Good things about your least favorite old gen

A counterpart to this thread. What are, in your opinion, some good things about your least favorite old generation game (gen 1-7)?

My least favorite generation is generation I for many reasons, but I have a good amount of things that I like about it. I enjoyed the lack of cutscenes and the freedom to travel most places. Other than the few trees that blocked your path before you got the HM for Cut, which was relatively early in the game, roadblocks such as the drun – err, I mean, coffee wanting guy in Viridian City, the closed road to Saffron City, and so on, you could travel pretty much anywhere you wanted, unlike the games of today, where you absolutely have to travel the way the story wants you to travel. The game also doesn't bombard you with long cutscenes and useless dialog that just drags the experience on. In addition, EV training was much easier back then and every stat could be maxed. EVs were given based upon the level of the Pokémon you defeated in those games.

Gen 4 introduced a lot of cool new Pokemon like Gastrodon or Phione, as well as some cool new evolutions like Mismagius and Gallade.

At this point I don't know which is my least favourite Generation between III, IV and VI, so I'll mention aspects of all of them:

Generation III:
-Introduced Abilities, Berries, Berry farming, Contests and the Battle Frontier (more on the last one below.)
-Mons like the Mudkip line, the Ralts line, the Zigzagoon line, the Poochyena line, the Nincada line, the Trapinch line, both Fossil lines, the Swablu line, Spheal and Sealeo, the Beldum line, Azurill, Wynaut, the Lati duo and Rayquaza.
-Champion Wallace. Enough said. Also Professor Birch, Tate and Liza, and in Emerald, Juan, Anabel and Noland.
-FireRed and LeafGreen, which were the very first remakes and which paved the way for subsequent remakes, for better or worse.
-On the topic of remakes and paving the way, FR/LG are the first games to hint that Silver is Giovanni's son, which is outright confirmed in HG/SS and explains a lot of his initial dickish behavior (and allows him to rise above it and become a better person, even moreso than in the original G/S/C.)
-The overworld sprites, particularly in FR/LG. Simple and charming, and unlike any other in the series.

Generation IV:
-Mons like Rotom, Weavile, Riolu and Lucario, Budew, Bonsly, Mime Jr. and Gallade.
-Human characters like Professor Rowan, Crasher Wake, Byron, Barry, Palmer, Darach and Caitlin, and Looker!
-The Battle Frontier, which to me is the definitive version over Hoenn's.
-The Sinnoh Underground! I wish that had returned outside of remakes.
-Making the existence of PLA possible, which in turn gave us Hisuian Typhlosion and the Hisuian Sneasel line - not to mention the ancestors of some present-day characters that are sometimes more interesting than their descendants, and a better, more human-like version of Ingo.
-HeartGold and SoulSilver, which are as much of a blessing as they are a curse.
-The Pokémon and Trainer sprites, which I consider the best in the series and still use as templates for sprite editing. Don't get me wrong, Gen V's are fine, but they're... not the same.

Generation VI:
-Mons like Fennekin and Braixen, the Froakie line, the Espurr line, the Honedge line, Pumpkaboo, Hawlucha, Carbink, Diancie, Zygarde and Volcanion.
-Some Mega Evolutions like Mega Charizard X, Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Diancie, Mega Rayquaza and Mega Houndoom. The rest kinda suck, though.
-Diantha was an okay Champion, and she thankfully cemented the returning trend of Champions not stalking the player character. (Unfortunately, this was in the same Generation in which the Hoenn games were remade and thus Steven returned. Grrrr.) AZ, Emma and the Battle Chatelaines were great too; I wish more time had been devoted to them instead of all the other characters.
-The PSS and Super Training which made getting into competitive a lot easier (at least until Sw/Sh were released.)
-Character customization! X/Y had the best options for this to date.
-POKÉMON AMIE! Without it, Pokémon Refresh and Pokémon Camp wouldn't have been possible and I wouldn't have gotten to play with my favourite Mons.
-OR/AS, which brought us redesigns for the Hoenn characters, made Archie my new favourite villainous Team leader, and gave us also new peeps like Lisia and Aarune.

Writing this made me realize that no Generation is bad per se, just a little unpolished compared to the others. (I hope I don't have to eat my words when Generation IX officially begins, though...)

For Generation 3:

• The VS Seeker. Improved on the rematch mechanic from Generation 2.
• Introduced weather.
• Introduced abilities. Added more depth to each Pokemon.
• Flygon, plus a few other good-looking ones like Manetric and Aggron.
• Secret Bases. Enjoyed carving out a base.

I guess with Gen 1, the series had to start somewhere or else we wouldn't have the rest of it so there's that?

The only thing from generation 1 that's still good about it are a bunch of the Pokemon that were introduced in it.
It would be a lengthy list so I'll just name some standouts: Eevee line, Lapras, Ninetales, Aerodactyl, Articuno, Dratini line, Starmie, Mew.

I preferred stat exp far more than EVs. I feel pretty vindicated in that Effort Levels are mechanically the same thing as stat exp.

Pokémon were a lot more powerful back then too, huh? Back then, you would max every single stat. To me, that was one of the highlights of the old school games.

Sweet Serenity said:

Pokémon were a lot more powerful back then too, huh? Back then, you would max every single stat. To me, that was one of the highlights of the old school games.

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True, but no one I know ever maxed-out the stat exp without a gameshark. Assuming you topped-off with vitamins beforehand (which could not raise stat exp above about 22k; a bit like grit dust in that regard), then it could take up to 24 hours worth of grinding just to max-out the stats of a single pokemon.

Gen 1:
No genders and breeding, no shinies, no trashing Pokémon because they had bad IVs or not the nature you wanted, etc.

It's my least favorite gen nowadays because of just how broken and messed up everything there was, but I do appreciate the simplicity in that there was no need to consider so many variables before catching a Pokémon, you could just go catch one and that's all.

Corveone said:

Gen 1:
no trashing Pokémon because they had bad IVs

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IVs were still a thing in generation I though. If you wanted the strongest possible Pokémon, players still would have had to release the ones with bad IVs. Even worse, because of the lack of a breeding system or way to check IVs with a judge function, you had to do complicated math to figure out if your Pokémon had good IVs and catch multiple Pokémon. Thankfully, breeding made it easier. However, I believe that most players simply hacked in perfect IVs with their Gameshark anyway.

Sweet Serenity said:

IVs were still a thing in generation I though.

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Didn't say they weren't. Just that there was no need to trash Pokémon based on that.

What did you need bothering with perfect stats in Gen 1 for?
In-game? Your Pokémon stats already scaled beyond broken between Stat Exp and Badge Boosts.
Battle facilities? didn't exist yet.
Competitive? well, only for people who took Gen 1's competitive seriously (if anyone actually did) would that have matter.

These days you catch a Pokémon and can easily tell if it's worth it or if it's better to keep catching more of it until you get the right one (natures, abilities, sometimes even gender...)

Corveone said:

Didn't say they weren't. Just that there was no need to trash Pokémon based on that.

What did you need bothering with perfect stats in Gen 1 for?
In-game? Your Pokémon stats already scaled beyond broken between Stat Exp and Badge Boosts.
Battle facilities? didn't exist yet.
Competitive? well, only for people who took Gen 1's competitive seriously (if anyone actually did) would that have matter.

These days you catch a Pokémon and can easily tell if it's worth it or if it's better to keep catching more of it until you get the right one (natures, abilities, sometimes even gender...)

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The first Pokémon championships took place in 2000. They were 3v3 Singles that were played in Pokémon Stadium. Competitive Pokémon was taken very seriously even back then. If you wanted to win, it was highly recommended to use Pokémon with the best IVs and EV train them.

Sweet Serenity said:

The first Pokémon championships took place in 2000. They were 3v3 Singles that were played in Pokémon Stadium. Competitive Pokémon was taken very seriously even back then.

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Well, congratulations to the people who could take the complete mess that was gen 1 very seriously. But for me and anyone else who didn't, there was no reason to ever think about IVs at all. In modern games sometimes there is, even if you don't care about battling other players, when doing certain challenges or wanting to take a shot at post-game battle facilities.

That's one of the aspects I liked in Legends Arceus. You want a Croagunk? well, you can literally catch the first Croagunk out there and start training it immediatly, no need to worry about IVs, or the mon not having the right Ability, and Nature Mints are available before post-game.

Corveone said:

Well, congratulations to the people who could take the complete mess that was gen 1 very seriously. But for me and anyone else who didn't, there was no reason to ever think about IVs at all. In modern games sometimes there is, even if you don't care about battling other players, when doing certain challenges or wanting to take a shot at post-game battle facilities.

That's one of the aspects I liked in Legends Arceus. You want a Croagunk? well, you can literally catch the first Croagunk out there and start training it immediatly, no need to worry about IVs, or the mon not having the right Ability, and Nature Mints are available before post-game.

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Yes, competitive players always took Pokémon very seriously, no matter the generation. While we definitely can consider it a complete mess now, back then, it was a great game for Pokémon fans. However, I would say that the vast majority of players played Pokémon casually during generation I. One can argue that Pokémon Stadium served as the "battle facilities" for the first generation. If you wanted to do your best in Pokémon Stadium and/or defeat your friends with relative ease, using Pokémon with great IVs was definitely the wise choice. Many players used Gameshark at the time to do it though. If not that, then people used the MissingNo glitch to clone Rare Candies and level up their Pokémon that way, but little did they know that doing that resulted in much weaker Pokémon.

You seem to like it when Pokémon is simple without the complicated numbers and RNG. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Gen I:
Well, the series had to start somewhere. But it shouldn't be praised as the best just because it was the original gen.

I suppose Generation Six finally made the jump to 3D. That's a start, isn't it?

Gen 3 made some of the best core mechanics in game by including Abilities, Natures, and fixing IVs so… that's pretty neat. Jirachi is great too.

Gen 6 had a few good things going with it:

- Mega Evolution (better than Z-Moves and Dynamaxing imo)
- Character Customisation for the first time in a main series game
- A female champion
- Some decent music (though every Pokémon game has this)
- An easier way to keep track of EVs rather than needing to use an EV Judge like in previous Gens