An essay on the Pokemon games.

[Misty]

I posted this little rant on GameFAQs, and when I finished with it, I decided it actually come out pretty well, so I'm going to post it here, both to save it and to see what people think. So:

Original post:

I pray you're joking. It's the other way around. RBY sucked. Too short, too simple, the Pokemon were cheap knockoffs of ordinary animals with zero originality, and Psychics were too cheap.

RBY was also by far the most fun. GSC and RSE didn't add close to enough to original formula to come close to the amazing innovation of RBY. GSC were complete rehashes with a horrible day/night system, and they raped Kanto - RSE tried a little harder, but most of the additions were solely for competitive players or were nothing but cheap gimmicks. Let's put it this way -

I put hundreds of hours in RBY, most of it playtime. I replayed Blue... it must have been 15 times. I put even more hours into Stadium.

I put maybe 50 hours into GS(never bought Crystal, awful waste of development time there, they could have used that time to make RS so much better) - all of the other time was spent listening to the music. Gold I replayed... maybe 3 times? Stadium GS I didn't even beat the first round.

I probably put 75 hours in RSE. I never replayed any of them, and I have yet to even play Colosseum despite having owned it for a year and a half. On the other hand, RSE was the first gen where I was really involved in the competitive aspect of Pokemon battling, which was fun for a few months.

Don't even get me started on FRLG. Complete waste of time, not even worth the purchase. I played a ROM of Fire Red - it was fun, but I'd only buy it at a bargain price. Too bad Nintendo likes to keep Pokemon games at full price for God knows how long...

Fact is, Pokemon needs to be revitalized. The collection aspect only goes so far - once you get past that, you've got a low-tier Japanese RPG with terrible graphics and a solid multiplayer - that you're going to have a hard time playing with unless you have Netbattle, and that doesn't even require owning a single cartridge! There is very little to really hold you to the games these days, simply because it's always the same experience over and over again. People can talk about all the improvements and polish that GSC and RSE added, but when it comes down to it, they completely lack the innovation that made RBY a phenomenon.
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[Jukain]

Some of this is true. When I started playing Pokemon with Yellow, I must've put more effort into training my pokes than with all other versions I have combined. I trained all of my pokes to at least L:42, and do mean ALL of them, even the numerous pokes I had in storage. The team I made for Yellow is also the only one I managed to train to L:100, but that was only because when I got Silver, I was kinda revitalized into going all the way. I raised my Yellow team to L:82 or something like that before I transferred them over and beat the junk out of Red. This was also when I decided to restart Yellow and capture everything I missed. I did not know the method for capturing legendaries until I got Silver. I also had to restart Silver in order to capture all of the rare pokemon in it as well. This was also the point in time that I decided I didn't want to train pokes that don't evolve because I didn't see much reason to, and also, when I trained evolving pokes, I would only train them far enough to reach their last evolution and I would leave them. It was beginning to get boring to train pokemon all the time. By the time I got Ruby, I developed the skills that would make all but one trainer before the E4 be completely wiped out by my pokemon. I restarted Ruby quite a few times simply from boredom. It was in one of those restarts that I finally learned how to make my pokemon able to fight any of the 17 types. That, I think, is as far as my pokemon skills can get without going to the competitive realm of breeding and stat manipulation, and I just don't have the mentality for that. I don't agree with the philosophies of the competitive realm. I got FR and I had fun for a while trading and restarting between Ruby and FR for all of the pokes possible between the two. (That amounted to a 328 dex). This was also my opportunity to make a real first gen team, instead of the pseudo-Ash clone team I created for Yellow that also had the most noobish movesets in all of creation. I have now defeated the second wave of FR's E4, and all that is left for me is training my teams to L:100 again, as I really wanted to try to do that again. I found myself getting too bored to train once again, now that all of the challenge is gone. I trained my Ruby team to L:81 and my FR team has two L:81s and the rest are L:80. I had them standing by ready to be trained in Cerulean Cave.

I don't think that pokemon games have lost any of their quality as the generations have progressed, but they have not gained any quality, either. They may be a lot of fun the first few times around, especially if you play around with the starters like I do. The game just doesn't have a really fun factor that makes you want to play it over and over like a lot of old platformers I know. The best extension of the challenge they have offered is only fun for the competitive pokemon players out there, which I am not.

I understand the whole premise of Pokemon was to make people trade and battle with each other and foster friendships and all that, but it hasn't turned out that way. Instead, we give Nintendo more money by buying all of the versions for ourselves, seeking to "Catch 'em all", which is how this franchise has enjoyed its longevity. Ru/Sa introduced another thing to do with pokemon besides battling, but not that many actually get interested in it, and that is Contests. I think the problem there is that it is far too easy to get the Contest stats high enough to sweep them all, and even easier to have a poke with a moveset that produces the maximum results. Not to mention that the whole Contest thing is relatively short.

I have seen it said too many times by now that Pokemon needs to greatly improve its gameplay so that it does have that replay quality that makes a game great. The problem is all of the suggestions I've seen would make Pokemon into something that it's not. I don't think that taking out new pokemon is an option, either, as having the same characters over and over is not good, either, there must be new ones. I know the argument that can be made against me there, but as repetitive as I know the Hoenn pokes are, they are still new pokemon. Hoenn also brought in a lot more original pokes than ones than were similar to older ones.

Yes, I will agree that R/B/Y was the force that started it all, and also when Pokemon was at the height of its popularity, but I don't think that was due to the fact that the originals were better or worse than the other versions. It all comes down to the fact that the longer Pokemon continues, the more tired the fans become. I know a lot of people that will say that G/S/C held most of the innovation that made pokemon what we know it as today. R/B/Y holds the honor of being the beginning, and there is nothing that can top that. Nintendo has promised that Diamond and Pearl will hold features that will make it the "definitive" game of the franchise. I hope that they are right. At least I will have a lot of fun collecting new pokes and transferring all of my collection from Ruby and FR. I always enjoy playing a new game. If it manages to find that elusive replayability, that will make it that much better.

 

[Zeta]

and Psychics were too cheap.

I agree with this, but not with the rest.

Sabrina was a BITCH!

 

[Trainer-c]

RBY was also by far the most fun. GSC and RSE didn't add close to enough to original formula to come close to the amazing innovation of RBY.

The same can be said of most game series today, the originals always carries a nostalgia factor, that sequels and remakes usually can never measure up against.

GSC were complete rehashes with a horrible day/night system, and they raped Kanto - RSE tried a little harder, but most of the additions were solely for competitive players or were nothing but cheap gimmicks.

I Agree that GSC seemed to stick very closely to the RBY format. But part of it was to keep the data between the games similar enough for backwards compatability with RBY. As for the Kanto in GSC, as limited as it was, it was obviously, I think the devolopers wanted to make as much of a connection to the RBY era as possible. The franchise was still new, and they probably feared making the game to radically diffrent, and losing the established fanbase. (Remember, the mainstream 'fad' of Pokémon, was built around RBY, and already begining to fade by GSC's release.)

By the time the started working on RSE, they had likely realized that while the 'fad' had died, but they did have a legitimate gaming audiance, and they decided to in a sense 'overhaul' the franchise. (Hence, the new region, villians, less connections to Kanto in the game plot.)

Don't even get me started on FRLG. Complete waste of time, not even worth the purchase.

I enjoy FRLG very much. Its fun to play the RBY story, with the features of the modern games. It solves the two biggest gameplay flaws that RBY had, you could never re-fight the trainers once you had battled them, (Thus, you would eventually battle yourself into a corner where there were no in-game trainers left.) and the Psychic-type's utter dominance.

Fact is, Pokemon needs to be revitalized. The collection aspect only goes so far - once you get past that, you've got a low-tier Japanese RPG with terrible graphics and a solid multiplayer - that you're going to have a hard time playing with unless you have Netbattle, and that doesn't even require owning a single cartridge! There is very little to really hold you to the games these days, simply because it's always the same experience over and over again. People can talk about all the improvements and polish that GSC and RSE added, but when it comes down to it, they completely lack the innovation that made RBY a phenomenon.
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It's pretty much a given that the collection aspect is not the end-all be-all of the series. I hardly see it as a 'low tier' RPG. While the graphics are simple, and the plot is nothing earth-shaking, the gameplay system is complex, and enjoyable. (Hence the many netbattle players. Most of whom do own cartridges.) And the simple reality is, that with any game series you get the same experiences over and over, with subtle changes. (Zelda, Final Fantasy, any other franchise.) I have faith that the series is on its way to the MMORPG market. While its pretty much given that Daimond and Pearl will not be online, I'm thinking this fourth generation will have at least one online game by its end. And i'm sure that the fourth generation will bring a few unforseen innovations as well.

 

[Masaki]

Personally, I have to agree that RBY were great. The main complaints I have were just the main qualities, such as music and graphics, though I hardly cared about either one. I also agree that Psychics were way too cheap. I was only able to beat Sabrina with Ice Beam, hoping that I would freeze her pokemon. Despite countless charts that said ghost was super-effective against psychic, it actually didn't effect. Besides, the only ghosts were also poison-type. The only other good type against them was Bug, and the only good Bug attacks came from weaker pokemon or poison types.

GSC was actually my favorite one, to be honest. I really liked how they incorperated the time of day, and the week. It really added to the gameplay, though it had their downsides (not being able to play at certain times). Everything was revolutionized (really, I can't say the same about the versions that come after this). And 251 pokemon was really a good place to stop.

I played the games after this, but it started to bore me. Really, getting 350+ pokemon probably isn't worth the effort.

 

[Sillymence]

While its pretty much given that Daimond and Pearl will not be online, I'm thinking this fourth generation will have at least one online game by its end. And i'm sure that the fourth generation will bring a few unforseen innovations as well.

Well....if I am not mistaken, hasn't the game already been confirmed to be online?

To add to the topic, I think R/S/E was my favorite, just because I have the my most favorite pokemon from that generation. It is true, that R/B were truely greats. Heck, I even remember the exact moment I got Pokemon Red. lol..yeah..weird...G/S were probably my least favorite, since none of the pokemon were that great(except for Bayleef and Jumpluff). I really hated the Day and Night system, since I only played the game in the evening after school and practices..so I could never catch some certain Pokemon.

Yeah...that's my 2 cents...

 

[endofheartaches]

My favorite era was GSC. By this time, I had already played the crap out of Red, Blue, and even Yellow. I had all 150, and I (remarkably) craved more. I never bothered with movesets, instead filling them with nonsense like Sky Attack and Hyper Beam. Despite the fact that these games used the same formula as RBY and didn't make a whole lot of readily noticeable improvements, and despite the fact that at this time in my life, pokemon was already considered very uncool, these games were my favorite for many little reasons.
The day/night system, which made spending a whole night staying up and running around the world worthwhile.
The days of the week, which made each playing session unique.
Balls that were not "poke", "great", "ultra", or "master", and the ability to make these balls.
The sheer size of the combined regions, which kept the scenery fresh. Whether you wanted to the nostalgia of fighting on route 1, or the new experience of training in Mt. Silver, it was all there.
All 16 Gym Leaders. Being able to look at my info and see 16 badges was really cool.
The radio rocked.
The first random encounter legendaries.
All the little side quests, like healing the Miltank and catching the rogue Rocket to get the power generator back online. They need alot more of those in future games, because I get pretty bored just doing things simply so I can pulverize the next gym leader and move on.
Being able to re-challenge trainers was really cool. In RBY, what happens when you've fought everyone once? You keep fighting the Elite Four or wild pokemon till the end of eternity.
Bashing trees with Headbutt!!! My favorite "out of battle" move ever, which they need to bring back.
All those pokemon made it easier to put together a really good team, but it also made some pokemon obsolete. It finally gave you something that could hold its own against Mewtwo...which is probably a bad thing in retrospect.
In Crystal, the Battle Tower gave me my first taste of competitive battling. I finally found trainers that required effort to defeat, and they don't even give me experience? This is when I learned to hate Hyper Beam and every other overrated attack of the RBY era and started keeping stat boosting moves on my pokemon's movesets.


Alot of GSC was pretty dumb, I'll admit. But alot of it was really cool, and Johto is still my favorite region. If they hadn't made Fire Red and Leaf Green, I would have gladly purchased rehashes of Gold or Silver. Now that I've bought a LG cartridge though, I'll play a ROM if they try that nonsense.

RBY got me hooked, and GSC turned me into a pokemaniac. RSE and FR/LG are another story entirely though, with the lack of backwards compatibility, abilities, natures, ect.