BDSP: Worst Pokemon game?

[Captain Jigglypuff]

LGPE are the only games that I really didn’t like that much. Everything about it felt off. The story changes and cutscenes were perfectly fine especially with Marowak as KO her ghost seemed so cruel and unnecessary in the original version of the games as she just wanted to protect her baby. I only regret selling Eevee a bit too quickly as I forgot that the Pokéball controller Mew was still on my team and now I can’t get it out of the game which is annoying. Most of the hairstyles also refused to appear even when I followed the instructions on how to get them. I really wanted the curly bangs for my Eevee and could never get it which was extremely disappointing.

 

[Kage-Pikachu]

LGPE are the only games that I really didn’t like that much. Everything about it felt off. The story changes and cutscenes were perfectly fine especially with Marowak as KO her ghost seemed so cruel and unnecessary in the original version of the games as she just wanted to protect her baby. I only regret selling Eevee a bit too quickly as I forgot that the Pokéball controller Mew was still on my team and now I can’t get it out of the game which is annoying. Most of the hairstyles also refused to appear even when I followed the instructions on how to get them. I really wanted the curly bangs for my Eevee and could never get it which was extremely disappointing.

if someone else signs into your account on another switch could they use their Let's go Eevee game to put your mew in the box?

 

[janejane6178]

No it wasn’t the worse cuz it treated all gens with respect and didn’t favour any particular ones

 

[Kameinu]

I’m having a hard time keeping interest in playing this. Having played the originals, including an imported Pearl before translations for it where available, this just feels boring and uninspired. Really missed opportunity to give it the treatment it deserved in the same vein as previous remakes.

 

[Kage-Pikachu]

limiting the pokedex was my absolute biggest issue. gen 8 has been very lackluster as a whole with the sole exception being legends arceus. though i did still get some enjoyment

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I don't even like LA's Hisui Dex. It was basically Platinum, minus a few random families for some reason, with some Hisuian variants thrown in. BDSP's was even worse, we should not still be having regional dexes like DP's in this day and age when there's 800+ to choose from, remake or not. SwSh's Galar Dex was the only good regional dex in Gen 8.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Then we all thought we were getting Pokemon Stars on the Switch? Only to be outraged when they didn't announce it yet they opted to announce Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon on the 3DS? Even though we all said the 3DS was a dead system since the Switch was released by that point? By the way that's the real reason USUM were hated too.

Pretty sure the reason USM is disliked is because while it refined SM's battle system well, that was pretty much all it did, and it came at the cost of basically taking all the emotion out of the story. Plus, SM's ending was perfect sequel bait so it just felt like so much wasted potential. It also broke the rule of the UBs not looking like traditional Pokemon with Poipole. Poipole does not look alien. Granted, Buzzwole and Pheromosa don't look that alien either but I think the designers were going for uncanny valley there, they just missed it. Poipole, on the other hand, is clearly designed to be cute, and looks exactly like a normal Pokemon, which defeats the entire design philosophy behind the UBs.

 

[masdog]

LGPE are the only games that I really didn’t like that much. Everything about it felt off. The story changes and cutscenes were perfectly fine especially with Marowak as KO her ghost seemed so cruel and unnecessary in the original version of the games as she just wanted to protect her baby. I only regret selling Eevee a bit too quickly as I forgot that the Pokéball controller Mew was still on my team and now I can’t get it out of the game which is annoying. Most of the hairstyles also refused to appear even when I followed the instructions on how to get them. I really wanted the curly bangs for my Eevee and could never get it which was extremely disappointing.

You should be able to pull Mew into HOME even if you don't have the cartridge.

 

[Kage-Pikachu]

You should be able to pull Mew into HOME even if you don't have the cartridge.

it's on his team though unfortunately

 

[masdog]

it's on his team though unfortunately

Ah...sorry. I missed that.

Maybe a local library has a copy of LGE. My local library system had both, and we only borrowed them to get far enough into the game for the Sw/Sh bonuses.

 

[Tobunarimo]

That's a little presumptuous to say the reason people didn't like LGPE and BDSP is because they had sky high expectations for Switch games. There's some of that, but there's a lot more going on with them to simply conclude that the expectations were unrealistic.

For one, it's totally reasonable to expect the other Switch games to have SwSh-tier graphics. Not just because of past convention, but because of the nature of the console market that they were now transitioning to on the Switch. Console games, especially console adventure games, have traditionally been large scale, open affairs with relatively realistic graphics/proportions. You never really see a chibi, tile based console adventure game because console hardware has always been capable of more than that. Even the 5th gen consoles (the N64, PS1, etc.), with their jagged low-poly graphics that look positively repulsive today, still did not go for that kind of simplistic style of graphics and game design. And really, if you look at the big picture of what a home console is and what they're trying to sell, they kind of can't. New hardware is constantly introduced to the market with the latest and greatest tech to encourage you to buy the new one before you might naturally consider doing so. So the developers really kind of have to maximize the hardware to show that it can play games that the past gen hardware can't. And consoles especially need to do this because they're large boxes that hook up to your TV for you to sit down and play them for hours and hours. They're like the gaming equivalent of movies. They're supposed to be big and high end and impressive to justify the cost and the time. Games like SwSh, LA, and SV, while perhaps not quite what fans are expecting, still reasonably satisfy this kind of experience and visibly look and feel like something that could only be done on the Switch. Games like LGPE and BDSP on the other hand, do not and feel like they could've been made on the 3DS, undermining incentive to buy a Switch to play these games.

A little presumptuous, but it's accurate. Do I really need to remind everyone how the fanbase acted when USUM were revealed? People wanted GameFreak to reveal a giant open-world Pokemon game in the wake of Breath of the Wild to blow everything out of the water and reinvent the wheel - it was like that for so long and plenty had made mock-ups of Pokemon characters slapped onto Breath of the Wild screenshots to showcase the kind of depth they wanted.

However the argument here about expecting a console-quality game also doesn't hold water due to the fact that the Switch is also a portable, many even dismissing the system as a console altogether because of it. That and Nintendo released a remake of Link's Awakening on the Switch - a remake of a chibi, tile based portable game on a console that also functions as a portable, I'm not even pointing out indie titles like Blossom Tales that are homages to Zelda - NINTENDO released a Chibi tile based console adventure game: for $60.

At the end of the day, it's definitely because the fanbase wanted Diamond and Pearl remakes in the same vein as or better than Sword and Shield - after all, how many people got excited for PLA the moment the trailer dropped and it was using visual cues from Breath of the Wild's trailer? How many people commented on the trailer "This is the game BDSP should've been!" and variants of that?

 

[Bolt the Cat]

A little presumptuous, but it's accurate. Do I really need to remind everyone how the fanbase acted when USUM were revealed? People wanted GameFreak to reveal a giant open-world Pokemon game in the wake of Breath of the Wild to blow everything out of the water and reinvent the wheel - it was like that for so long and plenty had made mock-ups of Pokemon characters slapped onto Breath of the Wild screenshots to showcase the kind of depth they wanted.

However the argument here about expecting a console-quality game also doesn't hold water due to the fact that the Switch is also a portable, many even dismissing the system as a console altogether because of it. That and Nintendo released a remake of Link's Awakening on the Switch - a remake of a chibi, tile based portable game on a console that also functions as a portable, I'm not even pointing out indie titles like Blossom Tales that are homages to Zelda - NINTENDO released a Chibi tile based console adventure game: for $60.

At the end of the day, it's definitely because the fanbase wanted Diamond and Pearl remakes in the same vein as or better than Sword and Shield - after all, how many people got excited for PLA the moment the trailer dropped and it was using visual cues from Breath of the Wild's trailer? How many people commented on the trailer "This is the game BDSP should've been!" and variants of that?

The Switch is a hybrid console/handheld, but its games lean more towards console scale games. Part of the selling point of the hybrid model is that you can play console quality games on the go. If the games are just handheld quality that undermines its capabilities as a console.

This is especially the case with adventure games, where they've all trended towards being large scale open area game worlds and longer levels as opposed to some of the games on the 3DS which tended to be more bite sized and linear. And it's not just because of BotW, BotW took another step forward in this direction, but this has been what people have expected of console games for years and years. Pretty much all the way back to the N64 when gaming first went 3D, what kinds of games did they have? Sandbox platformers like Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. Open adventure games like OoT. Console games have been like this for as long as Pokemon's been alive, it goes beyond just the Switch.

Additionally, the games are all being sold for $60 like a console. Remember that on the 3DS, the games were $40, so the 3DS games didn't quite have as high expectations. You were paying a cheaper price for a lower quality game. Now that the games are $20 more, the fanbase expects the games to be $20 better in quality. Indie games like Blossom Tales are not a good example because of this since those all tend to be cheaper than the full $60. As for Link's Awakening, that had the same complaints as LGPE and BDSP, the Zelda fanbase similarly felt the game wasn't enough of a leap from the GB original to justify a full $60 price tag. So overall there's still this expectation that if you're selling a game for $60, it needs to bring the goods. It needs to be a modernized, polished, grand experience that represents the very best of what the console is capable of.

So yeah, even though the Switch is a hybrid, the retail boxed games are all designed, sold, and treated as if they are console games and carry the same expectations of console games. So it's totally reasonable to have expected Pokemon to take a significant leap forward after all previous games were handhelds and they were making games that were largely considered to be console games. They're playing with the big boys now, and everyone wanted the games to act like it.

 

[Baggie_Saiyan]

The Switch is a hybrid console/handheld, but its games lean more towards console scale games. Part of the selling point of the hybrid model is that you can play console quality games on the go. If the games are just handheld quality that undermines its capabilities as a console.

This is especially the case with adventure games, where they've all trended towards being large scale open area game worlds and longer levels as opposed to some of the games on the 3DS which tended to be more bite sized and linear. And it's not just because of BotW, BotW took another step forward in this direction, but this has been what people have expected of console games for years and years. Pretty much all the way back to the N64 when gaming first went 3D, what kinds of games did they have? Sandbox platformers like Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. Open adventure games like OoT. Console games have been like this for as long as Pokemon's been alive, it goes beyond just the Switch.

Additionally, the games are all being sold for $60 like a console. Remember that on the 3DS, the games were $40, so the 3DS games didn't quite have as high expectations. You were paying a cheaper price for a lower quality game. Now that the games are $20 more, the fanbase expects the games to be $20 better in quality. Indie games like Blossom Tales are not a good example because of this since those all tend to be cheaper than the full $60. As for Link's Awakening, that had the same complaints as LGPE and BDSP, the Zelda fanbase similarly felt the game wasn't enough of a leap from the GB original to justify a full $60 price tag. So overall there's still this expectation that if you're selling a game for $60, it needs to bring the goods. It needs to be a modernized, polished, grand experience that represents the very best of what the console is capable of.

So yeah, even though the Switch is a hybrid, the retail boxed games are all designed, sold, and treated as if they are console games and carry the same expectations of console games. So it's totally reasonable to have expected Pokemon to take a significant leap forward after all previous games were handhelds and they were making games that were largely considered to be console games. They're playing with the big boys now, and everyone wanted the games to act like it.

You make some valid points however there could be some counter arguments. For one the Switch lite exists and that is a pure handheld and so from those owners (like myself) perspective these are still handheld games.

Pricing this is interesting because again people will happily shell out $60+ for old games and even rubbish games like FRLG, also don't Nintendo set the prices? So that has nothing to do with GF if that is the case.

GF's hand were tied in a way it wasn't like say Wii U/ 3DS era where there was an actual separate handheld but GF decided to jump to the console. They had no choice to develop for Switch and you can't run without walking. It was always gonna take a couple games for them to find their feet as SV is showing.

 

[masdog]

For one the Switch lite exists and that is a pure handheld and so from those owners (like myself) perspective these are still handheld games.

Even though the Switch Lite is locked into a handheld format, it doesn’t change the fact that the Switch line and games are basically a console system in a portable format.

Both consoles use the same NVIDIA Tegra X1+ System-on-a-Chip, run the same OS, and can play the same games. They can deliver a console experience in a handheld format.

 

[GLTSRY]

At the end of the day, BDSP has to be compared with FRLG, HGSS and ORAS. All of these games brought the old games into the modern day, refining the gameplay and adding new mechanics and/or areas.

FRLG added double battles, the Sevii Islands and new events that weren’t in the original RBY.

HGSS made the Kanto region a fully fledged region as opposed to the GS version of Kanto, added the BF, added double battles and introduced the Physical/Special split.

ORAS added the Mega Evolution mechanic alongside new Mega forms, the Fairy Type, the Delta Episode, the Dexnav, PSS, and upgraded RS’ battle tower.

BDSP added fairy types… which only effects half a dozen of Pokémon due to the small dex, character customization and some other QoL improvements but that’s it. No gimmick at all, no mention to any other region besides Johto (and that only because Jasmine was present in the original DP too), no new story elements (even ones that were present in Platinum), no new areas (and most of the areas used the bland DP design instead of Platinum’s) and, funnily enough, not even a storyline or even mention of PLA.

It’s by far the worst remake in the series, and considering that remakes have it easier than new entries, it should also be regarded as the worst game.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

You make some valid points however there could be some counter arguments. For one the Switch lite exists and that is a pure handheld and so from those owners (like myself) perspective these are still handheld games.

As masdog pointed out, the Switch Lite still has the hardware and capabilities of a standard Switch, so the expectations of console quality handheld games remain. The Switch Lite is just a form factor variation for people who only play their Switch in handheld mode.

Pricing this is interesting because again people will happily shell out $60+ for old games and even rubbish games like FRLG, also don't Nintendo set the prices? So that has nothing to do with GF if that is the case.

Game Freak doesn't choose the price point of a full retail game but they can choose whether to sell it as a full retail game instead of an eShop game or how much content to actually give you for $60.

GF's hand were tied in a way it wasn't like say Wii U/ 3DS era where there was an actual separate handheld but GF decided to jump to the console. They had no choice to develop for Switch and you can't run without walking. It was always gonna take a couple games for them to find their feet as SV is showing.

That is true and the gradual improvement from SM -> SwSh -> LA -> SV does show that they needed a few games to adapt. However we have not seen a similar improvement from ORAS -> LGPE -> BDSP. If anything we've seen a regression from ORAS to LGPE and BDSP, and that reflects an intentional change in design philosophy, not an inability to adapt to hardware.

 

[Fantasian]

I've enjoyed them. Sure they're on the lower side of the Pokemon game tier list but hey at least I knew ahead of time what I was getting into so I can't be too mad that these games are a lot like the original Pearl and Diamond

 

[Sαpphire]

Now that I’ve had some time with them… Nah.

BDSP give me every single Pokémon I care about, the second or third easiest way to get a shiny Latios in a Premier Ball (which is nearly impossible in Gen 6 and unreasonably tedious in Gen 4), and one of the best and toughest battle facilities in the series so far.

The graphics are abysmal, nearly intolerable honestly, and they don’t have the Frontier because… reasons? Unclear, poor choice. And of course I can’t support excluding new Pokémon for those who care about them.

But like, it’s fine overall, the good and the bad balance to make it just… fine. It’s no Emerald, it’s no Legends, it’s no Crystal, and it’s certainly no Sun or Moon. But it’s not truly down in the depths of the series like Let’s Go, Black and White, Sword and Shield, or FireRed and LeafGreen. Those are games I’d like to play far less than I like to play BDSP, some for different reasons than others. It’s more on the level of the original Diamond and Pearl than anything else, honestly, it just kind of looks gross and bad compared to them.

 

[Pokefan_1987]

Here's something we should ask ourselves. Was BDSP worth the high 60 dollar cost or were they still overpriced remakes?
I'd say they're closer to a 40 dollar game.

For me if it didn't have the quality of live mechanics such as, it would be less favorable.
- HM slave elimination.
- Increased walk speed and battle speed (without shoes)
- Increased ammount of pokemon including older starters and the additional Mew and Manaphy.

 

[GLTSRY]

Now that I’ve had some time with them… Nah.

BDSP give me every single Pokémon I care about, the second or third easiest way to get a shiny Latios in a Premier Ball (which is nearly impossible in Gen 6 and unreasonably tedious in Gen 4), and one of the best and toughest battle facilities in the series so far.

The graphics are abysmal, nearly intolerable honestly, and they don’t have the Frontier because… reasons? Unclear, poor choice. And of course I can’t support excluding new Pokémon for those who care about them.

But like, it’s fine overall, the good and the bad balance to make it just… fine. It’s no Emerald, it’s no Legends, it’s no Crystal, and it’s certainly no Sun or Moon. But it’s not truly down in the depths of the series like Let’s Go, Black and White, Sword and Shield, or FireRed and LeafGreen. Those are games I’d like to play far less than I like to play BDSP, some for different reasons than others. It’s more on the level of the original Diamond and Pearl than anything else, honestly, it just kind of looks gross and bad compared to them.

I don’t know what surprises me more: The fact that you rate Sun/Moon so high, or that you rate Black/White so low