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The Faults of Gen I

Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
Perhaps, I didn't even know what it meant til I got older.

Especially as a one time use, Hydro Pump would have been perfect as a TM.
Right, that may as well been the case.

Yeah. Water Gun wouldn't have that worth it for a one-use thing.
 

RileyXY1

Young Battle Trainer
There's so many problems with Gen 1:

The Psychic-type was too powerful.
There are too many glitches.
The movepools were all over the place.
The TMs were all over the place.
The games were, as a whole, unbalanced.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
MockingJ said:
Too many glitches made the 1st gen games feel delicate, like one simple mistake could cause a glitch that might corrupt the save file.

Only the MissingNo. glitches seemed dangerous, however. The other Gen I glitches were harmless and some were even benificial such as the Mew glitch.
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
I think what I find most interesting about Gen 1 is that you can see it's experimental flaws through it's adaptations and how much has changed since then. A great example is Pokemon Adventures. After the RGB story arc, Pokemon Adventures has been pretty much consistent with the game mechanics of Pokemon however during RGB story arc, you can really tell the writer had to think of some really clever ways to get around the Gen 1 competitive meta such as Venusaur beating Charizard through a clever step-by-step plan. Then there are times you just feel he gave up because there was really no way to get around it. A common example is Pikachu dealing with ground-types. He literally beats some ground-types with electric type moves and the thing is this is a reflection of Gen 1. Most electric types didn't had many ways of dealing with ground-types. This was way before Gen 3, Gen 4 or hidden power. In fact you can also see this in the anime where it just looks like the anime producers gave up on trying to make sense because of Gen 1's difficult limitations when they wanted PIkachu to win against some ground-types. Grant it they kind of carried it on all the way to DP but it's pretty excessive during Gen 1. In fact, that's another thing. A lot of these game-breaking moments were pretty excessive during Gen 1 and what's interesting is that as Pokemon improved and balanced over time through it's game mechanics, so did much of the action scenes in Pokemon Advenures and Pokemo the anime did too.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Another gripe I have with Gen 1 is how ridiculous the price of Porygon was in Red. I never had much luck with the slots and win one. The Safari Zone Scyther glitch was also problematic.
 

RileyXY1

Young Battle Trainer
Due to some parts of the game outright requiring you to spend money (to get into Saffron City and the Safari Zone) you can essentially make the game unwinnable by defeating every trainer and spending all of your money. The only way to fix this is for someone to trade a Pokemon that knows the move Pay Day into your game. (In Yellow, you can't lock yourself out of the Safari Zone through this method. If you get turned away due to not having enough money to pay the entrance fee enough times, the guards will pity you and let you in, although you are only given a single Safari Ball to use). You can also trap yourself on Cinnabar Island by releasing every Pokemon that has Fly or Surf (or can potentially learn the move), wasting all of your Poke Balls, defeating every trainer, and spending all of your money.
 
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Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Another complaint is you can’t teach Pokémon moves that were earlier in their moveset or forget any moves. Some of the graphics were also quite ugly in RB. They weren’t as bad in Yellow. And I’ve always felt disappointed we never got a version of the Japanese Blue game.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
keithpetrosky said:
TMs only usable once, no item attachment, pc doesn’t alert when Pokémon box is full until you try to catch a Pokémon (hope it wasn’t a legendary), ridiculously small amount of items allowed in bag, no shiny Pokémon

Given the color palette limitations of the original Gameboy system, I can understand why we didn't get Shinies in Gen I.
 

PokeMaster366

Well-Known Member
One of my biggest gripes with the RBY series is how the more open-world environment affects the difficulty and your progression in the game.

The game starts off pretty straightforward up to Celadon City, where you get your 4th Badge, but after that is when the world starts opening up with multiple routes to get to other areas. Now, the open world idea is great on paper, but as a result of that structure, you have to account for players travelling off the beaten path, which often results in having level 40 Pokemon in areas where the toughest Route trainer has only level 30 Pokemon, so if you get any ideas about training Pokemon after your 6th Gym, be prepared to go through grinding Hell. Now, it isn't so bad in the FRLG remakes with the introduction of the Vs. Seeker and the Sevii islands as a way to train Pokemon at other varying levels, but as far as the old games, unless you had plenty of time, you were stuck with the Pokemon you had before the 4th Gym.
 

RileyXY1

Young Battle Trainer
I'm posting this one in both the Gen I and Gen II faults threads, because this one is common in both games. The PC Box system is awfully primitive in these games. You have to save your game every time you switch boxes, and once a box is full you have to go to a Pokemon Center, use the PC and manually switch boxes again. I'm glad that RS gave the PC box storage system a massive upgrade.
 

TwilightBlade

Well-Known Member
I feel like Generation 1 didn't have enough emphasis on battling as much as trading and collecting. There were not even any trainer rematches other than the Elite 4.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
PokeMaster366 said:
One of my biggest gripes with the RBY series is how the more open-world environment affects the difficulty and your progression in the game.

The game starts off pretty straightforward up to Celadon City, where you get your 4th Badge, but after that is when the world starts opening up with multiple routes to get to other areas. Now, the open world idea is great on paper, but as a result of that structure, you have to account for players travelling off the beaten path, which often results in having level 40 Pokemon in areas where the toughest Route trainer has only level 30 Pokemon, so if you get any ideas about training Pokemon after your 6th Gym, be prepared to go through grinding Hell. Now, it isn't so bad in the FRLG remakes with the introduction of the Vs. Seeker and the Sevii islands as a way to train Pokemon at other varying levels, but as far as the old games, unless you had plenty of time, you were stuck with the Pokemon you had before the 4th Gym.

I liked the fact that things got less linear after a certain point in the Kanto games. Yes it was a little confusing when I first played through Red version and didn't know which path to take or which Gym to challenge next, but it gave me a real sense of having freedom to choose my own adventure.
 

WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
I didn't mind the glitches in these games as much as other folks did since a few of them such as the cloning glitch and Mew glitch were useful. The Red and Green version sprites gave me the creeps, though: Just look at Mew's and Kairyu's.
Same here, those came in handy, especially battling against Missingno, since we aren't able to rebattle trainers and gym leaders. It made training that much more of a grind.
 

Sakuyamon

Well-Known Member
Glitches galore. Seriously even if you didn't intend to exploit the glitches chances were you accidentally ran into one at some point or another. I blame the inclusion of Mew for all the glitches.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Sakuyamon said:
Glitches galore. Seriously even if you didn't intend to exploit the glitches chances were you accidentally ran into one at some point or another. I blame the inclusion of Mew for all the glitches.

One of the programmers did say that adding Mew's data was a last-minute decision that they worried might result in glitches, but I somehow doubt that all the major glitches in R/G/B/Y were the result of Mew's impromptu data alone.
 
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