Things that grind your gears!

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

Exactly. I'm now at rank 8 and the only reason why I continue to win is that the AI is bonkers stupid in the Battle Agency. It feels like they're actually using the AI for wild pokémon in the Battle Agency with moves just picked at random. The in-game trainers you just fight on the routes in the story have significantly better AI. The opponents in the Battle Tree have significantly better AI. Some characters you can fight in the story actually have fairly decent AIs that attempts to predict your moves and switch accordingly. Don't get me wrong, battle AI has never been particularly ground-breaking in pokémon, but the Battle Agency is the worst trainer-controlled battle AI I've ever experienced in any mainline pokémon game.

The Battle Agency suffers badly from the Plaza glitches as well. Adding people as a VIP is usually not possible, it just fails, and it doesn't properly store the data of the people you were once online with. Talk to the sprites appearing in your Plaza and see for yourself, you'll see characters in Kommo-o gear that according to the game haven't even earned a single experience point or caught a single pokémon. Aside from the Battle Agency being dead it wouldn't surprise me if it just fails to store the information of other players and registers them all as zero rank, even those that have actually tried it out occasionally. And fixing such a glitchy basis with a poor AI to keep it possible to actually win and gain ranks is not fixing the problem.

The mega stones indeed also don't work. I don't have the Keystone yet but I could get a Banette with the mega stone and I could actually mega evolve it, and I also encountered both a Steelix and an Ampharos with their mega sets without mega stones, and some that have actually acquired the Keystone still don't always get the appropriate mega stones. The Steelix ran a Sandstorm set that would've actually been somewhat decent when mega evolved because then it gets that Sand Force boost.

 

[RedJirachi]

The absolutely tiny space of the Underground of Solaceon Town in Generation IV

 

[Cradily17]

The lack of good spinoffs we've gotten this gen. Aside from mobile games, there has only been Pokken DX, a port of a game that came out last gen.

 

[Requiem Aeternam]

The awful levelling problem from SM has not been fixed in USUM. It's fine to add high level wild Chansey to use but even then they become obsolete very quickly and you can only effectively level up one Pokémon at a time. Levelling is still painfully slow and waiting for them to call for help is time consuming and doesn't always work so this isn't a reliable method. Special attackers can't even put dents in the Chansey so can't use them to grind at all and using a physical attacker to do the job instead steals away EXP making it even more pointless. The Chansey also being wild decreases the EXP gained as well. Rotom's EXP Power not stacking with the Lucky Egg EXP boost is really stupid too. If Hyper Training didn't need the Pokemon to be Lv100 there would be no need for grinding outside of just wanting to do it for fun and I wouldn't be constantly complaining about there being nowhere to effectively grind levels.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

The tacky sand/dirt that appears on your Pokemon after they use a Ground/Rock move.

 

[Weavy]

The lack of good spinoffs we've gotten this gen. Aside from mobile garbage, there has only been Pokken DX, a port of a game that came out last gen. How pathetic. The Pokemon Company has sold its soul to make a quick buck and no longer cares about giving us quality spinoffs like Pokemon Conquest and Mystery Dungeon anymore. They could put a moldy sandwich in a bag, label it "Pokemon", and the dumbed down masses would still eat it up.

This.

But the even sadder part is that this isn't recent, as I feel Gen 6 started the lacklustre spinoffs. The only spinoffs in gen 6 that weren't mobile or free to play were Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, Pokémon Link Battle (or Battle Trozei for Americans), Pokémon Art Academy and Pokken Tournament (Which was later ported to Switch). There's also Detective Pikachu, but that hasn't been released outside of Japan yet so I don't know whether to count it or not. Which is kinda sad.

I think the reason they shove out so much free to play stuff is because they make a lot of money, so it seems to me like they feel it's not worth making other spin offs when the mobile games make far more money than traditional spinoffs do, so as a result we are seeing less traditional spinoffs and more free to play ones. I still feel like we'll get traditional spinoffs (I still think a new Mystery Dungeon has a decent chance of happening, for example), but much more rarely than before.

It really sucks because I feel some of the spinoffs are just as good as the main series, maybe even better. But because the free to play model is so successful regardless of its quality, it will feel like a miracle if we get another traditional spinoff this gen (But I hope we do...)

 

[Luthor]

Since Gen 1 I always wanted to be able to battle all the random trainers you meet on the routes. Gen 2 gave some option to this with the PokeGear and it was further improved with the Trainer's Eye and Entry Call. Since the remakes of these games tend to have some upgrade but this isn't seen as much in the brand new region games like Sun and moon. I liked the oras set up best so far but any of these was an improvement over not being able to rebattle the trainers in sun and moon and their sequels. It grinds my gears this isn't a default for at least the postgame.

 

[DatsRight]

The lv50 minimum difficulty of all opponents (and only opponents, not YOU) in the Royal Battle Dome, especially since it's placed MUCH earlier in the game. I feel like at least lv30 with dumbed down prizes would have made it more relevant, by the time you can be remotely effective in it there's way more other challenges to do.

 

[kittyguy2008]

Monster Houses (Also the lack of Pokemon Ranger games)

 

[RedJirachi]

The fact that, before Generation 4, the vs battles with other people didn't have Pokemon with a set battle

 

[M.P.]

Critical hits when trying to catch Pokemon.

 

[Kyuu-Tales]

Critical hits when trying to catch Pokemon.

This, especially in SMUSUM when the Pokemon in question keeps doing it because you maxed out its affection in Pokemon Refresh.

 

[U.N. Owen]

This, especially in SMUSUM when the Pokemon in question keeps doing it because you maxed out its affection in Pokemon Refresh.

Add that to the whole "understanding your intentions" message you get. No, it does not understand my intentions. It clearly doesn't.

 

[RedJirachi]

Buneary's bottom tier base friendship, when it evolves through friendship

 

[RileyXY1]

Critical hits when trying to catch Pokemon.

Even worse if it's shiny.

 

[RedJirachi]

Only having two fire type options in Diamond and Pearl. Only one if your starter isn't Chimchar

 

[Kyuu-Tales]

Only having two fire type options in Diamond and Pearl. Only one if your starter isn't Chimchar

THIS. I love Fire-types and hated being forced to use Rapidash (not that I dislike it or anything) in my Pearl Version after choosing Turtwig as my starter. Sure, there's Heatran, but you can't just get it. At least I chose Chimchar in my Diamond Version...

 

[Ophie]

The awful levelling problem from SM has not been fixed in USUM. It's fine to add high level wild Chansey to use but even then they become obsolete very quickly and you can only effectively level up one Pokémon at a time. Levelling is still painfully slow and waiting for them to call for help is time consuming and doesn't always work so this isn't a reliable method. Special attackers can't even put dents in the Chansey so can't use them to grind at all and using a physical attacker to do the job instead steals away EXP making it even more pointless. The Chansey also being wild decreases the EXP gained as well. Rotom's EXP Power not stacking with the Lucky Egg EXP boost is really stupid too. If Hyper Training didn't need the Pokemon to be Lv100 there would be no need for grinding outside of just wanting to do it for fun and I wouldn't be constantly complaining about there being nowhere to effectively grind levels.

Steals away EXP? When you switch one Pokémon for another, they all gain full EXP. It hasn't been halved since Generation IV.

The Battle Agency, seriously the worst invention ever. First let's give the players a disadvantage by having their pokémon be lower level than the opponent. Then let's give them another disadvantage by not allowing them to use their own pokémon, but instead let them pick these atrociously trained pokémon, a bunch of which have movesets intended for double battles. And then, let's give a bunch of the pokémon they can pick no hold item at all. And finally, the rewards are Festival Coins that are more easily obtainable elsewhere. Not even cool or unique items, or a stamp, or maybe the opportunity to get good facilities without scouring the internet to find someone with the facility, but just plain Festival Coins.

And then, let's make it a bit easier by having the AI be the dumbest AI ever, so that when the player wins he/she doesn't feel the slightest bit of pride doing so. What accomplishment is there in beating a Reuniclus with your Venusaur if that Reuniclus decided it was a good idea to use Energy Ball instead of Psychic against your Venusaur?

I actually quite like the Battle Agency (I've been hoping for a Battle Factory type thing for a while where you rent out predetermined Pokémon), except for the fact that it's so hard to find good teammates. Nearly everybody is at Grade 0. I am at Grade 14, and I'm at the point where Level 50 Pokémon become complete dead weight. I also like that, by finishing three battles, you get 300 FC minimum, which increases by 15 each time your grade increases (and you get a Rare Candy with that, then a Gold Bottle Cap once it reaches a multiple of 10).

The AI gets drastically tougher after Grade 10, by the way. Beginning at around Grade 12 or so, I started to find AI teams designed to counter mine.

That is, for me, it's quite satisfying when I can find good, well-leveled teammates. Most of the time, I can't, so it's just me and my Level 64 Pokémon against nine other Level 64 Pokémon. (I actually do get the Mega Stones sets when needed, though there are plenty of dumb gimmicky movesets. Always check their summaries before you pick a Pokémon, and if none are to your liking, that's what Switcheroo is for.)

 

[Vini310]

Yeah the fact Nintendo games across the board never really come down in price is so frustrating. I get they are always popular but it just feels like a rip off that almost 10 years later I'm still being asked to pay retail for a pre-owned copy of Platinum, if not more.

But just as an aside, are you sure its not your DS that is the problem, if the freezing issue is on multiple games?

First, sorry for the insane delay to response. I was playing the games again to see if that still happens.
It's normal for DS games to crash sometimes (I have Pokémon Platinum since 2010 and to this day it only crashed once), but with Diamond (yes, only Diamond, not Pearl) it happened way too frequently. Curiously, every single time the game crashed was when my Pokémon was leveling up (either when the level up "beep" plays or when the "Pokémon has leveled up!" message appeared). It seems to don't happen anymore, however.

And talking about D/P, I'm having extreme difficulty to find a Gible on that cave near Cycling Road. I haven't found not even Mira, and at this point, I'm pratically lost. And why only Zubats and Geodudes appear!? I think I'm gonna breed my Gabite in HG to get a Gible and transfer it to Pearl...

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

I actually quite like the Battle Agency (I've been hoping for a Battle Factory type thing for a while where you rent out predetermined Pokémon), except for the fact that it's so hard to find good teammates. Nearly everybody is at Grade 0. I am at Grade 14, and I'm at the point where Level 50 Pokémon become complete dead weight. I also like that, by finishing three battles, you get 300 FC minimum, which increases by 15 each time your grade increases (and you get a Rare Candy with that, then a Gold Bottle Cap once it reaches a multiple of 10).

The AI gets drastically tougher after Grade 10, by the way. Beginning at around Grade 12 or so, I started to find AI teams designed to counter mine.

That is, for me, it's quite satisfying when I can find good, well-leveled teammates. Most of the time, I can't, so it's just me and my Level 64 Pokémon against nine other Level 64 Pokémon. (I actually do get the Mega Stones sets when needed, though there are plenty of dumb gimmicky movesets. Always check their summaries before you pick a Pokémon, and if none are to your liking, that's what Switcheroo is for.)

I'm currently Grade 11 and reached that with only level 50 ally pokémon, and got 1050 FC from my last challenge because I've got "A whole lot of luck in Festival Plaza" today which triples FC gain (seriously, the FC gain is absolutely ridiculous with Fortune Teller tents). Still had some good uses from time to time from the allies, especially Choice Specs Slowking with Regenerator was really good. Personally I don't use the Switcheroo, I haven't tried it. The Battle Agency isn't really worth enough to me to make it worth a slot in my Plaza. Does it also switch your opponents for the next challenge?