4th Gen Why was it so missed?

Everything about it. it was the pinnacle of not just the series as a whole, but of handheld RPGs imo.

I have a lot of reasons for why I think G/S/C is the greatest generation, along with Silver being the greatest Pokemon game:

First, it had so many awesome Pokemon. There's the Cyndaquil line, the Totodile line, Furret, Donphan, Ampharos, Scizor, Steelix, Tyranitar, Lugia, and so many more. It just goes on.

Second, it introduced the day/night system. A very cool and realistic feature, overall. Granted the DS has it now, but this was back in 1999, so the game was five years ahead of its time. Although we have yet to see the week system return.

Third, The Red Gyarados, and just shinies, overall. Now they're considered neat but nothing more. Back when this first became known it was a huge deal. Before G/S, nobody had even considered the idea of shiny Pokemon. When I went into the Lake of Rage and saw the Red Gyarados for the first time, I was incredibly amazed.

Fourth is the music. Normally I'm not a die-hard fan of the music in videogames. With G/S/C, however, that changed. All of the tracks were so amazing to hear the first time, the tenth time, or even the hundreth time. It's just that great.

Fifth would be the cities and towns. They're so diverse and cool. There's the small ones like Azelea and the big ones like Goldenrod. Olivine was the first to have a lighthouse, and Ecruteak showed off a ton of history of the Pokemon World. Each plasce has its own charm in a different way.

Sixth would be the caves. Granted, the caves in Kanto were really bad, but the ones in Johto were really good. Aside from Union Cave, they're all incredibly confusing. There's Dark Cave, Mt. Mortar, and the Whirl Islands. I'm really good with directions, but it's been almost 9 years since I got these games and I still have no clue where to go in them.

Seventh would be breeding. It gave the ability to pass down TMs as well as learn egg moves. In addition, it lets Pokemon pass down their IVs. If there was no breeding then it would be much more difficult to find Pokemon with good IVs today.

Eigth would have to be the inclusion of Kanto. Granted it was really watered down, but I doubt the designers wanted to do that. The problem was that the GBC had a limited amount of space. They barely managed to fit it in the games. Although I still don't get why the levels of all of the trainers' Pokemon were so low. Still, it's much more postgame content than what we got in R/G/B/Y in addition to R/S.

The last reason I have is the final battle inside of Mt. Silver. The character you battle is amazing and you never see it coming. Up until Platinum, he had the highest leveled Pokemon team of all time. Just an awesome ending to an awesome game.

For me it was several things. As many people have already said, having two regions was awesome, in several ways. First of all the it made the game a lot bigger, there were more things to explore and look around.
Secondly, it gave you a second quest to go through after you had defeated the Elite Four. After I defeated the Hoenn Elite Four in Generation 3, I felt like I was "done" with the game, in the sense that there was little more to do that involved the main story, or elements of it. The reason this was important for me is that defeating the Elite Four was sort of something that you were guided towards from the beginning with regards to the story, I mean you were led there with no option pretty much (Because otherwise there were areas you couldn't reach or critical items you couldn't access), sort of like a leaf flowing down a stream, it eventually gets to the other end. However with the Kanto gyms in G/S/C, as far as I remember, you could stay in Johto and just train Pokemon if that was your thing, I mean there was next to no area you couldn't get to since you had completed the story mode in that region. This creates more of a "sandbox" environment, sort of like in Grand Theft Auto 3 (Boy is that a weird-ass analogy) where, even though there's a story mode, you have a big "world" you can wander around in and do things that may or may not relate to the actual story of the game.

Also the new Pokemon added in Generation 2 were just great, I remember seeing Steelix for the first time and thinking something to the degree of "Darn that is bad-ass!". I can't remember looking at any of them and going "Really?", which I did for some of the Hoenn Pokemon, some of those really seemed strange and a bit "out of place" so to speak.

Like Shadow Lugia points out, the design of the towns and cities and the gameplay that that brought along with it, I think have yet to be matched, even by Diamond and Pearl from a purely gameplay perspective (If we look aside the obvious technical improvements), that's how I feel anyway.

I was reading some others threads yesterday where people was saying how they'd like GameFreak to make HeartGold and SoulSilver as close to the originals as possible, I take another stance, I think while they should remake the original stuff, I also would like them to build on top of that, I mean there's gonna be a couple of guys still working on the games who were around 10 years ago when Gold and Silver were in development who can remember what they weren't able to do back then and then do those things in HeartGold and SoulSilver. Like Shadow Lugia pointed out, Kanto was of course a bit watered down in G/S/C, which you might somewhat expect given that it wasn't the primary region just from an in-game perspective, but also, in the real world, because of technical limitations. Would be really nice to have that remedied and get to explore a fully fledged Kanto region in a DS game! :D

Gotta say it was the whole atmosphere it had. The autumny shades, the browns and greys, beautiful. I still feel the same feeling when I see the old screenshots of Elm's lab and picking a starter. It's a shame the new games cant retain this same atmosphere, but that's to be expected I don't think there's much they could do about it.

The starters were also awesome, no matter how many times I looked at them I was always amazed.

"Shadow Lugia" said:

Sixth would be the caves. Granted, the caves in Kanto were really bad, but the ones in Johto were really good. Aside from Union Cave, they're all incredibly confusing. There's Dark Cave, Mt. Mortar, and the Whirl Islands. I'm really good with directions, but it's been almost 9 years since I got these games and I still have no clue where to go in them.

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Hehe, I'm not so sure that I'd class "confusing" as "good", but each to their own, of course.

I have so many reasons that it would take a very long time to list them all in this thread, so I'll just list one.


PORYGON2

Well after FrLg it was the only region we didn't have access to in a modern game. It was also much longer story-wise than other games, because of the extra region. Johto also had one of the better stories imo, because it went more into the history of the current Pokemon world and how it was related to Kanto, and I'm hoping they develop that further with the new regions.

basically, nothing like it was done before...we went from "crappy" R/B/Y to OMGWTFBBQ!!!! day/night, week system, new poke types, etc...

and cuz revisiting kanto was awsm...seeing how the old gym leaders aged and what not and how things have gone in that part of the pokemon world...

also...Misty in a labcoat and bikini...my god... xD

So much nostalgia, where to begin....

1. It came out during the happy, carefree days of my early life.
2. Day and Night, Weekdays, all seemed so cool. I looked forward to the daily lottery, which I could care less for now.=P
3. The new Pokemon were cool, and it was nice to see all my old favorites from Red/Blue as well.
4. After staring at Red/Blue for so long, a new adventure with better graphics was welcome.=P

Ahh...I could go on forever...

The biggest thing is two regions if it wasnt for that gold silver and crystal would not of been everyones favorite

Silver was my first Pokemon game, so I automatically miss it for nostalgia's sake. Also, those games were filled with firsts - day/night, breeding, two regions, to name a few - that completely revolutionized all the future Pokemon games. I would say more, but it's late and I need sleep...

Yeah 2 regions(16 badges), not only the best music, but a radio to choices the music! crystal brought the girl opption plus moving sprites.
battleing ash and gary(red and blue)
pokegear!!
first game that was more then JUST the first 151.
unknown.
bug catching contest!:)
a revist to kanto, what i mean by that is it had changes, like it should with time.
kurt, with new pokeballs other then the basic ones.
inturducing baby forms and breeding and eggs.
mystery gift plus conection to the mini-pikachu games.
pokemon having sexes.
JUST GAH!!!
so much it was surly my favorite series.
and im SO stoked for HG/SS!!
:D

I don't really know what I liked about G/S/C. One thing I know I loved was the elemental punches as TMs.

GSC are only my third favorite gen (RBYFRLG was the best, followed by DPP. RSE just sucked.) I never especially missed it, and there isn't really any 'WOW!' bits to it, it'll just be neat to have another pokemon game to play.

~that computer cloning glitch was rather (useful) unforgettable
~the Bug hunt
~introduced shiny Pokemon & had at least one guaranteed shiny encounter
~Water Gun Phanpy
~caves that had some worth in exploring: Whirl Islands, Mt. Mortar
~return of Team Rocket
~Thunderpunch Typhlosion
~Thunderpunch, Ice Punch, Fire Punch as TM's
~two regions
~brown Sneasel???
~Scizor *slurp*
~Apricorn Balls are funny things...
~a rival "well" deserved

Adding to my long explanation that I posted earlier:

The old game was great and all, but I'd like to see all the new things Johto has to offer. I'd like to see how Johto (and Kanto) has changed over the years. I want to see what will return and what won't. That's why I'm going to play as the new girl. It would feel like a new game if I do. I would like to have a fresh start in Johto, correct my mistakes, enjoy a new plot, see how everything has changed, see if any places were extended, see what's new in Cianwood and go to the National park to participate in Bug Catching contests, use a new party having better knowledge, explore old cities with a new feel to it, listen to the old melodies in a new way, have the volume on high every time I play, play the new mini games, use my favorite Pokemon, all in all enjoy this game like it was meant to be enjoyed in the first place.

Thinking about G/S/C makes me wanna cry a bit...
My first 'real' game was Silver/Gold.
Yes, I had red, when I was 5. And my mother found that one the ground at her work(how lucky was I?)
But dear god, I remember my birthday, it was right before G/S released, I was in tears cause I didn't actually get anything for it. But then I came back from my dads that week and there was Gold and Silver wrapped in wrapping paper sitting on my bed.
It was truely the happiest moment of my life I think, and then playing them.
Dark was introduced, those we're my favorites of ALL time! Umbreon and Houndoom <3
And Silver, my god for a little pixel image I thought he was the cutest guy on the planet lol. It makes me smile to think back and realize at the time I thought I was the luckiest girl ever to have this little pixel character all to myself(well, my game of course)
then the legendary dogs. I've never been a fan of birds, so this stoked me like no other. I HAD to have them!
and all the music <3 I don't listen to game music unless I'm playing my Gold version.
And then Crystal came out.
And after I finished it, I went back to playing silver, over and over again.
I guess that's why only my gold version works anymore.
those are my reasons for the moist part =3

i have to say, the main thing for me was the fact there was two regions, apart from that it was how koga was now in the elite four, the music, the storyline rocked so hard bruno himself was jealous, just simple things like red gyarados and the fact you could still challenge gyms in kanto. And the day and night thing was epic, i think im actually gonna go find silver now and start replaying it- seeing as im stuck on emerald

Monsieur Pickley said:

~that computer cloning glitch was rather (useful) unforgettable
~the Bug hunt
~introduced shiny Pokemon & had at least one guaranteed shiny encounter
~Water Gun Phanpy
~caves that had some worth in exploring: Whirl Islands, Mt. Mortar
~return of Team Rocket
~Thunderpunch Typhlosion
~Thunderpunch, Ice Punch, Fire Punch as TM's
~two regions
~brown Sneasel???
~Scizor *slurp*
~Apricorn Balls are funny things...
~a rival "well" deserved

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Sneasel's sprite will most likely be updated to match its fourth gen look (think no-longer-black Jynx). Also the easy cloning glitch will probably be fixed. :/ Shiny Gyarados should be cool... Of course, we'll all be sick of seeing them within two weeks of the release date. I have a question about that though: in the second gen, whether a pokemon was shiny or not was determined by its IVs. Does this mean all the Gyaradoses will have the same IVs?