come up with six criticisms against your favourite pokemon games

do you think it'll be harder this time??

also I said six just for the sake of difficulty so have fun with this one

Ah-hahahaha. This topic was made for me.

I'm assuming you mean core titles, so for me that's Gen IV. And awaaaaay we go!

1. They recycle the narrative from Gen III. Like every other damn game after Gen III. This narrative wasn't particularly brilliant the first time around, and it's not great in this either.
2. The lack of fire-types in Diamond/Pearl mean you either pick Chimchar or you go without for 90% of the game and that's bloody annoying...and Chimchar is the worst Gen IV starter because it's a monkey. Great game design, guys.
3. Gen IV introduced Lucario. The worst Pokemon. Yes, this is a criticism.
4. Super Contests are just as bad, if not worse, than the Contests in Gen III. Come on guys, it was a bad concept the first time around! Put some effort into your rubbish distraction minigames!
5. Cynthia's sole defining characteristic is that she's the first female Champion, she has absolutely no personality whatsoever. Her role is basically Lance's role in Gold/Silver. She's often hyped up as being a progressive step forward and for being one of the more difficult champions, and a great character design, but despite this she's little better than a cardboard cut-out in terms of her character. Like every other NPC in Pokemon games.
6. The Distortion World was bad. It was basically a route with absolutely nothing to interact with and a boss fight at the end.

mmmm my favourites are a tie between Gen 3 and 4. I'll do both because why not:

R/S/E:

• Ruby/Sapphire had a ridiculously barebones post-game
• Brendan/May's designs are a bit plain and I'm not a fan of it
• The Elite Four is probably the crappiest these games iirc what with having duplicate 'mons
• I feel like a lot of the soundtracks are forgettable in RSE aside from Surfing and the E4 battles, probably. I think the Champion one is also a bit lackluster
• PELIPPER. AND TENTACOOL. EVERYWHERE YOU SURF
• going for a cop-out answer here and say that EV training is a massive pain in the ass in these games so it's not really worth it

D/P/Pt:

• Diamond/Pearl's surfing was just godawful. It was fixed in Platinum of course, but still
• E4 was just as forgettable as RSE's
• The Underground being local wifi only was bad because it limited how much fun you could have digging with friends if you didnt have many IRL
• Did anyone really use the Wi-Fi Plaza? Kinda forgot it was a thing, actually.
• Barry can be kinda annoying, tbh.
• Barely any fire types.

ok ngl this took me a while lmao

FR/LG (no particular order):

1. Union Cave was left in game unused in regions outside Japan with only zubats
2. Broken IVs with the 3 legendary dogs
3. No trainer ID lottery provided
4. More could have been done with Trainer Tower
5. Neither Espeon nor Umbreon can be obtained due to no time-event mechanics (even though it is always day)
6. The unowns' various ruins led a very anti-climatic end as was found in gen 2 (no purpose)
7. The wireless communication had unnecessary restrictions on Pokemon allowed to participate

You underestimate my pessimism. :P

HG/SS:

1. Gen 4 takes ages to reduce HP after an attack. I didn't actually notice this until it was pointed out to me, now I can't help but notice whenever I revisit these games.
2. There's too much content locked behind events. Really would've loved to have experience the Celebi or Arceus events for myself rather than jealously watching them on youtube lol.
3. The Johto Gym leaders should've had tougher and more unique parties. For example give Falkner a Noctowl, Bugsy a Ledian and Ariados, Jasmine a Scizor and Skarmory on top of the Pokemon they already had. They certainly beefed up the Gym Leader's parties when rematching them post-game but their initial battles were still too easy, that was one of my complaints with the originals too. I'm aware that some of the Elite Four had the Pokemon I suggested but they could've changed their teams around a bit too.
5. Competitive breeding, while still easier than in gen 3 and 2 thanks to certain items, is still way too tedious and time consuming. If you plan on taking on the Battle Frontier you need to dabble in this at least a bit so I wish they didn't wait until gen 6 to streamline the process.
6. Needing Rock Climb to reach the top of Mt. Silver and battle Red. Nobody likes using HM slaves and needing one just to reach the endgame is such a waste of a slot. You don't even need to use flash in G/S/C if you used a guide like this (https://hieroxiv.livejournal.com/7831.html) which shows you how many steps you need to take and in what direction. It's not as difficult as it might look on paper.

Some additional minor nitpicks:

You can't rematch the trainers on the S.S. Anne which makes the option to board it again pointless when you can just fly around the map. The S.S. Anne was my favorite way to level up my weaker Pokemon post-game in the originals while earning a bit of money.

The Pokemon follow feature, while very cool, should have an option to be turned on and off whenever the player wants. Some of the sprites haven't aged well so I don't always feel like looking at my lead Pokemon.

I think they could've created a better version of Cinnibar Island. Yeah it was destroyed but they had the technology to show the wreckage and debris this time around which wasn't an option for the originals due to hardware limitations. Also if there's a functioning Pokemon Center there then there's no in-game reason why they couldn't rebuild some of the other buildings. Maybe just have the Mansion and Gym destroyed.

Lyra is a poor woman's Kris. This is entirely personal preference but I'm sure most of us can agree that Kris's blue hair helped her standout. Lyra has the most bland design of all female MC's, possibly all Pokemon MC's period.

gen 5

1 da geer pokemumz

2 weather trio

3 victinis pokedex placement

4 keldio and landuruses dex placement not being with there bros

5 no way to get the original dragon

6 no mons from other gens until the seequils

Emerald:

1. Brendan/May were not improved upon from the previous games. An extra battle towards the end of the game wasn't really enough to satisfy me.

2. Match Call is really annoying, since there's no way to ignore calls. I didn't really find the match call feature an addition that was needed. Gym Leader rematches could have been handled the same way as "Trainer Eyes" was, and it would have been fine.

3. You still can't really catch any Pokemon outside of the Hoenn Pokedex without having to trade with ALL the Generation III games in the series, so "catching them all" was literally impossible. Especially if you don't have a Game Boy Advance, which I don't, so trading is impossible. The extension in the Safari Zone really isn't enough of an addon.

4. Apart from battling both team Aqua & Magma, the in game story really isn't that much different from the original games: just an amalgamation of both Ruby & Sapphire. (Which I don't really mind, of course, but still.)

5. The Battle Frontier does NOT level scale your Pokemon to 50 if they're over level 50. They are, instead, banned from participating in the level 50 course. This is really annoying because certain Pokemon like Dragonite will never be able to participate in the level 50 Battle Frontier courses. I personally don't like Open Level, and prefer level 50, so this will always be the biggest let-down. You'd think that they'd fix this in Emerald, since Ruby/Sapphire had this problem also, but they didn't.

6. There isn't enough Pokemon diversity in routes. Most routes don't really have that many Pokemon on them, and it really shows.

Crystal:

1. The level curve is notoriously awful.
2. The TM distribution is pretty bad.
3. Crobat, Nidoking, and Nidoqueen cannot learn Sludge Bomb.
4. Many new Pokemon are not available until Kanto.
5. Falkner is incredibly underwhelming, even for a first gym leader.
6. Morty's gym only uses one line of Pokemon despite this gen introducing an entirely new Ghost in Misdreavus.

Hoen Games (Gen3)
◊ Battle Factory/Facility is fine, but the capping isnt
◊ May/Brandon is not close enough to be rivals, however they did well with Wally which is pleasing
◊ There some pokemon you cant get expect by trading which is big problem if you are the only one with game.
◊ You surf: Pelipper and Tentcool/Tentcruel says hi.

Gen6
◊ EXP Share or not, the gym leaders and elite four/diatha are a cakewalk.. literally whooped them... Other trainers are a challenge
◊ The story is no good either

so my favorites are emerald and crystal. i'll lump in RS and GS for them as well since compared to later deluxe editions, there aren't many differences here. let's...see how this goes lol.

RSE:
- i actually never realized this because i so often start with torchic, but if you don't go that route and want a fire type, there's a pretty big lack of interesting fire types, unless you like torkoal and the slugma and numel lines. they're a little eh to me.
- the gym puzzles are some of the most annoying in the series, especially winona's, flannery's, and tate & liza's.
- the blaring trumpet music does actually get grating.
- these are the only games you can actually miss the master ball and i think that's kinda shitty.
- some of the sprite work on the pokemon is ugly + the emerald "animations" are lackluster.
- wild pokemon distribution is not great. you don't get a lot of diversity in the routes, especially on the water.

GSC:
- introduced a bunch of new pokemon only to have them available in the post-game in kanto. i get that it was probably done that way so you didn't find ALL of the new pokemon before post-game and already see all gen II had to offer in the first half of the game, but still. i want houndour NOW, dammit.
- that level curve.
- the TMs are fucking weird and lame sometimes. and then some pokemon you THINK should learn a certain move can't and it's like why am i even using you.
- i actually think the kanto post-game is really lame. kanto is so lackluster and bland that i would have preferred a more fleshed out johto than even attempting to put kanto into the game.
- i love the apricorn balls for design, but they're fundamentally some of the worst in the series aside from the heavy ball. they're too situational and those situations just aren't viable enough to bother keeping any of these kinds of balls in stock, especially this generation where the ball type doesn't matter.

Pokémon Emerald:

1. Adding the Mirage Tower in the desert added nothing to the game, besides making it unnecessarily harder to obtain a fossil for Anorith or Lileep.
2. Not being able to have both the Mach Bike and Acro Bike at the same time in rather inconvenient, escpecially in the Safari Zone.
3. Rayquaza being Level 70 and not Level 47 can make it impossible to catch without a Master Ball.
4. Not being able to see what route Latios/Latias are on until you've seen it at least once makes catching them a tedious process.
5. Steven was a much better champion than Wallace. Why have a water specialist as Champion when you still have a water specialist as the 8th Gym leader? Too much water.
6. The Battle Tent wasn't really that interesting.

hey i love BW too so i'm gonna do it for this one too.

- while the 'only new pokemon are available' thing might have been cool at the time of release, it did not age well with these games. and even when this was new, it's still a little annoying when you consider that we're five generations in at that point. there's no excuse to exclude so many pokemon from being available until post game or far later into the game. gen II and III, for example, are earlier generations and can get a little more leeway with it bc it's not like there were 500+ pokemon at that point like there were in gen V. it just seems like a kick in the face at that point. i love gen V pokemon tho, but you want a new region to have more variation than the first generation of pokemon, you know? and no one come at me like OH AL IT'S THE REBOOT OF THE SERIES i get that but it wasn't a good move and they obviously learned that lesson.
- unpopular opinion alert i don't like the low health music, especially in gym leader or elite four battles where the music is an absolute banger and this shit kicks in like no go away i wanna hear the BETTER song.
- that beginning of the game is atrocious and having to get the dream mist and shit before i can trade is so annoying like i get why it's like that so you can't trade something in and blow through the first gym (they REALLY want you to use those monkeys jfc) but it's no excuse for the long ass tutorial and handholding at the beginning, but it's forgivable when compared to the generations to come after i guess.
- post game boring as hell, don't really care for black city or white tree hollow w/e they were called no one tell me idc cause i ain't like them
- not a fan of how they changed the exp distribution this time around. i know you can audino grind for exp but that results in your pokemon getting a bunch of evs for uhhh whatever audino gives (probably HP) and like i get that it's just in-game so it's not like evs are THAT important but it still kind of skews you in the wrong directions at times.
- has NOTHING to do with the game but i once saw zebstrika naughty pics and i to this day have not gotten over it

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Explorers of Sky:

• Because these games iirc came out before Platinum did, it uses D/P's learnsets. This is unfortunate for some Pokemon like Ninetales who could use Heat Wave but don't learn it nor Energy Ball which is silly imo
• Extremely tedious to level up in these games. Sometimes it feels like you get diminishing returns in EXP so you have to spend hours to make any sort of progress in comparison to the main games where it feels like you're making progress much quicker.
• Organizing a proper team for an expedition can be overwhelming sometimes with the amount of Pokemon you recruit. Personally, I feel bad for the Pokemon that I recruited but never used simply because I'm too content with my current team, already. This could possibly just be a me problem, though.
• No Move Tutors in the fashion of Platinum since these games were released before Platinum, which is a shame.
• I could be wrong about this, but it almost seems like there isn't a whole lot of point in evolving much beyond aesthetics (and maybe ability). It could be that evolution raises your stats but not by too much of a noticeable amount, but personally I'd much rather have evolution have a much more significant impact given how much players had to go through to get to that point.
• Minor nitpick because I can't think of anything else: sometimes right after you start in a dungeon, the game drops you in the middle of a Monster House which is annoying.

XY

1) These games feel like a demo for true Pokémon game. It feels like GF was testing if 3DS can take this. This is probably only time when 3rd version would be justified.
2) The trend of handholding starts with these games.
3) One-dimensional boring characters. You get bunch of rivals, but none of them stands out and don't even use somewhat competent teams.
4) Gym Leaders are lackluster and easy. They don't have any impact on the main or any side story. And they have pretty weak teams.
5) Opponent's movesets are horrible. I mean there is Hawlucha in Reflection Cave that knows Rock Slide and can be really hard to beat... And then you get to the Shalour Gym and Korrina's Hawlucha doesn't know any coverage move. And I'm not even talking about the fact, that most Pokémon don't even have 4 moves at all.
6) Mega Evolution - the gimmick of this generation, is really underused and locked mostly to the post-game. I wish Gym Leaders would use Mega Pokémon on their teams.

Yellow: Must admit this was harder than you think it was lmao.

1) No rematch function for Gym Leaders and other trainers. Granted its Generation 1 but fighting E4 over and over doesn't bode well when grinding to 100.
2) Type Chart totally bonkers. Suppose its the upside or downfall of Generation 1 where Psychic Types dominated.
3) No Magmar for Blaine. Considering Yellow had heavy influence from the Anime(Lt.Surge with just a Raichu, Erika with a Gloom as her ace, etc. You'd think Blaine would have Magmar as his ace along with a Rhydon added to his team to give him a team of 5 as opposed to just 3).
4) Sabrina having more than just the Abra line. There were more Psychic Types in Kanto and she has just Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam(with the latter two posing any real threat since Abra knows Flash and Teleport. Totally makes her a cakewalk if you use Double Team or other buffing moves along with some X-Accuracy to remove Flash debuffs). Would have loved to see her with Mr.Mime or Exeggutor(with 580 BST... that's nuts).
5) Blue not teaching Surf to his Cloyster. Its a Water/Ice Type, not purely an Ice Type. I mean it has Clamp but that's nothing to a 135 power move when STAB is factored in. He teaches Hydro Pump to Vaporeon but that's not as reliable even if its 165 power with STAB.
6) Catching anything but Squirtle, Magikarp(via Salesmen or Old Rod) or Lapras for Water Types is pretty much locked until you get a Super Rod. Makes dealing with Sandshrew or other Ground Types a pain unless you have a Grass Type or something strong that overwhelms them.
7: No Breeding. Breeding in early generations is a pain but I always wished I could breed Eevee at least twice to obtain the Eevolutions without having to resort to the Ditto Glitch.
8: Bug Types flat out suck(see #2)
9: Ghost Types flat out suck with respect to Ghost moves(see #2 as well)
10: Dragonite is the strongest Pokemon outside of Mew or Mewtwo but can't Fly or use strong Dragon moves.
11: Evolving Pikachu(I know its based on the Anime... but ffs let me evolve the freaking thing without having to trade it first).