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The Faults of GenII

Locormus

Can we please get the older, old forum back?
The second generation is by far my favorite.

The purpose of this thread is to take an objective look at the second batch of games that included a brand new region, lore, breeding, held items and 100 new pokémon. In my time, I played through it many times and I've got a pretty good look at what worked, and quite simply, what didn't.

This thread is for an objective discussion on that exact subject.

Lets start it off with the most glaring one:

1. The Level-curve.

This goes for both wild pokémon and trainers. There's just no consistency. For instance, you're about to fight Pryce. He has a level 29 Dewgong and a level 31 Piloswine. What are your options to train against in the area? Route 43 offers a whopping level 15 Mareep, Flaaffy and Girafarig or a level 17 Pidgeotto/Noctowl. The trainers on that route don't even tap in over level 20, the highest level of any being a level 20 Clefairy. Mind you, this is just prior to the SEVENTH gym. Compare this to Kalos, where prior to battling in the Anistar Gym, there's a route where the wild pokémon reach level 40 and there's a Sky Battle where you face two pokémon over level 40.

This problem continues into Kanto after you've beaten the Pokémon League. The pokémon are generally not of a higher level then they were in Johto, which is counterintuitive to how a level curve should act. The gym leaders are levelled at around the E4-spread: 40-50. Two exceptions: Janine and Blue. Janine for some odd reason is dropped to below level 40 and Blue as a former champion is a step above Lance. This means that there's generally no challenge to the Kanto Gym Leaders, as the challenge of the E4+Champion is facing them all with a single team, back to back. There's simply no challenge in beating Brock's team (lv41-44), with each and every single one of his team having that x4 Grass weakness, healing up, picking specific team members fit for the next challenge and going at Blaine. One could say that this means that the gym leaders are a specific fault, but I'd argue that it's due to the level curve being all over the place that's fundamental for this oddity.

2. Pokémon Placement.

Houndour, Murkrow, Sneasel, Larvitar. Need I say more? Why should Umbreon be the only Dark-type you can use before beating the E4?
 
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Kalosian

So long
You pretty much nailed it regarding the level curve. I would like to add one thing though. I always got the impression that Janine's Pokemon were at lower levels than the others since she was supposed to be a new Gym Leader and might not have been able to get as strong as the others, who had been Gym Leaders for a while. Maybe except Blue, but he had been a trainer for a long time as well as the Champion in the previous generation. I don't know if this was intended, but I felt that way, at least.

As for the Pokemon placement and distribution, the problem goes a bit deeper than what you described. Throughout the games, the Johto Pokemon are overshadowed by the Kanto Pokemon. On most routes, you'll find one or several Kanto Pokemon while the Johto Pokemon are rarer and/or not found on as many routes. Some Johto Pokemon are only found at one place, others have a very low chance of appearing, most notably the swarming Pokemon which only have a 1% chance to appear outside of swarms. This was mostly a problem for G/S as Crystal did a few attempts to fix this, though there was still a lot left that could have been done. The problem is appearent with trainers and Gym Leaders as well. Notably, only half of the Johto Gym Leaders use a Johto Pokemon on their team. When you reach Kanto, the problem remains, though it is arguably more justified as Kanto Pokemon are supposed to be found in Kanto. And as you say, some Johto Pokemon are only found in Kanto.

I have more to say on the subject of the flaws of Gen 2, but I'll leave it with this for now. Overall, I guess you could say that while Gen 2 did well when it came to introducing new features and mechanics as well as polishing several aspects of Gen 1, the gameplay and the actual games are filled with flaws. That said, I did still like the games back when they were new, though they aren't anywhere close to the top for me now. HG/SS on the other hand had an excellent opportunity to fix everything that was wrong with G/S/C, yet they did next to nothing, and that's a big reason as for why they are my least favorite games in the whole series.
 
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Pikachu979

Sinnoh Champion
I completely agree with you on the level curve in this gen. As for the Pokemon placement I agree with Kalosian in regards to the Johto mons being Overshadowed by the Kanto pokemon since most trainers use Kanto pokemon with maybe 1 or 2 johto mon in there teams.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
For me, the worst fault will always be the infamous level curve, especially in a game in which Lucky Egg is next to impossible to obtain. Other flaws of G/S/C are: awful Pokemon distribution,especially in caves where Kanto Pokemon species far outnumber Johto ones, lack of some landmarks in Kanto (especially Seafoam Islands), and boring storyline. For these reasons, Generation II will likely remain my least favourite for ages.
 
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Sprinter1988

Well-Known Member
Personally, the biggest disappointment of Gen 2 was the Gym Leader teams. Most were made up of Kanto pokemon, with only Miltank, Steelix, Piloswine and Kingdra representing Johto amongst the Johto leaders.

At Falkner's Gym I was like "Ok, it's a flying type gym. Maybe he'll have one of those Hoothoot's I just caught, or maybe its evolved form... oh, he has a Pidgey. Fine, Quilava destroyed that with Ember. Now what? Hoothoot's evolution, or maybe that black crow pokemon I saw in a magazine (ah... the days before everything was spoiled by the internet...) oh no. Its a Pidgeotto. Well that was disappointing.

Bugsy's Gym: "Right, bug gym. He had three pokemon. I wonder if one is the evolution of that spider pokemon or the ladybird. Or maybe he has that huge Heracross that Ash caught... wtf? A Metapod? Worse, a Metapod that should have evolved into a Butterfree several levels ago! Fine, Quilava killed that... A KAKUNA? Alright, get rid of that too... a Scyther? Alright, at least its strong..."

Morty's Gym: "Oooh! He has four ghost types... let's see... Gastly... now a Haunter... and a Gengar, that was strong... what's his fourth... maybe that female looking ghost with the necklace... nope. Its another Haunter...

Jasmine's Gym: "Steel types, this should be good. A MAGNEMITE? And it's one that should have evolved into Magneton by now! Now a Steelix, this is pretty tough... ok and to wrap things up... another f***ing Magnemite!"

Pryce's Gym: "Huh... Ice types. Wonder if he's got one of those Sneasels... nope, it's a Seel. That's not even part ice yet... next... Dewgong? Really? WTF?

So, yeah! Not impressed with the teams for the Gym Leaders. The Kanto leaders were pretty fun though!
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Jouto had a bad level curve as many players said. It wasn't such a big issue with me when I played Gold, Silver, and Crystal, but now I realize how hard leveling up Pokemon was, especially right after Fusube/Blackthorn City.
 

Kutie Pie

"It is my destiny."
Yeah, that level curve was terrible until you could get to Mt. Silver (which, even then, still made it a pain to train at). Luckily rematches were made possible (especially when it came to getting more money), but you had to have them call you to let you know, and you only had a certain amount of trainers you could register. And even then there's no real guarantee they would've leveled up enough to get the desired experience.

The lack of Dark types for the main game was pretty terrible, I agree. Same with Steel which was mainly limited only to obtaining Kanto Pokémon to get them (exclusively Johto-only Pokémon consisted of Skarmory, which came in late into the game, and you had to be patient to get a Pineco and evolve it).

Wild Pokémon fleeing was something I always despised. It existed since the first generation, but it was limited only to the Safari Zone far as I can tell. Why that had to be brought in as something that could happen with wild Pokémon (especially rare ones--freaking Snubbulls) is probably up there with why the tripping mechanic was coded into Brawl.

I'll come back if I think of anything else, I need to think about the problems I've had with the second gen games some more.
 

Wednesdayz

Meowth fanatic
The Johto E4 comes to mind as a flaw. Why did Lance have to be the Champion, and why were the E4 so weak in terms of their Pokemon's levels?
 

Mrs. Oreo

Banned
I also felt that the level curve in the Gen 2 games was dreadful. I always seemed to have an underleveled team whenever I played G/S/C and I wish there had been more strong trainers to fight in Johto especially. The other flaw with Gen 2 from my perspective was that some Johto pokemon species like Larvitar, Misdreavus, Houndour and Murkrow couldn't even be found until after the E4. ^^;
 

Wednesdayz

Meowth fanatic
The other flaw with Gen 2 from my perspective was that some Johto pokemon species like Larvitar, Misdreavus, Houndour and Murkrow couldn't even be found until after the E4. ^^;

That too. It sucks how we can't catch stuff like Sneasel and Larvitar in G/S until we reach Kanto and Mt. Silver. It also sucks how many Johto Pokemon are hard to get since stuff like Ledyba, Phanpy, Skarmory, Delibird, Spinarak, Teddiursa, Mantine, Gligar, etc. are version exclusives...
 

xerxes

ようこそ!ワタシの音楽工場へへへへへ
I didn't like that the Kanto gym leaders were so weak. Each one is about as strong as one of the E4 which I found disappointing after already beating the Champion and having Pokémon above Lv60.
 

pacman000

On a quest to be the best...
I never liked the internal clock. It was already hard enough to catch 'em all; having to play the game at a specific time of day to find certain species was annoying.
 

PsychoBoost

Carbon Dioxide
I didn't like that the Kanto gym leaders were so weak. Each one is about as strong as one of the E4 which I found disappointing after already beating the Champion and having Pokémon above Lv60.
If they were much stronger than the E4, then fans would also nitpick and notice that this seems inconsistent. Hence, their hands were tied kinda. Clearly it does complicate the ending segment but I guess that seemed necessry. More things like Trainer House could have helped, maybe?

Saw another poster rant that Team Rocket took over a tower that didn't matter to anyone, obviouslyy not since Goldenrod is an important city and the Radio Tower marked out as a central place. Still, didn't like how they didn't do anything with the 'transformed' mons like they could have tried using a Gyarados or two.
 

Bananarama

The light is coming
I didn't like that the Kanto gym leaders were so weak. Each one is about as strong as one of the E4 which I found disappointing after already beating the Champion and having Pokémon above Lv60.

Yeah, I would've liked them to have played a bigger role in general. It was too bad that you basically only saw them when you battled them and that was it, and they should've at least gotten a power boost.
 

ZilverLox

Banned
I didn't enjoy the fact that Gold, Sliver, and Crystal had so few ways of leveling up in the first half of the game. But at least we had the Elite 4, our rival, and the Trainer House to help with that in the second half.
 

Thaumiel

Member
A couple of issues come to mind when I look at Generation II objectively. I'll hasten to add that I consider Generation II to be my favourite of all - whether I'm blinded by nostalgia or not is impossible to tell, because we were indeed treated to some remakes which resolved many flaws (though not all) and still maintained the level of sheer enjoyment I had.

The first one is the ball crafting mechanic. My oh my, was it bad. Don't get wrong, the addition of more ball types was always going to be welcome, especially now we had designated areas to store items. It makes complete sense to add more balls. The only problem was it took 24 hours to make just one specific ball. Not only that, but some were completely broken. For example, the Love Ball was supposed to make it easier to catch Pokémon of a differing gender. This was thrown out of the window because the catch rate is actually quadruple that of normal when used on a Pokémon with the same gender. In addition, the types we actually got weren't all that useful. I can't honestly remember using them too much in either playthrough of the originals or the remakes.

Another flaw, though I'm stretching a bit with this one, was the lack of running shoes. I'm playing Pokémon Blue again at the moment and it took me a while to get used to just how slow everything feels at first.
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
The level curve has already been detailed, but need I remind you that it's made worse by the way things branch out -- you're probably expected to go east first, clean out all of the Mahogany Town events, then go west, beat those two gyms, etc.... but did anyone do that? I literally didn't even do that on my first run, and I can't remember if you're told your next destination is out west or not. What you tend to end up with as a result is amazingly poor pacing -- it already kind of takes a while to get from gym 4 to 5, especially since you skip over the one in Olivine to go to the one in Cianwood (and you probably want to do the lighthouse first, just to get it out of the way, which lengthens things a bit), but then think about the gap between gyms 6 and 7; they're as close as they are, but separated by hours of gameplay as you tackle the Rocket base below Mahogany and the Radio Tower in quick succession in most cases. Also, aren't most of the Kanto gym leaders around the same level? Kanto needs more structure, honestly, and an actual form of progression. Otherwise any challenge vanishes instantly. (Let's not even get into how it doesn't feel like there are good places to get EXP...)

Also, doubling down on the specialty balls: the weird math on the Heavy Ball is terrible. They need to get rid of it and replace it with something that actually makes sense. (I mean, they also kind of needed to give a crap about programming the other ones properly; did you know that the Moon Ball actually works better on Pokemon that evolve with a Burn Heal thanks to how it's programmed?)
 

Thaumiel

Member
The level curve has already been detailed, but need I remind you that it's made worse by the way things branch out -- you're probably expected to go east first, clean out all of the Mahogany Town events, then go west, beat those two gyms, etc.... but did anyone do that?

I honestly can't remember. I do know that the radio tower seemed like such a slog during my first Generation II playthrough. I think the game expected you to be at least 5 levels higher at that point.

Also, doubling down on the specialty balls: the weird math on the Heavy Ball is terrible. They need to get rid of it and replace it with something that actually makes sense. (I mean, they also kind of needed to give a crap about programming the other ones properly; did you know that the Moon Ball actually works better on Pokemon that evolve with a Burn Heal thanks to how it's programmed?)

Did they fix all the ball's functions/math for the remakes?
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
Did they fix all the ball's functions/math for the remakes?

The math is fixed for the remakes so they work as intended in GSC... except the Fast Ball, which checks for base speed > 100 instead of if the target runs away sorry, that's "is Tangela, Magnemite or Grimer" in GSC because I assume someone wasn't getting paid enough.

Note that when I say "fixed," i mean they work as originally meant to be programmed. The Heavy Ball is still not a multiplier (it's a modifier to the target's catch rate value, which is hard-coded according to their species). Some of the numbers were changed a bit for the Heavy Ball, too, probably to account for a greater amount of really hefty Pokemon in the intervening years.
 

Thaumiel

Member
I say that because I don't think I even used them in HG/SS. I might have done if I was desperate.

Oh! Another flaw - the PokéGear. It was a massive leap forward in features when being compared to Generation I, but why in the world couldn't we delete numbers?!
 
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