What is your LEAST favorite Pokémon game?

[ComicMimic]

Simple again, whats your least favorite game? What made you dislike it? The gameplay, the Pokémon, the characters? Just anything you dislike about a game, drop it here!

Like I’ve said before, this thread is for fun, not fights.

 

[Lapidot Matoi]

Brilliant diamond and shining pearl without question. The art style looks nice, but making every character a chibi makes it impossible to take cyrus seriously. The music is (while slightly) a downgrade from the original. The difficulty is wildly inconsistent. It's the easiest Pokemon game of the 3D era up until the elite four and champion, where it goes to the harshest difficulty spike I've ever seen. The fact that bugs from 15 years ago STILL weren't fixed is just disappointing. The only things I liked were the ramanas park and grand underground. I actually really liked those. I'd easily consider them among my least favorite games ever made.

 

[Plaid]

Let's see...

• Diamond and Pearl: Despite being the first mainline game I ever played, I didn't care much for Diamond (and I guess by extension, Pearl). I was hoping that remakes of these games might finally redeem them in my eyes like ORAS did for R/S/E, but Brilliant Diamond just didn't do it for me. (There are a number of reasons why I don't like either set of games, but I'm lacking the brain power to put them into words atm.) I did pick up Platinum later on and ended up having a much better time with it, thanks to the improvements that were made to both the PokeDex and a few specific areas of progression, but D/P is usually my default answer whenever the subject of my least favorite games/region crops up.
• Sword and Shield: I was really looking forward to SwSh when they were first announced, because what was cooler than finally having the core series on a home console? But between all the negativity surrounding these games on social media, certain... controversial decisions like the Dex and move cuts, and the final games themselves just not being very fun to me for whatever reason, it's safe to say that Gen 8 was the start of my disenchantment with the series. I still haven't finished Sword in all these years, and probably won't be getting the DLC until the day the Switch eShop is on the brink of closing. I feel so let down after the barrels of fun I had with the Alola region.

 

[Tactician Karina]

Mine would have to be Red. Not for any reasons relating to characters, Pokemon, or even glitches, but out of all the installments I have less incentive to even go back to it for a replay, especially when FRLG and Let's Go exist. I liked it when I was younger of course, and I don't outright dislike it now, I just get bored to tears trying to get through it nowadays. But even as a kid, I liked Gold more purely because I liked the Kanto experience more in the post-game at the time.

 

[colours]

.... gonna get a lot of pitchforks for this but... black and white.

i'm going to preface this by saying the following: by no means am i saying bw are terrible games, or even bad games, or anywhere close. to be clear, i think i enjoy most pokemon games to some level, as i'd be lying if i said i didn't have some amount of fun with bw. but i think the delta of enjoyment between how much fun i really had with hgss and then bw following afterward left a really bad aftertaste, and that's probably the best/most accurate way to put it.

there are some parts of unova that i didn't really resonate with as strongly as others do. i never really cared or fawned over N or Ghetsis, and while the story is fine, and even as praise-worthy as its reputation suggests, it didn't have the massive impact for me that it had for others. i didn't really understand the point of the shadow triad and i wasn't... huge on team plasma in general? i think a good measure of an "evil team" in particular is how well they stack even against other games' evil teams and honestly i cannot name anything definitive about team plasma for the life of me. like, everyone and their mom knows something about team rocket, and there are memorable characters (archie and maxie, mostly) from hoenn, and ghetsis, mars, saturn, and jupiter from team galactic. i will say, however, the biggest plus to unova to this day for me continues to be the pokemon it introduced far more than the characters.

i think the biggest disappointment was the battle subway and look - i hate to come across as one of those Battle Frontier Enjoyers (tm), but i do. after hgss, i had high expectations for bw's postgame and it just did not deliver. battle subway was the biggest disappointment to the point where after i've beaten the main game, i've pretty much just stopped playing and didn't really bother engaging much with it, because why would i, when game freak put so much effort into the facilities and optional content for hgss and skip out on that for bw? it made no sense to me. i vividly remember just. closing my DS the moment i discovered battle subway was a thing and knowing that this wasn't going to be my cup of tea.

there are things about bw that i did like aside from the pokemon i mentioned. i think bw was the first generation to introduce reusable tms, and i really like iris, and i think bw's e4 is pretty solid character-wise. i'd be remiss if i also didn't mention that the graphics weren't enjoyable, because they are. but if there's a tl;dr to all of this, it's just that bw didn't really hold up to the expectations i set for it after the highs i've experienced from hgss.

 

[FelipePR]

Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu // Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee - These games are boring like a Drill. A dull representation of a largely overused region lacking several staple mechanics from the franchise and, instead, featuring the introduction of irritating and tiring new mechanics. Beating these games was almost a torment, and if they weren't Pokémon Games I certainly would have dropped them. That said, yes, the game art is quite nice and pretty.

Pokémon Black/White - After Pokémon Let's Go, these were the games in the franchise that I disliked the most. I didn't identify with most of the 5th generation Pokémon and I found N and Ghetsis annoying and overbearing. I think my main issue with the game was that it makes our journey, as a Pokémon trainer, seem insignificant compared to the story of the jackass antagonists. I dropped the game around the seventh gym and it took months for me to have the courage to go back and finish it. Since then, I have never played the game again. However, I intend to replay them, because, deep down, I believe, these are great games, just like their successors BW2.

 

[Tsukina]

Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum for me. Yes, even Platinum. Honestly, it’s just because don’t enjoy Sinnoh. The music is nice and it was home to some of the best route themes but the gameplay itself is sluggish and boring in my opinion. Not to mention the combination of the unnecessary amount of HMs and the lackluster selection of Pokémon makes it very difficult to make unique team of Pokémon. The games aren’t bad but they’re just the weakest games in the series for me.

 

[Pasio]

Sword, Shield, Scarlet, Violet.

Am honestly fine with all the other games. To me, they range from amazing to ok to "mostly redundant but just harmless extra games not made by the same teams", I just cannot accept these four titles.

I'm not going to elaborate too heavily but SwSh kinda dropped a nuke on everything I loved most about Pokémon and SV further cemented it. I'm trying to roll around to just remakes/spinoffs/past gens nowadays.

Here's a post about SV to clarify.
Post in thread 'Your controversial opinions' Your controversial opinions

Something extra:
Post in thread 'Your controversial opinions' Your controversial opinions

 

[KatrinaSForest]

Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum for me. Yes, even Platinum. Honestly, it’s just because don’t enjoy Sinnoh. The music is nice and it was home to some of the best route themes but the gameplay itself is sluggish and boring in my opinion. Not to mention the combination of the unnecessary amount of HMs and the lackluster selection of Pokémon makes it very difficult to make unique team of Pokémon. The games aren’t bad but they’re just the weakest games in the series for me.

Same for me!

I think I have some extra dislike of Diamond and Pearl because my lackluster experience with them turned me off from playing my now-favorite Gen 5 until just a few years ago. I haven't played Plantinum, but I did watch a playthrough and I thought it added some depth to the story that might have saved Gen 4 for me back then.

But I'm also glad to see I'm not the only one who voted for the original Silver and Gold. I'm too old to have fond childhood memories of it--just older teenage memories of getting beaten up by Whitney, running from my first shiny because I thought the game was bugging out (it wasn't like they advertised this new "feature"!), and chasing those AWFUL legendary dogs!

(Spoiler for Teal Mask) (If Kieran is a villain for going after Ogrepon when it shows no interest in him, anyone who played Gen 2 is a villain times three. Those elemental puppies clearly did NOT want to go with you.)

I couldn't vote against Crystal, however, since it was the first time the games let me play as a girl. Even if I still had to play on a GameBOY.

 

[KatrinaSForest]

Sword, Shield, Scarlet, Violet.

Am honestly fine with all the other games. To me, they range from amazing to ok to "mostly redundant but just harmless extra games not made by the same teams", I just cannot accept these four titles.

I'm not going to elaborate too heavily but SwSh kinda dropped a nuke on everything I loved most about Pokémon and SV further cemented it. I'm trying to roll around to just remakes/spinoffs/past gens nowadays.

Here's a post about SV to clarify.
Post in thread 'Your controversial opinions' Your controversial opinions

Something extra:
Post in thread 'Your controversial opinions' Your controversial opinions

I can totally see your points here. Even as someone who loved Gen 9, I can't defend the game's technical issues. (Heck, I based an entire fanfic around them.)

I adore the characters of Paldea, but with the story over, I'm going back to play in it far less than with older games.

 

[Daren]

Sword (and technically shield, I suppose).
There were some good QOL improvements but by far the biggest innovation was seeing just how much they could remove from the games.
The end result was a game that was just boring to play. I pushed through hoping something good would eventually come out but it never did.

 

[Daenerys]

BD/SP. It's the easy answer but I wholeheartedly believe that they're the worst core games based on their basic as hell overworld graphics and the limited amount of changes from the originals.

LGPE would be my second least favorite set of games. As Kanto remakes I still view them as inferior to FR/LG despite LGPE having much better graphics; I just felt that they were a cheap nostalgia cash grab with not much to offer other than better graphics and Pokemon GO connectivity (which I don't use anyway, so...).

X/Y would've topped my list of least favorite games had the Switch era not happened. I find Kalos to be one of the most boring regions, not to mention small compared to Sinnoh and Unova imho. The games were too easy and there was little to do in post-game except fill the Dex, buy clothes, or battle at the Battle Maison. And GF had the audacity to tease southern Kalos and imply that there was more to the region that would possibly be introduced in a later game if not DLC, but nope we got S/M instead.

 

[skynerel]

Mainline, Scarlet & Violet.

For remakes, BDSP.

 

[Poke Trey]

Mainline: XY
Remakes: ORAS, to an extent BDSP

 

[CynthiaLover]

Under normal circumstances I'd say the Gen 1 games and/or HGSS, but I think it's time to move away from them because I've made my opinion on them quite clear by now. Especially since I know if I were to even mention my opinion on HGSS I'll get harassed by its fans again. Instead, I'll say XY and Let's Go.

XY was a MASSIVE step down from the Gen 5 games, the characters/allies were almost afterthoughts and pathetic, the Mega Evo plot was poorly handled, the teams of the various trainers were bad (though not as bad as some games), the E4 and Champion were a joke, and Team Flare was the worst team to date (at least when it came to genuinely villainous teams, since I'm largely not counting teams like Yell or Star in that same category since they were not truly "evil", just misunderstood). Gen 6 would've been forgettable if it wasn't for ORAS salvaging the gen.

As for the Let's Go games, I utterly despise them, probably even more so than their Gen 1 counterparts. I already hated GO because of its mechanics and the Let's Go games turned them into full-fledged (and full-priced) nightmares. Combine that with the loss of Abilities, Held Items, and extremely simplified battling and you've got a recipe for disaster. And it was yet another trip to Kanto, which, by that point, I was ready to watch the region burn. While I never played FRLG I know well enough that they're the superior versions of Kanto games. I mean, really, these games didn't need to exist, and I still feel they don't deserve to be called mainline games and instead be classified as spinoffs.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Heart Gold and Soul Silver: While I'll admit that I feel like my opinion on them improved somewhat after a replay, HGSS generally just feel like sub-par games to me. The story basically doesn't have anything going on, the level curve is just absolutely atrocious, Silver's about the only character to stand out, and the Gen 2 batch of Pokemon are the weakest of the bunch imo. There's just nothing really enticing here.

Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee: This one just has a bad gameplay loop. I just hate having catching as the only method of interaction with wild Pokemon when I just enjoy battling so much more, and to top it off, the catching method just sucks anyway. I honestly didn't even get very far in this one, actively drove me away from wanting to play it.

 

[fruitsnax]

ORAS just never lived up to my expectations. During the lead-up to their release there was a TON of hype for it in the community, a level of hype I don't think we've seen in a long time (I mean you had Hoenn confirmed memes for years even before X and Y were out). At the time, I felt as though Emerald and HGSS were the gold standard for the series and figured that if Game Freak was able to put together what made Emerald a great game and HGSS a great remake then we'd have the best pokemon game EVER. That, coupled with the excitement around all the new features in X and Y and the growing playerbase that game brought, resulted in my expectations for the game being astronomically high; there was pretty much no way the final product would live up to what I had in my head.

I was very dissapointed when I finally played the game and felt as though I might as well play Emerald (or even RS) if I wanted to play through Hoenn again. I never felt as enthusiastic about the delta episode as everyone else did and I was one of those people who sorely missed the battle frontier. I will say I appreciated the features added to the pokenav and being able to play through the region with a wider variety of pokemon than before, but I just never connected with the game the way I did with RSE. I totally understand why people like ORAS but my own personal experience just left me dissapointed. I'm planning on replaying it soon though (after 9 years!!) so who knows, maybe my opinion will change.

 

[colours]

also i'd be remiss if i didn't mention pokemon dash.

i vividly remember getting this one christmas morning as a kid. i had zero idea what this game was about, but i assume i got it because of course, my mother knew i was into pokemon, so i assume she kinda just. got whatever pokemon game she thought i'd be like.

and oh boy.... oh boy. the moment i played it, i was just.. awash in disappointment. a pokemon... racing game? i could only play as pikachu? what am i even doing? is this really it? i think i could only play with the stylus? what??? and i think that was the one and only time i've ever played dash and i think not too long after, i've sold it at gamestop or something, idk. i think that would probably be the only pokemon game i've genuinely had a great dislike for.

 

[Squad_Broke_Down]

Red/Blue/Green: Honestly, these three games have aged rather horribly, are super buggy and unbalanced. Of course, since they're the first games, I can cut them some slack.

Diamond and Pearl: The slow gameplay really, really sucks. The extensive use of Hms required is just awful as well. Platinum does speed things up and fixes some of the issues so it manages to escape this.

The Let's Go Games: Honestly, they're not for me. The more simplistic playstyle is just not what I want out of a Pokemon game, removing the ability to battle wild Pokemon instead of catching them... just no.

Sword and Shield: The story kinda sucks, and the game honestly felt rather boring.

BDSP: This might be the bottom of the barrel of the Pokemon games. They fixed the slow gameplay of DP, but didn't add any of the innovations or changes that platinum made or even when you compare HGSS and ORAS to their originals. It just feels lazy, especially with all the bugs from the OG version that weren't fixed (and even the new bugs introduced).

Honorable mentions:

Black and White: Honestly, the BW games kinda blew. Limiting you to only Gen 5 Pokemon before the postgame took away a lot of the team diversity and I found it hard to care about Team Plasma in that game. In addition, beating it honestly felt rather.... empty, since you don't actually fight the champion until what might be considered the postgame. Also, the spike in difficulty between the postgame of BW and before that is rather jarring personally.

Scarlet and Violet: I'm not going to pretend that this game isn't flawed, because it absolutely is. The bugs are embarrassing for a 2022 game, the graphics and performance should be much better, and this game should have been so much more than what we got. But honestly, the story is personally very powerful, the Pokemon designs are very fun, they added more than a few nice features. I like to think of SV as taking two steps forward and three steps back.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I hate every mainline Pokémon game for the Nintendo Switch for specific reasons for each but it's a toss up between SWSH and Let's Go. SWSH sparked a Fandom civil war that I bitterly lost and set the precedent that until a miracle happens no Pokémon game will have all the Pokémon retroactively making the time spent on my intergame collection worse but Let's Go said "fuck your 'standards' of how much you think a $60 game should have everything is subjective and we're going to take advantage of it."

Same map as a 22 year old Gameboy game.
Nearly every mechanic from gens 2-7 removed. Only 153 Pokémon. Two of which you need to play a time consuming mobile game for and another you need to buy a $50 accessory for. No replacement for the slots at the game corner. For full console price. So many hyper ambitious games were sold for the same price and Gamefreak did nothing with the blank canvas that was Kanto. Anime references were removed instead of adding things that were only possible in the anime during the gen 1 days