This created quite a discussion. Guess I should have expected that. Time for replies! If I don't reply to a specific part of someone's post, it means I have nothing to say or mostly agree.
WOW WHO COULDVE GUESSED
(also much of the "hate" is good as criticism and directing anger towards someting at all. its such a general term and so easy to fit, like how you use it)
Spreading love instead of hate should be an easy thing to do, but it becomes hard when you are surrounded by negativity, or when you really like something but only see negativity towards it everywhere. At least that's how it is for me.
And it can be hard to draw the line between hate and criticism, good point there. I tried to be constructive in my last post (and I'm trying the same here), but it isn’t always easy.
the difference is (i think) that Plat just better, while USM either had flaws the originals didn't have, or maintained them. namely the story and tutorials. Also usm being part of 'new' pokemon while plat being old and being in 2 versions instead of one, and how close they are to the present.
(i actually dont know much about sm vs usm)
This is also a good point. While US/UM improves upon S/M, I agree they could have done even more and even better improvements. They are also a step down in difference from the first pair compared to how different B2/W2 were to B/W. But for me, the things they do are enough. I think they are an improvement on the whole, which is why I consider them better than S/M.
From my experience, Gen 5 seems to be on an upturn in terms of who likes it. Maybe it's just the friend circles I've found myself in, but especially with
that Poke Classic Network thing from 2018, people have been flocking back and enjoying it much more. I believe the competitive scene also has a lot of devout players. Not saying this to deny your experience, because it's clearly happened and is very unfortunate, but I encourage you to look around! In these cases, I recommend trying to find dedicated communities for the games!
You’re right, it has definitely gained an upturn in recent times, which is of course something I appreciate! But as said, it seems like the haters has become more vocal because of that too, which is sad to see. I guess I should try to find more dedicated communities, but I usually have a hard time getting into new forums and communities so I don’t know. Then I don't have as much interest in forums as I used to, and I have less time as well. So it will probably not happen.
As an old fan, I draw a lot of parallels between "the nostalgia-fueled hatred of newer games" with the newer players having extreme distaste for the old games. There's very little difference between them, both are extremely toxic and tend to just drive the community division further. I often hear the same recycled ideas about why the old games are the devilspawn of man and are "objectively bad" messes that should have never been made. The idea of something being "objectively" bad is already a preposterous idea considering human individuality, but anyway, not the thread for that. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if someone enjoys it, there's no need to ambush them on their way home and drag them to bad opinion jail.
Good point. I also think it is stupid to say a game or a generation is "objectively bad" (I once got angry at another user for saying that regarding a game earlier in this thread, it is on the first post, be sure to look it up if you want to see a really bad post from me lol). If anything, this discussion proves that R/B/Y are not objectively bad because you like some things that I dislike about them, making things subjective in the end.
The idea of RBY being obsolete doesn't make that much sense to me. The games have some of the most connectivity of any Pokemon game in the series, only rivalled by the Game Boy Advance titles. Pokemon Stadium, for example, gives you incredible reward for playing around with the Game Boy titles, and a lot more bang for your buck. While the Game Boy Advance games have connectivity with the GameCube, it can hardly be compared in terms of how much mileage you get for it. And this is just one of the games you can connect with; there's inter-generation connectivity with GSC and Stad2. Not to mention the completely different battle mechanics providing some of the most unique experiences of any Pokemon generation.
Connectivity does nothing to me if I can’t connect the games to anything. I never owned the Stadium games or even an N64, so that does not affect my opinion of the games. Besides, if you need an extra side-game to get the most out of the main game, it just shows that the main games are lacking in content and features on their own. I don’t care much for the different battle mechanics either, but that’s because I prefer the newer mechanics.
But this is beside the point. The main reason I consider R/B/Y obsolete (for me personally) is because of FR/LG. They do everything that I expect from Kanto but they are better than R/B/Y in every way that matters for me, so I have no reason to play R/B/Y nowadays.
It's hard to understand just how much ground Pokemon broke in the 90s, especially for fans who weren't heavily into it back then. At the time, the internet was in its infancy, and there were very few games of a scale akin to what Pokemon had. You can look around, the only comparable titles would be The Legend of Zelda on the NES or something like that. This resulted in the game blowing up in popularity in a way only really replicated by Minecraft. It spawned merchandise in almost every way you could possibly imagine, and the events...oh man, the events. The competitive scene was even televised in Japan, as I said in my OP. The level of influence Pokemon had during the 90s cannot be overstated. The way it bounced back after the Pokemon Shock event of 1997 is also something to behold. Of course, this is an abbreviated history, and I don't think it'd satisfy you at all, but I thought I'd give some input. Did the games age well? Probably not, but compared to other Game Boy games, it's definitely stood the test of time. I'd argue many are borderline unplayable. Super Mario Land 2 could probably fit on a GBA though, man that game looks pretty.
I remember when Pokémon was super popular back in the late 90s. At least the TCG, and the anime to an extent, not so much the actual games (at least at first) even if they also did get their fair share of attention. It was to the point that it needed no advertising because it practically advertised itself. I remember that basically everyone at my school was into it. The ironic thing is that I was personally not very interested in Pokemon at first, it seemed overrated and I distanced myself from it. Then I gradually got more and more interested and now I’m still a fan, 20 years later! It is crazy. The same thing happened with Go when it first was released, it became so popular that it basically advertised itself.
I do personally not think the games have aged well, but as you say, that can probably be said for a lot of other GBC games too. Haven’t played many other GBC games than Pokémon, just a few old Lego games I think, so I can’t really say.
I mean, if you want characters from other gens to get more attention, well, you can always do it yourself. If you find it annoying, I believe that to be a personal problem. Liking something is very subjective, and what someone likes isn't to your taste, that's ok! There's nothing wrong with that, and nobody should fault you for it.
This is a good point, and something I have thought about as well. I think I have done some posts where I give praise to Pokémon and characters from the newer generations, I should continue with that. Right now I have an idea for a post about a Pokémon/family that I really want to give praise to for a certain unique trait it has, I suppose I should focus on completing that post. Obviously, it is not a Pokémon from Gen 1.
I can agree that the baseline story for Kanto is pretty bland. Pokemon has never necessarily been about the story, I believe Gen 4 was when they actually started to try on that note, before Gen 5 came in with that showstopper. FRLG hardly even worked on improving the story either, let alone Blue. It's the weakest part of Gen 1 as a whole. You can link it to how games were made at the time, storytelling wasn't really a central focus back then. I wish FRLG modernized it, really. This is partly why I say RBY isn't ageing the greatest.
I agree that FR/LG should have improved the story more. While I like them and most of their improvements over R/B/Y, the story and the rival were two very notable things they didn't improve upon in any significant way.
I personally like most of the designs, but that's my familiarity speaking. Rhydon, Dodrio, Venusaur, Chansey and Vaporeon are my personal favourites!
As said, I like several too, some of my favorites are Alakazam, Starmie, Dodrio, Primeape, Hitmonlee, Gengar, Snorlax, Dragonite, Moltres and Mewtwo… and many others!
But at the same time, there are many that just feel boring and uninteresting to me. Some examples are Arcanine, Golbat, Machamp, Fearow, Pidgeot, Kingler, Poliwrath, Raticate, Seaking, Mew... and others. So on the whole, I think Gen 1 has the worst designs, not because every single design is bad, but because I think it has more bad designs on the whole compared to every other generation.
I highly doubt Gen 1 Pokemon are "immune to criticism". Whenever a "Pokemon has bad designs these days" argument spouts up, the first thing I see people go to is Gen 1 designs. Exeggcute, Diglett -> Dugtrio, Magneton, etc are consistently bought up there and torn to shreds. I rarely, if ever, see any other Pokemon designs bought up in those debates.
You are partly correct, but whenever someone criticizes a Gen 1 design, it seems that someone else will then immediately defend the gen 1 designs, often by saying “they were the original” or something similar. This does not happen to new designs; they get criticized without anyone really defending them in the same way. The Gen 1 Pokémon also never seem to get any hate when they are brought up, everyone is okay with them but every new Pokémon gets hate.
The bit about only seeing Kanto in Kanto games is kind of what you'd expect in the games, really. RSE, DP and BW all did the same thing, and it's just a series formula. In BW specifically, they made it extremely hard to find any old Pokemon, which is where a lot of the animosity towards it came from on the initial release.
My point (which I suppose I should have explained better) was that you only see Kanto Pokémon even in the remakes when they should have had Pokédex expansions. Granted, this is an aspect I think all the remakes could have been better at, so this isn’t only an issue with FR/LG and LGP/E. Plus the more personal reason in that I have gotten tired of the Kanto Pokémon so playing a game where I can only see them during the main story doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.
I personally like Yellow's sprites, though RG and RB's designs were definitely not the finest. For what Game Freak was at the time though, I give em props. In the grand scheme of things though, you can see why they never imported RG's sprites.
Same here, even though I don’t think Yellow are that good compared to the newer generations. But hey, better than nothing.
The open nature is more wasted potential than something unnecessary imo. Pokemon Crystal Clear, a ROM Hack, shows exactly what could be done to RBY. I think there is a hack that opens up the region more and adds level scaling, but I can't remember the name if it does exist. I don't think modern Game Freak not knowing how to make an open region is a relevant point though, given this is a game from 1996...
Pretty much this. I once saw a post here where someone said that open regions in Pokémon is pointless at best and harmful at worst, which I agree with. I don’t play romhacks and have no real interest in them so can’t speak for that.
My point about modern Game Freak was more directed to the wild area in S/S It has potential but there’s a lot of improvements that they need to do in order to make it function better. I think the Isle of Armor improved upon it but there's still room for a lot more improvements to make it even better. That’s for another discussion though.
Regarding the "third version" bit, this is a common misconception. In Japan, Yellow was released alongside an "official" release of Japanese Blue, after the latter was put on a special mail order in Corocoro 2 years prior. You could take them as sequel games in this case, though it's mostly semantics and puts em more with BW2 and USUM.
I had no idea about this. Thanks for letting me know.
Even then, though...I'm not sure what you're really expecting from Yellow. It improves the sprites, fixes many of the bugs (Old Man Glitch, for example), and makes many learnset improvements. It even added moves to multiple Pokemon, such as Kinesis Kadabra and Low Kick Mankey. For the first shot at a new version, they did a damn good job. I personally find Yellow to be among the best Game Boy titles out there, it's graphically stellar and gameplay-wise it's definitely among the best RPGs of the system.
I guess I shouldn’t expect too much, it just doesn’t do much for me compared to the newer follow-up games, and as said, I find it worse than R/B on the whole. Gen 1 is the only generation from which I prefer the first pair over the third/alternate version.
This feels a bit like gatekeeping; you don't need a reason to play a game, let alone a "good" one. That's all I'll say here.
I was thinking about how some people play the gen 1 games specifically to play around with glitches without caring much for the actual games themselves. I also remember some people being angry at the possible idea of the VC releases of the Gen 1 games fixing glitches and that they wouldn’t get the games if the glitches were fixed. But now that the VC releases kept all the glitches, I guess they are happy. I just personally find the glitches overrated. But if people want to play the games for them, I guess there's nothing stopping them. So while I personally find playing a game only for the glitches is stupid, I guess others can play which games they want for whatever reason they want.
It’s funny how you mention it because I remember encountering this issue while playing R/B/Y at times. One specific instance I remember is when a friend of mine was playing Yellow, and then suddenly he says: “What? Thunderbolt missed?” meaning he encountered the issue.
Gen 1 gets the most attention, to absolutely no one's surprise or shock, because it's the easiest way to advertise. Familiarity is very important in the advertising field, as it ensures the brand remains commonplace and "too big to fail". It's like how Disney has always been Mickey Mouse, and not the new characters, see? Who would be receptive to Sudowoodo and Aurorus on a poster advertising Pokemon? Likely only fans who exist already. Once we leave Game Freak's advertising department, I see more love for literally anything else, and I think that's a good thing. Look at when Wooloo was revealed and the internet exploded, that's great! But, I don't see why Game Freak's advertising should justify it? It's nothing to do with the games, after all.
Is that really so? To me, it feels like showcasing gen 1 over and over again is just trying to bring back former Pokémon fans (those who played only Gen 1 and nothing else). If they show Pokemon from gen 2-8, that will probably only attract current fans, sure. But what about the potential fans? As in, those who aren't Pokémon fans but has the potential to become fans. What appeals the most to them? I wish I had the answer but in theory it shouldn’t matter to a kid nowadays if they see an advertisement featuring a Gen 1 Pokemon or one from any other generation if they know nothing about Pokémon before. Don’t know if that’s how it actually is though.
I also wonder if they really advertise the gen 1 Pokémon because they are the most popular. I think it might actually be the other way around. The gen 1 Pokemon are the most popular because they get advertised all the time. It is a sort of self-fulfilling cycle I guess. The Gen 1 Pokémon are popular, they get advertised, they get more popular, they get advertised again, they get even more popular, they get advertised once more... and so on.
And I don’t see love for everything else apart from Game Freak, it still feels like gen 1 gets a fair share of attention here and there. But I guess it isn't quite as bad as it was in the past, so that's good. But still, even if showing Gen 1 and only Gen 1 is good from an advertising standpoint, that doesn’t change the fact that me and other fans are getting tired of seeing Gen 1 getting advertised everywhere, with everything from Gen 2 to the generation before the current not getting any focus at all.
I think LGPE was important since Kanto wasn't on the DS-3DS family prior. As of ORAS, it was the only region not playable on that family of systems, until the Virtual Console versions came out. It was a pretty big nightmare to get hold of Kanto until that happened. I think it's a bit of a goalpost-moving thing to say Meltan and Melmetal don't count since they were there to advertise GO, which isn't Kanto at all. Hell, LGPE's entire concept was bringing Pokemon GO into a "mainline" setting. It's definitely a Kanto game, but to say it's specifically only about Yellow is a misunderstanding at best.
IMO, Kanto does not need to be on every single system. It would be nice if they could take a break from it for once. Re-releasing the gen 1 and 2 games on the 3DS VC was okay though, especially in comparison to creating LGP/E. And just to remind you, GO was Kanto and only Kanto back when it was first released. And you can still only bring Kanto Pokemon from GO to Let’s Go. As for Meltan and Melmetal, I did not count them because they are only 2 out of 153 Pokémon. And now that I look at it, the only way to get them is from Pokémon Go, which means you can't get them in LGP/E alone, which is another reason as for why they shouldn't be counted.
A minor correction on the note of Gen 6 beginning the "Kanto fever"; Gen 1 has always been the thing getting attention. It's a staple of the brand, here's some examples generation-wise;
Gen 2 was designed as a sequel to Gen 1, and it's partly why there's a lot of Kanto in the early-game.
Gen 3 had FRLG
Gen 4 Evolved many Kanto Pokemon
Gen 5 used Gen 1 Pokemon as a focal point of their designs, there are interviews about this. Take Bouffalant to Tauros, for example. I personally think it was an amazing idea, and the execution was super cool.
I think Merritt more or less answered this, but I'll chime in as well. The thing is that in Gen 3-5, Kanto was not quite as present in every main series game as it is now. Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova could stand on their own without major references, only minor ones at best. You never saw anyone getting annoyed at how Kanto was present everywhere in these three regions, compared to how it is with Kalos and Alola, and Galar to an extent. From Gen 6 and on, Kanto has been given a major presence not only in the remakes but in the new main series games as well, to extents that could not be seen in Gen 3-5. That's why people are annoyed, and why fan pandering has became a big term (though I do agree that it has been getting overused as of late). And even if you or other people aren't bothered by the Gen 1 fan pandering or you may even like it, that doesn't change the fact that it has happened and that it keeps happening.
Also, if we go by your perspective and say that Kanto has had a big presence in Gen 3-5 as well, that’s all the more reason me and other fans are tired of seeing it everywhere. Can we ever get a generation without Kanto? Probably not. The closest was Gen 5 if you ask me.
Pokemon Origins, I mean, ok? Chronicles existed too, it's not a new thing to go back to old stuff during a generation. It happened to be Kanto at the time, and personally I'd love to see the concept re-imagined for Gens 2-3. As for merchandise, that goes way beyond Kanto and you absolutely know that. Take, for example,
the plushes, they have them for every region.
I have to admit I never watched Origins (one reason being that it was Gen 1 only and it was released at a time when I had a big distaste for Gen 1) but I would have been okay with if they had did the same to more generations. Which they of course didn’t they dropped it right after Gen 1 and only Gen 1 for the first but not last time. Could have been because Origins got a bit of a lukewarm reception though, I don’t know.
I looked up Pokemon Chronicles and it seems like there hasn’t been anything new about it since 2006 (Gen 3). So I don't really know about it.
That said, the animation specials have been getting better at showcasing other generations lately. Pokémon Generations focused on all the first 6 generations, while the recent Twilight Wings was about Galar (it could still be argued that some Gen 1 Pokémon got a bit too much spotlight in it though, but I disgress). I think both of these animation series were really great too.
It seems I was wrong regarding merchandise though, so I’ll give you that. I saw a post here a while ago saying that merchandise was always gen 1, the current gen or Eeveelutions. I should have researched it a bit more, I guess. But it seems like things have changed regarding the merchandise and that all generations get a bit of focus, so that's good! Now it could still be so that there's more merchandise for Gen 1 than any other generation, but I don't know.
I also remembered two more games with 100% focus on Gen 1. Pokémon Quest and the recently released Pokémon Smile. Those are other examples of where Gen 1 and only Gen 1 gets the full focus and attention.
The Pokemon anime dedicates almost everything to the current generation at hand, I really don't know what you're on about here. They had Iris and Dawn get featured a ton in later seasons, and that's the least of it. Brock and Misty had been anime staples until what, Gen 6? I don't see why them coming back would even be related to the whole "pandering", it's basic familiarity and a return to the normal material. This feels like a massive reach. Are you sure you're not just looking for something to hate at that point?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said something here. I was trying to find more examples, not looking for something to hate. I don’t watch the anime so I was just bringing up things I have heard and seen from it, guess I shouldn't have done so. But from what I can find, Iris never really reappeared after B/W? And my point was that Brock and Misty were the only ones that got back in S/M, none of the other travelling companions from the other regions/generations/seasons.
As someone who plays competitive RBY and got badged solely for my contributions to the sim, I will say you're definitely very wrong. Compared to newer generations, I would say this is a myth. The worst part of the RNG is a 10% chance to freeze which is death, but outside of this, I would argue it's among the more skill-based games. I mean, you could throw the x/256 uncertainty in, but that's a universal accuracy decrease of .2-.4%, which is hardly anything. There's a ton of interesting mechanics outside of this, such as the type-based secondary effect immunity I talked about in my post. It adds tons of dimensions to strategy that I find extremely enjoyable. You can ask any competitive RBY player and they will all tell you that the "RBY is luck-based" trope is an extremely false claim to make. Shellnuts in the RoA room on PS smashes the argument day-in-day-out. If you wanted to criticise the meta, you could easily bring up The Big 4, Reflect, or WrapSwitching, but even then, a lot of the time people would tell you to check out UU, which mostly diminishes this.
I'll take your word for it then. I have to admit that this has gotten me a bit interested in how the Gen 1 metagame works but I guess that's for another time.
It feels like you're more disillusioned by the advertising Game Freak does, and I think it's perfectly justified. Though at the same time, it comes off as slight confirmation bias. It's not a bad thing, and I can tell you've been through the wars of the BW era, and I can't fault you for it. I'm happy to debate further if you're up for it, I enjoy long posts like these.
Maybe. Am I really "disillusioned" though? It feels weird, but maybe that's how it is. Or are you the one who is "disillusioned"? Maybe we both are! Actually, I don't know.
I enjoy discussions like this too but writing all this takes a very long time and I somewhat regret making that post yesterday, but at the same time I felt that I had to say something so here we are. I feel that my post of today won't be as good because I am tired and have spent too much time on this, but I felt that it had to be done so yeah.
And I'm not done yet, there's more to say.
Before I go into replying to posts related to Gen 1 and being Overrated, I'd like to say that I started with Gen 4, so does that make me a new fan or an old fan?
I guess you are technically a middle fan (if such a term even exists), but on the whole I'd also say you're an older fan at this point since it has been 13/14 years since Gen 4 was first released.
That's really not a Pokemon problem though. Its a fandom problem. If you go to pretty much any video game forums, you encounter people who think the new games are awful and prefer the old ones. If you go to the Fire Emblem Forums you'll find people complaining about how 3 Houses is the worst because you have to dedicate time to do tea parties in order to get stat buffs or how the series has become so "anime", or how the Persona Forums complains how Persona 5 is too easy.
This is sad to hear, but now that I think about it, you are right. I don't interact with many fandoms and communities outside of Pokémon but I have seen a bit of this behavior in the few ones I have visited, so I guess that's true. Maybe I just thought it was worse for Pokémon since I spend so much time on Pokémon forums and sites.
Disagree that USM completely outclass SM. The original pair has a much better story, which USM butchered. If you prefer story driven games, then SM might be worth choosing over USM in that regard. Gameplay wise though, USM are the winners here.
I had a feeling someone would mention the story. I agree that the story is better in S/M, but for me, that's not enough of a reason to replay S/M over US/UM, story isn't that important to me while I think all the improvements in US/UM are way more important. That's just why I think S/M are obsolete though, if you or anyone else still wants to play S/M for the story or any other reason, that's fine.
My main issue with the whole "Kanto pandering" crew is they tend to try to gatekeep anyone who plays the original games. I have never seen a community that actively tries to tell people not to. Hell, even in the SMT fandom I've seen people say "Hey if you ever wanna see how the franchise evolved, play the original! It's got hilarious balancing and is an interesting experience!". Same for Fire Emblem, Metroid, but the only one I've seen where people will actively try to reason you to go somewhere else is so weird. At the end of the day, you don't need a reason to play a game. Video games aren't a political field, they're leisure time. It's all about just playing what you want and having fun with it. You can beat Gen 1 in around 6 hours if you know what you're doing, it doesn't hurt anyone!
This is a bit sad to hear. While I would personally probably not recommend the Gen 1 games to anyone, downright saying to people to not play them feels like the wrong thing to do. And in reverse, I don't think this happens from older fans to the newer games, if anything people might boycott or choose to not play them games on their own, or maybe just suggest that people not play them, but downright trying to make other people not play them is not something I have seen from older fans other than maybe extreme former Pokémon fans, which are rare.