Great to see some new members! Hope you'll both have fun and stay active! :)
Which of the gym leaders introduced in Johto were your favorites and why?
Probably Clair. Dragon is one of my favorite types, and she could be a pretty tough leader if you didn't have an ice or dragon type.
I can definitely agree with you on Clair being tough. One repeating scenario I can recall, was always panicking once I reached Clair's gym. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, throughout nearly all the time that I still owned my Silver version, I had no idea which types Dragon was weak to, so getting through that gym was hell (well depicted with all the lava ;)). That said, I really enjoyed the gym and its puzzles though. I felt like it really executed the "push boulders around to clear the path forward" type of puzzle really well, and was pretty much on par with the one on Seafoam Islands. However, since we'd just done something similar in the Ice Path or w/e it was called leading up to Blackthorne, I felt as though they were getting kinda unoriginal :p But in any case, Clair always served as quite a bit of a challenge, since I had literally nothing that was super effective against her Pokemon, so I guess that's one thing that leaves some memories, even if they were some filled with frustration :) I wouldn't really put her at the top though, since I honestly never really liked her all that much, but I can definitely agree with you on the challenge she provides :p
When did you start loving Johto?
I've always loved Johto. The main reason for the games, where you start off in Johto and continue off to another region(Kanto). This is one of the reasons why I think it tops all regions right now with the extension to another region. The newest 4 doesn't have that love like that ;) Another thing was, when I first saw Lugia, I actually fell in love with it. And I actually thought Celebi was a lot cuter than Mew at the time. I would like to point out that Pokemon Stadium 2 was also one of my most played games in my childhood. It was really fun with just 250 Pokemon to play around with!
Lugia for the win brah! The fact that Kanto was included in the games as well was definitely one of the selling points for me, but I honestly prefer Johto quite a bit over Kanto region-wise. I don't quite know why, but the layout of the region always appealed much more to me. Perhaps because it was much less connected than Kanto was, and thus felt a bit bigger and more diverse, while still being easy to get through and around, and how it incorporated different biomes, which I only feel like was ever really topped by Sinnoh. And it never really felt like they went overboard with anything, like how half of Hoenn was ocean (even though it played well in with the story :p), and how there were so many bridges in Unova. I know they were there to make the games more visually appealing, but I feel like Pokemon games are better off making their visual wonders a bit more subtle, since the visual effects have just never really been one of the things I've really bought Pokemon for, and having to run across all of those bridges just felt kinda pointless :( But yeah, Johto just felt perfect, although I may just be a teeny bit biased in that respect :p
Which of the gym leaders introduced in Johto were your favorites and why?
I actually answered the exact same question in a thread in the Metal/Colour forum not too long ago, so I reckon I might just be parroting a lot from that. But it's basically this; while I would love to just be biased and pick Falkner because BIIIIIRDDSSS, Falkner just never really appealed to me as a character. And well, I know there isn't much character to most people in the earlier games, so it's kinda hard to really pick a favourite if that's what you're going by, but even in the anime he didn't stand out much. The one who actually stood out to me the most when it comes to character in the anime, was Pryce. I don't know why, but for some reason I pictured him to be someone who cared a lot about his Pokemon (even though his original sprite just makes him seem like an grumpy old man), but when his character in the anime was first presented, he downright hated Pokemon iirc, and only wanted to use them for battle. Turns out the reason for that was because his first Pokemon, Piloswine, had disappeared while he was a kid, and he though it'd abandoned him, and thus gained that attitude towards Pokemon. But somehow Ash and friends found the Piloswine frozen in a cave somewhere, which completely changed Pryce's view on Pokemon, once he realised that his Piloswine hadn't abandoned him, and he started being more loving towards them, and basically the person I first imagined him to be. And I felt like that added so much more depth than any other non-main character gym leader we'd seen up to that point, and well. It just made me really like him :p However, for some reason old characters in anything like games or animes often turn out to be my favourites, so perhaps I'm just biased in some way?? But yeah, definitely Pryce :D
