dig, X-Scissors, and decent offensive stats of 110 Attack and 95 Spd. While does face pretty stiff competition from Venusaur, people like Wolfe Glick have used Leafeon to reach high places on ladder. So Leafeon is definitely good in a doubles Sense, while still being bad in a Singles sense. A Pokemon could be good in one meta game, and not in another. That's how subjective it is determining a Pokemon usefulness in a competitive scene.
I am one of the people who think that every Pokemon should have some kind of niche (in-game anyway), how small it may be. The reason for that is pretty simple: aspects like design and lore don't have much of an opportunity to shine if the Pokemon in question is bad in battle.
For example, I think a lot of people like Ariados and Ledian for their design. However, they are ungodly terrible in-game, which deters people from using them. Keep in mind, almost anything is usable in game, so if a pokemon is near-unusable even in that environment, they must be really bad. That's just a waste. What's the point of catching and using a Pokemon you like, making memories with it and all that, if it's so terrible to the point that it's just not fun to use?
There are also Pokemon that are perfectly usable, but also plain boring because they have no niche. I think Unfezant is a pretty good example. It's stats are decent, but it plays like every other normal/flying early bird. The one thing it can do that other Pokemon can't do, is early super luck air cutter, but Unfezant's stats don't support this strategy. Imagine if GF really committed to this niche and swapped Unfezant's attack and special attack. Get rid of the charge turn on razor wind and give it a special flying type version of leaf blade, and viola, unique Pokemon. I think it would have made the Pidove line a lot more memorable.
I think my point here is that most of the memories you make with Pokemon are through battling with them. That time your Pokemon got a clutch crit on a gym leader's ace. That time you tricked the AI with a unique strategy. Those are the moments that stick with you. It's just not possible to make these kinds of memories if all your Pokemon can do is "have a nice design".
I also like to use Pokemon with niches, mainly to console myself that I am employing real strategy in battles and not just spamming SE moves. "Look, my Magneton used thunder wave before OHKOing that Pelipper with Thunderbolt! That's some real strategy right there!"
Jokes aside, Pokemon with specific niches are really fun to use. Once in an FRLG ROM hack, I searched for a Technician Scyther for 20 minutes and used a Heart scale once it evolved just so I could use Technician-boosted priority Bullet Punch. Sure, I could just teach a Swarm one Steel Wing and call it a day, but where's the fun in that? I also had fun using Abomasnow in Platinum. Admittedly, most of my 'strategy' consisted of spamming 100% accuracy Blizzards, but actually utilizing a Pokemon's ability in-game is fun.
Jokes aside, Pokemon with specific niches are really fun to use. Once in an FRLG ROM hack, I searched for a Technician Scyther for 20 minutes and used a Heart scale once it evolved just so I could use Technician-boosted priority Bullet Punch. Sure, I could just teach a Swarm one Steel Wing and call it a day, but where's the fun in that? I also had fun using Abomasnow in Platinum. Admittedly, most of my 'strategy' consisted of spamming 100% accuracy Blizzards, but actually utilizing a Pokemon's ability in-game is fun.
And how did it work out?
didls
formerly Besom
I don't really understand the loathing of "Inanimate object" Pokémon.
Inanimate objects are a perfectly fine inspiration for a "monster" which is why they're commonly seen in other jRPGs such as Dragon Quest.
"Inanimmate object" Pokémon also tend to have a far more interesting lore (and design) than their animal- or mythology-inspired counterparts.
Just look at Klefki, which has very creative lore but is still regarded as one of the "worst" Pokémon:
This is cool. It's a kleptomaniac keyring that likes to "collect" (steal) keys.
Inanimate objects are a perfectly fine inspiration for a "monster" which is why they're commonly seen in other jRPGs such as Dragon Quest.
"Inanimmate object" Pokémon also tend to have a far more interesting lore (and design) than their animal- or mythology-inspired counterparts.
Just look at Klefki, which has very creative lore but is still regarded as one of the "worst" Pokémon:
This is cool. It's a kleptomaniac keyring that likes to "collect" (steal) keys.
I talked already about Garbodor line, so about the other overhated line, Vanillite: I love this ice cream mon. Both Vanillish and Vanilluxe have a tendency to get angry and freeze everything in sight, with Vanilluxe being capable of producing snowstorms from its...wafer (which might explain why it got Snow Warning later). It's such a force of nature, contained in an ice cream sundae. No wonder why Unova legends like N and Alder have one.
An issue I have is that the whole Vanillite line has an unused characteristic in the games, just like Golurk turning into a cannon: it can get 'bald' if melting. This could have translated to a very unique ability, like Eiscue in Gen 8. Coincidentally, both mons were designed by James Turner, I like how much detail he put into these lines, even going outside the limits of the games.
An issue I have is that the whole Vanillite line has an unused characteristic in the games, just like Golurk turning into a cannon: it can get 'bald' if melting. This could have translated to a very unique ability, like Eiscue in Gen 8. Coincidentally, both mons were designed by James Turner, I like how much detail he put into these lines, even going outside the limits of the games.
I know this is technically a popular opinion at time of release, but as time went on this is slowly becoming unpopular...
I don't think 5th gen is as good as we remember.
Yeah I know. BW2 were huge improvements over BW. BW2 were some of THE best "2d" Pokemon games. This is strict fact. But I also think nostalgia is starting to take over people's memories here. I recently decided to transfer allllll my 4th gen Wifi Pokemon to 8th gen to bottle cap / mint them to perfection. To do so I had to play through BW2. I figured that's fine, BW2 is a fun game right?
ehh... I guess?
First off, it isn't very hard. Not really. I didn't grind at all. I think my starter was the water guy but Imo all 5th gen starters are awful. Competitively Serp is cool but sadly it gets stuck with Overgrow and no movepool in-game. Emboar is slow and has an awkward move-pool (many of its best attacks kill itself, also it kind of has issues getting good physical STAB). I guess the otter is the closest to good you'll get in gen 5 but I don't like Samurott either. My final team was Sigilyph / Magnezone / Lilligant / Braviary / Cobalion / Jellicent (HM slave). A combo of Twave + Flash Magnezone and some combination of setup mons (Charge Beam Sigilyph / QD Lilli / SD Cobalion) pretty easily 6-0ed all bosses, even the Elite 4. I didn't use in-battle items but still found the game overall pretty easy as long as you understand the type chart. Also on the topic of Pokemon there are a lot less options to pick from than I remember. I know they upgraded the Pokedex to not drown us in elemental monkeys + early game dogs for the first third of the game but even then I had trouble piecing together a decent team until about the 4th badge. I think my first "real" Pokemon was Magnemite? I had a lot of issue finding Pokemon I wanted to use, but that might be the "I post on Smogon forums and could tell you the base stats of these garbage NU mons all day" in me talking.
The gym "puzzles" were more annoying than anything. They aren't hard, they just serve to artificially inflate the time spent in each gym. Walk in circles until you find a trainer. Kill trainer to unlock next section. Repeat until Gym leader is defeated. They aren't fun. Also I know SwSh get a lot of flak for the game being "beat gym, walk down the road, talk to NPCs, beat gym... repeat"... but BW2 actually did that a lot. Literally Team Plasma launched an evil space-ship boat thing and the rival is like "oh no MrHands, better beat the 8th gym before we do anything about that!" Wow cool okay.
Team Plasma was just a bunch of easy mooks who died by the dozen. They actually gave you a healing bed on the plasma frigate so wtf, where's the difficulty? Kill a few noobs, rub back to the bed (it wasn't very far) then go back to killing. Colress himself was vaguely strong but he couldn't handle my master strategy of "Twave + Flash Magnezone + Lilligant".
It was a bit of a weird feeling dealing with dungeons and random grass again, unlike in SwSh where you just fucking see that Pikachu. By weird, I mean bad. Caves are genuinely not fun. Either you have enough repels and run around in circles pushing rocks into holes, or you run out of repels and have to hit "run" every 15 seconds. They aren't hard or in any way a mental exercise, they're just a pain in the ass. I know SwSh has barren caves which is bad, but flooding those caves with fucking Sturdy Rogenrollas isn't the answer either. But to be fair the item rewards were usually good enough that I was willing to buy a few extra Repels to go exploring. Grinding through NPCs isn't really fun either. Like, I OHKO probably 90% of what they use. What's even the point? Victory Road wasn't "hard", it just forced me to run back to the Pokemon center a few times which made it take a while... but it wasn't actually skillfully difficult.
Pokestar studios is neat the FIRST time you do it and after than, even 10 years later I have zero interest in doing it ever again. There aren't even any BP style rewards to make it worth the effort. Speaking of BP you can do the battle... train? But the BP rewards are extremely small so it's basically a placeholder until you get a competitive team. Similarly Pokemon World Tournament is fun for the baby version you get in-game but once the difficulty ramps up it's another post-game thing. It's cool seeing trainers like Cynthia / whatever but it basically just amounts to Battle Tower 2.0 with some sprite swaps to make you feel cool fighting gym leaders. I'm trying to think of what other useless gimmicks there are. Triple and Rotation battle that literally no one likes. There's Wonder Launcher as well. I battled my Ex's cousin once and the match took two hours because Max Revives should never go anywhere near a competitive match. Hidden Grottos are pointless. You get that guaranteed hidden ability rat but after that it's all luck. Also they're all "hidden" so I never found another one lol. There's join avenue I guess but I don't think anyone will ever come visit me in my 10+ year old game :( .
Also this might be completely in my head but the game looks like someone took HGSS and dropped the saturation waaaaaay down. It was so dreary and color-less. I even had to check my 3ds to make sure the brightness was up. There's nothing comparable to the bright colors of the almost ridiculously beautiful Bell Tower in HGSS.
Anyway tl;dr I played through BW2 to get my Pokemon transferred and didn't have much fun. It was just a tedious grind with minimal real difficulty. HGSS were and are the best Pokemon games ever and as far as older games go they will always be the best. BW2 is still arguably better than the 1st and 2nd gen, maybe 3rd, but 4th gives it a run for its money. I think we remember the slower, grindier early gen games with nostalgia goggles but despite the very real flaws of gens 6-8 I think they're far more playable overall.
I don't think 5th gen is as good as we remember.
Yeah I know. BW2 were huge improvements over BW. BW2 were some of THE best "2d" Pokemon games. This is strict fact. But I also think nostalgia is starting to take over people's memories here. I recently decided to transfer allllll my 4th gen Wifi Pokemon to 8th gen to bottle cap / mint them to perfection. To do so I had to play through BW2. I figured that's fine, BW2 is a fun game right?
ehh... I guess?
First off, it isn't very hard. Not really. I didn't grind at all. I think my starter was the water guy but Imo all 5th gen starters are awful. Competitively Serp is cool but sadly it gets stuck with Overgrow and no movepool in-game. Emboar is slow and has an awkward move-pool (many of its best attacks kill itself, also it kind of has issues getting good physical STAB). I guess the otter is the closest to good you'll get in gen 5 but I don't like Samurott either. My final team was Sigilyph / Magnezone / Lilligant / Braviary / Cobalion / Jellicent (HM slave). A combo of Twave + Flash Magnezone and some combination of setup mons (Charge Beam Sigilyph / QD Lilli / SD Cobalion) pretty easily 6-0ed all bosses, even the Elite 4. I didn't use in-battle items but still found the game overall pretty easy as long as you understand the type chart. Also on the topic of Pokemon there are a lot less options to pick from than I remember. I know they upgraded the Pokedex to not drown us in elemental monkeys + early game dogs for the first third of the game but even then I had trouble piecing together a decent team until about the 4th badge. I think my first "real" Pokemon was Magnemite? I had a lot of issue finding Pokemon I wanted to use, but that might be the "I post on Smogon forums and could tell you the base stats of these garbage NU mons all day" in me talking.
The gym "puzzles" were more annoying than anything. They aren't hard, they just serve to artificially inflate the time spent in each gym. Walk in circles until you find a trainer. Kill trainer to unlock next section. Repeat until Gym leader is defeated. They aren't fun. Also I know SwSh get a lot of flak for the game being "beat gym, walk down the road, talk to NPCs, beat gym... repeat"... but BW2 actually did that a lot. Literally Team Plasma launched an evil space-ship boat thing and the rival is like "oh no MrHands, better beat the 8th gym before we do anything about that!" Wow cool okay.
Team Plasma was just a bunch of easy mooks who died by the dozen. They actually gave you a healing bed on the plasma frigate so wtf, where's the difficulty? Kill a few noobs, rub back to the bed (it wasn't very far) then go back to killing. Colress himself was vaguely strong but he couldn't handle my master strategy of "Twave + Flash Magnezone + Lilligant".
It was a bit of a weird feeling dealing with dungeons and random grass again, unlike in SwSh where you just fucking see that Pikachu. By weird, I mean bad. Caves are genuinely not fun. Either you have enough repels and run around in circles pushing rocks into holes, or you run out of repels and have to hit "run" every 15 seconds. They aren't hard or in any way a mental exercise, they're just a pain in the ass. I know SwSh has barren caves which is bad, but flooding those caves with fucking Sturdy Rogenrollas isn't the answer either. But to be fair the item rewards were usually good enough that I was willing to buy a few extra Repels to go exploring. Grinding through NPCs isn't really fun either. Like, I OHKO probably 90% of what they use. What's even the point? Victory Road wasn't "hard", it just forced me to run back to the Pokemon center a few times which made it take a while... but it wasn't actually skillfully difficult.
Pokestar studios is neat the FIRST time you do it and after than, even 10 years later I have zero interest in doing it ever again. There aren't even any BP style rewards to make it worth the effort. Speaking of BP you can do the battle... train? But the BP rewards are extremely small so it's basically a placeholder until you get a competitive team. Similarly Pokemon World Tournament is fun for the baby version you get in-game but once the difficulty ramps up it's another post-game thing. It's cool seeing trainers like Cynthia / whatever but it basically just amounts to Battle Tower 2.0 with some sprite swaps to make you feel cool fighting gym leaders. I'm trying to think of what other useless gimmicks there are. Triple and Rotation battle that literally no one likes. There's Wonder Launcher as well. I battled my Ex's cousin once and the match took two hours because Max Revives should never go anywhere near a competitive match. Hidden Grottos are pointless. You get that guaranteed hidden ability rat but after that it's all luck. Also they're all "hidden" so I never found another one lol. There's join avenue I guess but I don't think anyone will ever come visit me in my 10+ year old game :( .
Also this might be completely in my head but the game looks like someone took HGSS and dropped the saturation waaaaaay down. It was so dreary and color-less. I even had to check my 3ds to make sure the brightness was up. There's nothing comparable to the bright colors of the almost ridiculously beautiful Bell Tower in HGSS.
Anyway tl;dr I played through BW2 to get my Pokemon transferred and didn't have much fun. It was just a tedious grind with minimal real difficulty. HGSS were and are the best Pokemon games ever and as far as older games go they will always be the best. BW2 is still arguably better than the 1st and 2nd gen, maybe 3rd, but 4th gives it a run for its money. I think we remember the slower, grindier early gen games with nostalgia goggles but despite the very real flaws of gens 6-8 I think they're far more playable overall.
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You know, lately I feel we're a bit """spoiled""" by Symbol Encounters.
Bare in mind, I greatly prefer them to random ones, in every game, not just pokemon.
After playing for so long on games with visible overworld enemies (either actually there, or symbol encounters) I came to realize how much more "barren" the ambience feels and how much it "breaks the immersion" when a enemy (or a bunch of them) just pops out of apparently nowhere every X steps.
Still, I'd never go back. I love symbol encounters. Screw random encounters, they're a relic of the past.
Local Man Learns Pokemon is Not Hard
Not for us who know the base stats, movepools, and abilities by heart backed by a decade or more of experience. I never assumed it would be hard.
But never once did BW2 make me take a step back and go "hmm, I need a different strategy" or anything like that. I had been under the opinion that BW2 was a particularly difficult Pokemon game but in reality it wasn't really any worse than the others. I was under the opinion that BW2 were more difficult than the modern games as there's no hand-holding or frequent "free" heals. But... not really.
I guess I was just surprised.
If I recall BW is the one that's considered hard, especially the final villain battles (in BW2 they nerfed Ghetsis by giving him a Physical Hydreigon with less coverage).
I definitely don't remember this being a popular opinion back then. The main thing I remember is actually people liking the BW story and thinking BW2 went too far back to the standard formula. In any case, what's written here is definitely not "strict fact" (personally: I like BW2 but am surprised at just how popular they are in this forum).
I don't really care about this but I recognize that a lot of people do. But for what it's worth I don't think I've played through BW2 very many times without some grinding before Clay.
Starters aside, Riolu is available before Magnemite. So is Mareep, though that's more "cool" than "very good in battle". Elekid/Magby at the same time as Magnemite. Not to mention all the gen 5 Pokemon that are still around.
The strength of the BW2 gyms is style more than anything. Individual, mostly-awesome themes. A band. Burgh's weird cocoon art. Battles on a fashion runway. Another hilariously dangerous Skyla puzzle. Giant moving dragon statues. The pleasant design of Marlon's gym. I've omitted the bad/uninteresting ones. Can't argue with your take on the puzzles, but I like those gyms a lot anyway for a different reason.
Haha, yeah, I have nothing to say to this one and I just want to acknowledge it.
I mean, this is just how it was until Let's Go? So if you're evaluating BW2 against the rest of the series, it doesn't really mean much. And BW2 gave us the very important innovation of being able to use the next Repel without going into the bag. Anyway, there's so much money available during a playthrough that buying like 50 Super Repels when they're available is no big deal to me.
...yeah?
Fake news.
I'm pretty sure it was never used in VGC or Smogon formats. What people can do in their own informal battles should be up to them and what they enjoy, right?
It's not that hard, though the payoff does tend to be very underwhelming.
Anyway, all the talk about difficulty throughout your post, the references to competitive play, and the stuff about the gimmicks, suggests to me that you went in with fairly specific wants. I'd suggest that to some extent this isn't a case of the games being worse than people remember, but rather that they don't tick all of your subjective boxes.
Edit: But, hey, it is the unpopular opinions thread, so that's kind of just what we do here.
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