The Faults of GenII

[Ignition]

Gen 2 is easily my least favorite generation and there's so much I dislike about it:
*Weakest Dex both stat and design wise. I like only ~25% of the Dex and there's so many mediocre single stages.
*Poor distribution of the new Pokemon. Why are Slugma, Misdreavus, Sneasel, Larvitar, and Houndour pushed to the post game?
*Gym Leaders using Kanto Pokémon instead of the new ones. Gyms 1,2,4,&5 are exclusively Kanto. Why doesn't Falkner use Hoothoot? Or Bugsy with Ariados/Ledian? Or Morty and Misdreavus? Or Chuck and Heracross or Hitmontop?
*Boring cast of characters. There's not one memorable and likeable character.
*Level curve sucks. The 5-7 Gyms being able to be done in any order is cool but the surrounding wild Pokémon suffer from it. Not to mention how late/post game mons scale poorly.
*Getting evolution items is a pain.
*Kanto post game is just empty areas and am easy boss rush

 

[Ubermuk]

One thing that always bugged me was that the Johto games never explained what happened to Lorelei or Agatha. I ain't saying that I think they needed to appear as regular NPC's just that it wouldn't have hurt Gamefreak to add some dialogue telling us where they went or why they retired...

 

[PoDiRancher]

I think everything worked incredibly well in terms of single-player content, that's why it's my favorite. However, competitive multiplayer is an annoying slog to be honest (at least OU and Random are).

 

[pacman000]

The Day/Night cycle forced you to play at certain times of day to catch certain Pokémon.

 

[TwilightBlade]

One thing that always bugged me was that the Johto games never explained what happened to Lorelei or Agatha. I ain't saying that I think they needed to appear as regular NPC's just that it wouldn't have hurt Gamefreak to add some dialogue telling us where they went or why they retired...

Yeah seriously that was a big mystery that I wish would've been explained to us in the games. Heck I'd settle for one of the programmers telling us through Twitter what exactly happened to Lorelei and Agatha during the timeskip between Gen 1 and Gen 2.

 

[WalesNote]

Locking certain pokémon into Kanto only was a major annoyance and disappointment, along with a lack of places to explore. Combine these to together and find a solution and the gen could have been quite a bit better.

Some new locations:

• A tower/grave area, perhaps near Violet, the Ruins of Alph, or Ecruteak. Could find Misdreavus here.
• Expanded Dark Cave where you could find Larvitar, maybe Pupitar
• A cave area in Cianwood, again you could find Larvitar or Pupitar
• Plains/savannah area beyond this new Cianwood cave, Houndour could be found here
• A new area in Ilex Forest, or another night-themed area for Murkrow (or find him past Mahogany/Blackthorn).
• Underground area of Mount Motar where it's hot and you could find Slugma
• Peak area of Mt Motar where you could find Sneasel (in addition to finding him at Ice Path).
• Underground area of Mt Silver where you could find Pupitar and Tyranitar
• Canyon/savannah area south of Blackthorn for Houndoom and maybe Macargo
• A coral reef area by Olivine (that would be nice, just to see. Corsola here.)
• A safari zone area located somewhere, giving access to many Johto pokémon

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Not being able to physically change the clock without a special code assigned to only your Trainer ID and never knowing the code or the specific buttons you push to get to the option was a pretty big mistake. I get it if it was to prevent cheating at the Lucky Lotto and other weekly and daily events but what happens if you live in the Us say in California and you are a college student and have to move to Tokyo to study abroad for a year or two? You can’t change the time that easily to match the local time and you are stuck finding Pokémon at the wrong time of day.

 

[TwilightBlade]

Locking certain pokémon into Kanto only was a major annoyance and disappointment, along with a lack of places to explore. Combine these to together and find a solution and the gen could have been quite a bit better.

Some new locations:

• A tower/grave area, perhaps near Violet, the Ruins of Alph, or Ecruteak. Could find Misdreavus here.
• Expanded Dark Cave where you could find Larvitar, maybe Pupitar
• A cave area in Cianwood, again you could find Larvitar or Pupitar
• Plains/savannah area beyond this new Cianwood cave, Houndour could be found here
• A new area in Ilex Forest, or another night-themed area for Murkrow (or find him past Mahogany/Blackthorn).
• Underground area of Mount Motar where it's hot and you could find Slugma
• Peak area of Mt Motar where you could find Sneasel (in addition to finding him at Ice Path).
• Underground area of Mt Silver where you could find Pupitar and Tyranitar
• Canyon/savannah area south of Blackthorn for Houndoom and maybe Macargo
• A coral reef area by Olivine (that would be nice, just to see. Corsola here.)
• A safari zone area located somewhere, giving access to many Johto pokémon

I like some of these ideas although the coral reef idea seems like it would've been hard to implement because of Gen 2's limited graphics and tile set. :[

 

[pacman000]

The Ruins of Alph seemed anticlimactic. Was there a larger point to them in the story that I missed?

 

[TwilightBlade]

The Ruins of Alph seemed anticlimactic. Was there a larger point to them in the story that I missed?

In Crystal we get more info on the Unown but that's pretty much it. They don't play a major part in the story which is weird because the game's opening credits make Unown seem like an important part of the Suicune story line. :[

 

[pacman000]

In Crystal we get more info on the Unown but that's pretty much it. They don't play a major part in the story which is weird because the game's opening credits make Unown seem like an important part of the Suicune story line. :[

And that's super disappointing. I was hoping someone would point out something I missed.

 

[Leonhart]

One thing that always bugged me was that the Johto games never explained what happened to Lorelei or Agatha. I ain't saying that I think they needed to appear as regular NPC's just that it wouldn't have hurt Gamefreak to add some dialogue telling us where they went or why they retired...

I always wanted to know what happened to Kanna (Lorelei) in particular after the Kanto games, although at least the info that we got about her character in LG/FR's post-game satisfied my curiosity since from then on I've just assumed that after the Gen I story line, Kanna probably retired on Island 4.

 

[WalesNote]

In some ways the region fails to stand out/on its own as its own thing, like no Safari Zone, lack of routes to explore, low Pokémon levels, Elite Four located in Kanto, Johto pokémon located in Kanto. Slightly made Johto seem like an add-on to Kanto.

 

[RedBlastoise]

In Crystal we get more info on the Unown but that's pretty much it. They don't play a major part in the story which is weird because the game's opening credits make Unown seem like an important part of the Suicune story line. :[

I always thought Unown was the most useless Pokemon in the games even now. Collecting all 26 letters in GSC was meaningless and I remember feeling bummed out when I finally got them all and nothing exciting happened.

 

[Leonhart]

I always thought Unown was the most useless Pokemon in the games even now. Collecting all 26 letters in GSC was meaningless and I remember feeling bummed out when I finally got them all and nothing exciting happened.

I don't remember if I ever collected all the Unknown varieties in Gen II, but I do remember thinking that in Crystal version they would have a much bigger role than in G/S, because the initial English trailer for Crystal version that I saw implied that the Unknown would be major characters in the plot, which ended up being somewhat exaggerated since all they really got was extra backstory.

 

[TwilightBlade]

In some ways the region fails to stand out/on its own as its own thing, like no Safari Zone, lack of routes to explore, low Pokémon levels, Elite Four located in Kanto, Johto pokémon located in Kanto. Slightly made Johto seem like an add-on to Kanto.

Yeah I think Gamefreak should've tried harder to make Johto stand on its own 2 feet instead of it basically becoming a 2nd Kanto region with new Pokemon.