2nd Gen Not Every Generation is Perfect!

Sun · Oct 30, 2015

Box art for Gen I games (US versions)

Box art for Gen II games (US versions)

Box art for Gen II and Gen I third version games (US versions)

*Please note that we are following the US versions and US definitions in this thread. However, you are welcome to discuss about the original Japanese versions, as well as the other international versions too.

Without further ado, tell us the stuff that disappointed you the most. The introduction of Dark and Steel-type? Special stat's split? Psychic-types dominating the battle scene (closely followed by the Ice-type)? The glitches? The plot? The designs of Pokemon? The lack of Dragon and Ghost-types? The sprites?

Disclaimer: The thread is not made to instigate flamewars nor creating hate for these generations. As the title suggests, not every generation is perfect, so feel free to share us your experience. Healthy debates and positive discussions are encouraged.

Minun172 · Oct 31, 2015

I'm just gonna step up here and say.......

WHY IS YOUR RIVAL SUCH A BUTT?

(And Pokemon Yellow is one of the reasons I dislike Pikachu. Pikachu out of all things...)

Limey-chan · Oct 31, 2015

Gen I:
Typing. How prominent the Poison-type was, a lot of Pokemon seemed to have really needless secondary types (I was never a fan of the Bulbasaur family being part-Poison, pretty much every Flying type being part-Normal, the Ghastly family being part-poison and so on), and the woefully underappreciated Dragon type. Psychic being as OP as it was.

Gen II:
How difficult it was to obtain evolutionary stones.
How underwhelming it was exploring Kanto, there was so little to do, and everything felt stunted (I know, I know, technological restrictions etc).

NotThatOneAgain · Nov 13, 2015

There were no "technological restriction" for creating the Kanto region in GSC. They actually doubled the space in the cartridge to make room for a new region. However, they were unable to finish it in time. If you look at the code, you can tell that there are at least 6 empty rombanks to cram in new stuff, sufficient room to fill up Kanto AND create a new region.

Time constraints is always the developers biggest enemy when it comes down to finishing a game.

NotThatOneAgain · Nov 13, 2015

EDIT: Double post.

Witchcraft · Nov 13, 2015

My biggest peeves of these earlier generations are simply what they lacked. Moves, abilities, hold items, etc.,

Having to go into my inventory to use the bike each time was quite irritating in gen 1.

Gen 2 created the Dark typing and then made all Dark type Pokemon relatively unavailable. It took quite a long time to evolve Eevee into Umbreon, Houndour and Murkrow were not obtainable pre-E4, and Sneasel was only available pre-E4 in Crystal where it was a very rare encounter in the Ice Path, which is pretty late on in your journey.

ProfChaos · Nov 13, 2015

Gen 1: MissingNo. was all fun n' games until it started wreaking havoc on my save files.
-Hated the existence of trade only evolutions. I wanted a golem really bad but no friends or second GB/game.
-Flash

Gen 2: Didn't like a bulk of the roster, particularly the prevolutions.
-Johto was a bit short and the pacing was too fast.
-Kanto was basically just a battle tower spread out across the Kanto map.

Cerberus87 · Nov 16, 2015

Sun said:
Psychic-types dominating the battle scene (closely followed by the Ice-type)?

This was definitely very annoying.

BTW Ice never dominated anything, it did have better offensive performance with 90% accurate Blizzard, but all Ice-types in RBY are dual-type and useful because of combination with the other type rather than being Ice-type themselves.

Besides, a big reason of why Ice was strong in RBY was that the types that were powerful against it were all weak offensively, and most Ice-types were mixed with Water which cancelled their ineffectiveness against Fire and Rock. And Ice was neutral against Fire in RBY which never made any sense.

Ice was nerfed in GSC but what hit it worst wasn't the revised type chart but the Special split. Articuno lost attacking power while Jynx and Cloyster became much flimsier. Fighting-type also became more effective against it with Machamp getting new moves and the Hitmons having improved Special Defense. Certain Rock-types not weak to Ice also got Rock moves to counter Ice-types.

Sun said:
The lack of Dragon and Ghost-types?

This never bothered me because, while you do have only one option for each type, they're among the most powerful Pokémon in the game so it doesn't make much difference.

Sun said:
The sprites?

Probably the worst thing, which was fixed in Yellow (and Crystal for 2nd gen Pokémon).

SaniOKh · Nov 16, 2015

So... what didn't I like in Gen 1... a lot of things.

The bag is horrible.
Obviously, the Psychic type being the strongest, along with Poison type being ubiquitous. Also, I never understood why the developers felt the need to (almost) always associate Poison with Grass and Bug.
Dragon and Ghost types being... just there, associated with one family each, and not particularly interesting.
Some moves being just plain unfair. Wrap, Bind and everything not letting a Pokémon attack at all, the Pokémon can't attack when they wake up, so a fast opponent can just put them to sleep right away, and Pokémon are not able to thaw out at all when they're frozen.
Legendaries not being catchable at all unless they are poisoned, asleep etc.
Some will find this blasphemous, but... the Pokémon themselves. Really, any time anyone says Pokémon creators have run out of ideas, I just want to point them to the original roster. This one has it all: Pokémon based on inanimate objects (magnets, eggs) , Pokémon that are unsettlingly humanoid (the Machop line, Jynx) , one-off Pokémon that have nothing to offer (Onix, Farfetch'd, Tangela...) and copy-pasted evolutionary lines (Nidorans). This generation also adds two more sins of unoriginality to the list, that thankfully have been dealt with and have never reappeared since: Pokémon named with regular words (Golem, Electrode, Ditto, the Abra line) , and evolutions where instead of actually changing, a Pokémon gets a posse instead (Magneton, Dugtrio, Weezing is a borderline case) . Frankly, I much prefer the Gen 5 roster over this one.

OK, so what didn't I like in Gen 2... there are fewer things, but there are still things to say.

I don't dislike Gen 2 Pokémon as much as I do Gen 1 ones, but I have to agree that there are many one-off Pokémon who aren't that interesting. Qwilfish, Corsola and Stantler come to mind.
The special Pokéballs made by Kurt are not that useful, and glitches don't help: Moon Balls have no additional effects compared to regular Poké Balls, and Love Balls actually do the opposite of what they are supposed to do.
The cellphone... it is impossible to ignore, unlike in HG/SS. I already hate being interrupted by phone calls in real life, thank you very much, I don't need this in my games.
I know that this is also the case in Gen 1 with Cut, Strength and Flash, but I find it more egregious in this generation: there are three HMs of the same type (Surf, Whirlpool and Waterfall) . If you want to spread your HMs between Pokémon in your team, as I usually do, the resident Water-type Pokémon then becomes a de-facto HM slave.
It is a shame that one of the more interesting Gen 2 Pokémon in my opinion, Houndour, can only be found post-game.
Roaming legendaries... just... why?!

NotThatOneAgain said:
There were no "technological restriction" for creating the Kanto region in GSC. They actually doubled the space in the cartridge to make room for a new region. However, they were unable to finish it in time. If you look at the code, you can tell that there are at least 6 empty rombanks to cram in new stuff, sufficient room to fill up Kanto AND create a new region.

Time constraints is always the developers biggest enemy when it comes down to finishing a game.

Actually, not exactly. The game wasn't developed with the idea of a 2MB cartridge in mind, in fact, if you look at Japanese ROMs, they are still 1 MB in size, just like Pokémon Yellow. It's the translated versions that are 2 MB in size... for whatever reason.

GiovanniViridian · Nov 17, 2015

Here's my thoughts based on playing them and at the same time trying to get the maximum number of Pokemon caught in these games without trading. I think I may have missed some parts so I'll probably add in in later posts here:

Gen 1:
- The limits of the item storage. There are at some points I'm forced to sell my items due to even my PC item storage is full.
- The trapping moves such as Wrap. Enough said.

Gen 2:
I loved Gen 2 a lot, don't get me wrong, but personally for me for almost new feature they introduced, there's problems with them: (I can't believe this list is really long, considering that I actually love Gen 2 and how it's 5 times better than the previous gen in terms of gameplay, still I'm glad that most to all of them are solved in HG/SS)

Spoiler:

Hiidoran · Dec 3, 2015

No game is perfect, even through a nostalgia-colored lens.

Although I didn't notice it much back in the day, I get bugged by things like lack of the physical/special split, lack of space in the bag, the HORRIBLE way the English language looks fitting in those boxes not designed for it. Don't get me started on "Pkmn Trainer," and the fact that they kept it for so long...

But, honestly? I could forgive all that, as long as I never again have to battle Sabrina and her never-ending loop of Alakazam using recovery. But that's just my problem.

dinodude65 · Dec 3, 2015

The weird and absurd designs. This is a consistent problem throughout the franchise; people constantly bash the fourth and fifth generation for the stupid designs. Trubbish, the chandelier one, Vanilluxe. All that jazz.

But the first and second generation are no exceptions. Jynx is my favorite to pick on. What the hell is Jynx? Mr. Mime? He's a mime! WHAT?! Grimer and Muk are literally just sludge that has somehow become sentient. Magmar seems like a cool elemental type, but he looks like a duck for some reason. I think Mr. Mime, Jynx, and Magmar are somewhat unnecessary as they're types extremes when there's already Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres as the legendaries. Sudowoodo also confuses me. He's a tree, I think, but he's a rock type.

The pre-evolutions and Unown are stupid, in my opinion. If you want a baby Pikachu, then have a baby Pikachu. Unown are letters. That's just lazy, I think.

2nd Gen Not Every Generation is Perfect!

More options

Sun

When the sun goes down...

Minun172

Still waiting for a new Mega Man game.

Limey-chan

Batzu

NotThatOneAgain

NotThatOneAgain

Witchcraft

ProfChaos

Cerberus87

Mega Houndoom, baby!

SaniOKh

Too old for this stuff

GiovanniViridian

A World Of Pain!

Hiidoran

[B]ohey[/B]

dinodude65