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Least favourite core series game?

Which core series game is your least favourite?

  • Red and Blue

    Votes: 9 18.8%
  • Yellow

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Gold and Silver

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Crystal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ruby and Sapphire

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • FireRed and LeafGreen

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Emerald

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Diamond and Pearl

    Votes: 6 12.5%
  • Platinum

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • HeartGold and SoulSilver

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Black and White

    Votes: 3 6.3%
  • Black 2 and White 2

    Votes: 2 4.2%
  • X and Y

    Votes: 4 8.3%
  • Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

    Votes: 2 4.2%
  • Sun and Moon

    Votes: 3 6.3%
  • Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

    Votes: 2 4.2%
  • Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!

    Votes: 7 14.6%
  • Sword and Shield

    Votes: 6 12.5%

  • Total voters
    48
Self-plagiarised from the controversial opinions thread:

Sinnoh is fondly remembered primarily because Diamond and Pearl were the first titles on an excellent handheld, but they're actually very poor playthroughs (in contention for worst overall), overwhelmingly because of the species selection. In Red and Blue you'll get pounced on by vicious little rat monsters the moment you step foot in the grass, and terrorised by Mankeys and Spearows not long after. Diamond and Pearl's early species are the Duplo to the Lego, with twee, inoffensive animals like Bidoof, Budew, Buizel, Combee, Cherrim and more.
 
I was considering between Ruby/Sapphire and Diamond/Pearl, but I decided to go with the former due to things like the villainous teams' plans needing more than a little enhancing and the almost complete lack of any kind of post-game.
 
Well with LGP/E in the poll, it's the obvious choice.

However, I don't like to acknowledge LGP/E's existence, so I'll go to the other games. For the longest time R/S/E were my least favorites for removing so much that G/S/C had added. The day/night/weekday cycle being removed was one thing. I still have no clue why they did this. I also didn't like R/S/E was a reset button, after G/S/C, I had expected a continuing story, but R/S/E were there own thing.

But... Sadly, there would come a generation that would outdo R/S/E and that is Sun/Moon. With Generations IV, V, and VI, I had come to think really highly of Pokemon again, since they were so strong and lots of fun. Sun/Moon was a big disappointment. I've listed the reasons numerous times: narrow-feeling region (limited places to surf, fish, etc.), the extremely annoying wild Pokemon SOS feature, the inconsistent difficulty, the Gen I pandering, the music being very disappointing and forgettable after X/Y's fantastic OST, and the end of the National Dex (in Gen VII you could still get all of the Pokemon, but all of them outside of the Alolan Pokedex didn't count for anything and thus you would have to use something separate from the game to even see if you caught them all, which is far more annoying than just having the game automatically do it, like it's supposed to).

Sword/Shield got lucky in that despite cutting so many Pokemon, they had a more interesting region, much better music, lots of great Pokemon (including the fantastic legendaries), characters that I got invested in, and some ambition with the Wild Area, however much flawed it may have been.
 
I'll probably get lampooned for saying this, but after playing all the games...I'm going to have to pick Red/Blue. Sure, they did lay the groundwork for the series as we know it now, and there's no denying its legacy. But newer games just happen to be so much better in every way. For one, there's no post-game other than trying to catch Mewtwo, so you literally have nothing to do after you beat the Elite Four. Plus, the level curve is rather steep, so you might not be able to get your mons beyond level 50 when you get to the Elite Four, something FR/LG and the Let's Go games managed to rectify. The only reason I don't include Yellow on here is because I do have some nostalgic attachment to it, due to it being my first video game, but I'm not blind to its flaws either.
 
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Man it really is just Yellow. Even setting aside any issues that stem from the original Kanto games' age or programming screw-ups, as well as my younger self's vindictive ire about the game really not being a meaningful adaptation of the anime, I think literally every other entry in the series brings something more interesting to the table. The only things that Yellow has to offer are better graphics, all three Starters (which doesn't appeal to me since I like the "pick one" format), Pikachu emotes, an even more bizarre level curve, and a minigame if you also own Pokémon Stadium, which I didn't.

Red & Blue started a phenomenon. Yellow just tried pitifully to leech off of one.
 
Sun/Moon was the only time I played a core game and couldn't even bring myself to finish it. I couldn't even reach the end of the Aether arc before I got completely bored and just stopped playing.
Wild Pokémon were annoying because of the calling for help mechanic, the bosses were too easy (even by Pokémon standards), Z-moves failed to appeal to me, it was too packed with boring cutscenes, and I found Alola dull to play through despite it having some interesting themes they tried to work with.
 
Personally, Sword and Shield are my least favorite Pokemon games. I really don't like the direction GameFreak took with the new games. I wish they didn't feel the need to add a bunch of new features to the games, because I think the simpler style of the old games is what makes Pokemon so fun. I feel like GameFreak was afraid they were losing their customers, and so they decided to try and spice up the new games as much as they could to attract new players.
 
I wish they didn't feel the need to add a bunch of new features to the games

This is... not a criticism of SwSh that I'm used to seeing! :p

I feel like GameFreak was afraid they were losing their customers, and so they decided to try and spice up the new games as much as they could to attract new players.

They've been on nothing short of an upward trajectory in sales for the major paired releases since 2010, though, and even the secondary releases have continued to perform very well. What impetus would they have for thinking they're in trouble of losing a significant amount of buyers?
 
They've been on nothing short of an upward trajectory in sales for the major paired releases since 2010, though, and even the secondary releases have continued to perform very well. What impetus would they have for thinking they're in trouble of losing a significant amount of buyers?
Let me rephrase that. They're not losing buyers as far as total purchases go, but they are absolutely losing their general fanbase. I'd separate the two because there are an overwhelming amount of people who would buy a Pokemon game that comes out without being an active Pokemon fan. Those of us who are part of the Pokemon fanbase are the ones who advertise the franchise the most to people who aren't part of the fanbase. I feel as though GameFreak would not want to lose us.
 
Let me rephrase that. They're not losing buyers as far as total purchases go, but they are absolutely losing their general fanbase. I'd separate the two because there are an overwhelming amount of people who would buy a Pokemon game that comes out without being an active Pokemon fan. Those of us who are part of the Pokemon fanbase are the ones who advertise the franchise the most to people who aren't part of the fanbase. I feel as though GameFreak would not want to lose us.

Adult fans tend to overestimate their importance when it comes to games and toys marketed to a younger audience. As much money as they spend, its dwarfed by the sheer numbers bought by parents and grandparents.

Kids are also more likely to want something simply because its popular at the moment, or because their friend has one. Meanwhile, adults are less likely to start collecting Lego (for example) and going to online forums to discuss the latest builds just because their neighbor does.

I think you’re also assuming that the entire fanbase shares their feelings on the games outside of their personal circle. My best friend loves the current games, but the closest he gets to a forum is to check out Seribii to ensure he’s caught everything in an area.
 
Red and Blue are currently my least favourites, mainly because of the sprites. There's a few good front sprites, like Aerodactyl, but most of them are only passable at best, and the back sprites are abysmal. There are still some things I like about the games, however. They're very atmospheric, and the battles are engaging thanks to the fast animations. I had fun playing Red for the first time on the Virtual Console (as a child the only Gen 1 game I had was Yellow).
 
Let me rephrase that. They're not losing buyers as far as total purchases go, but they are absolutely losing their general fanbase. I'd separate the two because there are an overwhelming amount of people who would buy a Pokemon game that comes out without being an active Pokemon fan.

But how does this square with SwSh, which upset a lot of the online fanbase by having only a select number of Pokémon available and which frequently get criticized in fan circles for not offering much in the way of in-depth extra features?

You're not wrong that there's a segment of the fandom that have been feeling increasingly put off by the more recent games, but I don't see how SwSh made any changes to the aspects of the series that those fans have been complaining about. Rather, they've pretty firmly stayed the course.

Those of us who are part of the Pokemon fanbase are the ones who advertise the franchise the most to people who aren't part of the fanbase.

I'm not so sure about that. TPC keeps the market absolutely inundated with Pokémon merchandise and intrigue, and Pokémon GO is a very powerful muscle for bringing people into the series. I don't think established fans' good word-of-mouth is so crucial to their advertising strategy.
 
Adult fans tend to overestimate their importance when it comes to games and toys marketed to a younger audience. As much money as they spend, its dwarfed by the sheer numbers bought by parents and grandparents.
This is mostly true, but Pokémon is weird since we've got official numbers that a pretty big portion of the fanabse is older:

For the latter the relevant part is:
According to our latest data, we have seen that the ratio of players in their 20s and 30s has risen for Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Mooncompared to past Pokémon titles for Nintendo 3DS.

Of course, the issue that the vocal part of the internet is a minority remains very true, as Sw/Sh's sales show.
 
Adult fans tend to overestimate their importance when it comes to games and toys marketed to a younger audience
I'm not actually an adult, I guess I just tend to act like one a lot of the time. That said, being a late teenager, I'm definitely not part of the young audience either. Regardless, this statement is definitely factual.
But how does this square with SwSh, which upset a lot of the online fanbase by having only a select number of Pokémon available and which frequently get criticized in fan circles for not offering much in the way of in-depth extra features?

You're not wrong that there's a segment of the fandom that have been feeling increasingly put off by the more recent games, but I don't see how SwSh made any changes to the aspects of the series that those fans have been complaining about. Rather, they've pretty firmly stayed the course.



I'm not so sure about that. TPC keeps the market absolutely inundated with Pokémon merchandise and intrigue, and Pokémon GO is a very powerful muscle for bringing people into the series. I don't think established fans' good word-of-mouth is so crucial to their advertising strategy.
Good points from both of you, I guess I didn't know as much about this as I thought I did. SwSh still definitely feels like an outlier to me compared to the other main series games though, sort of like GameFreak is trying to go a new direction with Pokemon as a whole. I think it was when I first got to the Wild Area in my playthrough of Shield that things felt off. It's the closest thing to open world I think we have in Pokemon, and I'm personally not a fan. There are some other details that I didn't like, such as the visibility of wild Pokemon and the way Gyms were handled felt awkward to me (though that might just be complete bias because of how different it is to the old Gyms).
 
I can't judge the 8th generation, because I don't have a switch. Said that, my least favourite core game is B/W.

Pokedéx was a major factor, the lack of familiar faces hit me very hard. Sometimes I had doubts If was playing pokemon or a fanmade game, Lol. Moreover, while the B/W history is interesting, N and Ghetsis, in my opinion, always seemed like presumptuous, overbearing and preposterous characters. On other hand, the overvaluation of their plot made me feel that my own journey as a pokemon trainer was of little significance. Finally, I believe that gameplay-wise B/W falls short of previous generation games or B2/W2.

OBS: I don't believe that B/W are the worst Pokémon core Games, but they were the most frustrating experience I have ever had with pokémon core games.
 
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for me has to be tie between original Ruby / Sapphire on so much long tedious water routes, at times confusing (ORAS made the water routes easier to navigate)

likely I'll give the vote a bit more to Diamond / Pearl at how slow the game was, water routes took forever to navigate, too much HM usage
 
for me has to be tie between original Ruby / Sapphire on so much long tedious water routes, at times confusing (ORAS made the water routes easier to navigate)

likely I'll give the vote a bit more to Diamond / Pearl at how slow the game was, water routes took forever to navigate, too much HM usage

Yet, Diamond / Pearl has the perfect slave. Bidoof/Bibarel save much time, lol.
 
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Good points from both of you, I guess I didn't know as much about this as I thought I did. SwSh still definitely feels like an outlier to me compared to the other main series games though, sort of like GameFreak is trying to go a new direction with Pokemon as a whole. I think it was when I first got to the Wild Area in my playthrough of Shield that things felt off. It's the closest thing to open world I think we have in Pokemon, and I'm personally not a fan. There are some other details that I didn't like, such as the visibility of wild Pokemon and the way Gyms were handled felt awkward to me (though that might just be complete bias because of how different it is to the old Gyms).

Totally fair! This is an interesting insight - I think you're probably right about Game Freak wanting to go in kind of a new direction. I imagine it's tricky to balance the tried and true elements that have proven themselves popular over the years with the urge to innovate and try new things, especially when you've got new hardware that opens up a lot of possibilities. People definitely had a lot of different expectations for what "Pokémon on console" should look like. Open-worldness in particular was a big point of debate, as far as I remember. Not to mention the fact that Junichi Masuda was largely the main creative force behind the games ever since Ruby & Sapphire, but has stepped down from that role and taken on a more relaxed position as a producer instead, with Shigeru Ohmori (a far younger developer) now being tasked with helming the first major releases of a new generations (Sun & Moon and Sword & Shield). So "new blood" may also be a noticeable factor in why it feels different.
 
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