Why do so many people hate gen III?

[Phoenicks]

...You do realize that every generation past Gen I has these "rip-offs" it is part of the overall design of the series. On top of that, Generation III brought more unique Pokémon than did Generation II or even IV.

All the ones I can think of out of my head:


Slaking was a rip-off of Snorlax. Late-game normal types with some restraints, but lots of power.

Beautifly was a rip off of Butterfree, with Silcoon and Cascoon being rip-offs of Kakuna and Metapod, and Wurmple as a rip-off of Weedle and Caterpie. They were all early-game bug types that evolved fast, based on the same concepts.

Ralts was like Abra, because when you raised it, it didn't know any damaging attacks, so you had to use other techniques (Exp. Share or switching pokemon). They were psychics that were hard to raise but became powerful.

Tailow was much like pidgey, they were both early-game flying types that evolved into a good bird pokemon (Ash even had both in the anime). I know that Hoothoot and Starly were rip-off too, but Hoothoot could learn some psychic attacks, and Starly learned some unique things.

Skitty and Delcatty served the same purpose as Meowth and Persian.

They had Cradily and Armaldo, which essentially replaced the old fossil pokemon.

There was bagon->shelgon->Salamence, which was a Gen III version of Dratini's line.

Spheal->Sealeo->Walrein were a replacement for Seel and Dewgong.

Pulsle and Minun were like two Pichus designed for showing off the double battles.

All of these pokemon had to be made because Gen III wasn't compatible with Gen II, and many pokemon from Gen II and Gen I weren't available in Gen III. So instead of coming up with new pokemon ideas for new content in the pokemon games, they just ripped off of a bunch of the Gen I pokemon so people could still have those early-game butterflies, or those fossils people had to choose between. Much of the content was recycled from generation I.

 

[Zephy]

Generation 3 was my favorite! I seem to be in the minority though...
Why is it my favorite?

-Beautiful scenery. Sootopolis was gorgeous, really nice concept. Fortee was fun to! And I'd always walk by the lakes with my reflection in them. And Slateport was nice, it had the city and water. The volcano type thing (forget the name) was very well done as well. Even the desserts were well designed.

-The Pokémon. They had Solrock! As if that wasn't enough they added in cute ones like Mawile, Groudon, Jirachi and Aggron. Remember where we got Mightyena and Gardevoir from? Yep, generation three.

-Magma and Aqua. They had the coolest outfits ever. Especially Magma. They also had unique aims unlike Rocket.

-Contests. I'm a coordinator far more than I am a battler. For this reason I loved generation three. Contests are still my favorite parts of the games to this day.

 

[Cybersai]

All the ones I can think of out of my head

Dude, how does that even make sense?

You can essentially say each new bird, (Swellow, Staraptor) were replacements for Pidgeot. What do Slaking and Snorlax have that makes them remotely similar? Skitty/Delcatty aren't any similar to Meowth/Persian than Glameow/Purugly are.

A good chunk of the 4th gen Pokemon are new evolutions for old Pokemon, and the other half are legendaries.

You'd think people would be crying about the lack of creativity for the 4th gen designs, given how many of them are just new evolutions for old Pokemon, some with barely changed designs like Tangrowth.

 

[Trainer-c]

Slaking was a rip-off of Snorlax. Late-game normal types with some restraints, but lots of power.

Slacking is more attack oriented than Snorlax, and is obtained by different methods. Sharing the same type =/= rip-off. It just means the Pokémon share the same typing.

Beautifly was a rip off of Butterfree, with Silcoon and Cascoon being rip-offs of Kakuna and Metapod, and Wurmple as a rip-off of Weedle and Caterpie. They were all early-game bug types that evolved fast, based on the same concepts.

And Lediba/Ledian Spinarak/Ariados were Gen II's early game bugs, and Combee/Vespiquen and Burmy/Womadam/Mothim are Gen IV's early bugs. It's a formula that the series has follow and will continue to follow.

I will grant that the Wurmple line is similar to the Caterpie line, but, one of the many aspects of Pokémon design is basing them off of real world creatures, and real-world insect kingdom has many species of caterpillars, butterflies, and moths.

Ralts was like Abra, because when you raised it, it didn't know any damaging attacks, so you had to use other techniques (Exp. Share or switching pokemon). They were psychics that were hard to raise but became powerful.

... Ralts learns Confusion at Level 6, and has a full set of moves that it learns while leveling up, incliding Psychic at level 26. It is also more defensively capable than the Abra line, as well as having a branched evolution (and not requiring a trade to evolve), which Abra does not.

Tailow was much like pidgey, they were both early-game flying types that evolved into a good bird pokemon (Ash even had both in the anime). I know that Hoothoot and Starly were rip-off too, but Hoothoot could learn some psychic attacks, and Starly learned some unique things.

The responses to the earlier examples apply here. You appear to be confusing a filling a certain position with being a rip-off. I can use a rock to drive a nail into a board, that doesn't make the rock a "rip-off" of a hammer, or vise-versa.

They had Cradily and Armaldo, which essentially replaced the old fossil pokemon.

Beyond the fact that they are fossils, and all being part Rock-type, these Pokémon have very little in common. They filled the role of fossil Pokémon, but they are in no way "rip-offs".

Skitty and Delcatty served the same purpose as Meowth and Persian.

There was bagon->shelgon->Salamence, which was a Gen III version of Dratini's line.

Spheal->Sealeo->Walrein were a replacement for Seel and Dewgong.

Pulsle and Minun were like two Pichus designed for showing off the double battles.

All covered in the responses above.

All of these pokemon had to be made because Gen III wasn't compatible with Gen II, and many pokemon from Gen II and Gen I weren't available in Gen III. So instead of coming up with new pokemon ideas for new content in the pokemon games, they just ripped off of a bunch of the Gen I pokemon so people could still have those early-game butterflies, or those fossils people had to choose between. Much of the content was recycled from generation I.

Game Freak was obviously well aware pretty early in the development that of Generation III that they would need to remake Red and Green, this is why the Kanto location data was already programmed into Ruby and Sapphire, so the premise that they had to "replace" any Pokémon is a faulty one.

As I said above, the games have a formula. There are going to be starters, early Flying, Bug, and Normal-type Pokémon, late-game Dragons, and what have you.

 

[Sleet]

While they have somewhat different abilities, it can't be denied that their general concept is extremely similar. It happens every generation, but the third one was the worst. The Pokémon are not identical, obviously, but you can't deny them being "repeats" of older Pokémon.

 

[Phoenicks]

A good chunk of the 4th gen Pokemon are new evolutions for old Pokemon, and the other half are legendaries.

You'd think people would be crying about the lack of creativity for the 4th gen designs, given how many of them are just new evolutions for old Pokemon, some with barely changed designs like Tangrowth.

I never said that I liked all of the Gen IV pokemon either. Although the new evolutions were meant to improve on old pokemon, not replace them or fill their roles. I prefer improving old pokemon to pretending like they don't exist.

Originally posted by Trainer-c:
Slacking is more attack oriented than Snorlax, and is obtained by different methods. Sharing the same type =/= rip-off. It just means the Pokémon share the same typing.

I meant the ideas behind them, that of a giant, lazy pokemon with lots of power. Granted, they are dissilimar enough where I can give that one to you, let's pretend that they're not similar enough.

And Lediba/Ledian Spinarak/Ariados were Gen II's early game bugs, and Combee/Vespiquen and Burmy/Womadam/Mothim are Gen IV's early bugs. It's a formula that the series has follow and will continue to follow.

Yeah, but those bugs were different and unique, and weren't even based off of the same type of bug (don't respond by saying that Caterpie is a caterpillar, and wurmple is a silkworm). For all intents and purposes, a silkworm is much closer to a caterpillar than a honeybee or a ladybug or is.

I will grant that the Wurmple line is similar to the Caterpie line, but, one of the many aspects of Pokémon design is basing them off of real world creatures, and real-world insect kingdom has many species of caterpillars, butterflies, and moths.

Yeah, there are lots of bugs in the real world, but I want to see some different life forms before we have to start re-using them. What about a dolphin pokemon? Or a polar bear? Or another fire type? I'd rather that we had new pokemon ideas instead of re-using them.

... Ralts learns Confusion at Level 6, and has a full set of moves that it learns while leveling up, incliding Psychic at level 26. It is also more defensively capable than the Abra line, as well as having a branched evolution (and not requiring a trade to evolve), which Abra does not.

Fine. Although it was filling Abra's role in Gen III.

The responses to the earlier examples apply here. You appear to be confusing a filling a certain position with being a rip-off. I can use a rock to drive a nail into a board, that doesn't make the rock a "rip-off" of a hammer, or vise-versa.

Why do we need roles in these games? I would rather that we saw some new ideas. I understand that we need easy-to-catch early pokemon, that doesn't mean that they all have to be birds and bugs. There doesn't always have to be a powerful end-game dragon. Hoothoot was refreshing IMO because it had some psychic attacks, and was different enough. Taillow felt like another bird that just replaced Pidgey.

Beyond the fact that they are fossils, and all being part Rock-type, these Pokémon have very little in common. They filled the role of fossil Pokémon, but they are in no way "rip-offs".

Why did they need to fill that role though? Why couldn't we have a different idea behind the fossil pokemon? What if, instead of having only getting one fossil in the games, there was a collector who had fossils that you could obtain for doing favors or something? I was just tired of being forced to chose between one of two fossils. At least Gen IV gave you the other fossils after you beat the E4, and you weren't limited to 1 fossil.

Game Freak was obviously well aware pretty early in the development that of Generation III that they would need to remake Red and Green, this is why the Kanto location data was already programmed into Ruby and Sapphire, so the premise that they had to "replace" any Pokémon is a faulty one.

Since they knew that they would have Gen I pokemon in FRLG, they couldn't just have them all in Hoenn, it would feel like 2 different sets of games with one set of pokemon. So instead, they cast different pokemon for the same roles. Before we had another worm bug that evolved into a buterfly, we should have had a millipede or something.

As I said above, the games have a formula. There are going to be starters, early Flying, Bug, and Normal-type Pokémon, late-game Dragons, and what have you.

Not always. The powerful, hard to raise pokemon at the end of GSC was Tyrannitar, not just another dragon. And I understand that all the generations rip-off a little bit, but I felt IMO that Gen III did it the most.

Sorry, that's a long post. I don't even see why I'm bothering to defend myself, since it's my opinion, but there it is.

 

[TTEchidna]

Because it didn't even allow the chance to get the oldies you'd grown used to until FRLG came out, and who could have imagined that that was on its way with the way the series had been in the past?

At least with Gen IV you could get the non-Sdex Pokémon with Radar, post-Elite areas, swarms, and the dongle. Gen III you were trapped with the Hdex.

They introduced a good number of new Pokémon, the most since Gen I, but I didn't appreciate that literally none besides Azurill and Wynaut were related to the old ones. And who needs babies? We need final forms. Gliscor could've come about in III, Tangrowth too (after all, we have Hoenn's jungle-like areas). I'm actually pretty sure that the new evos that appear at the end of the Gen IV Ndex were intended for Gen III initially, or at least some of them were.

Basically, it's the region exclusivity that sucks. Their plan was bad; no one plays Ruby after they get FireRed, except to trade the Hoennites in. Gen IV, especially Platinum, finally established Duskull and Gastly as not being mutually exclusive to areas, which is what needed to be done. Gen II's Pokémon I never had a problem seeing as the same as Gen I. Gen III was a problem, though, since we never got to really see them with the Gen I and II Pokémon.

And sure, this does mean that regional Pokédexes will continue to grow. So be it. The point of the games isn't to finish the Pokédex anymore. It's to raise what you want.

 

[VanFanel]

How is Ralts filling Abra's place in Gen 3 when Abra still appears in Gen 3?

Anyway, it would have been great if the pokedex counted like in Gen 4 (so there is no need to catch them), and if we got into "there wasn't a hint about Gen 1 remakes" well, I agree, it is horrible to be stuck on the regional pokemon, but at least there were those remakes instead of forcing us to have a NGC and the respective games.

On the other hand, what I don't like about Gen 3 (still the one I fully got into Pokemon) are event pokemon as always, Mistery Gift was OK, but there are not enough places in this world to access them.

And the wireless adapter, WHY if it plugs into the link cable port is not made so you can use it as wireless link in all five games? or at least why don't they emulate mistery gift for Ruby and Sapphire via link cable?

It is too late now, but it would be wonderful if all current event pokemon became accesible to download instead of trying to get tickets and so, how many platinum games will be able to awaken the regis?

I am going off-topic, so, I like Gen 3, but it could have been better.

 

[Mijzelffan]

Basically, it's the region exclusivity that sucks. Their plan was bad; no one plays Ruby after they get FireRed, except to trade the Hoennites in.

Yeah, not really. after you completed FR/LG there was litterally nothing to do (except for training poké's of course). The only thing you could do was play the game corner, get stickers (<BORING), or berry crush/ 2 island games, which most people I know couldn't because they didn't have that wireless thing. In R/S however, you could always do contests (with friends if alone got boring), berry blending with friends, mixing records, redecorating your secret base, battle tower/frontier etc. Everyone I know prefered R/S over Fr/Lg. Probably the only reason why you liked Fr/LG more, is because you has nostalgia to Gen I.

 

[Takoto]

Gen III was kinda "meh" for me, it was good, but not great.

 

[PDL]

At least with Gen IV you could get the non-Sdex Pokémon with Radar, post-Elite areas, swarms, and the dongle. Gen III you were trapped with the Hdex.

...You couldn't actually use any of those methods to gain non-Sinnohdex Pokémon until after you've beaten the E4. By then you would have gotten a team of strong Pokémon that were most likely from Gen IV.

Tell me people, is there something wrong with trying out brand new Pokémon? The major problem with the GS games was that you could very easily trade with your RBY games early with your old Pokémon and practically wreck the rest of the game with them.

I thought that Gen III's idea of removing compatability with the Gameboy games was good because it gave all those brand new Pokémon a chance to be played, rather then being ignored for old favourites like what happened with the Gen II Pokémon.

Also I find the idea of "rip-offs" to be silly. If you take a closer look at certain Pokémon, you would find a few key differences:

the Ralts and Abra line for instance. They're both three stage Psychic lines, but Abra's a humanshape Pokémon that's designed for special sweeping. Ralts is different in that it's more defense-orienteired (mostly on the special side) and it's in the Indeterminate egg group. What do egg groups have to do with this? It means that both gain access to entirely different movesets. The Abra line received easy access to the elemental punches while Ralts had a bunch of disrupting moves.

Even Pokémon that appear to be very similar may have differences in movesets and stats. Take Blaziken and Infernape: Both are Fire/Fighting starters, yet one is more physical (Blaziken) and the other is perfectly even in both physical and special sweeping (Infernape). Key differences in moveset is that Blaziken can do the Endure/Reversal combo while Infernape oddly enough, can't.

So now before you decide to call one Pokémon a rip-off of another, take a look at how it plays and what kind of Pokémon it really is first.

 

[Nt '95 trainer]

I hate it as I stopped being a no0b, yet didn't get Evs yet. And sucky mons.

 

[Phoenicks]

Tell me people, is there something wrong with trying out brand new Pokémon? The major problem with the GS games was that you could very easily trade with your RBY games early with your old Pokémon and practically wreck the rest of the game with them.

I thought that Gen III's idea of removing compatability with the Gameboy games was good because it gave all those brand new Pokémon a chance to be played, rather then being ignored for old favourites like what happened with the Gen II Pokémon.

How is that a problem? If that's how I choose to play, that's how I will play. If that's not how you choose to play, you won't play that way. How is it a problem for you if someone else uses strong Pokemon from the previous game to wreck their experience in the new Gen? You shouldn't force people to not get pokemon from the previous gen.

And Gen III and Gen IV pokemon got ignored plenty too. It was just that with Gen II, since it was structured around two regions, the new pokemon were spread out instead of congregated in one region. I didn't like that move, but that's what they did that ignored some pokemon.

Also I find the idea of "rip-offs" to be silly. If you take a closer look at certain Pokémon, you would find a few key differences:

the Ralts and Abra line for instance. They're both three stage Psychic lines, but Abra's a humanshape Pokémon that's designed for special sweeping. Ralts is different in that it's more defense-orienteired (mostly on the special side) and it's in the Indeterminate egg group. What do egg groups have to do with this? It means that both gain access to entirely different movesets. The Abra line received easy access to the elemental punches while Ralts had a bunch of disrupting moves.

Even Pokémon that appear to be very similar may have differences in movesets and stats. Take Blaziken and Infernape: Both are Fire/Fighting starters, yet one is more physical (Blaziken) and the other is perfectly even in both physical and special sweeping (Infernape). Key differences in moveset is that Blaziken can do the Endure/Reversal combo while Infernape oddly enough, can't.

So now before you decide to call one Pokémon a rip-off of another, take a look at how it plays and what kind of Pokémon it really is first.

Are you talking about the Meta-game and competitive battling? That's not what I was talking about though. At the end of the game, every pokemon is widely different. Heck, one move can define a Pokemon so it becomes popular. In the game though, the pokemon have many similarities when raising them to beat the E4. Who really cares about those differences with Abra and Ralts when raising to the E4? It doesn't really matter all that much.

 

[SolgaleoGX]

Personally I liked Gen 3, it was a fun game and brought forth many cool Pokemon like Blaziken, Rayquaza..and dare I say it, Mudkip. <_< Hoenn was fun to explore and alot of it's Pokemon rather creative compared to Gens 2 & 4 wich are heavy on Pre-Evos and Evos. It was the one that made the Pokemon world as we see it today.

Only hate I can understand comes from two factors, the ones I dislike of this games.

1) The freaking water...I HATE surfing...and it's what made Hoenn hell for me at times..@_@

2) The main series "reboot". It was annoying at first. But now I'm happy it happened, look how far the main series has gone since RS came out. It has literally improved. We got the updated remakes (FRLGHGSS) and the awesomeness that is DPP.

 

[Sleet]

Tell me people, is there something wrong with trying out brand new Pokémon? The major problem with the GS games was that you could very easily trade with your RBY games early with your old Pokémon and practically wreck the rest of the game with them.

I thought that Gen III's idea of removing compatability with the Gameboy games was good because it gave all those brand new Pokémon a chance to be played, rather then being ignored for old favourites like what happened with the Gen II Pokémon.

The major problem with Gold and Silver was that you could use your old Pokémon? That's like saying the major problem with an RPG is that the sidequests are boring. No one forced anyone to import their Pokémon, and if you don't like the feature you, like I did, can choose to not use it to blow through the game. It's better to have the feature and not want it than to want the feature and not have it. What about the people who want all their good Pokémon on one game? Or what if someone thinks, "hmm, my Skarmory would really compliment my Ruby team" and is not knowledgeable or serious enough to breed a completely new Skarmory? Besides, you could always get strong Pokémon traded to you by a friend or from another version. They wouldn't obey you anyway.

But everyone is happy with Diamond & Pearl's system, where you can't import your Pokémon at all until the Elite Four are defeated. I'm sure we can all agree that this way is best.

Also I find the idea of "rip-offs" to be silly. If you take a closer look at certain Pokémon, you would find a few key differences:

the Ralts and Abra line for instance. They're both three stage Psychic lines, but Abra's a humanshape Pokémon that's designed for special sweeping. Ralts is different in that it's more defense-orienteired (mostly on the special side) and it's in the Indeterminate egg group. What do egg groups have to do with this? It means that both gain access to entirely different movesets. The Abra line received easy access to the elemental punches while Ralts had a bunch of disrupting moves.

Even Pokémon that appear to be very similar may have differences in movesets and stats. Take Blaziken and Infernape: Both are Fire/Fighting starters, yet one is more physical (Blaziken) and the other is perfectly even in both physical and special sweeping (Infernape). Key differences in moveset is that Blaziken can do the Endure/Reversal combo while Infernape oddly enough, can't.

So now before you decide to call one Pokémon a rip-off of another, take a look at how it plays and what kind of Pokémon it really is first.

The key differences between the "ripoffs" are things most players will never even notice. The general concepts and designs are extremely similar, even though they may hold different battle utility. It's similar to the subject of "clones" in Super Smash Bros. (Melee in particular). Anyone who plays both Fox and Falco for a little bit can tell you they are not identical, but when you look at the big picture, they are based on the same general moveset, and therefore, fans were unhappy that Falco played extremely similar to Fox rather than getting his own unique style, even though they become increasingly different the more hardcore the players are.

You can't expect every Pokémon fan to know what things like egg groups and special walls are. In the eyes of most, Abra and Ralts are both fairly weak Psychic types that evolve twice into powerful humanoid creatures that learn a lot of good Psychic attacks and are fairly easy to KO. Their designs are very similar, despite their subtle (in most people's eyes) combat differences. This applies to most of the "ripoffs," especially ones like Wurmple that no one will use long enough to learn their differences, if at all.

 

[PDL]

Not bothering to take closer looks and to do research is just laziness on the player's part then. It's also extremely lazy to not try new things.

 

[DerMißingno]

It's boring, it drags, and I hate the pokemon selection. Also, there's one route where EVERY SINGLE TRAINER will just give you a status ailment no matter what. It's annoying as balls. Also, the abundance of magnemites combined with the availability of fire pokemon in the beginning of the game. There's a lot of shit that just doesn't flow right with gen 3, and it all combines to create the worst generation of them all.

 

[cdplayar]

I Believe It Was A Great Generation, Up There With Johto, The BEST One. (=P)

Look Who It Brought, Salamance, Glalie, Dusclops, and Aggron.

=] THEY OWN. And Are Overused A Bit, But, THEY OWN!

 

[DerMißingno]

I Believe It Was A Great Generation, Up There With Johto, The BEST One. (=P)

Look Who It Brought, Salamance, Glalie, Dusclops, and Aggron.

=] THEY OWN. And Are Overused A Bit, But, THEY OWN!

Why did you capitalize every word in this post?

 

[Majin_Koenma]

The gen 3 games themselves weren't bad, the only real problem for me were the absurdly long water routs. I was kind of disappointed that I couldn't catch my favorite Pokemon from the previous two generations, though. As for the gen three Pokemon themselves, they just didn't appeal to me the way the gen one and two Pokemon did. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I just found most of the gen three Pokemon either uninteresting on unappealing.