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What did you not like about your favourite generation?

I don't see how it's much different in later generations. Well, except for the massages in the past three generations.

The Soothe Bell trims down a fair amount of the grindwork, as do the friendship berries. And then yes, massages too. Little by little it compounds. Then you've got Luxury Balls, and as of Sun & Moon, even a couple of Friend Balls that you could use on wild Eevee.
 
This was a point I actually wanted to bring up, since Gen 2 is another favorite of mine.

I really hate that, for as much as Steel and Dark types were a big deal back then, they were poorly distributed in those games. Umbreon and Magnemite were really only the viable Pokemon you could get early on (Skarmory too but that's still pretty late), while everything else was either delegated to the post-game Kanto or necessitated trading. At the very least, Houndour and Murkrow should have been native to Johto somewhere. And IIRC, they didn't even fix that with HGSS.

I remember playing as a kid and being bummed out and envious that Team Rocket used Houndours and Murkrows whereas I could never find them.
They actually did fix the distribution of Johto Pokemon in HGSS. Murkrow, Misdreavus, Houndour, and Larvitar could all be caught in the Johto Safari Zone while Sneasel and Slugma could be obtained on early PokeWalker routes. Steelix was also catchable in the cave leading to the Safari Zone. I do agree with your point about Gen II having wonky distribution of the new Pokemon.
 
I still think that Gen 5's seasons were a mixed bag. They were great for atmosphere, but I still wish they'd had a more significant effect in more areas (B2W2 did address that to an extent, at least). I also didn't love the rotation rate - once a month is long enough that I get impatient with it, but at the same time, I feel like anything less would feel too short. I'm still not too sad about them being gone.

Oh yeah, and the Nature Preserve in B2W2 was a pretty big disappointment. A shiny Haxorus is cool and all, but you tell me about some distant land untouched by human hands, and I expect something a bit more impressive than these common bozos

I also wish that there were more than four Musical shows in the base game. The Global Link isn't accessible anymore, and while I do love Musicals as an activity, having only the standard four does become repetitive.
 
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They actually did fix the distribution of Johto Pokemon in HGSS. Murkrow, Misdreavus, Houndour, and Larvitar could all be caught in the Johto Safari Zone while Sneasel and Slugma could be obtained on early PokeWalker routes. Steelix was also catchable in the cave leading to the Safari Zone. I do agree with your point about Gen II having wonky distribution of the new Pokemon.
Yes, but the Johto Safari Zone is also inhabited by Pokemon of later generations. Add the fact that you can rearrange the set up of the Safari Zone to your liking, it kind of gives the implication that the Pokemon in the Safari Zone are actually introduced there and aren't actually native to Johto. Plus, aren't there Pokemon that only become available at the Safari Zone once you've gotten the National Dex?

I was going to make an argument asking why certain Pokemon are in the Johto Dex when they're not actually native to Johto, but then I just remembered that it was actually called "New Pokedex" back in GSC, so I guess that's a moot point. Although in HGSS, Murkrow, Slugma, etc, are in what's called Johto Dex.
 
Yes, but the Johto Safari Zone is also inhabited by Pokemon of later generations. Add the fact that you can rearrange the set up of the Safari Zone to your liking, it kind of gives the implication that the Pokemon in the Safari Zone are actually introduced there and aren't actually native to Johto. Plus, aren't there Pokemon that only become available at the Safari Zone once you've gotten the National Dex?

I was going to make an argument asking why certain Pokemon are in the Johto Dex when they're not actually native to Johto, but then I just remembered that it was actually called "New Pokedex" back in GSC, so I guess that's a moot point. Although in HGSS, Murkrow, Slugma, etc, are in what's called Johto Dex.

I didn't play around with HGSS's Safari Zone all that much, but as I understand it, you can find Misdreavus, Murkrow, and Larvitar in there before finding the National Dex. Houndour only appears once you can set up blocks (which is post-National), although the Slugma and Sneasel lines don't appear there ever. You can, however, receive a Slugma egg before obtaining your first Badge by telling a secret (that is, generated by Filb.de) password to Primo in the Violet City Pokémon Center.

Not totally relevant because you receive one for free, but Elm mentions in HGSS that Togepi isn't native to Johto, either. I've also seen the argument made that Sudowoodo might not be as well, since only one appears in Johto and Hoenn, but its baby form was discovered in Sinnoh, where it's more common anyway.

At this point, what is native to Johto? o_O
 
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Ruby and Sapphire couldn't hold a candle to Emerald. That said, Team Magma and Aqua are ok villains in the grand scheme of things and don't really stick out; having a petty squabble over flooding or droughts seems really minor compared to what other villains in later generations tried to achieve. That being said though, they have mostly achieved their goals which was only really put a stop to by the player when they caught Kyogre and/or Groudon, so I guess props to them?

Diamond/Pearl is the same way with Platinum. Platinum had its own issues though. While Fire isn't my favourite type, I can definitely feel for those who like the type and feel like Sinnoh let them down in this regard. There's also kind of a "now what" factor if you're not a battler which can be a let down.
 
Platinum had quite a lot of non-battle content though; things like super contests, poffins, and side quests like getting Honey Tree pokemon. There was also a lot of cool lore for those who like that: Solaceon Ruins, Celestic Town's shrine, and the Canalave Library. Don't forget the customisable house you can get.

I do agree that RS and DP can't be compared to their respective third versions, though.
 
I do agree that RS and DP can't be compared to their respective third versions, though.

I would argue that RS at least have a more coherent plot structure than Emerald, and I prefer the way that Contests were arranged in that game over having Battle Tents in three of the cities while the Contest Halls were all compressed into Lilycove.

Aside from those two points, though, yeah. Emerald is vastly improved.
 
Recently, as I'm replaying through Black, I remembered another thing that irked me about Gen V: the trading system. Specifically, how you have to go through extra steps in order to trade a Mon between players. When I first saw the fact that we could choose three Mons, I thought, "Oh, cool! We can trade three at once!". Boy, was I wrong. All those extra steps just to trade over a single Mon is very tedious. Whenever I've had to trade among myself in order to get things done, like get version-exclusive data and such, I must waste a ton of battery power just going through all those extra steps. While it did introduce the fact that we can choose a Mon from the box to trade instead of just the party, which was a godsend, it was still very clunky and tedious overall. I'm glad Gen VI ditched that and returned to a more streamlined form. Though, I do admit that there was wasted potential in Gen V's three-Mon trade choice, as being able to trade 3 Mons in a single shot could've been a big hit and made mass trading easier.
 
Gen V - I struggle to think of much to complain about in it. The first thing that comes to mind is that I thought that the OST was, for the most part, forgettable. The same can be said about Gen IV and VII. I saw Gen V's OST as being forgettable as part of a trend that began with Gen IV rather than something wrong with Gen V in specific.

Gen II - I would say it struggles from the clunkiness that Gen I does as well. The horrible computer box system for one. Gen I and II were a blast back in the GB/GBC days, but are incredibly hard for me to play nowadays after all of the massive quality of life improvements that have been made in the series since.
 
Recently, as I'm replaying through Black, I remembered another thing that irked me about Gen V: the trading system. Specifically, how you have to go through extra steps in order to trade a Mon between players. When I first saw the fact that we could choose three Mons, I thought, "Oh, cool! We can trade three at once!". Boy, was I wrong. All those extra steps just to trade over a single Mon is very tedious. Whenever I've had to trade among myself in order to get things done, like get version-exclusive data and such, I must waste a ton of battery power just going through all those extra steps. While it did introduce the fact that we can choose a Mon from the box to trade instead of just the party, which was a godsend, it was still very clunky and tedious overall. I'm glad Gen VI ditched that and returned to a more streamlined form. Though, I do admit that there was wasted potential in Gen V's three-Mon trade choice, as being able to trade 3 Mons in a single shot could've been a big hit and made mass trading easier.
I 100% agree with you there. I've been replaying White recently myself and came to that exact same conclusion when trading for exclusives and trade evolutions. It gets old quickly. Especially when it disconnects after the trade only to reconnect again for the next one. :cautious:
 
I seem to recall trading in BW being pretty smooth, but it has been a long time since I did any so I could very well be misremembering.

I definitely dislike how clunky the Entralink's "traveling to the other player's world" stuff is, though, and for what seems like little reward. B2W2's Entralink added Funfest Missions though which were god-tier.

Also, it's not exactly something I can blame BW for, but it does kinda bug me every time I go back to play those games and I have to adjust to not having the auto-respray Repel option, the multiselect feature in the PC, the ability to move items around within the party screen, and the ability to bind the party list itself to the select menu. As opposed to being full-on intergenerational improvements, those touches were all added in B2W2, so it's kind of a more awkward transition for me. (But again, not something they necessarily could have done much about.)

Zorua being essentially a Mythical in BW and then a giftmon without your OT in B2W2 kind of rubs me the wrong way, too.
 
Gen 3: The fact that getting a National Dex 100% complete with legitimate methods was pretty much impossible. Basically you had to go to these random, one-day giveaway events in your country (which most of the time happened in a single, specific city) back in the mid-2000s. :mad:
 
And my god, the trouble you have to go through in Gen 2 to even make that Eevee like you...

This. I wanted an Umbreon SO bad too.

My favorite gens are gen II, and gen IV, specifically Crystal and HGSS. Like others mentioned, the level curve made things difficult but I also didn't like the post game. I know being able to go to Kanto, a whole entire region, sounds like a great post game but honestly it just felt empty and this is coming from someone who genuinely likes Kanto and has never had any issue with gen 1 pandering.
 
Gen 5:
  1. Many Unova Pokémon have late evolutions that don’t really pay off. Braviary isn’t powerful enough to warrant getting Rufflet to level 54, for example. Even GameFreak seems to acknowledge this as Bisharp can be found around levels 34-35 in USUM, roughly 20 levels earlier than when Pawniard evolves.
  2. The games were kinda linear and more restricting than the past four generations.
  3. (BW specific) Requiring players to only use Unova Pokémon was a nice way to get people to try new Pokémon, but the issue is that the Pokédex is small, resulting in some gyms using like the same three Pokémon. This can be applied to any game with a small regional ‘dex.
  4. (B2W2 specific) The path you take in B2W2 is a little too similar to the path you take in BW at times. You fight Burgh, Elesa, Clay, and Skyla in the same order as you do in the first games, for example.
  5. Seasons were great, but I hated that they blocked off access to certain Pokémon. Want a Palpitoad in the winter? Too bad.
Edit: Added part about seasons.
 
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Gen 5: The key systems. The memory link is cool, N's pokemons are cool, the difficulty levels are cool... I get that they wanted players to make use of connecting BW with B2W2 to understand better about the sequel system and communicating with players who has the other version. But the keys do act as obstacles in terms of replayability. It would have been much better if they were available without keys. Especially Challenge Mode.
 
Gen II's my favourite but the things people have said in this thread are all really valid (the low Johto Pokémon distribution, the wonky level curve, etc), but I'll add one more - a lot of the move pools, whilst a lot better than Gen I's, are still pretty bleak. Heracross doesn't learn any regular damaging Bug or Fighting moves until the very end of its level-up movepool (asides Fury Cutter by TM), Umbreon gets Faint Attack as its sole Dark move (which is very missable with the gift Eevee if it doesn't evolve in time), and so on.

Still, a little better than my Gen I Aerodactyl that didn't have a single Rock move in its entire learnset :confused:
 
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