What do you miss most about the older games?

[DynamoRox4Sure]

Not much, but I miss the day/night cycle from D/P and probably contests from R/S, which will hopefully be back in OR/AS

 

[Osprey]

Simplicity. It's almost like childhood- heck, it IS my childhood- when the most I knew about was evolution methods and when moves could be learned (thanks to my old pocket Pokedex book). I had no concept of IV's, EV's, Nature, and I couldn't even see the worth of status moves. I never went onto the web, so mysteries were mysterious, headcannons were real in my mind, and advice came from talking to my like-minded friends. Too bad when I really started getting good at Pokemon, it went out of style... and everyone thought I was weird for liking it so much.

 

[Doormat]

- Dat 8-bit music tho.

- Not having to worry about EV's, Natures, Egg Moves and all that other time consuming horseshit.

- When the games didn't feel more and more redundant due to Game Freak reusing the exact same premise ever since Gen 1 (i.e going out to collect 8 badges, beating the elite 4 + the regional champion, collecting all teh pokemanz)

- The Pokemon from the first two generations are my favorites despite what some contrary hipster douche will say about their "lack of originality". Sadly a lot of these Pokemon became far less valuable in battle during later generations which made me a sad panda. :-(

- The way the first two generations complemented each other so well and felt like one collective experience where you followed in the original protagonist's footsteps only to end up surpassing him in terms of achievements and ultimately defeating him yourself in one of the most epic and climactic battles in all of video gaming.

- And last but not least, that surreal feeling of being a motherfucking 90's kid during the inception of Pokemon and seeing literally everyone around you in your age group share the same amount of excitement that you had for this new and exciting thing called Pokemon!

 

[Pikafanboy]

I miss the contests, it was a good alternate way of using the Pokemon and a good avenue for those less suited for battle. I hope with the Hoenn remakes these make a comeback into the series.

 

[Solayoh]

I miss event legendaries being catchable in game after you receive an event item rather than just being handed an event legendary.

 

[Superhero #5]

The quality of the spin-offs, that's one area where I'd say the Pokemon series was better back in the day than it is now. Pokemon Snap, Puzzle League, Trading Card Game, Pinball... Fantastic games.

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

Finding something out that i didn't know was possable in game. For example when i first found out that tree in the battle frontier was a pokemon i went insane xD. had to kill it no pokeballs >.> ( I had not played gold until after platnuim came out so it tricked me) or when my friend told me about the regis it was awesome when i first caught each one of them. and anything was possable i legitimaly thought you could get the moon on the rocket ship xD good thing i was to lazy to every try it. Now i know everything by the time the game comes out and if i don't know something and i'm stuck on it i can look it up whenever. Also now i know event legends can never be caught.

 

[GuyWood]

- Dat 8-bit music tho.

- Not having to worry about EV's, Natures, Egg Moves and all that other time consuming horseshit.

- When the games didn't feel more and more redundant due to Game Freak reusing the exact same premise ever since Gen 1 (i.e going out to collect 8 badges, beating the elite 4 + the regional champion, collecting all teh pokemanz)

- The Pokemon from the first two generations are my favorites despite what some contrary hipster douche will say about their "lack of originality". Sadly a lot of these Pokemon became far less valuable in battle during later generations which made me a sad panda. :-(

- The way the first two generations complemented each other so well and felt like one collective experience where you followed in the original protagonist's footsteps only to end up surpassing him in terms of achievements and ultimately defeating him yourself in one of the most epic and climactic battles in all of video gaming.

- And last but not least, that surreal feeling of being a motherfucking 90's kid during the inception of Pokemon and seeing literally everyone around you in your age group share the same amount of excitement that you had for this new and exciting thing called Pokemon!

I don't understand the hate that people who prefer gen 1 or 2 get. It's not any less objective to prefer something you loved from your childhood than it is to like the more advanced version of it.

I also agree about the whole Pokemon craze being one of the best parts of it. It was everywhere! I had colouring books, stickers, cards, figurines, plushies, walkie talkies and other crazy things, I watched the anime all the time, I collected the cards- even the burger king ones! It was much more of an experience that it is now. It was like, my whole life. No wonder we look fondly on those days. While RSE are my favourite games to play, everything that went along with the gen 1 games made it my favourite overall.

 

[glow]

The popularity of the franchise at the time that made it easy to participate in events (Books A Million) and socialize with similar minds. I was going to add that it also helped reinforce a sense of kinship with others that could become potential friends, but eh....there was a lot of foul play going on up in my nick of the woods with card thieves, and link cable battles seemed to break friendships sometimes. I guess I mostly miss just being able to walk next door and do Pokemon related things with friends who I've long since lost contact with.

 

[lostxemiel]

Pokémon walking around behind me. That's... literally it. Everything else has been improved in the game since the beginning.

 

[GhostFingers]

It's a bit of a strange one, but i miss the out of battle poison effect. In gens 12&3 you NEEDED antidotes. In gen 4 the mechanic was perfected, so it's just so strange the idea was abandoned immediately afterwards.
Poison just isn't the big threat it was.

 

[Psycho Pacifist]

Simplicity, and the sense of wonder in playing your first Pokémon game. It's not as nice now that I'm older :-/

 

[Wispy Willow]

Off the top of my head, I'd say the sprites (particularly the Gen V sprites), the (Gen III) graphics and the (Gen III-V) music.

 

[Champion Red]

-Pokemon following you in Yellow and HG/SS
-Not having to worry about EV's, IV's, Natures and all this other complicated stuff
-The old regions and protagonists (Basically just Kanto and Red )
-Events where you actually went out and catch legendaries

 

[Absent]

I don't miss anything from the games but from the time period. I miss my child like imagination and naivety that made me enjoy the games more. I miss my ignorance of type match ups and teams. I miss making friends in school through Pokemon, now its rare unless you find the right people(its easier in College through streetpass).

I just miss when Pokemon was in its prime, the environment and my imagination made it better. The games while they were amazing, were just the foundation.

 

[Mantodea]

Honestly the only thing I prefer about Gen 1 and 2 mechanic-wise is the lack of EVs and natures, which I feel weren't overly necessary and probably contributed to many good Pokemon losing relevance (at least competitively) in future generations. Aside from that, I miss the old art style and character designs (not to say there aren't any newer designs I like), and I prefer certain story elements from the old games, like the simpler villains (although honestly the new villains aren't very well written either imo).

 

[Norzan]

Honestly the only thing I prefer about Gen 1 and 2 mechanic-wise is the lack of EVs and natures, which I feel weren't overly necessary and probably contributed to many good Pokemon losing relevance (at least competitively) in future generations. Aside from that, I miss the old art style and character designs (not to say there aren't any newer designs I like), and I prefer certain story elements from the old games, like the simpler villains (although honestly the new villains aren't very well written either imo).

EVs were introduced in Gen 1.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

EVs and IVs were always present since Gen I, but as a kid I didn't know or care about that stuff. I really miss the simplicity of playing these games. Just beating up 'mons to get my own 'mons to level 100 so I could do well on Pokemon Stadium. While the concept of IVs and EVs were not that difficult for me to learn, a part of me really wishes that weren't the norm nowadays and things would go back to just being about pure fun.

I also miss the old town names. In Red and Gold we got simple names like Saffron City, Pewter City, Cinnabar Island, Mahogany Town, Goldenrod City ... all these names were actually words you could look up in the dictionary and were fairly simple to remember. Now we have places like Vaniville town, Lumiose City, Anistar City, Nacrene City, Nimbasa City... I tell you, despite my love for Gen V, I cannot remember the names of the towns and cities for the life of me. I can tell you what cities are in Kanto and Johto by heart, but I forgot a lot of the cities in later games. I remember a few towns, of course, but only the ones that left an impact on me.

 

[Mantodea]

Wait, EVs were in Gen 1? In that case, Smogon has some explaining to do...

 

[Norzan]

To be perfectly honest, i don't miss anything at all.

Also, i don't understand the people who say the early games were more simple because they didn't cared about EVs or IVs and now the games are less fun because the recent games apparently focuses more on them. The recent games don't focus more on EV or IVs than the early games and they are not necessary at all, EV and IVs only matter in competitive play and it seems to "focus" more on it because the competitive scene is much bigger now than it was in the early gens, the only thing they did was make them more easy to understand.

A person can play the recent games and not care about EV or IVs at all, because they are not necessary at all, so i don't understand this complaint.

@Mantodea; Yeah, but they work differently. You can actualy max out every stat except of just two. So there's no actual EV training in the first two gens.