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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I distinctly remember catching it Cartoon Network after the Kids WB run up to the Diamond and Pearl era, and know it was still running on CN before Disney snatched up broadcasting rights to put on Disney XD during the Sun and Moon era. (That was a super weird channel hop ngl, especially since Disney dumped it by the end of Gen 7 and the show jumped to Netflix.) But I definitely cannot recall the anime being on super frequently during the Black and White era. Then again, I was in high school in 2009-2012 (so a good chunk of Gen 4 and the entirety of Gen 5) and not exactly tuning into Cartoon Network a bunch even if I was still playing the games. DVRs being popular at that time before right streaming really took over (and thus TV scheduling being less important to keep track off) also contribute to the hazy memories.
It's been a minute since I've seen a take this wild.
I was deadass expecting an argument to include side games like Stadium, not the freaking anime of all things. Gen 1 Mainline + Stadium 1 is leaps and bounds above FRLG btw. RBY is already better than FRLG on its own anyway.
There's just no reason to include it when it comes to generations though, especially with how repetitive the anime could get, and the varying degrees of hoeing that Ash went through so he wouldn't become champ. (Tobias was some bullshit!
)Imagine telling Gen 5 fans this:
Those rabid ahh people would probably jump you on the spot even if you weren't dissing those garbage games.
Assuming this is true, we might as well include everything: manga adaptations, spinoff games, general media impact (if we do this one, then Gen 1 remains uncontested best generation and not even close)
Funnily enough, if I judged them based only on how good the Adventures arc is, I would be saying "Generation 6, the last amazing generation of Pokémon" instead of 5
Very curious as to your reasoning. RBY is extremely archaic and hard to go back to unless you're actively trying to abuse glitches or other cracks in the game design. I would not hesitate to point someone to FRLG if they want to experience Kanto.
Personal bias is 150% seeping in but I really think that Gen 7 has a solid claim to best overall IF you count Pokemon Go as part of it: It came out before SM and many people don't like how Niantic has managed it but its impact was undeniably monumental. Other than that, goat games and goat anime, including a (from what I've heard) splendid batch of movies. Such a vibrant and artistically rich era of the franchise on nearly every front I would give everything to go back to. My secondary nomination would be 4 for being the undisputed golden age of console spinoffsAssuming this is true, we might as well include everything: manga adaptations, spinoff games, general media impact (if we do this one, then Gen 1 remains uncontested best generation and not even close)
Funnily enough, if I judged them based only on how good the Adventures arc is, I would be saying "Generation 6, the last amazing generation of Pokémon" instead of 5
Same (Including the personal bias stuff), with 6 as a runner-up. There was so much to be hyped about during GO Mania up to LGPE. GO as a whole, Ash Greninja, Ultra Beasts, the Legendary events, the GOATED animes...
God I miss the 3DS era...
I mean, if I'm going to hold unintentional behaviors that make the experience worse against other games, why not embrace when the jank is interesting? I do think gen 3's package is better, but there's also a solid argument that Stadium can be classed as part of a Kanto experience while Colosseum definitely can't.
Like don't get me wrong the jank does have its own appeal (e.g. auto crit Razor Leaf makes taking the Grass starter actually a consideration, which is a rarity lol), but Gen 1 also has the super limited bag, crappy movesets, and some Pokémon just being awful with the single Special stat. Those flaws can be heavily suffocating to a casual playthrough.
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The limits are part of the point of Gen 1 and part of its charm though.
You don’t replay Gen 1 because you want it to feel a like modern Pokemon game. You want to replay Gen 1 because it is pixel art, it has amazing tunes for the time that are addictive, it has a compelling story and narrative, and because it comes with a huge amount of other material, lore and merchandise that - and I speak as a Gen Wunner - you really had to be there, to understand it fully.
Gen 1 I would argue is best for casual playthroughs because it’s limiting on certain features. Not limited overall.
But if someone asked me if I’d go for a completely new 3D interpretation of Gen 1, like this:
Then sign me up!
Unironically yeah, it was the milestone generation of 20 years of Pokemon. GO could be considered part of it since it released of that year, hard to considered it a Gen 6 game when it was pure Kanto when it first dropped (then again, XY was also way too overboard with the Kanto nostalgia, so it fits in Gen 6 too ig).
I do feel it's kinda unfair that the Gens 7 and 8 animes got media spotlight ONLY BECAUSE Ash won those leagues. And that's because of the Original Series impact on people, not because of SM and Journeys series themselves. It's unfair because the rest of the series feel ignored as a result, only the end result matters. I say this despite me not being a fan of these.
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I will happily say I have nostalgia goggles on, but if you lived through the GB era, and played Pokemon, you will find yourself humming certain tunes without realising it. I always hum the cycling road theme when I'm actually cycling
The storyline in RBY was pretty well developed compared to some other contemporaries on the same console - only Link's Awakening and the two follow ups really beat it overall, IMO.
This was not remotely true even when the game was brand new. Pretty much every single notable RPG on the SNES and Genesis clears it by miles on that front.
Like, you need only to point to the ending to discern that RBY isn't serious at all about its themes. Oak lectures Blue about how he lost because he "doesn't treat his Pokemon with love" even though literally nothing in the game actually demonstrates that he raises his team in a manner that's any different from what the player does.
And I've said before that if Gen 1 was actually written competently, then it either wouldn't have allowed the player to capture Mewtwo, or it would reward the player for declining the opportunity. You can't write in all of that backstory about how tragic and wrong it is for Mewtwo to have been brought into the world to be used as a tool and then just let the player capture him as a final checklist item without reconciling how thematically wrong that is for how it was set up.
We played Pokemon for the team-building gameplay and link/social component, not the story.
The backstory you're referring to doesn't exist in the original games, that's an anime thing. In RBY all that's said is that they found Mew in South America, it birthed Mewtwo, and then Mewtwo was to powerful and blew up the Mansion. Bulbapedia
Mewtwo had no other lore prior to the anime inventing everything else.
Come on. You don't even have to get into the subtext to walk away from the Pokemon Mansion with the conclusion of "man, those scientists sure fucked up everything, huh." Seeing that this all happens post Silph Co as well, you're already plenty familiar with less-than-ethical scientists in general, so that's kind of become a running theme at this point.
But I'll go ahead and get into that subtext by reposting something I said a while ago, and in doing so I'm going to contradict myself a little bit here and give Gen 1 (and 3, I guess) its props where it's due: the story of Mewtwo and Fuji was actually some really well done subtext for a game that otherwise isn't very narrative-focused.
- You meet the elderly Mr. Fuji in the Pokemon Tower, who--in the process of paying respect to the deceased Marowak--is taking it upon himself to berate Team Rocket for their horrible mistreatment of Pokemon.
- After you dispatch the Rockets, Fuji gives you a key item to assist in your quest, but he also stresses that you'll succeed in the long run only if you treat Pokemon with kindness.
- Through the NPCs in Lavender Town and the FRLG Fame Checker, the only other concrete things you really learn about Mr. Fuji are that he primarily cares for orphaned Pokemon and, notably, is not originally from this area. One of the messages he leaves for the player through the Fame Checker is a suggestion that the player care not only for the happiness of their own Pokemon, but for the happiness of all Pokemon.
- Far later, on Cinnabar Island, you rummage through the ruined laboratory/mansion and glean the main details regarding the capture of Mew, the creation of Mewtwo, and the destruction of the mansion.
- Through the photos in the Cinnabar Gym and from some dialogue, it's revealed that Blaine and Fuji are old friends who used to research Pokemon together.
- In the Gen 3 Faraway Island event, a single very old and very faded message on the island's outskirts outlines the hope that the next person to set foot on the island be someone who is pure of heart. The Japanese version very clearly lays out that the message was left by Mr. Fuji.
- Deep in the island's interior, there is only a single wild Pokemon to be found: Mew.
I think the more story-centric legends of later generations are fine in their own right and that it was generally a good idea to incorporate many of them into the plot more directly, but Mewtwo's place in RBY is cool for how much it stands out in retrospect.
...If only RBY didn't kind of undo most of that well thought-out build-up by just letting you unceremoniously capture Mewtwo in the end anyway. Oh well.
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While I have no strong opinions on Mewtwo, I come down on the opposite position for more recent horrible mistakes of science. The labs are going through their Doctor Frankenstein moment of being terrible parents, and the mon itself is discarded for not meeting their expectations. Then the player comes in, willing to be as friendly to them as gameplay allows, keeping them from an environment their biology isn't made for just as much if not more than protecting said environment from a strange and powerful creature. As much as N tries to appreciate every mon, even he can't see past the cannon on the prototype Genesect. Type: Null evolves via friendship for a reason. Heck, for gen 9 I think it could really use an extension beyond the mons themselves, needing to destroy the robot Professor because its original purpose was bad still doesn't sit well with me for a series that's supposed to be cheery and optimistic.
I mean gameboy games rarely have much of a story anyways, i dont think thats really saying much.
I've just never really been able to buy into the concept of "friendship" with Pokemon in the manner that the series attempts to dictate it, particulalry in the first games. Pokemon is functionally and fundamentally a franchise about cockfighting with a thin in-universe excuse of "Pokemon love to fight!" papered over it to soften its image. This is especially true in gen 1, which has virtually nothing to do outside of capturing and battling.
Like I've always found it to be kind of funny that the major controversy that surrounded Pokemon in the initial craze was that the evangelicals railed against it for being "evolution propaganda," and not PETA railing against it for its portrayal of animal companions as little more than battle fodder.
Saying that the player is "as friendly as can be allowed" to Mewtwo is I guess not technically untrue... but when you consider that all you can really do with Mewtwo is battle against it, catch it, battle with it, and let it live out its days in the ball/PC with the rest of your collection, isn't that a neutral statement at best?
Again, a lot of what you're referencing is Gen 3 stuff not stuff that was in the original games to contribute to your idea of not being able to catch Mewtwo. The Fame Checker is not in Gen 1 and Mewtwo has no association with Team Rocket in RBY. Faraway Island is a thing found only in Emerald, it did not exist in Gen 1. The photo in Cinnabar Gym are an addition of FRLG. Literally all of your points are things that were added later after you were already capable of catching Mewtwo in Gen 1.
So not sure how unpopular this opinion is, but I really really enjoy the Alola anime despite not vibing at all with Journeys. On paper I feel like I should regard them similarly, being significantly more episodic in focus and trying to give a more even cast focus thanks to having a smaller principle group, but I just do not like Go and feel his focus is OVER done even as a co-lead. I guess trying to give Ash a 50-50 Co-star at that point didn't feel natural compared to an ensemble cast in Alola or earlier in his tenure with May or Dawn.
This whole "Pokemon is legalized cockfighting" schtick got old in 1998 because it clearly comes from people who don't follow the series or somehow fail to understand the overt aesop of a series aimed at 6-12 year olds even before the "think of the children" Americanizers got to it.
This is less about it being because of their original purpose and more that the AI professor is a keystone for the Time Machine, so there's a pragmatic reason completely independent of their personal morality behind the need to remove them. The game seems aware enough of this since it tries to smooth it over by giving them the personal interest in seeing the time they leave for to disable the machine rather than just going offline.
This is a read I never really got; even as far back as Gen 1 media like the anime and, fittingly, the Mewtwo movie, the series makes a very VERY clear distinction between sanctioned Pokemon battles and what actual dangerous cock-fighting would be like. It's akin to the difference between something like boxing or Martial Arts and a bar fight: combat sports have an undertone of being a show of skill and ability within reason, not an active effort to kill the opponent. Team Rocket is shown poaching Pokemon through means that don't align with standard Pokeballs and Training, while battles and injuries that threaten the combatants life vs being a contest have very clear lines drawn (Ash objecting to that one guy's very harsh training regimen, the Manga battles with Gym Leaders and the League vs Giovanni or the Elite Four).
This whole "Pokemon is legalized cockfighting" schtick got old in 1998 because it clearly comes from people who don't follow the series or somehow fail to understand the overt aesop of a series aimed at 6-12 year olds even before the "think of the children" Americanizers got to it.
There was always enough of this stuff present--even in gen 1--for you to fit together the pieces on your own. Fuji was involved in experiments on Cinnabar Island and had a pretty major lifestyle change that resulted in him being the caretaker of the orphan center in Lavender Town. Doesn't take a genius to piece together the reason why. Gen 3 just fleshed it out a little more. Like I said: this is the one major strength in gen 1's storytelling. This plot thread was always there in the background, and it was developed pretty well.
Like I distinctly remember playing the Faraway Island event in gen 3 for the first time, finding the note on the island, thinking to myself "There's only one established character who could have left this message." *checks Bulbapedia* "Yep, Fuji."
This just reads as an application of the Thermian Argument: using the in-universe justification to deflect criticism, rather than evaluating the intentions behind its creation and the material experiences that the end user actually gets out of it.
Look, I want to make it clear that I am not passing a moral judgement on Pokemon. (Which I think should be obvious, but you can never be for sure.) Nothing in its text glorifies animal cruelty. That's not the point of literally anything that the franchise has ever produced. But Pokemon, specifically the first entry, is literally just a game about capturing critters and forcing them to battle, because that's a concept that its creators found to be cool. (And it is cool!) That one throwaway line by Oak at the very beginning of RBY--"Pokemon love to fight!"--is literally just a single-screen justification to soften the premise. You literally don't do anything in those games except capture and fight with Pokemon. That's all that the game is. That's the only itch that the creators were trying to scratch in their first crack at it. The reason why the scant few lines about "friendship" fail to land for me is because nothing in the game shows that. There's no weight behind those words. Your Pokemon aren't treated as "characters" with their own motivations or desires as would any party in any other RPG; they're literally just tools for you to acquire or discard as needed, and that's how they're presented.
And to any extent that this is an "issue," it's largely just confined to those original games. The more supplementary media and sequels came along, the more that this concept was softened further and properly fleshed out.
But that doesn't change how I feel that the resolution of Mewtwo's plotline in RBY was really sloppily done without much consideration for how it tied into whatever greater themes that RBY flirted with up to that point.
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Gen 3 is not Gen 1, especially Faraway Island which was only in Emerald.
Also that photo is in the Cinnabar Lab not the Gym, and does not show Blaine. The one in the gym that you originally referenced does not exist in Gen 1.
It is abundantly clear, in gen 1, that Fuji was involved in the Pokemon Mansion disaster, and it is reasonable to extrapolate that at least part of the reason why he's now the Lavender Town caretaker is because of that experience. And I think it's cool that gen 1 leaves you just enough crumbs to piece that together on your own instead of beating you over the head with it.
I don't know what you're trying to argue.