802+ Pokemon Retrospective - Gen 4 (Part 1)

This counts as my christmas present to all of you.

Rating scale:

Excellent (9-10 stars - is a 10/10 rating)
Good (7-8 stars)
Servicable (5-6 stars)
Not A Fan (3-4 stars)
Hate (1-2 stars - don't worry about this one. I actually don't hate that many Pokemon.)

[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Sinnoh (#387-#434)[/FONT][FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
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[Theme for this part: Solaceon Town]

Games: Diamond, Pearl, Platinum (September 28th, 2006 / September 13th, 2008)

Generation 4 brings so many new things to the table that it's practically ludicrous. The jump to the DS not only planted the 3D roots for the main series (Colosseum aside, as I consider those spinoffs), but also included a ton of main-stays like the Choice Items, Life Orbs, and the infamous GTS.

However, the most important feature they introduced was the Physical/Special split. Essentially, this means that moves are physical or special on their own merit instead of the type they were attached to. This gave a ton of Pokemon a fresh new start as they can properly utilize their movesets without being held back by an archaic elemental system. (Weavile is the greatest example of this)

When it comes to the actual games, though? Sinnoh as a region had a very distinctive and classy jazz soundtrack that drives me nuts every time I hear it. It's that good. Some of the music in here might even completely beat out Hoenn's soundtrack! It helps that the places the songs were attached to were pretty cool, like the Galactic Headquarters, Jubilife City and so on.

Team Galactic may not be on the same level as some of the later villains, but they're still hardcore. These Zeerust spaceman-looking motherfuckers used an actual goddamn terrorist bomb to drain one of the lakes, and that's not even getting into the... things they were doing to the Lake Trio. Cyrus is also one of the most imposing villains in the series due to how cold and emotionless he was.

I'll admit, the only thing stopping me from going back and playing through the games again is one major issue - the pacing. I don't remember how the actual story progression goes, but when it comes to fights? It moves at a snail's pace. It really takes me out of it, and that's a shame because I would adore Gen 4 otherwise.

The theme for Sinnoh's mons are ~spaaaace~ and myths. Let's see, we have the masters of time, space and antimatter, the representations of both sides of the moon, GOD, and other mythical creatures like Spiritomb.

This is also the generation that's full of evolutions to old Pokemon - like it's practically a big fat love letter to them. You could chalk it up to "relationships" again.