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Does anyone think Gen 4 is overrated, specially in Pokemon designs?

TapLover

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Despite introducing a lot of popular and familiar Pokemon, Gen 4 might've been overshadowed by pseudo-Fighting types as I guess GameFreak thought they would be more appealing than regular Pokemon powers. This also expanded to the new evaluations of past Pokemon, with many being unnecessary and ugly evaluations of already-competitive Pokemon (although some were necessary) and weirdly-designed babies (Mantyke may be the only regular-looking one here, and Munchlax was a cutesy Gen 3 leftover that managed to not die down).

Also, the anime was still good (every two generations it goes into a "reboot" phase), despite having some rather questioning plot choices, specially the fact that we have to see all of Dawn's content battles.
 
I never really liked Gen 4 to start with, but it is beginning to grow on me now. For me, there is not a lot of originality, just a lot of babies and poorly conceived evolutions. It seemed like a poor attempt at re-making Gen 2, focusing on changing existing Pokémon and not creating a lot of new ones. Gen 2, however, did it far better. I don't know how 'popular' other people find Gen 4 though.

Also, haven't gotten past Johto in the anime, so can't speak to that.

I think it is crazy how popular Gen 5 is since, I think it is, in all means, the worst Gen ever. I can't even find the patience to finish the games most of the time.
 
The games aren't the most loved in existence, it's just that them being the next remakes in the list makes its fans impatient and vocal. I think Gen V is more loved on average (which means that a lot of people will be asking for Gen V after the Gen IV remake is released).

Concerning the Pokémon, I don't think I have to explain why Lucario, Garchomp, Infernape and Rotom are popular. However, many people complain that some Pokémon are overdesigned and/or have ugly colors, even to this day.
 
In terms of Pokemon, I don't think they're very popular outside of Piplup, Lucario, Garchomp and to a lesser extent Infernape, Croagunk (purely because of the anime), Rotom and Darkrai. That isn't a bad list, but it's countered by a fair amount of unpopular Pokemon, including the legendaries.
 
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I've heard gen 4 get praised for many things, but Pokemon designs is definitely not one of them. I've only ever heard people complain about babies, ugly over-designed creatures, and unnecessary evolutions.

I'm in agreement with that. Even though 4th gen is my favorite, the Pokemon are easily the worst thing about it for me. I think gen 5 also suffers from the ugly/overdesigned problem as well, but there are more Pokemon I'd say I like from gen 5 than gen 4...
 
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i'll be honest: im not really a big fan of these "is (insert gen here) over/underrated" because i feel like they cause unnecessary and avoidable friction. i understand it's always an opinion, but the way it's worded always rubs the wrong way.

that being said, i mean, the pokemon designs of every generations aren't going to be to everyone's tastes. even gen 5, the most praised generation these days, isn't universally liked (shocker, i know). as far as gen 4 is concerned, there are some designs that i wasn't a fan of. for example, the fossil pokemon are pretty much the worst imo in every generation, not to mention i wasn't really feelling wormadam and never really got the point of it. i wouldn't really go so far as to say i would hate these designs, but im really just not a fan of them.
 
I liked the games. I enjoyed Diamond so much more than RSE which had turned me off from the series for years.

I will say it wasn’t a very good generation for Pokémon designs, though. A lot of the cross gen evolutions are abominations. And the new Pokémon? A lot of them were straight up forgettable. Like the Glameow line, which I completely forgot even existed until recently.
 
I guess I'm the opposite of a lot of the people here. Gen 4 is actually probably my favorite as far as Pokemon designs go. I like all three starter lines, the Starly line is my favorite regional bird line, I adore the Shinx line, Glaceon is my favorite Eeveelution and Leafeon is up there. There's also designs like the Gabite line, Rotom, the legendaries, Lucario, and I actually like most of the cross-gen evolutions. There's more designs that I like than designs I dislike or am indifferent towards.

Meanwhile, for me the games themselves... I do overall enjoy them, but I have mixed feelings about them. Sinnoh is one of my favorite region designs and I love the lore, but other parts of it just always felt really slow and completing the game was always a struggle. Platinium helped a lot with this, but I still don't feel as inspired to keep going after completing the Distortion World. It's hard to explain and I do think they're very good games, they're just far from my favorites.
 
What I found the most irritating about Gen 4 was the speed. The game's engine felt clunky and strained, almost like the DS was too slow to run such an "intensive" engine. This was mostly fixed in Platinum and HGSS, but to this date, I've never completed my copy of Diamond. It's definitely my least favourite Pokemon game.

I do think Gen 4 has quite a few of the most popular Pokemon, though. Lucario, for example.
 
Not really. I like a lot of the pokemon designs. Empoleon, Staraptor, Luxray, Garchomp, Lucario, Glaceon, Rotom, etc.

The cross gen designs are a weird mixed bag for me tho. I thought all the gen 2 evolutions were great (Ambipom, Yanmega, Honchkrow, Mismagius, Gliscor, Porygon-Z, etc), but the gen 1 evos (Rypherior, Electrivire, Rhypherior, Lickylicky) looked ugly.
 
Overrated? I don't think so. A lot of my favorite pokemon are from Gen 4, and I like them because they are well-designed. Not just aesthetically, but also battle-wise.
 
No. I liked the legendaries' lore, how we had it in Canalave's library, how it went back to a more "Monsters" idea with people and Pkmn sharing the same table, it's the last game based on a Japanese region, I just adore the starter trio, their evolutions and concepts, the Grass Pkmn are wonderful, the Poison type also, I like Dawn (not that fond of Lucas but it's not the worst), the OST is good.
As always, it's a question of taste, each person has its own and it's difficult to assess how much people hate or love something.
 
For me, the region is amazing and the games are pretty fun, therefore, the Pokemon design are not really good. Not that many new species either, almost half of the pokedex is either a pre-evo or an evolution of an existing pokemon. The overall desing is meh... except for the starter, the Starly line, the shinx line, the riolu line and the gible line, the rest is pretty average.
 
What do you mean? Monsters don't act like humans. Anyway, it's just library lore and you don't actually see it.
What I meant is that the creatures were more like "Monsters" (using the name of the franchise) instead of being pets or just cute companions for our needs. Indeed it's just lore but the fact that exists and that is linked to the lore not just of the Sinnoh games but the PKMN world is insteresting and something that could be developed.
 
As @Nicolas721 said, Sinnoh is next in line for remakes so a lot of people are talking about Gen 4 now. I remember there was a lot of hype and love for Gen 3 when Hoenn was due for remakes.

It's my second favourite generation and Sinnoh is probably my second favourite region. A lot of it is a result of nostalgia bias and fond memories, but I do believe Gen 4 and 5 were the peak of Pokemon games. The spin-offs were great, too. Despite this, I think the Pokemon designs of Gen 4 aren't all that great. This is subjective, of course, but it seems to be something a lot of fans agree with. For me the designs fall somewhere in the middle.

I believe one more thing that contributes to the Gen 4 discussions is the controversy surrounding SWSH. I lot of people are comparing the quality and/or the lack of content in SWSH to what we had in games like Platinum and HGSS (as well as BW2). Granted, comparing the first entries to a remake or an update re-release is not exactly fair, but DP had a lot of content too. DP had flaws for sure but Contests, the Underground (including Secret Bases) and the Battle Zone (including Battle Tower) certainly offered more post-game activity than SWSH.
 
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