The Faults of GenII

[Denko Sekka]

The cartridge battery memory erasing. Many great teams were lost..

I always wanted to replace my Crystal version's battery myself after reading a guide, but I was afraid I'd mess up and ruin the cartridge.

 

[Leonhart]

I always wanted to replace my Crystal version's battery myself after reading a guide, but I was afraid I'd mess up and ruin the cartridge.

I wanted to fix the battery myself as well, but I never did because its seemed pointless given that the new battery might only last ten years.

 

[raichu27]

The cartridge battery memory erasing.
Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Rock Slide, and Explosion losing its TM status.
Lack of powerful bug moves.

That's all I can think of, atm.

 

[Nebbygetinthebag]

Most of the Gen 2 pokemon are pretty forgetable, they have a low chances of appearing, I'm looking at you Dunsparce or only found very late. Also I though Slugma and Macargo we're from Gen 3 lol.

 

[The Teller]

Kanto getting gutted pretty hard, the incredibly low levels on everything, introducing the concept of roaming legendaries, only 1 Kurt ball a day, Johto Pokemon just being super rare in the game for some odd reason, no Dark Pokemon available until post-game (sans Umbreon).

 

[RileyXY1]

The level curve was just so bad.
No trainers on Victory Road made it harder to train Pokemon.
The Johto Pokemon are super rare, and some of them can only be found in Kanto.
Kanto itself has been downsized drastically due to limited cartridge space.
The player cannot delete PokeGear numbers.
The Johto Pokemon themselves have odd stat distributions that damper their usefulness.
The game is extremely difficult if the player chose Chikorita.

 

[Leonhart]

Most of the Gen 2 pokemon are pretty forgetable, they have a low chances of appearing, I'm looking at you Dunsparce or only found very late. Also I though Slugma and Macargo we're from Gen 3 lol.

A few Gen II species did have low appearance rates such as Marill and Yanyanma in Gold and Silver if I remember right, although that's what outbreaks were meant to fix.

 

[dannymusic]

Kanto getting gutted pretty hard, the incredibly low levels on everything, introducing the concept of roaming legendaries, only 1 Kurt ball a day, Johto Pokemon just being super rare in the game for some odd reason, no Dark Pokemon available until post-game (sans Umbreon).

This, plus the fact that a lot of the Kurt balls were bugged and didn't work as intended anyway (or at all, in the case of the Moon Ball).

I'm going to complain about Mt. Mortar. You can enter using any of the three entrances as soon as you beat Morty and obtain Surf, but the only entrance that leads to something useful requires the middle entrance and Waterfall, which isn't obtained until much later. And if you don't know ahead of time that that useful thing is Tyrogue AND that you need to have max 5 pokemon in your party, you have to do it all over again! (Don't even THINK about catching wild pokemon, which would fill your party without giving you the option to send to PC.)

 

[bme™]

The biggest fault for me was that only certain move types were physical or special based. This made Pokemon like Blissey too strong in some cases. This also hurt Pokemon like Arcanine who couldn't take advantage of its attack with its STAB.

 

[Leonhart]

And if you don't know ahead of time that that useful thing is Tyrogue AND that you need to have max 5 pokemon in your party, you have to do it all over again! (Don't even THINK about catching wild pokemon, which would fill your party without giving you the option to send to PC.)

I recall finding the karate man in Silver version with a full team, and then having to revisit that tedious cavern with an empty slot just to receive his gift Pokemon. It made me so angry.

 

[RedJirachi]

So many new Pokemon are meh or straight out weak, and not just the common ones at the start like you expect. Togetic, UNOWN, Aipom, Yanma, Murkrow, Dunsparce, Gligar, Delibird. No wonder they got evolutions in Gen 4. And yet there are some which are just ignored and continue to be lousy

 

[BTS_fan]

One word: pacing. Johto was a messy affair since the leveling curve was odd and we needed some form of rematch system that didn't rely on luck unlike the Pokegear.

 

[RileyXY1]

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.

Oh, and most of the Apricorn Balls are useless because of typos in the games' coding.

 

[RedBlastoise]

Small region size. Johto and Kanto were both too small and I thought that there weren't that many good places to train right before the E4 challenge either. Also basic overworld graphics even for a Gameboy Color game.

 

[Leonhart]

Small region size. Johto and Kanto were both too small and I thought that there weren't that many good places to train right before the E4 challenge either. Also basic overworld graphics even for a Gameboy Color game.

Basic as in just out-of-date or just too simple? Because while the graphics weren't extraordinary by any means, I don't think it was a flaw of Gen II specifically, rather a flaw with the Game Boy Color console since it had a limited color palette.

 

[TwilightBlade]

Too many Johto Pokemon weren't even found in Johto like Larvitar, Sneasel in Gold/Silver, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. Also the gym leaders seemed out of balance. The males were easy to beat except maybe Morty but the females were really tough especially Whitney.

 

[Leonhart]

Too many Johto Pokemon weren't even found in Johto like Larvitar, Sneasel in Gold/Silver, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. Also the gym leaders seemed out of balance. The males were easy to beat except maybe Morty but the females were really tough especially Whitney.

Speaking of the female Jouto Gym Leaders, it's odd how Akane (Whitney) and Ibuki (Clair) didn't want to hand over their badges when we beat them, and Mikan (Jasmine) had us do a task for her just to be able to challenge her Gym. I'm not sure why Game Freak made the female Gym Leaders give us so much grief.

 

[jaden767]

The fact that there were only one new Dragon type and Ghost type Pokemon in Gen 2. At the most Gamefreak could've retcon'd Horsea and Seadra to be half Dragon type to match Kingdra then Noctowl could've been made half Ghost type since it's a spooky owl.

 

[Leonhart]

The fact that there were only one new Dragon type and Ghost type Pokemon in Gen 2. At the most Gamefreak could've retcon'd Horsea and Seadra to be half Dragon type to match Kingdra then Noctowl could've been made half Ghost type since it's a spooky owl.

In hindsight, Game Freak making Tattu (Horsea) and Seadra half Dragon-type could've easily worked since they had no problem making the Coil (Magnemite) line into half Steel-types in Gen II. I don't think that Yorunozuku (Noctowl) would've worked as a half Ghost-type, however. To me it doesn't resemble a spirit or ghost at all.

 

[iCakeify]

ive got 4 gen 2 cartridges and every single one of them is out of battery : (