Is playing through past Generations a useful tool or a waste of time?

[AnthonyS]

Recently I’ve decided to replay through my copies of the Generation VI (Pokémon X & Pokémon Alpha Sapphire) in order to SR the legendaries and obtain shiny versions of each. It also serves as a way to obtain a few different Pokémon I didn’t collect the first time around and simply have fun playing through two wonderful games a second time around. I’ve been pondering the thought however; is this endeavor really worth it? There are pros and cons to each, so I’ll lay them out and explain my reasoning behind each. I’m intrigued to see what others think.

EDIT: It was brought to my attention that you cannot soft reset for shiny legendaries in Pokémon X. Whoops. I am now enlightened.

Also, since I cannot figure out how to change the title or if that’s even possible, a more appropriate title that better conveys what I meant to say would be: “Is replaying through past generations worth loosing old memories and save files?”

Pros:

1. It allows players to SR and obtain shiny legendaries and starters. With Pokémon Bank, Pokémon can easily be transferred to newer games allowing beloved old pokémon to not perish when the game is reset.
2. It allows players to relax and take their time replaying through a region - I know I always rush to complete games in order to start competitive battling, breeding, etc.

Cons:

1. As time goes on, the game functions become redundant. Generation VI is a bad example but in Generation V, game functions such as the PSS no longer work.
2. Achievements such as hours logged, items collected, and the completion of the pokédex are all permanently erased after game resets.

 

[AnthonyS]

First off: You should probably know that every legendary in X/Y is shiny-locked, so if this was your only reason to play through X again, you should probably refrain from it.

I’m going to break this down into multiple sections because you wrote such adetailed response. I, obviously, was not aware that this was the truth. I had some strange notion that only Mewtwo was unable to be encountered as a shiny. Thanks for the information.

Anyway, I'm having a hard time understanding the exact intent of this thread, since your title mentions playing the games at all, while your opening post seems to hint towards specifically the act of deleting your older save files to play through the games once more.

Regarding whether it is a waste of time or not, I'm not a fan of the implication, because this is a game, and we're all playing this for fun in our free time anyway.
So I'd rather ask, would you be having fun/enjoying your time (re)playing through the games? Strictly-speaking, this is the only thing that matters. If you enjoyed playing through, then it was worth it and not a waste of time.

So I guess I could see how you misunderstood the point of this thread, it’s really a simple error on my part, but it’s just a small misunderstanding that I can fix. The title was supposed to mention REplaying through past Generations, not simply playing for the first time, so I see where you got confused. Thankfully you were able to get the gist of it anyways and now I can fix that mistake. So again, thank you.

As for whether or not replaying through old generations is a waste of time, what I meant to convey is the question; Is replaying through past generations really worth loosing everything you’ve accomplished? I understand that Pokémon is, at the end of the day, a game. However, people like me have save files that contain cherished memories, old favorite Pokémon, and dozens of hours logged into them. Additionally, as someone who never has a large amount of spare cash laying around, simply purchasing another cartridge of the game is out of the question. If I want to replay through those regions, I’d have to wipe the old save and start anew. For me, the question of what to pick, old memories or making new ones, is a hard one to answer. Of course I would have fun, but will that make up for the “lost” memories?

Maybe some other people might judge you and tell you that what you're doing is a waste of time, but those aren't the kind of people you should be listening to anyway.


If you're playing through one of the older games for the first time, you don't really have anything to lose beyond the time you'll be spending on playing the game. In which case, play away; as long as you're enjoying your playthrough, it's not a waste of time.
As far as I'm aware, the only things that are completely exclusive to older games are certain combinations of Apricorn ball Pokémon, for which you'd want to play through HG/SS, and certain hidden ability Pokémon, for which you'd want certain Gen. V or VI games, depending on the Pokémon.
Also, many Pokémon evolutionary lines are not obtainable at all in the current Gen., so you still need the older games for those.

For everything else, every legendary up to and excluding Zygarde can both be caught and SRed for shininess in US/UM, so you don't really need the older games for those, but if you're anything like me and prefer Gen. III/IV/V for SRing, you will gain the ability to SR for those in the older games as well.
This is without counting Mythicals, of course. While they may require cheating or other unofficial methods to access nowadays, Deoxys, Darkrai and Shaymin require the older games if you want to SR for them. Also Mew and Arceus, if you don't really care about absolute legality, or if you own a Japanese copy of Emerald, where Mew is concerned.
Celebi can even be accessed legitimately in the VC re-release of Crystal, so that's awesome (also marks the first and only time so far of shiny Celebi being legally possible.)

If you're deleting an older save file to SR for legendaries that you had already caught in your current save file, I guess you'd have to weigh the losses versus the gains. If you have more than what you're willing to lose, it may be worth looking for another game you have where you could SR for that legendary instead, or buying a spare copy so you don't have to lose your original data.

I’m going to tackle the rest of this in one chunk so hopefully my response is clear. I’m not worried about what others might think, and I’m a tad bit confused where that came from. I’m personally deciding if I want replay through my past games and not at all worried what others might think. Thanks for the advice though. The part where you delve into apricorn balls and pokémon lines that are unobtainable is helpful as well, so thank you for that.

As for catching legendaries in US/UM, I’ve already played through those games and caught them, Gen VII is my least favorite set of games, and I have no desire to replay through them. I’d much rather play through generations I’ve enjoyed much more in the past.

Overall, I understand that playing through games ultimately is up to whether or not I think it’s worth it and whether or not I’m going to have fun doing so. I just know that simply playing through the current generation won’t give you pokémon that are only obtainable in the past, pokémon I’ve never bothered catching or breeding. Generation VI was a bad example but I know Alpha Sapphire has a large section of legendaries and I was hoping I could SR for those. (I should do some research to see if this is even possible, lol) I just thought I’d put this out here and see what others do in my situation. Would they delete past saves to enjoy the region they loved so much, or is the memories obtained throughout that region simply too treasured to even think about deleting? I was curious to see what others thought.

I thank you for your detailed response, however. You bring up some good points and I appriciate the time you took to type this out. Now, my fingers are aching from all this typing and there’s more than likely a spelling error, but I think I want ice cream. So with that, thanks one more time, and good evening!

 

[AnthonyS]

You can SR for everything but Kyogre, Rayquaza and Deoxys in Alpha Sapphire, so you should be fine there.

I've already deleted literally all my older save files over the past few years, so I guess it's a bit too late for me if I ever regretted it. My only regret so far is that it's taking me so long to actually play through all those games again, nothing really about the save files themselves though. All I want is to have completed save files again, I don't personally care too much about the specific memories (those live on in the Pokémon that I get to transfer and keep every time.)

Also I guess if you worked on a living dex, for Gen. VI and VII, you can re-complete the National dex within a few minutes by just transferring everything at once through bank, so losing a completed Pokédex + shiny charm wouldn't be that big of a deal in that scenario. But a living dex is a lot of work, haha.



I really think that this is a question that only you can answer, still. And this applies to anyone who isn't sure whether or not they'd regret starting over.

The best advice I could give in that scenario is to hold off on restarting those games, and play back through other games instead, ones you know you wouldn't care about restarting. It'll give you more time to think about it. If you're interested in playing back through other games than X and Alpha Sapphire, at least.

In the spirit of keeping it legit, and as I've brought up earlier, the next best thing you could do would be buying a spare copy of the game that you could play through without having to restart your save file on your main copy of the game. That way you get the best of both worlds, but that is far from ideal for most people of course (it gets kind of expensive, lol.)


Also sorry if I misinterpreted the intent of your thread, thanks for clearing that up.

It’s fine, no worries, it’s my fault due to the mixup. I’m sorry I didnt make it clear enough in the beginning.

And I totally get that in the end it’s really up to my own personal decision if I want to reset those games. I just wanted to know what others have done in the past when faced with the same scenario.

Thanks again, you’ve been really helpful and thorough with your responses!

 

[Matleo]

It depends... if you want to to learn old mechanics and strategies and try out old starters... or not.

 

[Nicolas721]

For the story? Waste of time imo. Since the Pokemon you capture don't affect the story at all, you can just watch the parts you like in gameplays of it.

For completing the Pokedex in those games? Useful tool for XYORAS, waste of time for everything else. XY & ORAS have around 400 Pokemon each that don't have convulted capture methods like waiting for a specific day of the week and scan 10 codes or landing on the right circle, and there are lots of Pokemon that to this day are exclusive to those games. But attempting to complete a Pokedex in earlier generations is tricky because of the shutdown of the wi-fi services.

For features and overall feeling? It depends, but I'd say yes. We can't have all remakes every generation so going back is the only way to visit the region and its features.

 

[Vaslekib]

I'd say that it's not exactly a waste of time, given that you're allowed to use Pokémon you'd never paid attention to and such -- and, in the particular case of the Hoenn region, I much prefer playing through the original games again rather than play their respective remakes.