Someone who actually likes
Johto Syndrome? And the Johto level curve? I don't think I have seen the likes of this before. I wish I could stay quiet and just let this pass by, but it seems like it isn't possible.
Let's rave.
Since you are only talking about G/S/C and not HG/SS, I will do the same.
You listed where the Pokémon can be found. But how easy is it to find them? Let's take a look at that. I won’t go into full details because it feels pointless and it would take too long, so here’s a short summary:
The starters, Togepi and Sudowoodo are all elusive as you only get one of them.
Qwilfish and Remoraid (G/S) require a swarm, otherwise they can’t be found.
Dunsparce, Yanma, Marill and Snubbull are mythological outside of swarms. Snubbull is easier to find in Crystal though.
The following are uncommon/rare and appear only in one area: Mantine, Skarmory, Wobbuffet, Delibird, Gligar, Sunkern, Unown, Miltank, Swinub, Natu and Smeargle. The final two also require heavy backtracking and many HMs.
Some require a special method in the form of Headbutt or Rock Smash. And even so, it is not guaranteed that you get one. I think it is still okay though, it could be worse.
The following are the only ones that are actually common: Hoothoot, Hoppip and Wooper.
While the Johto Pokémon are available throughout the games, finding them will not always be easy. Early availability (relatively speaking) does not make up for them being a pain to find. While I think it is okay for every region/generation to have a few rare/uncommon Pokémon, I think Johto has way too many.
The Kanto-exclusive ones will be talked about later, so I won’t say anything about them for now.
Yeah, Crystal didn’t change all that much here, sadly. But it was better than nothing!
This is the issue. The games aren’t linear enough. I can’t speak for everyone, but I personally prefer having a set path to go through when it comes to Pokémon (and gameplay-driven RPGs in general). The way they set it up in Johto means that you will either be underleveled towards the end of the game, or you will have to grind a lot.
When you get past Clair, you still face Pokémon in the 20-30 range all the way to the E4, whose Pokémon range from level 40-50. The problem continues in Kanto where wild Pokémon are mostly at levels 5-25 while the Gym Leader teams are at 33-58, giving you no chance to train against wild Pokémon during the entirety of Kanto. Regular trainers aren’t very strong either, giving too little experience. Taking a quick look now, they seem to mostly have Pokémon in the 20-30 range, which is way too low. I can understand that they decided to have low levels in Johto to go along with the “exploration aspect”, but there’s no excuse for the low levels in Kanto. You have already beaten a guy with a level 50 Dragonite and you are facing Gym leaders with Pokemon around those levels, so why are you facing wild Pidgey at level 3? Bad game design, that's why.
And once you are done with Kanto, you get access to Mt. Silver. Finally some strong wild Pokémon and trainers! Right? Nope. Wild Pokémon now reach level 40+, 50 at the very best. There are no regular trainers, and when you get to Red, his team is at level 70-80. Overall, the bad level curve makes the Johto games very grindy, requiring you to spend a of time on training. Time that could have been spent on other, more enjoyable things. Speaking as someone who generally likes training Pokémon in the games, the main reason the Johto games are my least favorites is because of their bad training spots.
Can you really do this in G/S? From what I have heard, it is possible in Crystal but not G/S. I haven’t tested it myself so I can’t say.
And once more, if the levels were low because they wanted you to be able to explore more areas, that feels like bad game design to me.
This is not true. You can have a game that is
both linear (or has a clear progession), but offers room for exploration at the same time. I think the two most notable regions in Pokémon that do this the best are Sinnoh and Unova. Both have a clear progression but also offers several optional areas to explore along the way. Notably the Old Chateau, Wayward Cave and Iron Island in Sinnoh, as well as the Desert Resort, Lostlorn Forest and the Castelia Sewers in Unova. Plus many other optional areas and extenstions of mandatory areas. These regions also allow you, just like Johto, to open up more areas once you get HMs. For instance, Surf gives you access to Fuego Ironworks in Sinnoh or Mistralton Cave in Unova.
In addition, I think Hoenn and Kalos also encourage exploration in a similar way because they also have several optional areas you can explore, just not as many as Sinnoh or Unova. The DLC areas for S/S offer a lot of optional areas for exploration as well. And then there’s Hisui. While I have many issues with Legends, I think it totally aced it with the exploration aspect as you have very large optional areas to explore everywhere, while still having a functional level curve. So I think the other regions handled this way better than Johto did.
How would you say it paid off in Johto? You get a few Pokémon available earlier, and... that's it? Not worth it if you ask me. The game took risks, it gave some room for exploration (which most other regions also did but better) but it came at the cost of ruining the level curve.
On the whole, I’d say that non-linearity in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is frustrating when it is done without benefits. When it comes to Pokémon, I find non-linearity to be pointless at best (Kanto) and harmful at worst (Johto).
The big question is why in the world they decided to make some Johto Pokémon only available in Kanto. It would have made more sense if they had focused on the Johto Pokémon in Johto, and the Kanto Pokémon in Kanto. It doesn't really make a difference for the Pokédex if the missing ones are from Kanto or Johto, hunting them down will be the same anyway.
Let's take a look at these Pokémon:
Showcasing Houndour/Murkrow/Sneasel early and then making them available much later feels like a bad decision. It creates an almost unfair situation for the player since opponents have Pokémon you can only get until much later.
Yeah, they really tried their best to make Dark-types
feel special annoyingly hard and rare to get. Umbreon is the only one to be available before the E4. Really great way to show a completely new type, totally better than how X/Y showcased the Fairy-type! Not. While they did a somewhat better job with the Steel-type, I think it could have been handled better as well.
For Misdreavus, I'd say it is the opposite. Having it as a rare encounter in the last area is just what makes forgotten. Because of the way it was handled, few people will even know about it. If it had been available earlier and if Morty had used one (he really should), I think it would have been less forgotten.
Not sure why they decided to make Slugma only available in Kanto. They could have put it somewhere in Johto and it would just have been fine.
I guess I'm just echoing what Siggu said earlier, making these Pokémon available only in the post-game makes them feel useless and forgotten, not special.
Yeah. If it had actually been easy to find them, that is. Compare this to other regions which both encourage exploration and do a great job at showcasing their new Pokémon. Some do it very well (Kanto, Hoenn, Platinum Sinnoh, Unova), some do it okay (Kalos, Galar), some not so good (D/P Sinnoh, Alola). But I'd say all of them did a better job at it than G/S/C and Johto.
Personally, I consider Pokémon to be gameplay-driven rather than exploration-driven. While exploration is a part of the series, it was never the most important aspect of the games. Catching, training and battling is the most important thing in the series. For me personally, if nothing else.
I can't disagree more. If anything, I think G/S/C did a
terrible job at showcasing the new Pokémon through the new gameplay mechanics.
Swarms require you to activate them first, the Pokémon in question are otherwise mythological. You need the phone number to the correct trainer, then you must call them or wait for them to call you and hope that they will activate the swarm. And on top of that, you have a limit of 10 phone numbers. You also need to know which trainer activates which swarm. While there is a way to exploit this, I think there are a lot of players who don't know the method for it. I did personally not learn about it until last year.
I think Headbutt is an okay method, but certain Pokémon that are exclusive to it only appear in some areas, or even in some specific trees. It is better than the others, but you can be better than garbage and still belong in the dumpster.
The time-specific ones require you to play at different times since you can't change the time on G/S/C. Unless you restart? Not sure. Don't know how it works on the VC versions on the 3DS either. Other people have already explained the issues with this so I won't say more here. I am very happy that they abandoned the stupid old time system in L:A and made a new one which isn't tied to the time set on the console/cart, yet another thing that L:A did right which I hope will be the new standard for the series from here on.
Do they show off new mechanics? Yes. Are they doing a good job at it? No.
From what I remember when I played G/S/C as a kid (it was very long ago, so my memories are not particularly clear), I don’t recall that the game itself showcased breeding very well. And even if it did, there were very few hints towards baby Pokémon apart from Togepi which you got automatically anyway.
In order to get the baby, you need either a female parent along with a male parent it can breed with, or a parent of either gender and a Ditto. How and when do you get the parents for the baby Pokémon?
Pikachu: Kanto only, rare
Clefairy: Kanto only, rare
Jynx: Rare and available late
Jigglypuff: Rare
Electabuzz: Kanto only
Magmar: Rare in G/S, Kanto only in Crystal
Tyrogue is a bit different. It does not require breeding, instead, it is an elusive gift Pokémon you can get... after backtracking through Mt. Mortar with a lot of HMs and beating the Black Belt who resides there. And you need an empty spot in your party to get it.
Crystal is a little better thanks to the Odd Egg, giving you one of the baby Pokémon for free, but only one.
I think other games did the concept better by having some baby Pokémon in the wild. Notably the Sinnoh games where you can find wild Budew, Mime Jr. and Bonsly.
As for the trade evolutions, I don't think they were particularly good either. First you need to know that certain Pokémon evolve by trading when holding a certain item, and then you need to obtain said item as well. Metal Coat and Up-Grade are post-game only, while the others are one-time only. You are correct that some wild Pokémon can be found holding those items. At what rates? 2%, which means you must be very lucky or have a lot of patience in order to find the items through that method.
Friendship is an okay mechanic, but it can take a very long time for the Pokémon to reach a high enough friendship level to evolve. As for the Pokémon that evolve through it, Chansey is a mythological encounter in the post-game while Eevee is elusive, making Crobat the only relatively easy one to get (although Eevee is a gift, so you have a chance of getting one of the Johto Eeveelutions at least).
You get Bellossom from using a Sun Stone on Gloom. But how do you get a Sun Stone? Through winning the Bug-Catching Contest. Which is only held on certain days, and winning it can be very tough from what I remember. I know I'm far from the only one who have experienced this:
In the end, I think that Johto does a bad job at showcasing its own Pokémon. Many Johto Pokémon are only found in one area, often at low rates as well. Others require complicated mechanics to obtain, which the game does not always tell you about. And some are only available during the post-game.
The beta is interesting, that much is for sure. It is cool how many more baby Pokémon there were going to be, and some new evos as well. Some that we sort of saw later in the forms of Mime Jr., Tangrowth, Lickilicky, Sirfetch’d, Leafeon and Mega Pinsir. I think most of the scrapped baby Pokémon were really cute, makes me wish they had made it into the final games.
I wonder what the Johto games would have been like if they had been more like the beta? Better or worse? Different at least, that's for sure.
Parts of this is definitely quite unpopular. I have seen people praise the openness of the Johto games many times in the past, but I have rarely seen anyone say that they like the level curve and the Pokémon distribution. As for exploration, I don’t think I have seen this argument before either. Nonetheless, I disagree with all of your opinions. I think the Pokémon distribution in Johto is the worst in the series and that the Johto games completely fail to showcase their new Pokémon in a good way. I think all other generations do a batter job at showcasing their new pokemon, notably Hoenn, Platinum Sinnoh and Unova, as well as Kanto (though there was no choice as it only had new Pokémon by default). I think Kalos and Galar were okay, D/P Sinnoh and Alola had issues but they were better than Johto at least.
I am not a fan of the level curve since it makes it a pain to grind, especially together with the lack of good training spots. As for exploration, I said earlier that I think other regions do this much better, notably Sinnoh and Unova, but also Hoenn and Kalos.
With all that said, I can’t hate too much on G/S/C. They were good for their time despite their flaws, I had a lot of fun with them back in the day. Instead, I think the big offenders here are HG/SS which had an opportunity to fix the issues with G/S/C, but they did nothing. Instead, they kept most of the issues from G/S/C but not all of the good things, and that’s a big shame.
Some other things I want to talk a little about. One thing that was mentioned is that there is no point in training any new Pokémon when you have beaten the game. And that's mostly true. But for me personally, it doesn't matter if there's no point. I like to train new Pokémon for fun, during the post-game or even during the post-post-game. It is something I have done in all generations and most games, all the way from R/B to Sword. I think it is just really fun. I did it back in G/S/C as well, I remember that I even trained some of the end-game Pokémon such as Sneasel and Tyranitar. I can’t speak for the young fans of today but there’s a chance some of them are doing the same as I did (and am still doing to an extent).
The discussion of using guides for the games came up as well. When I was young, I had some guides for the early games. R/B (not Yellow), G/S, Crystal and 2 different ones for R/S. They were fun to read and they helped me with a lot of things in the games which I would never have found out about on my own. But they weren’t perfect. They were lacking regarding several things, so there were some I didn’t find out about even with the guides.
Nowadays though, there’s no real need for guides. I stopped using guides past R/S because I had the internet instead, there were sites like Serebii which had more and better information than the guides, and for free. As for the younger players of today, most kids have a smartphone nowadays, so they can just easily find the information they look for on the internet (as long as they are smart enough). Maybe they won’t use sites like Serebii or Bulbapedia like many of us older fans do, but there’s Youtube and Google at least.