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BDSP: Worst Pokemon game?

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
I know this question wasn't directed at me, but there is something that sticks out as being noticeably worse about SM than BDSP and that's the region design. SM has an extremely linear, "follow the Yellow Brick Road" sort of region design. The overworld areas don't really have much in the way of detours to explore (and every time they do, it's something quick and small) and there's a rigid order in which you visit the areas. They outright block areas they don't want you exploring with NPCs. Meanwhile DPPtBDSP has some level of linearity, but not to the degree of SM. There's entire swaths of routes or areas that are optional or detours so the progression isn't as straightforward. You even get to choose whether to fight Maylene or Crasher Wake first, whereas you get to a similar situation with Akala Island in SM and might think "I want to go fight Lana, Kiawe, and Mallow in whatever order I want" but nope, the game has you fight Lana, then Kiawe, then Mallow and has you take a roundabout path through Akala again constantly blocked by NPCs to force you to fight them in that order. And there's a lot more mazelike design, especially in the dungeons and gym puzzles. It just makes it all much more satisfying to navigate and explore and feels more realistic than SM's system of "okay, you're going to go to A, then B, then C and no other order".
Pokemon Sun was the first and only time I ever got to the end credits of a Pokemon game and felt absolutely zero emotion whatsoever - the game just failed to be an immersive gameplay experience for me and ended up turning me off an entire generation. IIRC some of the things that factored into this were the excessive levels of handholding and linearity (like, I remember quite a few of the routes were basically empty corridors), and this was a big deal for someone who values exploration in these sorts of games (@Bolt the Cat covered this issue nicely in the above post). As well as this, there were all those unskippable cutscenes for a story that (IMO) was nowhere near good enough to 'intrude' the way it did, and this also made the Melemele Island section very tedious to play through.

BDSP could be a chore to play, I won't lie, but at the end of the day they're still remakes of my favorite generation and I'm deeply fond of Sinnoh - so even when it was a slog, I attribute it more to my disappointment at the underwhelming direction they took this remake and that I had literally played this (almost) exact same game multiple times before - the music and the locations and the Pokemon that I loved were still there and the rematches were genuinely pretty fun to go into blind.

By the way, I should mention that when I say SM are the worst games, I'm referring only the games that I've completed - I haven't finished LGPE, SwSh or PLA (former two I probably never will) and I never bought USUM.
I can respect criticisms of the Alola region's linearity. I might think BDSP are worse games, but I certainly acknowledge that Sinnoh in all its forms - and much like older regions, prior to Kalos and Alola and Galar - is probably more interesting thanks to its loops, its optional areas, and its sense of freedom. I think one of the best parts of Sinnoh is being able to change up the gym order and to choose whether to explore certain places. Sun and Moon - more the latter, really - appealed to me because I was sucked into the characters and story, but that also doesn't make for as much replayability as games that don't direct you as much. With Sun and Moon it takes hours just to get to the point where you can simply customize your character, let alone go in any direction not explicitly mandated.
 

Mysteryguy

Rainbow Trainer
In terms of a first-time experience, no. In terms of what they could and should have been, yes.

LGPE are to me the weakest ones without a doubt. They are actually more polished products than BDSP on the technical side, but they just aren't fun to me. Very stripped down in terms of gameplay, insanely easy to a point where it literally becomes a chore to battle, nothing meaningful to do after the main game and we've seen Kanto so many times now, it has no more secrets to offer. Plus it slaps on a very lame catching gimmick that works for Pokemon GO but is not interesting in a main game and basically functions the same as a Wii game would do.

BDSP are definitely disappointing, but more enjoyable than LGPE to me because Sinnoh is just a bit meatier than yet another trip through Kanto. However, it bugs me how they went about it. Technically feels unfinished with weird hitboxes and tons of other little things. Bugs and glitches too. Forced experience share is dumb in this game; D/P were never balanced around it and it shows here. You basically have to constantly swap pokemon for it not to become a breeze. And then there's the affection bonuses which again you need to go out of your way to stop them from trivialising many fights. Stuff like making ridiculously powerful moves so easy to obtain so early was also a choice. I do have to say the E4 is surprisingly tough, but it feels like overcompensation instead of seamless progression. And the whole "no Platinum" stuff of course. They tried to compensate the bad dex a little with the Grand Underground, but even that is butchered. Aside from the dens being hard to navigate due to stupid hitboxes, there are too many pokemon from the main game filling up the roster and the way they scaled the levels and catch rates is just bad. Just disappointing remakes compared to the other ones. Sure, even ORAS didn't include Emerald stuff but at least they fit the games into gen 6 very well and added other things. To me BDSP are just D/P but chibi, buggy and with only a handful of badly implememted gen 8 features.
 

Reno

so adorable...
Yeah pretty much. I expected very little and was still majorly disappointed when I played through Shining Pearl. The games were still fun just like all Pokemon games are but after a week and a half of playing and finishing the game I didn't want to play anymore.
 

AnimeJeice

New Member
not even gonna lie, only reason i plan to get this game is for the free jirachi and mew you get from those 2 old people, I don't plan on even beating cynthia.
 

Copley Hill Gym

Well-Known Member
The problem with this title was just how closely it followed the original titles, with very few quality of life improvements. ORAS was well received because it remade RS and gave them new takes on the formula, together with some great new additions like flying and the wormholes.

Having played pearl and caught 'em all all over again, my disappointment lies in the lack of development of the original titles. Even basing the new games on Platinum but keeping the D/P names would have been better overall.

I am frankly amazed that the origin formes were not in the new titles. In ORAS the primal forms of Groudon and Kyogre gave us something new and additional and really helped to make the games feel bigger and more expanded.

Are they the worst Pokemon games? I think they're easily the worst of the remakes just on content alone.

Was it fun to go back through D/P? Yes, ish. Has made me realize how much more I prefer Legends Arceus. The improvements are significant, and BDSP feel incredibly clunky and awkward and old fashioned by comparison (but they are effectively nearly twenty years old...)
 

Taodragon

Training Anaylst
And no, I don't think BW remakes will have any BW2 content, the newer remakes seem to want to largely pretend the updated versions don't exist. We'll probably get basic ***** BW remakes with the BW2 forms thrown in and with the BW2 Unova Dex Pokemon thrown in to post game (or at best caught through Entree Forest or something comparable to Hideaways).
As an aside, I feel with the expanded dex they'll throw them into a revamped Dream World concept similar to the Underground. That was a big thing with the original BW games, but they can't really do the same thing with them as the online site has evolved into a different direction. Turning the Dream World into a place where you can get old favorites to use in the main game could be a way to include the concept and get around one of the original complaints about the game if they don't want to put the old Pokemon into the main routes.
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
As an aside, I feel with the expanded dex they'll throw them into a revamped Dream World concept similar to the Underground. That was a big thing with the original BW games, but they can't really do the same thing with them as the online site has evolved into a different direction. Turning the Dream World into a place where you can get old favorites to use in the main game could be a way to include the concept and get around one of the original complaints about the game if they don't want to put the old Pokemon into the main routes.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm alluding to with putting them in Entree Forest. Have something similar to the Dream World to encounter them outside of the main adventure and catch them in Entree Forest.
 

DSDark

Breeder
This isn’t even a question. Yes bdsp are the worst game in the franchise for one simple reason, they do nothing to move the franchise forward in anyway. Bdsp takes several steps backwards for the franchise. Overworld encounters since let’s go, no thanks. Added story elements from the third version, no thanks. Same art style and ties into the current generation, no thanks. Uses some new battle mechanic from any generation, no thanks. Bdsp are bad because they are a 15 year game with a fresh coat of paint.
 

Autobot N

Well-Known Member
I wonder how they will handle any potential Gen 5 remake. Will it be again done like Gen 4, with ILCA creating a “fateful” remake and GF creating a new Legends game, or will they follow another strategy?

I think there’d be a drop in sales for any BDSP-esque remake of BW, especially if they don’t include BW2 content in it.
Maybe they'll just bamboozle everyone again and do Black and White 3 instead of a remake
 

Aurelesk

Member
IMO, if X and Y were just a bit harder, (like 90% of trainers having only 3 moves) than it would be great. I enjoyed playing BDSP though although the online was beyond garbage

I believe that XY are disliked in retrospective. The games themselves were not bad, they were great. Those game tried many things, some were successful, some were a complete failure. But they tried. I could talk a lot about them about their numerous strengths and flaws. The jump to 3D, even if perfectible, were great. It is like Super Mario 64: a nice 3D transition even if many things were clunky.

Sun & Moon, and Sword & Shield were supposed to be the Super Mario Sunshine and the Super Mario Galaxy of the franchise, yet felt like Super Mario 64: Beach edition (more like 6.5Gen than 7Gen), and Super Mario 64: Remaster. So people blames XY for being the point of origin of all of this. Is XY fault that the franchise barely evolved since?

XY were ambitious games, and felt quite frustrating because we could witness all the potential, yet they didn't deliver it. That is why many people wanted Pokémon Z or X²Y² for the definitive experience that never came. Would Diamond and Pearl still regarded as great games if Platinum didn't fix many of the problems (slowness, emptiness of the Pokédex...)?

To be fair, BDSP are not that bad of the game. They just didn't met the expectations. They are in the uncanny zone between mainline games and LGPE. HGSS and ORAS were such great remakes that we all wanted DPPt to be even better than ORAS.
They both updated the story line: HGSS included Suicune into the story and the Kimono Girls have a bigger role, while ORAS added Mega-Evolution (and newer ones) to the game, revamped the Aqua/Magma Teams designs and goals, and a new post-game story around Rayquaza/Deoxys is added. They also updated the Pokédexes, added or expanded new capabilities (Pokéwalker, Pokéathlon, Safari Zone... Secret bases, Soaring the sky...).

The final blow is probably the limited metagame of BDSP which meant that we couldn't interact with Sword and Shield players. So BDSP felt like a one-time game were once you completed the story line, the Pokédex and grabbed the legendaries you wanted, have nothing more to give except if you want some shiny Pokémon or really like BDSP metagame. So BDSP are not bad games, but not the definitive games, therefore disappointing game.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
I wonder how they will handle any potential Gen 5 remake. Will it be again done like Gen 4, with ILCA creating a “fateful” remake and GF creating a new Legends game, or will they follow another strategy?

I think there’d be a drop in sales for any BDSP-esque remake of BW, especially if they don’t include BW2 content in it.
It would be worth more doing Johto remakes. BDSP was just a convenient remake for alongside the Legends: Arceus.
The ammount of money Soul Silver & Heart Gold are going for (even without the poke-walker)...it would be great to add Johto to the 3D realm. But not like the "Let's Go" which were barebones and simplified but not BDSP hard either.
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
It would be worth more doing Johto remakes. BDSP was just a convenient remake for alongside the Legends: Arceus.
The ammount of money Soul Silver & Heart Gold are going for (even without the poke-walker)...it would be great to add Johto to the 3D realm. But not like the "Let's Go" which were barebones and simplified but not BDSP hard either.
Disagree personally. The main charm of the Johto games is less the Johto region itself but more the post game giving access to the Kanto region, so essentially getting 2 games for the price of one (kinda).

However, I feel like we have been oversaturated with Kanto content in the last decade: Gen 1 Mons got the most Megas in Gen 6, they got Alolan forms in Gen 7 in addition to SM making many Kanto references and Let’s Go coming out and finally Gen 1 Mons again getting most of the G-Max forms.

I’d love a Legends game for Johto due to the region having many myths that could be explored in such a game, but I don’t think we need more Kanto love (which, lets be honest, SV and especially the Gen 10 games will undoubtedly have)
 

Morax

King of heroes
i never understood why gamefreak went for ‘remakes’ with literally the same character and plot instead of writing a new story set in that region?
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
I think Red/Blue/Yellow are the worst games for tons of reasons.
Yes but it’s not really fair to hold them to the same standards we have now. Flawed as they might be, they were good enough to kickstart the multi billion franchise that Pokémon is today, so by that alone they can’t really be the worst games

i never understood why gamefreak went for ‘remakes’ with literally the same character and plot instead of writing a new story set in that region?
It’s easier, simple. However, the Legends games will hopefully change this.
 

masdog

What is the airspeed of an unladen Swellow?
I think Red/Blue/Yellow are the worst games for tons of reasons.
Such as?

I’m not disagreeing…but you can’t leave us hanging like that.
 

masdog

What is the airspeed of an unladen Swellow?
It’s easier, simple.
It also gives new fans a chance to own the older games that are out of print and on older hardware that is hard to acquire…
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
It also gives new fans a chance to own the older games that are out of print and on older hardware that is hard to acquire…
Disagree. If their goal was to be “noble” like that, they would put the older games on the E-Shop like they did for the Gen 1 and 2 games.

HGSS and ORAS at least added tons of new stuff (and were made in a time when the E-Shop either didn’t exist or was still a very new and underdeveloped concept), but BDSP was such a lazy remake that I think everyone would’ve preferred if they just put Platinum on the Switch E-Shop, add the Fairy Type and make it compatible with Bank.

Especially the newer fans would have preferred such an approach, because when people are talking about the great Sinnoh era, they mostly refer to Platinum and not DP.
 

Morax

King of heroes
It also gives new fans a chance to own the older games that are out of print and on older hardware that is hard to acquire…
Then why not make those ‘older’ games available on a mobile platform? Pretty sure everyone owns a smartphone today. There, you don’t need remakes anymore.
 
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