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The Faults of Gen IV

RileyXY1

Young Battle Trainer
Inspired by similar threads for Gens 2 and 6, use this thread to discuss your problems regarding the fourth generation of the franchise.
 

Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
I didn't have much problems with DPPt other than that fact that battles felt slow especially in DP when it took half a second after an attack to be fully displayed on screen for a Pokémon to take damage.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Yeah, I struggle to find any kind of flaws in 4th gen that aren't nitpicks. The regional dexes could be a tad more varied, but aside from DP (which was mostly fixed in Platinum), there's been regions with far worse variety (namely anything before 4th gen), and I would've liked HGSS to be a tad less conservative but it improved the experience enough to feel fresh and fairly modern. Other than that, there's nothing I really hated about 4th gen. I would even go as far to call Platinum a near perfect game.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
My only complaints are how hard it is to erase the Poké Walker info if you started a new game and forgot to recall any Pokémon on the device before erasing your game, that the GTS website was down quite a bit, and that the Wi-Fi Plaza didn’t get as many players as it could have gotten. Half the time the games either had a wait time until the next round or you were the only one wanting to play a certain game. And the Mime Jr one was a bit too difficult to play since you had to use the touch screen only. I could never succeed at that thing. The Poffins were also a bit annoying to make because sometimes they’d burn if you went slowly but speed up a bit and you spill the batter. I would have preferred a mini game similar to the Pokéblock Blender. And GTS trading was a huge mess with people asking for impossible trades such as Level 1 Shaymin.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
My issues with the Pokewalker were that the graphics were dismal, and the step counter feature was infuriating since most of the Pokewalker's features depended on the number of steps you had accumulated.
 

Tsukuyomi56

Sky High Knight
Only real flaws that DP can be a bit sluggish at times (particularly with the dreaded "saving a lot of data") as well as the variety of types been somewhat unbalanced in those games (have fun with Ponyta if you did not pick Chimchar). Thankfully Platinum fixed all that, there is not much wrong with the Gen 4 games that are not tied to the regions themselves.
 
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Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
Only real flaws that DP can be a bit sluggish at times (particularly with the dreaded "saving a lot of data") as well as the variety of types been somewhat unbalanced in those games (have fun with Ponyta if you did not pick Chimchar). Thankfully Platinum fixed all that, there is no much wrong with the Gen 4 games that are not tied to the regions themselves.
Yeah, I also found long save times an issue in the Gen 4 games especially with "saving a lot of data" after getting a couple of new Pokémon in all of the Gen 4 games.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Only real flaws that DP can be a bit sluggish at times (particularly with the dreaded "saving a lot of data") as well as the variety of types been somewhat unbalanced in those games (have fun with Ponyta if you did not pick Chimchar). Thankfully Platinum fixed all that, there is no much wrong with the Gen 4 games that are not tied to the regions themselves.

The saving speed was annoying, although Surfing in Diamond and Pearl had a worse lag, which made me dread having to Surf in those games.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
Platinum doesn't really have any major flaws, although I think the Gym Leaders, Stat Trainers and Elite Four should have used full teams in rematches. Diamond/Pearl are very slow and have awful regional Dex (Ponyta line as the only non-starter Fire type is just unacceptable). HeartGold/SoulSilver failed to fix the level curve at all (Cerulean Cave and Mt. Silver should have had stronger Pokemon since you can't go there until you beat Blue, whose strongest Pokemon is Lv 60 Pidgeot). The lack of Icy/Moss Rock and special magnetic field is just dumb. Voltorb Flip is tedious (although I understand why they had to remove slots). The rival never evolves his Sneasel (Magneton not evolving is slightly more tolerable).
 

WalesNote

Well-Known Member
  • Diamond and Pearl's pokédex could have been much better, like as it was in Platinum
  • Gym leaders didn't have all that good teams in Diamond and Pearl, like Volkner having an Octilery
I think Platinum fixed everything that was wrong with the first two games, and the Johoto remakes were great. Can't think of anything else that's bad.
 

Kage-Pikachu

Well-Known Member
Defog and Rock Climb as HMs...though I did enjoy the fog increasing the difficulty.

The battles were also really slow, I replayed Platinum recently and watching those HP bars trickle down at a snail's pace drove me nuts.
 

Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
The battles were also really slow, I replayed Platinum recently and watching those HP bars trickle down at a snail's pace drove me nuts.
How awful was that. The draining HP bars got worser on as you progressed later into the game when the Pokémon had more HP.
 

Minedreigon

A monument to all your sins
We aren't being hard enough on this generation.

DP are unplayably slow. I’m serious, I can’t replay DP because of the speed and the absolutely atrocious variety in the regional dex (two fire types lol) so if I want to enjoy what Sinnoh has to offer I have to play Platinum. Platinum fixes most of my problems with DP and keeps or improve on all of the merits of Sinnoh so we’re good there.

Gen 4 in general has some hit or miss designs for me, and I find myself forgetting a lot of them frequently, despite the fact I started with Platinum. Some of the new evolutions for old Pokémon look great, but then Lickilicky for example looks like complete trash. Definitely not the best roster of new Pokémon, but it’s okay.

Cynthia’s overhyped, she’s basically just female Steven Stone with a much more threatening team. This is okay, but it won’t be until next generation that the champion also happens to be a decently fleshed out character with clear backstory and a lesson to teach the player outside of battling. Wish they’d done this sooner.

By far the worst thing about this generation is the main story of HGSS. Don’t get me wrong, the games are presented absolutely beautifully, but this game’s main story is trash. It has a slightly worse version of the notoriously awful gen 2 level curve except with modern mechanics. Grinding is terrible because of the extremely weak wild Pokémon, and if you want to use more than 1 or 2 Pokémon, if you like to go into gyms with levels matching the gym leader, you’ll have to grind a lot. I found myself grinding my team for an hour for every gym between gyms 3-5 the last time I attempted to play this game, then got through 6 and 7 because for some reason their levels are weird. Once I got to Clair and realised how much grinding I’d need to do (probably several hours worth) I quit. It’s a real shame that games that look and sound beautiful can’t play better. Instead it tries to take my attention away from the train wreck of an adventure with gimmicks galore.

That’s all I have to say about gen 4. To summarise, Platinum gets a really solid pass but isn’t the best the series has to offer imo, DP are obselete, and HGSS is a really big shame.
 
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