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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
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.
Bosses and other fights are much more challenging if you don’t use Z-moves. I really enjoyed the SOS calling because it might turn a pushover fight with a totem into a real challenge. The arc was kind of bland at the beginning, but it picked up at the end by including themes of family and redemption. It was really good, in my opinion, and possibly one of the best Pokémon games.
 
SM/USUM.

Bosses were weak, Z-Moves were boring and the animations were absolutely lame, clothing options for males were absolutely horrendous, Alola as a region was extremely dull and with the trials, it tried to hard to be 'unique' with not using Gyms despite trials just being the Gym Challenge wearing a different jacket.

Characterization was good, but that's about it.
 
Bosses and other fights are much more challenging if you don’t use Z-moves.

Honestly, I used Z-Moves, and many of the bosses were still difficult for me. Sometimes I even made use of the double Z-Move in USUM because I legitimately was backed into that kind of a corner. (And keep in mind that, in order to access that, you also have to have used a Rotom Power during the battle as well!) If anything, I think the Alola games had (for the most part) the best boss battle setups of any Pokémon game. I think the developers clearly put a lot more thought into them than most Gym Leaders, where it's just "haha x-type go brrr"

Much as I love SwSh, the Gym Leaders are a hard, hard regression in this area, except for Raihan who is alright. I can comfortably beat the Galar Gym Leaders without ever using my own Dynamax, thanks to them reverting to the one-on-one format, not getting a free stat boost, never using held items, and always opting to waste their Dynamax on their last Pokémon instead of trying to generate a snowball effect early on. Leon, Mustard, the GST (sometimes), and Klara during the third dojo trial are pretty much the only SwSh battles I ever find to be a noteworthy challenge (outside of Restricted Sparring and Dynamax Adventures, which are challenging largely because of the enforced resource management and team comp limitations).
 
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There's two ways I can answer this. First is to look at the games and compare them side by side by today's standards.
In that case, Red/Blue would fit the bill because they just dont hold up. I dont think I would need to get into detail about time.

Judging them based on the time they came out though, Pokemon X/Y by a good margin. It felt like a massive jump off a cliff after Platinum and the Unova games.

No difficulty, bland characters and story, very small selection of new pokemon, and lack of any postgame. It really felt rushed.
 
I really can't explain it. I've read some people call Sun/Moon some of the harder games but I found it just as easy as XY before I gave up.
It's been years but I'm pretty sure I didn't use Z-moves against bosses and still rolled right over everyone. Even the Totems stopped being remotely tough early on; I think Totem Yungoos got a few KOs but all the rest were easy.
Edit: Best I can guess is Poképelago made EV training EZ time; I'd set every one for the night when I quit for the day--so maybe that threw everything into chaos.
 
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I love all of them, but have to do my best to set nostalgia aside for this. So I'll probably agree with those who said RBY - they were fun and set the groundwork for the series going forward, but playing them 20 years later really makes you realize what a buggy mess these games were. The backsprites were awful, item storage was incredibly limited, movesets for many Pokémon were horrible, no shinies, etc. They are still very fun to play, but the issues are very glaring. SwSh is moving higher up on my list because of the Crown Tundra DLC and awesome music. (y)
 
I think it would be a tie between R/B and FR/LG. R/B are obviously important games since that's where the franchise started and I do have some nostalgic fondness for them. But compared to most of the other main series titles, they're practically unplayable now. When I first started Pokemon Red on the 3DS, I still enjoyed it, but I also wondered how it would feel for anyone who didn't grow up playing those games to experience them now. The other generations have made so many quality of life improvements too.

FR/LG aren't bad games by any means either. These were just the first and so far only games in the series that I felt bored with. I'm still not sure why, other than possibly the level grinding feeling even more tedious than I recall with other earlier games in the series.
 
I'd say RBY and GSC due to, well, their abundance of problems and lack of any of the upgrades that came with later installments, but I got much further in both games compared to LGPE so I guess I'll put down LGPE. The game just couldn't keep my attention, I think in part due to the GO mechanics and lack of post gen 1 Pokemon. RBY at least has that "this is where it all started" thing and GSC has that retro charm while LGPE just felt stale in my opinion.
 
Arrrgh. It's tough for me because I love all of the games as a whole, but if I gotta pick one I'm gonna have to go with SW/SH. It introduced a lot of quality of life changes for the better such as EXP candies, nature candies, and more recently the Ability Patch. But I can't disregard the fact that we're still missing over 200+ Pokemon and just how sloppy the main campaign is. Most of the action in the story happens off camera and it's just not that interesting. I'm also not a fan of the fact that they have multiple open areas yet there's no mini map. I know they had a lot of problems behind the scenes but this game ultimately just feels like a test run for whatever's next.
 
And the winner is...Diamond & Pearl! Ding-ding-ding!
  • As everyone surely knows, these games are horrendously slow; I can't even bring myself to open up my copy. Need a visual? And after coming off the rather fast Generation III, the difference was all the more jarring.
  • 151 Pokémon to use, and of those only two are Fire-type families. If you didn't pick Chimchar, you were stuck with the lackluster Ponyta line. In the region where all four types that are weak to Fire have a Gym Leader or Elite Four specialist.
  • 3rd versions are usually superior by their nature, but the myriad ways Platinum outclasses DP is ridiculous; aside from personal preference (and several Pokémon families), there's no reason to choose the latter over the former.
  • Horrendous leveling curve from Volkner to Cynthia. 49 -> 66, really Game Freak? The only thing within that interim is the Victory Road, which does not cover that disparity through experience without tedious, tedious grinding.
  • Several specialist Trainers, such as Flint and Volkner, don't even have a full party of their type, due to the regional Pokedex.
  • Speaking of regional Pokedex, they locked intergenerational evolutions...for the post game. What good is a Leafeon going to do me after the fact? All of those evolutions that you cannot even use.
  • Spiritomb is rather obnoxious to get, especially if you don't know people who play the games (this wasn't fixed in Platinum, but since it originated in DP the reason stays).
  • Good luck getting a Munchlax. Or a Feebas, for that matter (which they made even more difficult to do).
While Red & Blue were a close second, those games were the very first in the series by a company not what it is today (or in recent times)-thus, I can be lenient towards that. By DP, Game Freak already had years of experience with their core series (and side games like the Orre ones) to get these aspects in check. Even if you argue that the speed may have been due to DP being their first DS games, the other issues still stand imo.

SM/USUM.

Bosses were weak,

I'm pretty shocked to see this given how USUM are the only games (so far) where most of the bosses have full (competitive) EV investment, near perfect 30 IVs, and beneficial natures; the 2 on 1 nature of a Trial isn't exactly a walk in the park either, unless you're blatantly overleveled. I've recently Nuzlocked US and reaffirmed my point due to the difficulty of the bosses; and we aren't even talking about Ultra Necrozma, yet. If these bosses were weak for you, then I genuinely wonder how you enjoy, or have enjoyed, every other boss fight in the series.
 
DIamond/Pearl's mistakes seem easy to fix (if platinum didn't already do it) and not a systemic thing.

Unlike flaws in later generations (easier difficulty, less postgame content, Dexit, minimal story (I'm still baffled by Sw/Sh's Rose arc), etc.).
 
For me, probably XY. The game feels like a huge downgrade from the Gen 5 games with a lackluster storyline, a rather boring region, forgettable characters, and a game that's a bit too easy for me. Plus it has probably the worst postgame out of all the Pokémon games: the Looker chapters were fine story-wise but were quick and forgettable, the Friend Safari's only great for hidden abilities and shiny hunting, and the Battle Maison's a watered-down Battle Tower and also set the precedent for bad Battle Tower clones in future games. There were a lot that I did enjoy (mega evolution and the music especially) and I spent a lot of time on it (mostly for shiny hunting), but to me they were the worst games in the series.

Honorable mention goes to the original (Red/Blue). Not because they're bad, but because it pales in comparison to what the other games have (obviously, since Red/Blue were the first games). I don't think it aged to well and the excess amount of Kanto in more recent years also kinda lowered my opinion on the games.
 
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It’s a toss up between DP and XY for me. I’ll give it to DP because I’ve personally got more fond memories with the XY games. I just didn’t find myself attached to the sinnoh region and all its characters as well. Though XY isn’t winning any awards in character or even department, the online features were enough to keep me hooked back then. I think XY are worse games overall, but I still like them more than DP.
 
I have to go with Black and White, just because I enjoyed the sequels more, and because it takes so long to build experience that it feels tedious and it's hard for me to just kick back and have fun with them. I honestly think the "new" Exp. Share spoiled me, because I didn't have a problem with it before XY lol.
 
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