Unpopular Pokemon opinions V2 (READ FIRST POST)

[MrJechgo]

And that’s the thing. I don’t carry over any of my past teams because I never play competitively or have a team that has more than one or two permanent members. I use Pokémon that will help me accomplish my current goal in the games. In Violet, I rotated out every single one of my Pokémon in my party except Quaquaval. It has never been put into a Box yet. I used Annihilape for half the game and it is a huge member of my in game team but I rotated it out during the post game story. So keeping my Pokémon from older games is nice but it isn’t all that important to me.

To each their own, and that's fine. However, if you waited for SV to play online multiplayer with [part of] a returning team, you're screwed :S
It's like if a TCG disallowed you to use your older decks in favor on new ones. There's also the fact that some Pokémon could use updates in each new generation, and that cycle got broken since SwSh.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I think they should have had a Johto ground specialist instead of a fighting specialist (Chuck) given that Bruno was sticking around and Giovanni was no longer a gym leader. Johto is limited in terms of a lot of types but ground type had some good options (Donphan, Gligar, Quagsire, Pupitar, Dugtrio , the Nidoking,Nidoqueen, Marowak, Sandslash etc) and certainly enough to be a gym leader. I'd have called him Doug (for obvious reasons).

They probably should've gone Elite 4. The gym leader types were all of the types that didn't have gym leaders in RBY (minus Dark because they could only do 16/17). RBY had Giovanni as a Ground type gym leader and they didn't want to repeat this. However, Giovanni was replaced as gym leader and Blue didn't have a type specialty so that left GSC without a Ground specialist of any kind. The best way to compensate for this would be to have an Elite 4 member, which had to double up on some types because there weren't enough types. Fighting wasn't the only repeated type, Psychic (Will and Sabrina), Poison (Koga and Janine), and Dragon (Clair and Lance) also had repeat types in the Elite 4.

 

[MrJechgo]

Karen didn't have much of a specialty... In Gen 2, we had Umbreon, Sneasel, Murkrow, Houndoom and Tyranitar, and she used a Vileplume and Gengar. We literally had FIVE Dark-type Pokémon (minus evos), and she didn't used them all

You could argue that Will had TWO Xatu, when one could have been replaced by Girafarig ^^;

 

[Yardas]

Not sure if this one belongs here but I often get surprised by the way certain people spread such negativity and toxicity (am I right, Reddit?) over hating on an individual Pokémon, especially when talking about starters. Nothing wrong with disliking something, of course, but I think having a bit of civility and manners is not going to hurt anyone.

 

[Luthor]

Karen didn't have much of a specialty... In Gen 2, we had Umbreon, Sneasel, Murkrow, Houndoom and Tyranitar, and she used a Vileplume and Gengar. We literally had FIVE Dark-type Pokémon (minus evos), and she didn't used them all

You could argue that Will had TWO Xatu, when one could have been replaced by Girafarig ^^;

There's also Koga. He uses a Bug/Steel Forretress despite not just having a new Poison type like Qwilfish available but also most of the gen 1 poison types as options like Nidoking. It's not even due to Janine and wanting to avoid crossover given that they both use Ariados and Venomoth already and there's still a lot poison types available.

 

[Litleonid]

Kind of an unpopular opinion, but I'm kinda tired of the whole Rotom Pokedex thing. I kinda miss the days when Rotom didn't inhabit your Pokedex, or phone nowadays. I kinda also miss just having a standard Pokedex as an item, not a phone app, with a new design each game.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Kind of an unpopular opinion, but I'm kinda tired of the whole Rotom Pokedex thing. I kinda miss the days when Rotom didn't inhabit your Pokedex, or phone nowadays. I kinda also miss just having a standard Pokedex as an item, not a phone app, with a new design each game.

Honestly yeah
Like I still think it's a cool concept and makes absolute sense lore wise and would be weird and inconsistent not to see it anymore

But it's also a bit tiring. Rotom was so cool and they barely did anything with it. We want new battle forms, not just world building

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

I don't mind the Rotom phones, but I wouldn't mind a different kind of pokédex next time.

Actually, I'm surprised they kept the phones for gen 9 as a new design would mean a new toy to sell lol

 

[TwilightBlade]

You could argue that Will had TWO Xatu, when one could have been replaced by Girafarig ^^;

Same with Jasmine. Instead of giving her two Magnemites, she could've had a Magneton, Forretress, Skarmory or Scizor. :[

Honestly I just hate how rare Steel types were in Gen 2. Magnemite and Magneton were easy enough to get, but Steelix and Scizor were trade-only evolutions, Forretress required evolving Pineco which was only found by Headbutting certain trees (and some younger players might not have even known which trees), and Skarmory was version exclusive.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Same with Jasmine. Instead of giving her two Magnemites, she could've had a Magneton, Forretress, Skarmory or Scizor. :[

Honestly I just hate how rare Steel types were in Gen 2. Magnemite and Magneton were easy enough to get, but Steelix and Scizor were trade-only evolutions, Forretress required evolving Pineco which was only found by Headbutting certain trees (and some younger players might not have even known which trees), and Skarmory was version exclusive.

Ghost was even worse as there were only the Gastly line which you needed to trade if you wanted Gengar and Misdreavus which was somewhat weak and incredibly hard to find considering you had to look for it in Mt Silver after getting all 16 Badges in a single cave section at night only. Dragon was no better as it was only the Dratini line (which was not easy to get unless you used Game Corner) and Kingdra which was a trade evolution.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

Meh, Electrics were also really rare in Crystal. Magnemite was pretty much the only one. Raikou was very difficult to catch early on, Mareep doesn't show up in Crystal, Jolteon needed the rare Thunder Stone, and Voltorb got no Electric STAB by level.

 

[Yveltal91057]

Meh, Electrics were also really rare in Crystal. Magnemite, Chinchou and Lanturn were pretty much the only ones. Raikou was very difficult to catch early on, Mareep doesn't show up in Crystal, Eevee needed a Thunder Stone to evolve into Jolteon and Voltorb got no Electric STAB by level.

Chinchou and Lanturn would like to have a word with you.

 

[TwilightBlade]

Ghost was even worse as there were only the Gastly line which you needed to trade if you wanted Gengar and Misdreavus which was somewhat weak and incredibly hard to find considering you had to look for it in Mt Silver after getting all 16 Badges in a single cave section at night only. Dragon was no better as it was only the Dratini line (which was not easy to get unless you used Game Corner) and Kingdra which was a trade evolution.

Yeah although I felt that Steel types had it worse in the sense that they were a new type that was hyped up as one of G/S's biggest new features but were harder to obtain. Ghost and Dragon got little love in Gen 2 too but at least they were never a hyped up selling point for G/S to begin with.

By comparison even the other new Gen 2 type (Dark) had it better than Steel. Houndour's line, Murkrow and Sneasel were found in the wild although reserved for the postgame for some reason. Tyranitar took some work since it evolved from Pupitar at a high level and then there's Umbreon that could only evolve from Eevee by friendship evolution, but we're given a free Eevee anyway so the only challenge was leveling it with high friendship at night.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

Same with Jasmine. Instead of giving her two Magnemites, she could've had a Magneton, Forretress, Skarmory or Scizor. :[

Honestly I just hate how rare Steel types were in Gen 2. Magnemite and Magneton were easy enough to get, but Steelix and Scizor were trade-only evolutions, Forretress required evolving Pineco which was only found by Headbutting certain trees (and some younger players might not have even known which trees), and Skarmory was version exclusive.

GSC's (and HGSS' too, but they at least took some baby steps to fix it) encounter tables in general were pretty much garbage. Most of the Johto mons were fairly rare and hidden in their native region, and a few of them were exclusive to Kanto. ~80% of the wild encounters in Johto were Kanto mons, and fairly common and annoying Kanto mons at that. Like, it's easier to count the Gen 2 Pokemon that were readily available in Johto as opposed to the ones that aren't (Sentret line, Hoothoot line, Spinarak/Ledyba lines, Hoppip line, Wooper line, Swinub line, Teddiursa/Phanpy line, everything else either had a low encounter rate, or was hidden in a hard to reach area or an unconventional encounter method that most players would probably struggle to find).

If they ever do another Johto game the encounters need a serious overhaul. The Johto mons need the spotlight in their native region. They can keep some of the Kanto mons that have cross gen evos, are culturally significant, or have rare types fairly common, but there needs to be a FAR better balance than what GSCHGSS gave us. It's just terrible distribution, especially by modern standards.

 

[UltimateNinja]

It's just dumb that the Johto mons were actually more rare than the Kanto ones in Johto (WTF) and even some appearing super late in the Kanto part of GSC like Houndour or Misdreavus.

Phanpy and Teddiursa? Rare encounter on the route above New Bark, the one a lot of player skip, same with Skarmory and Gligar.
Sneasel? Right before you fight Red.
The new cross gen evolution? Most trade items are super late into the game
Mareep? Play the inferior GS version.

Yeah you get it.

 

[jaden767]

Johto introduced 100 new Pokemon but man did Game Freak drop the ball when it came to distribution. Many of them like Ledyba, Spinarak, Mantine, Gligar, Skarmory, Teddiursa and Phanpy were version-exclusives which meant you had to trade to get them. Then some other 2nd Gen Pokemon were extremely rare to find in the wild in GS such as Marill, Snubbull, Yanma and I think Dunsparce unless there was a swarm. Many other new Pokemon like Kingdra, Steelix, Scizor, Politoed, Porygon2 and Slowking were exclusive to trades involving held items, and those items were usually one-per-game. And infamously there were a lot of Johto Pokemon that were only found right before fighting Red like Larvitar, Misdreavus and Sneasel or else only found in Kanto like Slugma, Houndour and Murkrow, and a few of those could only be found at night time.

Crystal fixed some of that by making some of those Pokemon easier to find, but then they turned around and made Mareep non-catchable in that same game.

 

[Nodqfan]

To add to the Johto talk the level curve of the Pokemon in the Ice Path was horrible they were all in the 20's and Claire's in the 40's.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

The story was the only good thing about BW1 (the post game was also good by modern standards but just okay compared to other contemporaries like FRLG, DPPt, and HGSS). In fact, I'll go a step further. It's really just the end game plot twist at N's Castle that's the only good thing about BW1.

BW1 marked a major shift in design philosophy for the series that was, IMO, largely for the worse, focusing on making the game much more casual and stripping away almost all sense of adventure and challenge. The region design became more linear, having a strict progression order with no alternate paths, no optional areas branching off aside from the odd dungeon or so, and minimal backtracking. Trainers had such short, easy rosters that you'd think it was illegal to carry more than 3 Pokemon. NPCs constantly interrupted you to tell you where to go and generally hold your hand throughout most of the game. Longtime sidequests and side content such as the Game Corner (which granted needed to be removed due to EU gambling laws but they didn't bring back Voltorb Flip or something equivalent), Safari Zone, Contests (which technically saw a spiritual successor in the Musicals, but failed to retain what people liked about Contests which was the move based appeals), and Secret Bases and QoL features such as the ones seen in regional gadgets were stripped away. Overall it felt like the video game equivalent of gluing training wheels to a bicycle, they wanted to casualize the game and force the casualizations down your throat. I've seen a lot of people complain about these things, but they falsely attribute these changes to XY. XY continued down that direction but it wasn't the game that pioneered it, that was BW1.

But BW1 had its own issues apart from the general change in philosophy for the series. Restricting the dex to only the new Pokemon was also a poorly executed idea. The notion of wanting to create a sense of discovery and wonder with a completely new set of Pokemon is a good idea, but when many of said new Pokemon feel like rehashes of older Pokemon, especially ones that we've seen frequently in past regional dexes, it undermines the newness that they were trying to go for. Replacing the Zubats and Geodudes that annoyed you in caves with new Pokemon that are very similar to Zubat and Geodude in Woobat and Roggenrola for example, does not make me excited to discover Woobat and Roggenrola for the first time. It makes me feel like they gave me Zubat and Geodude again without actually giving me Zubat and Geodude again. If instead of giving me another bat and rock Pokemon they'd have had a new bear or bug Pokemon inhabit Unova's caves or something, yes, that would've been very cool and made me feel like I was discovering new Pokemon throughout the entire game but as is it just felt like they didn't want to really have new, original ideas.

Storyline wise, yes the storyline was really good. But again, mainly because of the plot twist at the end where instead of fighting Alder, you conclude the Team Plasma storyline by capturing your dragon, fighting N with his dragon, and then fighting Ghetsis, who masterminded the entire events of the story. The storyline up to that point mostly felt like standard Pokemon fare and even a bit intrusive as I mentioned earlier. But overall, the storyline's climax specifically is the only aspect of the game that truly feels like it was a step up from previous games and in just about every other way the game felt like a regression for the series.

 

[TwilightBlade]

To add to the Johto talk the level curve of the Pokemon in the Ice Path was horrible they were all in the 20's and Claire's in the 40's.

Yeah and I remember struggling against Clair in GSC loads of times and one of the most frequent rebuttals is that there were Ice types in the Ice Path that could be trained in order to beat her Dragon types, which is true but it's annoying how people oversimplify that as if it's super easy to train a mid-Lv 20 Ice type to a respectable level when there aren't any good places to gain quick experience at that stage in the games and the leveling curve as a whole sucks big time. :[

 

[Lluc]

On the topic of Johto, playing through all the pre-XY games for retrospective purposes, I find GSC/HGSS's main campaign rather dull from a gameplay perspective. I had much more fun with Platinum's story than HeartGold even if the former is a little less feature heavy game in general. I find the Johto dex kind of dull to play around with (not many Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon strike out as fun to use due to how unoptomized they are in general), and don't get me started on how forgettable Team Rocket is in HeartGold is compared to Team Galactic in Platinum which just came out before. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Cyrus are much more memorable boss fights compared to Proton (whose team I had to look up to remember what he used), Petrel, Adriana, and Archer.

On the topic of Pokemon being fun to use, I'm looking forward to getting to BW/B2W2 in my retrospective playthroughs. If you told me Gen 5 is the gen where GameFreak tried to make all their Pokemon competitively viable, I'd believe you. So many gen 5 Pokemon strike out as fun to use and I think the Unovan dex is going to grow to become my favorite dex from a gameplay perspective.