Have you ever enjoyed a series more than their respective games?

[yaboiwill]

I definitely enjoyed the XY anime more than the games and I definitely prefer it. I could probably say the same thing for the Red and Blue games. The Indigo League was a really fun season.

 

[Wednesdayz]

Somewhat. I think the whole Team Flare situation in the anime was a much more complete and entertaining story than what we got with the XY games.

I thought it was handled well, minus the Zygarde involvement in the anime because Yveltal and Xerneas were snubbed as a result.

 

[PsychoBoost]

I quite liked Sinnoh, but a lot of the anime series was less notable. So mostly Sinnoh..

Some of the movies are good, but often the series along them are mediocre.

 

[EspNeon]

I enjoyed the Advanced Gen/Battle Frontier and XY Sagas more than the games.

Whilst I loved Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, I just feel like the plot in AG/BF was better. Perhaps it was because of the introduction of contests and that gave someone other than Ash development? Or perhaps it was even the introduction and climax of the antagonists arc? It's hard to put my finger on one thing when there were so many aspects that made it a good series.

As for X and Y, I feel the games are just too cluttered, unfocused and lack a real sense of journey. The anime by no stretch was better, but it felt like there was more focus and development. Serena's journey was pretty cluttered and Clemont and Bonnie had practically no development but Lysandre seemed much more convincing as an antagonist, possibly more so by exploiting Alain. Mega Evolution also made more sense in the anime, especially with the Lucario/ Korrina arc.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Since I started Pokemon with the anime, I definitely liked OS more than the games. Evidenced by the fact that I used to name myself after the main characters from the anime.

 

[zdbz_sn]

Truth be told, we never had video games in my house when I was a kid, not unless you count educational or Disney Interactive PC games, so I only knew the anime

I've become acquainted with the games since then, though only slightly, and I do prefer the show, but they're very different experiences.

 

[Wednesdayz]

I quite liked Sinnoh, but a lot of the anime series was less notable. So mostly Sinnoh..

Some of the movies are good, but often the series along them are mediocre.

Sinnoh as a region in the games was bland, so I thought that the anime handled it far better, especially the anime exclusive places.

 

[AshxSatoshi]

I'm probably a minority in this but I kinda liked DP's games better than the anime and I liked the XY games WAY better than the anime

 

[Akkipeddi]

I definitely enjoyed the Kalos anime much much more than the games. Pokemon XY are probably my least favorite games, with the annoying trio of Shauna, Tierno and Trevor and how pathetic Lysandre and Team Flare were, and Diantha having no purpose other than being the final opponent.

In the anime, at least the trio were better, Diantha had a big role in the villain plot, and of course Team Flare, from being the worst game villains actually probably became the best anime villains. So yeah, XY anime>>>XY games.

XY aside, I do slightly prefer the OS anime over Pokemon Red and Blue. The comedy and the interactions between Ash, Brock and Misty was gold and very memorable, though sadly it was downhill from Johto onwards. Sinnoh wise, the games and anime were equal to me. Platinum is one of my favourite games, and the DP anime is also my second favourite series, so both the games and anime were awesome.

As for the rest, I prefer the games.

 

[Mrs. Oreo]

Well I greatly enjoyed the Dp saga more than I liked the Dp games. I didn't like Sinnoh much in the games because the region felt small to me, but the anime fixed that by adding tons of new places as well as by spending a long time exploring the region. :]

 

[Psychotic]

Well I greatly enjoyed the Dp saga more than I liked the Dp games. I didn't like Sinnoh much in the games because the region felt small to me, but the anime fixed that by adding tons of new places as well as by spending a long time exploring the region. :]

Did you do any postgame content? There was a new island/cave and it makes the region feel bigger.

Anyways, I liked Kalos enough to place it over X&Y. Those games were crap.

 

[Mrs. Oreo]

Did you do any postgame content? There was a new island/cave and it makes the region feel bigger.

I visited every area of the region, but it still felt lacking in size to me which is why I was glad that the Dp anime made the Sinnoh region seem much more vast and expansive than the games. Also, the lack of restriction in terms of wild Pokemon found in Sinnoh in the show was nice as well. ^^

 

[Halolady]

Late reply is late, but...

Kanto - these games were bare-bones in terms of characters, with only a handful of distinct NPCs and not much indication of personalities. If anything the anime interpretations (along with the manga versions and supplemental materials) fleshed out the character that was absent from the game's script. I did miss some of the best game story which could have made it to the anime, such as the Marowak story and the Silph siege, and Giovanni was sidelined too much. But otherwise I'd say the anime improved on the games and was a major factor in their popularity at the time. Anime wins.

Johto - The anime was very poorly paced and had too few overarching arcs, it was padded beyond belief and a good 70% of episodes were filler, which is odd as it was based on one of the denser game stories. Much of the best stuff from GSC followed from RGB material which wasn't adapted either, so let's put this down to sins of the father. Not including the character Silver was their biggest mistake. Games win.

Hoenn - The contest subplot with May was a major win for the anime, taking a fun but unnecessary peripheral side-game and putting lots of character and action into it. This continued into Kanto, and into Sinnoh with Dawn, and contests were a staple of the show for an impressive eight years. Ash's main arc was a little disappointing because of the lack of a rival and the tendency of the gym leaders to be played a little on the mundane side without memorable personalities to match their creative designs. We also didn't get much from the Elite Four, Steven, Wallace, Wally, Archie or Maxie, all of which should have been a well of possibilities. They built up Aqua and Magma well enough but had an underwhelming finale, exacerbated by introducing Archie and Maxie too late and not integrating the Emerald plot as well as they could. Why no Rayquaza? All in all, I'd have to vote games as better with the exception of the contests which were far better in the anime iteration. Games win.

Battle Frontier - this is an odd side-category, but as much as it bothered people at the time spreading the facilities out across Kanto was a smart idea. Unfortunately, they did very little with Kanto and wasted valuable opportunities for revisiting the original series at the 10-year mark, and including some of the material from GSC and FRLG which had expanded Kanto for them. Seeing Misty again was nice, revisiting Brock's family was nice, finally including Agatha was nice... but I can't think of anything else Kanto-relevant we got out of this. I still say anime was better for expanding on the Frontier Brains and finding room for more contests, but putting it in Kanto was a wasted opportunity to make it a better FRLG adaptation. Anime wins.

Sinnoh - Paul was a huge factor in DP being a superior saga, and as we eventually got Barry too that's an improvement. Apart from the Distortion World and Battle Frontier from Platinum, I can't think of much from the games which was left out of the anime. It seemed like the communication between the games and the anime was at its best during this time, so it comes down to the continued use of contests with Dawn's arc being more dynamic than May's. Throw Paul in, and you've got a superior telling of the Sinnoh story. Anime wins.

Unova - We'll never know how fully the cancelled episodes affected the anime's telling of the Team Plasma storyline, which was the BW games' best asset. I liked the concept of the multi-episode tournaments bringing in lots of recurring rivals, but they were't always executed to their full potential and didn't include much actual development aside from Scraggy getting stronger during the Donamite. This saga gets a lot of flack, mostly over Iris' characterisation and Ash's rotating team being handled poorly, but for me the biggest problem is the lack of Team Plasma and N until much later, the lack of Elite Four characters and the replacement of Cheren with Trip. Games win.

Unova 2 - This was the lowest point of the anime for me. The Unova League was a mess, the Decalore Islands arc was a fillerfest, the long-delayed Plasma arc was a letdown without any moral greyness and with Reshiram alone instead of the Tao Trio as a collective. Even the return of Charizard gave us little of worth. The World Tournament also had very few characters of note, unlike the games which littered us with fanservice. Games win.

Kalos - Like with Plasma, it took a long time until Team Flare were introduced, but I liked it when we did get to it, and the mediocre characterisation and plot of Gen VI is reflected well and sometimes improved. Occasionally a character or plot point didn't make it in, but overall I think they did a good job and we got a good idea of what Z version may have been like. Characrers like Alain were an improvement, and the occasional bits of ORAS lore including an overdue bad-*** feature for Steven were welcome too. Anime wins.

^Very well-written. Thanks for that.

 

[Nerdy McNerdface]

Hmm. Well, let's see...

Kanto: currently, despite not being an OS fan, I prefer to to RGBY, simply because in Gen 1 the game was slow, tedious, mostly broken and not as engaging as other Pokemon games for me. However, I've yet to play FRLG to see if my opinion of Kanto changes, so this is not definite.

Johto: definitely the games. I really enjoyed Johto in HGSS (yet to play Gen 2) because even without Kanto, Johto is still a vast region filled with many interesting places and people. In HGSS, almost every city has its own character - Ecruteak City instantly comes to mind - and the characters within such as Eusine, Silver and Clare are really distinctive and enjoyable. Meanwhile in the anime, the region was still very vast, but the town's and cities definitely felt less unique and separate from each other. The characters were also still interesting, but a couple could've been better (aka Eusine, they butchered his character in the main series). Also, I do have to say that one of Johto's main appeals was the legend of the three beasts, and since that got a decent amount less focus I got kinda sad there, but that might just be personal.

Hoenn: I haven't actually watched much of Hoenn, but I'd probably still prefer the games from what I do know. I mean, the moment I realised one of the Hoenn champions was a CotD until Kalos and the other didn't even appear until Sinnoh my opinion was kinda brought down of the series. Also the Magma/Aqua arc sounds very inferior to the games, both in RSE and ORAS.

Sinnoh: games still. Now, I do have to say this one was at least a little closer, but only because of Riley. I'm definitely not a fan of Paul, for a start. While I do love Brock, he also felt like he had overstayed his welcome by then. Dawn is pretty cool - probably my favourite Pokegirl - but she's not exactly amazing. I also felt that the anime didn't have a solid conclusion with its villain arc, while the games (at least in Platinum) showed us what exactly was beyond that portal Cyrus went into, which actually felt more appropriate. Also Cynthia appears way too damn much I prefer the game since Platinum has this really vast feel to it, and Barry works fine as a single rival. The plot also had an at least somewhat solid conclusion. Also Cynthia appears less

Unova: Really?

Game - plot had me stunned, graphics are extremely pleasing to look at, villain arcs were satisfactory, rivals were worth remembering, both Reshiram and Zekrom got simolar amounts of screentime, so on and so on.

Anime - somewhat ok plot bug nothing like the game, graphics are eeehhhhhh, villain arc was ok but nothing new or worth my time, I keep forgetting the rival's names (Snivy boy and the one with the red shirt), Reshiram was heavily favoured, etc etc. Also we didn't need more FRRAKIN CYNTHIA SHOVED DOWN OUR THROATS At least the anime had Vic Mignogna?

Kalos: Aha! Here we go. While I loved Pokemon X to pieces for its music, graphics and new features, and while the plot was really good, they could've executed the villain arc a lot better. Along wanders Anime!Flare, and boy I love it. Yeah, sure, Lysandre has less personality, but look at the scale of the arc, the graphics, the inclusion of so many side characters that make sense to be there, STEVEN, it all works out so well.and while there are so, so many things that I dislike about XY and XYZ, I can't find myself calling it worse than the games at all, for three factors alone - the Mega Special, the Flare Arc, and the overall graphics of the series.

 

[DarkLeviathan]

I enjoyed XY more than the games since XY introduced some cool anime exclusive people like Sawyer and Alain.

 

[Vini310]

I enjoy the games more than the anime, because while in the anime you see people catching and tarining Pokémon, in the games, the one who do this things is you, so there's more interaction.
On the other side, there are things in the anime that I would like to see in the games, like the A.J.'s Gym and Pokémon Tech, plus it has pretty intresting characters.
In the end, it's a 50/50 relationship.

 

[Wednesdayz]

Tbh, as much as I liked the Kanto saga and the Orange Islands arc, I kinda feel that they were inferior to the 1st Generation games overall.

 

[Rettan-Smogon]

For me it was the DP and AG saga. The OS games were better than the anime. I never played SM, I can remember anything from the BW games and everything with XY was complete garbage for me. The games and especially the anime.

 

[Xuxuba]

How can anyone enjoy the anime more than HG/SS (imo, the best pokemon game) and Platinum (imo, one of the best games) is beyond me, but whatever...

Anyway, i would say Kalos, because i liked the anime and ORAS was the first pokemon game i didn't like (although i enjoyed XY, because of how unique the graphics, the region and the gameplay was, at least before they decided to recycle everything on oras).

Edit: now that i think about it, i guess i liked OS-Kanto more than the games, since, at that point, the games barely had any content at all.

 

[Mega Altaria]

I usually enjoy the games more than the anime but it's definitely Gen 1 for me. There wasn't much content in the Gen 1 games and the Kanto saga seemed to be much more engaging. Kalos was close enough though but didn't enjoy it as much because Alain was too good.