Unpopular opinions

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
I've alluded to this across several posts in this subforum, but I genuinely think Diamond and Pearl are pretty crappy titles that have held up about as well as a paper mache castle in a tsunami. And don't get me wrong, Pearl in particular will always hold a special place in my heart for starting my Pokemon journey, and I sometimes desperately wish I could say these games were good... but they really aren't, and that tiny sliver of sentimental value is literally the only thing keeping me from deeming them the worst Pokemon games I've played.

If there's one word I could use to describe the OG DP experience, it's "frustrating". Everything about them frustrates me: The regional pokedex and its stupid, arbitrary decision to cut out so many of the brilliant new evolutions and their families ranks up with Gen 2 locking off Johto mons to Kanto as one of the most baffling design choices in a Pokemon game, and while it's not too awful at the beginning, I'd say the turning point is around Byron when the game design really begins to break down, where you see gym leaders and even the bloody Elite Four resort to horseshit like Flint having 3/5 of his team not even being Fire type with Lopunny being among his ranks just to stay afloat. Regular trainers and routes seem to be designed to artificially raise playtime via strategies like Double Team/Sand-Attack spam and terrains that slow the player to a crawl. The game speed in general is so fucking slow, surfing and battle speed is just a slog to get through after a certain point, to the point where on my last attempted playthrough when I lost to the Galactic Admins at Spear Pillar I just rage quit because I didn't want to make myself suffer through the horrendously tedious climb to the top of Mt. Coronet again. That's right, despite being my first Pokemon game I have never actually fully completed the main story of Pearl, and frankly I have 0 desire to go back and do so. I laugh my head off when people put these games above the likes of Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield, because at least those games have actual variety in the Pokemon you can raise and battle through the game with, at least those games aren't committed to wasting your time in completely banal ways that do absolutely nothing but reduce player agency.

Now, it's not all bad for DP. As a region, Sinnoh is actually really cool and well-designed (aside from the speed traps mentioned earlier) with plenty of nooks and crannies, interesting lore and a nice variety of locations which all tie into the rustic, historic theme of the region. Mt. Coronet's also a really cool midway point through the corners of Sinnoh, it's awesome to traverse this massive mountain with so many sub-areas that constantly opens up as you progress further through the game. I also absolutely adore the soundfont and route/town music. But there's a problem with all that: Pokemon Platinum.

I've been playing through that game recently. And y'know what? It's still not perfect. Some of that speed jank like terrains are still there, although other optimizations like battle speed and surfing still help out. But WOW it's overall so much better, ESPECIALLY with the improved Pokedex that adds actual variety to encounters. And while I'm just before Candice, people I've spoken to say that the bulk of the improvements don't come until a bit after, so I have yet to see the best this game can do. And that's the thing: Ruby and Sapphire have a perfectly functioning main story with more catchable Pokemon even if you don't have Emerald. BW1 and BW2 are different enough to be considered unique experiences. Sun and Moon have the better plot hands-down over the Ultra titles. But if you have Platinum, there is absolutely no reason to go back to Diamond or Pearl.
 
But if you have Platinum, there is absolutely no reason to go back to Diamond or Pearl.
That's the thing with third versions -- the same could be said about Emerald and Crystal. All three examples here are games that are just straight up better in every conceivable way unless you desperately love one of the version exclusives (leaving Mareep out of Crystal was a crime). I honestly feel in these cases that all the flaws of GS/RS/DP that were improved in the third version was a result of straight up deciding to cut that content from them until later, in a manner similar to a lot of modern-day DLC.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
That's the thing with third versions -- the same could be said about Emerald and Crystal. All three examples here are games that are just straight up better in every conceivable way unless you desperately love one of the version exclusives (leaving Mareep out of Crystal was a crime). I honestly feel in these cases that all the flaws of GS/RS/DP that were improved in the third version was a result of straight up deciding to cut that content from them until later, in a manner similar to a lot of modern-day DLC.
Yeah, I guess that's true to a certain extent for other games, but I did address that stuff like RS is perfectly fine to play if you don't have Emerald on hand. Meanwhile, DP on its own feels incomplete thanks to the stupid restricted Pokedex and is just horrendously unpolished to where out of every original Pokemon version the enhanced one (Platinum) outclasses it the most.

For anecdotal evidence of this: Pokemon Youtube videos. No, really. Compare how many times you see Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire and Black and White 1 played or used for b-roll compared to Diamond and Pearl. Unless the video/video series literally requires OG DP for a challenge or glitch only possible within its boundaries the overwhelming majority of footage for the game is derived from Platinum, while those other titles I mentioned get much more playtime/discussion online in spite of their enhanced versions existing.
 
Yeah, I guess that's true to a certain extent for other games, but I did address that stuff like RS is perfectly fine to play if you don't have Emerald on hand. Meanwhile, DP on its own feels incomplete thanks to the stupid restricted Pokedex and is just horrendously unpolished to where out of every original Pokemon version the enhanced one (Platinum) outclasses it the most.

For anecdotal evidence of this: Pokemon Youtube videos. No, really. Compare how many times you see Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire and Black and White 1 played or used for b-roll compared to Diamond and Pearl. Unless the video/video series literally requires OG DP for a challenge or glitch only possible within its boundaries the overwhelming majority of footage for the game is derived from Platinum, while those other titles I mentioned get much more playtime/discussion online in spite of their enhanced versions existing.
It's definitely a lot more severe with the Sinnoh games, but I definitely felt GS and RS were extremely bland and bare-bones after playing their third versions first. I'm still annoyed they used RS as a basis for ORAS instead of Emerald.
 
It's definitely a lot more severe with the Sinnoh games, but I definitely felt GS and RS were extremely bland and bare-bones after playing their third versions first. I'm still annoyed they used RS as a basis for ORAS instead of Emerald.
I second this- Emerald had the Battle Frontier and all the Johto Pokemon you could not catch in that FRLG in addition to what Ruby and Sapphire had to offer not much reason to play RS if you have Emerald.

I’ve
probably but that doesnt give RSE a pass for having ass sprites
I don’t get it. What’s wrong with them?
 
I second this- Emerald had the Battle Frontier and all the Johto Pokemon you could not catch in that FRLG in addition to what Ruby and Sapphire had to offer not much reason to play RS if you have Emerald.
Oh it's not quite just the aftergame; although that's definitely a big part -- even if you don't intend to go far from it and even if you end up in the Battle Frontier most of the time anyway, Emerald's aftergame does at least give you a satisfying amount of content to keep you happy for a bit. Stuff like the expanded Safari Zone and Groudon/Kyogre aren't an awful lot on their own, but all those little things together do come together to make a decent time. I feel like SwSh could sorely have done with something like this, as well; just a lot of little things to make the postgame feel a bit more open.

Regardless, as I said; it's not just the aftergame -- Emerald improved far more than that. Many Gym Leader teams - most especially Wattson's - just don't feel right, having only a few Pokémon and not quite featuring some of the new ones even when it would be obvious. There's barely any Double Battles in a game that introduced them which Emerald was very happy to fix by throwing in a lot of them; both mandatory and optional, and finally a lot of routes just feel kind of empty and not fleshed out enough. Those last two kind of feed into each other; Emerald adding more trainers does help each route feel alive, and as I recall there was also a much improved wild Pokémon selection despite no changes to the dex, and other minor things like graphic touchups and item/berry additions that helped. Emerald just made the world feel so much more alive than what felt kind of rudimentary and basic in RS.
 
On the topic of gen 4, I have something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a long time. I DESPISE infernape. He started the era of awkward, lanky starters, started the chain of fire/fighting types, burnt out crops, poisoned our water supply, and delivered a plague on to our houses. Plus, he probably eats babies or something. First, gen 1 comes out. GF gives us the og: charizard, a giant flying dragon that is permanently on fire. Instant fan favorite. Now we move on to gen 2. Typhlosion. Obviously, it’s no charizard, but it’s refreshing to see gf shake up the formula rather than give us charizard 2. Typhlosion is a pretty snazzy dude, and picks up a cult following pretty quick. Now gen 3 shakes it up even more and hits us with blaziken. Thus, Pandora’s box is opened. Now, under any other circumstance, a king fu chicken would come across as pretty goofy. But they absolutely struck gold with blaziken. As the first biped fire/fighters, the whole torchic line absolutely radiates passion and scrappiness. Blaziken blends it’s chicken theme perfectly with the fighting type, where it has a human like posture, but looks enough like a chicken, and more importantly, enough like torchic to pass off as it’s ultimate form, rather than a dude in a suit. But then gen 4 comes, and this time, there’s no shaking up the formula anymore. After designing two solid lines in piplup and turtwig, gf goes, “wait! There’s supposed to be a fire one, too!” In a frantic attempt to recreate the glory and iconicness of Charizard and Blaziken, they find a monkey, paint it orange, and set it’s ass on fire. For it’s second stage, they start to get cocky, remembering that the new fangled Nintendo ds can handle weirder color schemes. They pop charizard’s blue and blaziken’s red on this sucker, and keep the werid fleshy color from chimchar. “We’re not done with this poor lad yet!” GF employees shouted at the deformed ape they just made. After rolling it in the contents of a bottle of Elmer’s school glue, they fling the chimp into Ken Sugomori’s prized golden doorknob collection. They take the fire from Chimchar’s anus, and slap it on Infernape’s head, to make some vague anime reference I guess. “We struck gold again!” The intern proudly shouted, after realizing the monkey hit all the criteria: matches blaziken’s typing, fits with that werid zodiac thing we never talk about, and makes the mandatory Journey To The West reference all Japanese companies must make. Then there’s gen 5. “Do the same thing, but put a pig head on some funky Easter egg” an executive proclaimed in between bites of a sandwich. After realizing the fire/fighting was getting slightly stale, someone came up with the cunning idea of making the next one fire/psychic, but still using the same formula as before. Now there’s gen 7, when GF realized everyone liked greninja better than Delphox. In a conference call, the desicion was made to put greninja’s typing on Emboar, but make it swole and a cat and pop that bad boy in Smash. In gen 8, after hearing so much clamor for Sinnoh remakes, they gave Infernape back, made it 20% more appealing to furries, and have it play...soccer? “But give it shorts.” Someone said. “Cuz’ they’re comfy and easy to wear. Also give it Protean, LOL.” In short, infernape sucks because it set up this whole scooby-doo formula of trying to make another blaziken and failing. I know Infernape probably makes references to historical figures and whatnot, but that’s no excuse for being so ugly and overdesigned. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
 
Regarding the current discussions, my unpopular opinion is that I actually like D/P despite their flaws. I thought these games were good for their time, I had a lot of fun with them when I played them back in 07/08. That said, I'm not sure if would be able to go back to them today. At least I don't think I could play through the main game of D/P again. Maybe the post-game, I could see myself battling at the Battle Tower or even train Pokémon in D/P. As for where I'd rank D/P, I'd definitely rank them above HG/SS and everything from Gen 1-3, but below Platinum and everything from Gen 5-8 except LGP/E. And while it appears to be rare, I have seen some people who rank D/P above Platinum and I really don't understand them at all. In the end, I do like D/P but I won't deny that they have issues and it would be hard to go back to them now that Platinum exists since it is better in every possible way. But I would never consider D/P as the worst games in the series, they are way too good for such a placement if you ask me.

I agree that Emerald is superior to R/S, but apart from the Battle Frontier, I think all of the changes/additions Emerald made were mostly minor. While the game allowed you to obtain all the Johto Pokémon that were missing from R/S and FR/LG, they could have handled it better. The majority of these Pokémon either had to be obtained through the Safari Zone, or they were very elusive such as Sudowoodo or the Johto starters. IIRC, Smeargle is the only one which could be obtained through a more reasonable way. Everything else Emerald did were just minor things for me. Though I guess you could argue that the reason Platinum changed more is because D/P had considerably bigger and more serious gameplay flaws compared to R/S, meaning that Emerald didn't have to fix as much as Platinum did.

Another possibly unpopular opinion of mine is that I prefer OR/AS over Emerald. It used to be the other way around (mostly before I had played OR/AS), but after thinking about it for a bit, the only really big thing Emerald has over OR/AS is the Battle Frontier. Which is something I can live without. Despite being a battle facility enthusiast, I don't mind the Frontier not being in OR/AS. There were a lot of other things I'd rather take over it any day, and in terms of battle facilities, I thought the Battle Maison was fun enough. On the whole, I find OR/AS to be superior over the original Hoenn games. Don't get me wrong, I still like Emerald. But I just find OR/AS to be so much better in basically every way.

If we look at the other third/alternate versions... I liked R/B better than Yellow but I find all of them to be completely obsolete nowadays thanks to FR/LG being better than them in every possible way. I like Crystal better than G/S but I'm not sure if it makes a difference since I don't think I could go back and play Crystal either nowadays. R/S are not as good as Emerald, which in turn is not as good as OR/AS. Already went over D/P. B/W and B2/W2 are different enough the point that you need both to get the full package, while X/Y didn't have a follow-up game. And as for S/M, they are mostly in the same situation as D/P: good for their time, obsolete now thanks to US/UM. The story is better in S/M and the Rotom-Dex is less annoying, but I can live without that. I don't really care much for the story in Pokémon games anymore, and I have learned to live with the Rotom-Dex's endless babbling at this point, sad as it is to say. But like with D/P, I could see myself playing around in the post-game of S/M, but I don't think I can ever go back and play through the main game of them again because of how much better I find US/UM to be.

Lastly, the sprites of gen 3. I disagree with the Kanto sprites in FR/LG being far superior to the ones in R/S/E. I'm also not sure if I agree with FR/LG having "some of the best pixel sprites in all of Pokémon's history". After taking a quick look at them now, I think there are some sprites that are better in FR/LG, while others are better in R/S/E. There are also some that are good in all games as well as some that aren't good in either of the games.
 
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lepton

im fragile, but not that fragile
is a Tiering Contributor
Idk how unpopular of an opinion this is, but I strongly prefer newer pokemon designs, starting at gen 5. Maybe it’s because that’s when I started playing, but they just click better with me. Gen 8 is also my favorite generation for pokemon designs, with more of my favorites (:clobbopus::chewtle::eiscue::snom::appletun:) than any other gen.
 
Idk how unpopular of an opinion this is, but I strongly prefer newer pokemon designs, starting at gen 5. Maybe it’s because that’s when I started playing, but they just click better with me. Gen 8 is also my favorite generation for pokemon designs, with more of my favorites (:clobbopus::chewtle::eiscue::snom::appletun:) than any other gen.
It might be because around in Gen 6 the Pokemon Designs were probably built around 3D, hence they are designed to take advantage of the capabilities, specifically around being expressive. Looking at Gen 6,7,8, a lot of Pokemon seem to be designed around showing expression. The starter Pokemon are a notorious example, but here are some other examples: Galarian Darmanitan Zen Mode: Its literally hopping mad. Goodra: It attacks with its horns which have the 100 force of a hundred proboxers as well as slamming its sticky body. Clobbopuss: Its ready to punch you at any time. Eiscue: Its ice cube is so heavy it has a hard time walking.

Its not perfect though. Games prior to 3D have most Pokemon just standing idle, with only a few attack animations that are relatively generic. Also Quadruped Pokemon struggle with high quality animation ( all the examples I listed are bipedial ) look at Copperajah. It just stands there, only using its trunk to attack, which is boring to say the least.

As for Diamond and Pearl, the lack of fire types never bothered me. If anything it gave the Ponyta line a niche. What really bothered me was how obnoxiously long the save and HP scroll times were. After every time you used a PC you had to wait two minutes for the message " Saving a lot of data. Don't turn off the system. " And have you guys ever watched a Blissey HP scroll to 0? That bothered me more than the lack of fire types.
 
I get your overall point, but I think it's hard to say that Typhlosion isn't charizard 2 when they have the exact same stat spread.
That’s true, but for me a true Charizard successor would have to lose half of its HP to stealth rocks, have way too many forms, and be orange so I don’t forget what type it is. (Typhlosion is ground, right?)
As for Diamond and Pearl, the lack of fire types never bothered me.
Hey! Now that I come to think of it, this never really bothered me either! In fact, I can think of three they could’ve gotten rid of!

ok. fine. I’ll stop being so mean to Infernape, but he really should give those doorknobs back.
 
And have you guys ever watched a Blissey HP scroll to 0? That bothered me more than the lack of fire types.


As for my own (unpopular?) opinion, Gourgeist being a physical attacker is a huge waste. It's a Grass type that gets all these Fire attacks, a really cool concept, but has to throw basically all of them off of its base 58 Special Attack stat. I'm pretty sure they gave it higher Attack so it could better use Bullet Seed/Seed Bomb, being a pumpkin and all, but it doesn't really look like a physical attacker. Even worse, Trevenant, another Grass/Ghost Pokémon introduced in the same generation and which is something of a counterpart to Gourgeist, is already a physical attacker with a better movepool and higher Attack.

Heck, Gourgeist doesn't even get Flare Blitz via TM in SWSH! It does get Nasty Plot to bolster its Special Attack if you really want to use Fire attacks with it.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
A Discord pal of mine is a big Gen 3 fan. They also absolutely despise Emerald and think it's an overrated pile of garbage that is inferior to even OG Ruby and Sapphire.

"For why I don’t like Emerald, it feels like a rushed game in damn near every regard. Stuff that worked fine in Ruby and Sapphire was changed for the worst in Emerald.

Ruby and Sapphire had the Trainers Eyes for rematches which worked pretty well, while Emerald had that piece of shit match call that interrupted you every 5 seconds.

Ruby and Sapphire only had one prominent Water leader in the region (which is enough since he’s the strongest gym leader, and drives home the point of Hoenn’s aquatic dominance), Emerald had two for some stupid reason.

Ruby and Sapphire had Steven as a champion, Emerald had Wallace. Steven is way fucking cooler.

Ruby and Sapphire had a really interesting plot and was well paced. Emerald fucked all this up, a vast majority of the game is a ten year old fighting two evil teams. Really? In Ruby/Sapphire you at least had the opposing team backing you up making the situation feel more realistic and pretty unique.

Ruby and Sapphire had this really cool EXP trick where if you went up a muddy slope without a mach bike, your Pokémon in the daycare would gain exp! This trick was also really helpful for hatching eggs. Since it was something cool, Emerald of course removed it.

Ruby and Sapphire had no level cap on the Pickup ability, meaning a level two Zigzagoon could get insane items like Nuggets, Rare candies, Hyper Potions, Revives, etc. Guess what fucking Emerald does? Gives Pickup a level cap. One of my favorite things about early game Ruby/Sapphire was running around with a full party of Zigzagoons to see all the cool stuff I could get. Emerald took that away from me, of course.

Ruby and Sapphire have a damn cool climax, with you going into the Cave of Origin to quell the rampaging beast. It really makes you feel like a hero and savior. Emerald has Rayquaza steal your thunder and the ending is a huge anticlimax.

My favorite normal type, Zangoose, a HOENN Pokemon is completely unavailable in Emerald. How dare I grow attached to it while playing through Ruby! Other cool Pokémon I wanted to try out? Lunatone, Roselia, Medicham? All not in Emerald.

Emerald is the biggest fuck you of a Pokémon game I’ve ever played. $40 dollars for a vastly inferior version of Ruby and Sapphire? No thank you.

Only reason Pokémon fans beat their dicks to Emerald is its Battle Frontier. Here’s my opinion on it- like everything else in Emerald, rushed, incomplete, and poorly implemented.

Battle Tower- a staple that previous games had already, and is in future games anyway.

Battle Factory- great facility, but its in Platinum and HGSS, so not exclusive to Emerald.

Battle Dome- too similar to the Tower, basically a tower with 2 vs. 2 instead of 3 vs. 3.

Battle Arena- an actual gem in the pile of shit that is Pokémon Emerald. Funny enough, the only good exclusive trait to Emerald is this facility.

Battle Pike- shitty RNGfest.

Battle Palace- shitty RNGfest.

Battle Pyramid- shitty RNGfest.

There’s a reason Platinum’s Battle Frontier removed and replaced the majority of Emerald’s facilities. There’s a reason why the ruleset was made more fair (ex. 49 wins for Gold symbols in Gen 4, rather than 70 in Emerald). All 5 of Platinum’s facilities are incredible and immensely enjoyable and replayable. Only one of Emerald’s was. Platinum had the superior Frontier in every way.

Everything Emerald does, another game does significantly better. Want the definitive Hoenn experience? ORAS, and REGULAR Ruby/Sapphire outclass it completely. Want two evil teams/multiple villains? The Alola games do this much better. Want a Battle Frontier? Platinum and HG/SS do that better. Want Gym Leader rematches? Platinum and HG/SS, as well as BW2 do that way better. Emerald also doesn’t have Elite Four rematches, even though FireRed and LeafGreen did, a year earlier at that. Want a cool Champion? Every other Pokemon game in the series has that but Emerald!

Emerald in a nutshell is one of the most incomplete, rushed, and half-assed games I’ve ever played. It only had like six freaking months of development time. Not to mention based on the list I’ve made it’s completely obsolete and has no reason to even exist.

Ever heard of the Pomeg glitch? Ruby/Sapphire as well FireRed/LeafGreen don’t have game breaking bugs with that glitch. Emerald has several of these bugs that can brick the game because of the Pomeg glitch. Once again, incomplete and rushed.

I’d gladly play Sonic 06 over Emerald. At least there is ironic enjoyment over that. Emerald doesn’t provide any enjoyment, ironic or otherwise.

So basically, Pokémon Emerald fucking sucks."
 

p0ip0le

it's a billion lions
overdesigning a pkmn is just as much of a problem than underdesigning a pokemon imotbh. gen8 is mostly fine w/ it but some mons have some big issues. see: thwackey (just looks like grookey but mean, and has some other design issues mostly with the legs??? boring ass design) and zacian (very visually crowded)

also boltund's minisprite is very very stupid looking. look at this dude. look at his head. massive.

1581475018776.png
 
A Discord pal of mine is a big Gen 3 fan. They also absolutely despise Emerald and think it's an overrated pile of garbage that is inferior to even OG Ruby and Sapphire.

"For why I don’t like Emerald, it feels like a rushed game in damn near every regard. Stuff that worked fine in Ruby and Sapphire was changed for the worst in Emerald.

Ruby and Sapphire had the Trainers Eyes for rematches which worked pretty well, while Emerald had that piece of shit match call that interrupted you every 5 seconds.

Ruby and Sapphire only had one prominent Water leader in the region (which is enough since he’s the strongest gym leader, and drives home the point of Hoenn’s aquatic dominance), Emerald had two for some stupid reason.

Ruby and Sapphire had Steven as a champion, Emerald had Wallace. Steven is way fucking cooler.

Ruby and Sapphire had a really interesting plot and was well paced. Emerald fucked all this up, a vast majority of the game is a ten year old fighting two evil teams. Really? In Ruby/Sapphire you at least had the opposing team backing you up making the situation feel more realistic and pretty unique.

Ruby and Sapphire had this really cool EXP trick where if you went up a muddy slope without a mach bike, your Pokémon in the daycare would gain exp! This trick was also really helpful for hatching eggs. Since it was something cool, Emerald of course removed it.

Ruby and Sapphire had no level cap on the Pickup ability, meaning a level two Zigzagoon could get insane items like Nuggets, Rare candies, Hyper Potions, Revives, etc. Guess what fucking Emerald does? Gives Pickup a level cap. One of my favorite things about early game Ruby/Sapphire was running around with a full party of Zigzagoons to see all the cool stuff I could get. Emerald took that away from me, of course.

Ruby and Sapphire have a damn cool climax, with you going into the Cave of Origin to quell the rampaging beast. It really makes you feel like a hero and savior. Emerald has Rayquaza steal your thunder and the ending is a huge anticlimax.

My favorite normal type, Zangoose, a HOENN Pokemon is completely unavailable in Emerald. How dare I grow attached to it while playing through Ruby! Other cool Pokémon I wanted to try out? Lunatone, Roselia, Medicham? All not in Emerald.

Emerald is the biggest fuck you of a Pokémon game I’ve ever played. $40 dollars for a vastly inferior version of Ruby and Sapphire? No thank you.

Only reason Pokémon fans beat their dicks to Emerald is its Battle Frontier. Here’s my opinion on it- like everything else in Emerald, rushed, incomplete, and poorly implemented.

Battle Tower- a staple that previous games had already, and is in future games anyway.

Battle Factory- great facility, but its in Platinum and HGSS, so not exclusive to Emerald.

Battle Dome- too similar to the Tower, basically a tower with 2 vs. 2 instead of 3 vs. 3.

Battle Arena- an actual gem in the pile of shit that is Pokémon Emerald. Funny enough, the only good exclusive trait to Emerald is this facility.

Battle Pike- shitty RNGfest.

Battle Palace- shitty RNGfest.

Battle Pyramid- shitty RNGfest.

There’s a reason Platinum’s Battle Frontier removed and replaced the majority of Emerald’s facilities. There’s a reason why the ruleset was made more fair (ex. 49 wins for Gold symbols in Gen 4, rather than 70 in Emerald). All 5 of Platinum’s facilities are incredible and immensely enjoyable and replayable. Only one of Emerald’s was. Platinum had the superior Frontier in every way.

Everything Emerald does, another game does significantly better. Want the definitive Hoenn experience? ORAS, and REGULAR Ruby/Sapphire outclass it completely. Want two evil teams/multiple villains? The Alola games do this much better. Want a Battle Frontier? Platinum and HG/SS do that better. Want Gym Leader rematches? Platinum and HG/SS, as well as BW2 do that way better. Emerald also doesn’t have Elite Four rematches, even though FireRed and LeafGreen did, a year earlier at that. Want a cool Champion? Every other Pokemon game in the series has that but Emerald!

Emerald in a nutshell is one of the most incomplete, rushed, and half-assed games I’ve ever played. It only had like six freaking months of development time. Not to mention based on the list I’ve made it’s completely obsolete and has no reason to even exist.

Ever heard of the Pomeg glitch? Ruby/Sapphire as well FireRed/LeafGreen don’t have game breaking bugs with that glitch. Emerald has several of these bugs that can brick the game because of the Pomeg glitch. Once again, incomplete and rushed.

I’d gladly play Sonic 06 over Emerald. At least there is ironic enjoyment over that. Emerald doesn’t provide any enjoyment, ironic or otherwise.

So basically, Pokémon Emerald fucking sucks."
Let's dissect this one by one.

1. I could see that being annoying since you have to manually call them instead of the game providing a more passive means to inform you that doesn't disrupt gameplay. Valid, though a minor annoyance.

2. There's nothing inherently wrong with having two water type specialists. Wallace and Juan use different strategies, Pokemon, and are fought at different points so I say there is enough variance to keep them interesting. Watching Chuggaconroy's LP of Emerald shows how different they are, like Rest/Double Team Kingdra and Toxic stall Milotic.

3. Purely subjective. Whether Wallace or Steven was cooler or not has no strand on who's the better champion. Minor deviation, but I find Wallace so much likable ( If that was not obvious lol ) as champion over Steven. I just find him more fabulous and I find his team more challenging than Steven in comparison. Also, Milotic is better than Metagross.

4. Through that logic, Pokemon SM is bad because you fight Aether Foundation and Team Skull without any assistance from any adult. In fact, we can take it a step further and say every Pokemon game is bad because you fight criminals as a child without adult assistance.

5 and 6. They probably did it for balancing purposes. Did not want you to become to overleveled with little to no effort. Similar story for Pickup. You really don't need Hyper Potions and Revives that early on.

7. Ok, this is a valid point, I admit. Just going to Sky Pillar to awaken Rayquaza and watch it only to roar in order to shake away the personification of land and sea is kind of boring.

8. Lacking your favorite Pokemon does not make the game bad. Through that logic, all the games are awful because they lack someone's favorite Pokemon.

9. I'll admit I barely played the Battle Frontier in Emerald, but are here my thoughts:

9A. Battle Factory: You do realize after HGSS and Platinum came after Emerald right? Emerald 's the one you should be thanking for that facility.

9B. The Battle Dome has a unique system in which you are given points based on attack and whether you are playing a defensive and offensive style. There's also the fact you can see how their EV spreads before battling so it add another mechanic. Calling it identical to the Battle Tower is simply not true.

9C. What's so good about this facility compared to the others?

9D. The whole point of its to test your luck. My big gripe is that I feel its to similar to the Battle Pyramid.

9E. Ok, this is one is pretty bad. Having your Pokemon battle based on nature feels too much based on luck, especially since your not choosing commands. Not to mention you will have to breed a whole set of different Pokemon for that challenge alone.

9F. This one feels like a mini RPG. You and 3 Pokemon with no items go into a maze trying to find a way to next floor. You can defeat trainers to gain hints and you can items and fight wild Pokemon. I like it cause it combines traditional RPG challenge with Pokemon.

Oh BTW, just because it has RNG does not make it bad. If that's the case, all Pokemon games are bad because mechanics like damage use RNG.

10. Strongly Disagree that HGSS did this better. You had call them to rematch them and they had to be in specific times of the day, like Wednsday Morning. As someone who had school back then, you can imagine how hard it was to get rematch. Platinum, XY, and BW2 probably had better selection, albeit random instead of hand picking.

11. Just because it has glitches does not make the game bad as a whole. If that was the case, BW2 terrible games because of the Zoroark glitch, because that prevents you from encountering and battling N and fighting several legendary Pokemon.

Did this Person even think before posting his reasons? Or is he just trolling? I can't take this guy seriously because of all the personal bias in his arguments as well as all the poor logic mentioned. Emerald also had nice additions to RS, like the missing Johto Pokemon as well as Battle Frontier. And if this guy thinks Emerald is obsolete, I hope he never plays SwSh.
 
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Unpopular (though I know of people who share it):
I think Hidden Power removal was one of the best decisions GameFreaks came out with for gen 8.

I never liked the idea that every pokemon is arbitrarly able to run a coverage of choice (favoring special atkers for whatever reason), on top of it making much more atrocious to both breed & softreset legendaries if you wanted to play legit.
Plus, it's an extremely non-intuitive mechanic since it's not related to anything you can directly see in the game either (IVs are only approximated in the IV checker)

Combined with HeavyDuty Boots, the removal of HP helped making 4x weaknesses not an automatic "welp this pokemon is trash".
 
Unpopular (though I know of people who share it):
I think Hidden Power removal was one of the best decisions GameFreaks came out with for gen 8.

I never liked the idea that every pokemon is arbitrarly able to run a coverage of choice (favoring special atkers for whatever reason), on top of it making much more atrocious to both breed & softreset legendaries if you wanted to play legit.
Plus, it's an extremely non-intuitive mechanic since it's not related to anything you can directly see in the game either (IVs are only approximated in the IV checker)

Combined with HeavyDuty Boots, the removal of HP helped making 4x weaknesses not an automatic "welp this pokemon is trash".
Thank you; I've felt this way since I first saw the list of removed moves. Certain ones like Dragon Rage and Return made me a little sad; but Hidden Power I was all too happy to see the back of.
 
Melmetal is a terrible mistake by Game Freak.
I’ve heard so many people trash on Melmetal that almost seems like a popular opinion. Yeah, I agree that making meltan only evolve in Go was a mistake, but it makes sense flavor wise. I feel like Meltan/Melmetal line was the most interesting mythical reveal we’ve had recently, if not ever. I hope they do something similar with the new mythical they’re going to make the new advertisement movie about.
 


As for my own (unpopular?) opinion, Gourgeist being a physical attacker is a huge waste. It's a Grass type that gets all these Fire attacks, a really cool concept, but has to throw basically all of them off of its base 58 Special Attack stat. I'm pretty sure they gave it higher Attack so it could better use Bullet Seed/Seed Bomb, being a pumpkin and all, but it doesn't really look like a physical attacker. Even worse, Trevenant, another Grass/Ghost Pokémon introduced in the same generation and which is something of a counterpart to Gourgeist, is already a physical attacker with a better movepool and higher Attack.

Heck, Gourgeist doesn't even get Flare Blitz via TM in SWSH! It does get Nasty Plot to bolster its Special Attack if you really want to use Fire attacks with it.
That same could be said with Gyarados: It has an impressive special move pool including: Hurricane, Thunder, Fire Blast and even Thunder, but it only has base 60 Sp.Atk. What a waste. They should give these moves to Milotic. The reason for this is because in Gen1 Gyarados has base 100 SPATK, but now because of the Special Split, it’s just a relic of the past. In fact, lot of Pokémon seem to have that problem: Kangaskhan, Raticate, and Taurus have impressive special movepools, but have terrible base SPATK. That being said, most of the examples are Gen 1, and it seems they are designing more Pokémon based on movepools and abilities alongside stats. Then again, you’re example of Gouergeist.
 

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