Pokémon General Thread

Generation IV. Its the era where the silly method of basing attack's categories off the type they were was done away with, and online play allowed competitive battling to really start taking off.

I still say being a Gym Leaderis Larry's secondary job, not pprimary, since he was specifically asked to do so by his boss.

DAMMIT MARK, STOP HOTTING HELPY!!

Time to gripe at Rabbid Luigi for his bad ranking for Pokemkn gens:

Tl;dw: 7<6<8<1<2<9<3<4<5

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."

Charging up my 3DS, decided I want to buckle down and finally properly playthrough Pokemon X. I only ever played up to I think the third gym before. (Not in a "I'm not having fun" kind of way, in a "I got distracted by other stuff" kind of way)

With the benefit of hindsight, it's fascinating that Team Skull, the joke team, still managed to be more intimidating than Team Flare.

Possibly because Team Flare may have the dumbest designs in franchise history.

It does sell them as a buncha rich prats, though.

Wake me up at your own risk.

Well yeah, but that just makes them unlikeable. It doesn't make them intimidating.

I can't agree with any list that doesn't put 8 and 9 at the bottom of the list, but I can at least agree that 4 and 5 are the best generations.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Generations 7, 8 and 9 are too low. SM hould be first place, SV should be second and SWSH should be third. Generation 5 is way too high and should be in last place. Generations 2-6 can battle it out for the rest of the positions.

Not really. The worst thing about them is their hair. Team Galactic, Team Plasma (BW), and Team Star are all just as bad while Team Skull and Team Yell are even worse. Team Galatic has their ugly/goofy looking hairstyle, Team Plasma has those goofy head coverings, and Team Star is just the school uniform with minor modifications. Team Skull could look good if they looked more like Guzma, Plumeria, and Gladion but the chunky necklasses and face coverings take away from it. Still fun though. Team Plasma is just a trash design all around. Compared to them Team Flare isn't that bad.

Edited by Chariot on Dec 5th 2022 at 11:55:36 AM

So I'm about to tackle the last level of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX. Any tips on items? The last couple of dungeons I had some trouble with not bringing enough food and clogging my inventory with Max Elixirs I never deposited.

And which Pokemon should I bring?

Any list that has 7 and 5 at opposite ends is just wrong, those are the two best generations.

Last level as in Sky Tower? There's not too much advice to give there since you're locked into bringing yourself and your partner, with the third slot being open but best suited for whomever your strongest other Pokemon is. I usually bring four Max Ethers and one Max Elixir with me into dungeons, and five apples of varying sizes.

I liked 7 better than 6, but I still think it was pretty mediocre. It was like a brief Yoshi flutter jump struggling upward in a big fall.

If I had to rate the first seven generations, by the standards of their time, I'd probably go 5=4>2>3>1>7>6. It's hard for me to gauge whether I liked Gen 4 or Gen 5 better.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Dec 5th 2022 at 11:20:31 AM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Yes. Sky Tower and battling Rayquaza. My partner is Machop, so the flying Pokemon in there are a concern.

I don't really understand how someone could have significantly different opinions of gens 5 and 7? They're very similar in design

Thankfully many of them don't pack Flying moves. Not even Rayray itself, who has Extremespeed, Hyper Voice, Hyper Beam, and Twister.

I don't see how at all.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Linear, story-driven games with an emphasis on characterization, primarily of the players traveling companion, but also of the major boss characters. I... genuinely don't know what it is you could dislike about gen 7 that isn't also present in gen 5

As someone who considers SM the best games and BW the worst outside of the Kanto games the Unova games are too linear for me. Alola and Galar are arguably worse in that regard but personally the plot and characters in SM and the characters in SWSH (Specifically Sonia, Hop, and Marnie though I do like some of the Gym Leaders as well.) make up for that whereas BW's plot and characters don't. I skipped SV (I've watched others play it though.) and while I don't much like that it's open world the plot and the fact that you can sort of treat it as a linear game makes up for that.

Basically for me BW sacrificed exploration and failed to replace it with anything worthwhile whereas SM sacrificed exploration in favor of having the best plot and one of the best cast of characters in the franchise.

If you're only talking about the story, then maybe, but I'm not.

Gen 7 suffers from mediocre map design, imbalanced gameplay, overemphasis on marketing gimmicks, lack of challenging/worthwhile post-game content (BW 1 also suffered from this admittedly, but BW 2 made up for it while USUM largely failed to do so for SM), and poor engine optimization, among other things.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Dec 5th 2022 at 12:09:52 PM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Black and White aren't any more linear than any other game since Gen II. The game is just more forthcoming about it, considering the region shape, but every other generation ^note sans I, II, and now IX are equally linear in that there's only one correct direction to go to continue the game.

Edited by EpicBleye on Dec 5th 2022 at 12:29:17 PM

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

Neat, it's gen-ranking season. In that case... 5=4>9>2>8>1>7=6>3

It's tough to choose between gens 4 and 5 for me; The Sinnoh games, Platinum especially, are a hell of a lot of fun, and HGSS are near=perfect for me. That said, BW's performance is practically the peak of the series, looks great, and was probably the first time the games approached really good story and characterisation. BW 2's post-game content is pretty nice, too. That said, Gen 5 sure introduced a lot of new Pokemon that do not leave much of an impression on me.

Scarlet I've enjoyed quite a lot, and has not only some of the best new Pokemon characters to date, but a hell of a lot of them, too. The Starfall stuff was great, Arven wasn't too bad, Nemona's the best rival in a long while, and the Area Zero stuff was pretty damn good, too. Hope the DLC adds some notable post-game stuff, or at least make the Tera fights less of a confusing lagfest.

Johto ranks high because I like Johto. I'd rather replay the original GBC games than the lowest-ranked gens, even with HGSS existing. Sw Sh... I liked more than I expected, even if Rose manages to be a colossal idiot that makes Lysandre and Team Aqua/Magma look credible. The DLC stuff wasn't too bad either, though I'm not sure I'd revisit this gen all that much? I guess I rank it higher than Gen 1 by virtue of, gasp, a Switch game being less clunky than a Game Boy game. And, y'know, having Lucario and stuff.

Gen 7 is let down by general slowness, and USUM existing. SM's story is good, but Lillie is pretty much the only character I care about. I'm way more invested in her and Lusamine's (also Gladion I guess, he sure is around) story than I am my own, really. So USUM shitting all over that sure was disappointing. I also just didn't care all that much about the region itself, for some reason? The Totem stuff was alright, at least. Gen 6... I mean, I like Kalos and all, but it does feel super underwhelming after a replay, where the post-game episode was the highlight. Gen 6 also had the Hoenn remakes, which did little to address my issues with them outside of remove the battle island thing, I didn't like that. But yeah, the Kalos games have to deal with feeling like they're missing an iteration that might've addressed a few things.

Speaking of Hoenn, Gen 3 is dead last for me because no matter how much I try, I just cannot have fun with them. I hate the region, I hate Aqua/Magma's inability to understand that flooding/terraforming the planet is not a good goddamn idea, I... do not hate a lot of the Pokemon actually, those were fine. So much of it just does not gel with me.

I'd like to do my usual thing of saying each new gen is better than the last one, but even if I didn't have a Switch I wouldn't bother playing anything past gen 7 out of disinterest. So I can't fairly do it anymore.

I guess I may as well talk a little about my thoughts on each gen and what they did best.

• Gen 1 was... er... well, it was novel for its day. I mean, it started the franchise and without better games to compare them against, we didn't really know any better. Now, of course, they look like buggy messes with a tremendous amount of inconveniences (though at least you have to deliberately go out of your way to encounter most of the biggest bugs, unlike a certain recent title). The one thing I think Gen 1 does better than any gen to date, however, is its approach to a non-linear map. No, I don't mean being open world, or whatever. I mean the way the routes and towns connect in a web of optional and diverging paths. Like how you can reach Cinnabar Island from either Fuschia City or Pallet Town, or how many of the routes around the central and eastern parts of the map are completely optional since you have other ways to reach the next gym on your list. I consider this a good thing, it gives you more freedom in how to proceed without being aimless.
• Gen 2 was everything Gen 1 wished to be. With a robust post-game, the addition of new types, smoother gameplay, and a whole bunch of new mechanics like breeding, it really pushed the GB to its limit and I remember having a lot of fun playing these games. However, its overreliance on Gen 1 Pokemon and the fact that many of its new Pokemon were straight-up garbage really hurts its identity, along with the bad level curve due to the Ecruteak path fork.
• Gen 3 was a bit of a hiccup; the inability to communicate with prior games definitely hurt, though at least it was early in the franchise's development before the notion of being able to keep a collection of Pokemon across the generations settled in (only to be dashed by Dexit come Gen 8). However, it looked gorgeous on the GBA, and the addition of abilities and natures really added some much-needed complexity to the game's battle system without going overboard. I wouldn't consider them as strong an improvement over Gen 2 as Gen 2 was to Gen 1, but they're good.
• Gen 4 has my favorite region in Sinnoh, and by far the best improvement made in the franchise; the physical-special split. Seriously, I legitimately have trouble going back to any pre-split games, it just feels so wrong and awful when moves like Crunch are special and moves like Shadow Ball are physical. Even though I've been with the franchise since the beginning, Gen 4 is probably the one I have the most nostalgic memories of and yearn for the good old days thereof. While I've largely been talking about the main games, I do also have to take an aside here to say that Platinum is the best "upper version" and HGSS are the best remakes, which is why this generation is so strong to me.
• Gen 5 was an experiment, refining Gen 4's engine and then making a region that had no old Pokemon (until postgame), and instead more new Pokemon than any generation to date. While I wouldn't consider its story good, it's also the best (by default) story they've done, which was an interesting twist I guess. Really, though, I do consider this tied for best generation simply because its gameplay is just so strong, and the visuals were top-notch for sprite-based games. The sequel games then cranked it up by adding my favorite battle mode of all time, the Pokemon World Tournament. It was seriously fun.
• The best thing I can say about Gen 6 is it added some long-overdue gameplay balances (like the Fairy type and nerfing weather) and quality-of-life features (like improved breeding mechanics). Everything else it does, another gen did better. Often way better. I consider this gen to be the beginning of Pokemon's decline; every prior gen was an improvement over the last, but this is the first one I'd consider to be a step down.
• Gen 7 took Gen 6's gameplay philosophy and largely improved it. I still don't consider it great, but it's a step up, I guess. It also finally did away with H Ms, which is right up there with the physical-special split as one of the best decisions they've made. The region of Alola itself feels pretty bare, though, and USUM are by far the laziest "upper versions" ever made; barely enough new content to justify being a single upper version, let alone paired games. That's just greedy.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Dec 5th 2022 at 1:53:11 PM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

I wonder, if Ultra had been a single game instead of two, keeping the same plot changes it had, what would've changed about it?

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

• Ultra Necrozma would probably be a standalone form rather than necessitating it absorb Solgaleo or Lunala (since then they'd have to "play favorites"). How it achieves that form would need to be resolved, but it'd mean no more Dusk Mane or Dawn Wings Necrozma.
• Both a sun shrine and a moon shrine would be in the game, and it'd be possible to evolve Cosmoem into either Solgaleo or Lunala, possibly just as a time-of-day evolution or something relating to the shrines.
• Either all the Ultra Beasts would be available, or they'd exclude one from each paired set; like having Buzzwole and Celesteela but no Pheromosa or Kartana.
• None of the Ultra Space Legendary Pokemon would be version-exclusive; they'd all be in one game.
• Both Kiawe and Mallow would be battleable.
• All four Ultra Recon Squad characters would appear, or there'd just only be two of them at all.

Not very many changes, but they'd probably all be for the better, haha.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

I always had this idea for a rewrite for the plot of USUM where Lusamime isn’t even an antagonist at all and simply sends Lillie and Gladion out to explore Alola with Nebby and Type Null so she can have some time to continue making countermeasures against Ultra Beasts.

Also some of the trials would have you team up with the Totem Pokemon to fight against an Ultra Beast like for Kiawe, Sophecles, and Acerola’s trials as examples

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