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2nd Gen Could Gen 2 have the best games?

BettyNewbie said:
In other words, you like a more linear game that goes by quickly and doesn't feature a whole lot of exploration. Well, I can see why Gen 2 wasn't to your taste, then. (Seems like Gens 5 and 6 would be more up your alley.) Different strokes.
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No that's not at all what I like. I enjoy lots of exploration and a lot of time in a game. Gen 5 is my least favorite gen. I love how much there is to do in generation II there just is little flow to the game.
 
Virgo said:
No that's not at all what I like. I enjoy lots of exploration and a lot of time in a game. Gen 5 is my least favorite gen. I love how much there is to do in generation II there just is little flow to the game.
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Well, that's how I interpreted this complaint: "You can basically start going anywhere you like." What is your favorite Generation, then?
 
Not exactly, because while the mechanics have improved over Gen 1 such as the revamped type chart, there are also some things in Gen 2 that felt like steps backwards. The Johto region was heavily dominated by Kanto Pokémon, and some of the Johto Pokémon could only be caught postgame. Ghost and Dragon still suffer from lack of type diversity, as Gen 2 only introduced one of each, giving Morty and Clair poor rosters. Speaking of rosters, some of the gym leaders aren't using Johto Pokémon as their ace Pokémon, which is counterproductive to the new gen they're trying to advertise, and there's still some questionable choices such as Will's two Xatus despite being more Psychic types in choose from. The level curse is another problem, and a major reason to be ticked off of Lance's three underleveled Dragonites, which he shouldn't be using due to making his roster poor. Even the Pokémon in Kanto postgame aren't at a higher level like in later gens. The postgame at the Kanto felt more like a chore than anything, so I have no idea why everyone wants a multi-region Pokémon game. Team Rocket's presence wasn't as troublesome as they use to be in Gen 1, having to be almost non-existent to the plot between the second and seventh gym, which is really wide if you ask me. The remakes failed to fix most of these problems within the main campaign.
 
Pinkie-Dawn said:
Not exactly, because while the mechanics have improved over Gen 1 such as the revamped type chart, there are also some things in Gen 2 that felt like steps backwards. The Johto region was heavily dominated by Kanto Pokémon, and some of the Johto Pokémon could only be caught postgame. Ghost and Dragon still suffer from lack of type diversity, as Gen 2 only introduced one of each, giving Morty and Clair poor rosters. Speaking of rosters, some of the gym leaders aren't using Johto Pokémon as their ace Pokémon, which is counterproductive to the new gen they're trying to advertise, and there's still some questionable choices such as Will's two Xatus despite being more Psychic types in choose from. The level curse is another problem, and a major reason to be ticked off of Lance's three underleveled Dragonites, which he shouldn't be using due to making his roster poor. Even the Pokémon in Kanto postgame aren't at a higher level like in later gens. The postgame at the Kanto felt more like a chore than anything, so I have no idea why everyone wants a multi-region Pokémon game. Team Rocket's presence wasn't as troublesome as they use to be in Gen 1, having to be almost non-existent to the plot between the second and seventh gym, which is really wide if you ask me. The remakes failed to fix most of these problems within the main campaign.
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I never had a problem with it because I've always treated 2nd gen as an expansion to 1st gen.
 
Gen 2 was lots of fun to play and the remakes only improved it by adding new graphics. Theres just one thing that bugs me. The changes made to lavender town. They changed the music way to drasticly imo and the whole thing with the Pokemon tower. They changed it into a radio tower and moved countless graves into one tiny room. Sure the one lady inside claims theres other room only Mr Fuji can access, but if that were the case I'm sure he'd need a door to get to them and the only door is the entrance. Also whats the deal with some occasionaly underlevel evolved pokemon? Falkner has a lvl9 pidgeotto and thats just not right.
 
Imperator161 said:
TL;DR: Yes, you could argue that gen II is superior.

I suspect you could argue that any generation was the best generation. After all, "best" is very subjective, and there isn't really an objective way to say that "change X" is clearly better/more significant than "change Y." Disclaimer, gen II is my personal favorite, and I'm sure that nostalgia colors my perception of it. But can those who love gen III, or any other gen that they grew attached to during their childhood, genuinely say that their own memories have no bearing on their opinions?

That being said, here are some things that made gen II really stand out for me:

1. Two regions. Yes, I know a lot of people argue that Kanto was a watered-down, glorified gym rush, and certainly, I would have preferred a better-developed Kanto, but I remember my excitement upon vanquishing the Elite Four and Champion and discovering that eight new badges awaited me. I didn't find the leveling scheme in Johto that problematic (though perhaps that relates to my being young and relatively inexperienced), and I loved the region and the story. Johto offered a great deal of geographic diversity, from oceans to mountains, small towns to large cities, while Kanto offered the familiarity of RBY with some new touches.

2. In many ways, GSC were sequels to R/B. The continuity between the games' storylines was something not seen again until gen V, and as a player who put countless hours into Red before picking up Gold, that was something I greatly appreciated. The physical connectivity between Johto and Kanto helped with this, as did the Team Rocket plotline and the references to what had changed in the past three years. The final battle with Red was a great touch, too.

3. Backwards compatibility (sort of). Unlike later games, where you could only transfer forward from one generation to the next, the Time Capsule in GSC allowed you to trade both ways, assuming certain conditions were met (e.g., no new moves or Pokemon). This was a feature I took advantage of to complete my Pokedex in Gold, and then to complete my Pokedex in Red after Gold died and I was stuck with just Red (from which I had traded a lot of Pokemon to Gold before Gold died), a Silver with very little money or Pokemon of value, and an incomplete Yellow that I didn't want to rush through. (Eevee breeding, anyone?) This was also great for my last-ditch effort to make teams to beat Stadium as quickly as possible (elemental punches from Goldenrod Dept Store = quick and cheap way to diversify a moveset). Overall, I was much more reluctant to transfer Pokemon in later games, because such a move was so permanent. But at the time of GSC, all of the main Pokemon games could trade with each other (unlike after the gen III reset), which was great.

4. New mechanics. Every generation has new mechanics, and we could argue all day about which ones matter the most. But I would argue that breeding, and the introduction of elements like genders and egg moves, made one of the most significant changes to Pokemon. Making a competitive team no longer necessarily required playing through a game over and over again to get the requisite TMs, and there was now some control over stat inheritance. Certainly, breeding has become much easier and much more fleshed out over the years (I can now breed 5 IV Pokemon with egg moves and appropriate natures in very little time), but gen II started us down this road. Without breeding, competitive Pokemon as we know it today would have been very different. As for other mechanics, I personally loved the day/night cycle (even if it did drain my internal batteries far too quickly), and I have many fond (/tired) memories of waking up early to try to catch some morning-specific Pokemon. Stat changes, like splitting Special into SpA and SpD, certainly changed the game significantly as well, as did the introduction of new types. Although other generations have brought changes that have significantly altered the metagame (e.g., abilities or physical/special split), these ones certainly had an impact.

I'm sure that there are plenty of other elements that make gen II stand out, but unlike many years ago when I unwrapped Gold at a birthday party and began my journey into Johto with Totodile, I don't have the luxury of spending hours pondering them. The real world beckons. But the short answer is that yes, an argument can certainly be made for the superiority of gen II. That doesn't mean that gen II needs to be everyone's favorite generation, but the Pokemon world would have evolved differently without it.
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I believe this post pretty much sums up what I would've said. The second generation I felt put more towards developing the franchise as a whole than most of the other games in the series, which is perhaps why I felt horribly underwhelmed with Ruby and Sapphire.

In addition to breeding, Pokemon Gold and Silver introduced several new mechanics that more or less have stayed relatively the same for over a decade.

1. Such as the 'Special' split between Special Attack and Special Defense, which granted an entire new depth into the game itself, giving us more numbers to play with and to compete against.

2. The ability to fight trainers multiple times through the PokeGear, so you weren't restricted to just wild Pokemon and the Elite Four.

3. The days of the week and the Night and Day cycles, which changed which Pokemon you could battle, and which trainers you could battle.

4. Contests and events were first introduced in Gold and Silver; the Bug Catching contest for example.

5. Items can now be held by Pokemon. This created worlds of new strategies that could make or break your victories.

6. Berries (Yes, berries although you couldn't grow them).

7. Shiny Pokemon, and without them I'm certain several of us on the boards here wouldn't collect nearly as much as we do.

8. Different ways to encounter Pokemon besides surfing, fishing, and walking.

9. The idea of backwards compatibility, and without it we might not be able to carry our precious Zubats and Ratattas with us every time they come out with a new game.

10. Mystery Gift and Pokemon Events, which we all use liberally to this day. We see several events around the world and Silver and Gold started this trend.

11. Gold and Silver were even capable with communicating with sources other than another gameboy with something akin to the PokeWalker (it starred Pickachu, like a tamigachi or something).

12. Customization first showed up in these games as well. The Bank of Mom would use money you saved to purchase cool items for your room like PokeDolls, furniture, and would even purchase other items for you. It's a feature that I always miss because it gives us some incentive to actually travel back and visit dear old Mom.

13. The Post-Game. Pokemon red, Blue, and Yellow had very little to the post-game other than to capture Mew-Two, it was much improved and I feel like this improvement translated well to the other games in the series.

14. Specialty Pokeballs were first introduced here as well, giving other, better ways to capture needed Pokemon at night, lower levels than you, during fishing, opposite gender Pokemon and other factors, such as raising kindness, that were so good that Ruby and Sapphire took them with their own purposes.

15. For better or worse, roaming Pokemon.

16. Baby Pokemon and 'senior' Pokemon. I feel that even though it makes sense, without Gold and Silver introducing Baby Pokemon and Pokemon with the ability to evolve further (Crobat, Chansey, Slowking, Steelix)

17. Evolutionary lines that diverge from one or two paths were introduced (for example Polytoed and Slowking)

18. Pokemon that evolved by Holding certain items when traded.

19. Pokemon that evolved through Happiness or at certain times during the day.

20. Two more types, Steel and Dark, which worked so well that they weren't joined by the fairy type until 15 years later.

??. and Shuckle. . . not much else to say there.

And several other features I'm sure I've forgotten over the years, but out of all the games I feel that Gold and Silver did the most work in terms of pushing the envelope and shaping the games as a whole. It gets my vote as the best simply because of all the work it did to broaden the scope with which we can view our Pokemon.
 
The 2 Gen is one of my favorite. ^-^
Maybe the graphic is old but it is more realistic than other gen games, expecially the day and night graphic. :)
The night in the new pokemon games is too bright for me.
 
The generation 2 games will always be a personal favorite, I'll never forget the feeling I had as a kid when I first step foot into Kanto again, or when I made it to the top of Mt. Silver and found Red waiting for me.
 
GSC was really good, Pokemon-wise and map-wise. Fighting Red was also memorable.
 
Back when generation two of games were still actively ongoing, I have considered them to be the best.

In comparison to Red, Blue, Green, and so forth, its mechanics seemed to have been much better. Not only this, but places that Gold, Silver, and Crystal had included were rather fun to explore, too, and story was also pretty engaging alongside. Post-game, we had chance to visit Kanto and take Team Rocket down once and for all.

Now, I still take these games to be great; even though they might not mean anything to some fans compared to today's standards, I can't say same applies to me. Have always loved gen two, and that likely won't ever change.
 
I think one reason so many people love Gen 2 is because it's the only Gen to date that didn't remove features and mechanics from previous games.

Remember how many people were pissed off at RS for not having Day/Night? Or, FRLG for not having a clock, period? Or, DP for not having a Battle Frontier? Or, BW for not having following Pokémon? Or, XY for not having seasons? Or, ORAS for not having trainer customization?

And, all of the later games also started you off with Pokédexes that contained fewer Pokémon than existed in total at the time of release, with RSE, FRLG, DP, and BW being the worst offenders.

GSC, on the other hand, had everything that had been in RBY, both feature-wise and Pokémon-wise. Hell, it even had RBY's region and all but three of its important NPCs! While every other set of games took two steps backwards for every three steps forwards, GSC took the full five steps forwards.
 
BettyNewbie said:
I think one reason so many people love Gen 2 is because it's the only Gen to date that didn't remove features and mechanics from previous games.

Remember how many people were pissed off at RS for not having Day/Night? Or, FRLG for not having a clock, period? Or, DP for not having a Battle Frontier? Or, BW for not having following Pokémon? Or, XY for not having seasons? Or, ORAS for not having trainer customization?

And, all of the later games also started you off with Pokédexes that contained fewer Pokémon than existed in total at the time of release, with RSE, FRLG, DP, and BW being the worst offenders.

GSC, on the other hand, had everything that had been in RBY, both feature-wise and Pokémon-wise. Hell, it even had RBY's region and all but three of its important NPCs! While every other set of games took two steps backwards for every three steps forwards, GSC took the full five steps forwards.
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That's a really good point. One of the reasons why I was so upset with R/S when they first came out was that they removed features present in the older games. No backwards compatibility, no access to many of the older Pokemon at all, no day/night, an incomplete Pokedex, etc. While they had lots of great new features, the removals left me with a bad taste in my mouth. In GSC, on the other hand, there were few "removals" to be upset about. Sure, one could argue that Kanto was fairly empty/underdeveloped compared with RBY, but it was still there, unlike in most one-region games. Sure, you couldn't immediately get the Kanto starters or legendaries, but that wasn't really any different from the typical version-exclusive phenomenon, and now you could breed the starters to get as many of them as you wanted. GSC didn't have as many downsides to disappoint fans, so it was more likely to be a crowd pleaser than more recent entries in the series. In later games, a player's net reaction depends on both how upset he is by the removal of old features and how much he likes net additions, while in gen 2, there are very few downsides vs. gen I (unless you loved glitches, which were less numerous in gen 2), so a player's reaction is less likely to be negative.
 
Imperator161 said:
That's a really good point. One of the reasons why I was so upset with R/S when they first came out was that they removed features present in the older games. No backwards compatibility, no access to many of the older Pokemon at all, no day/night, an incomplete Pokedex, etc. While they had lots of great new features, the removals left me with a bad taste in my mouth. In GSC, on the other hand, there were few "removals" to be upset about. Sure, one could argue that Kanto was fairly empty/underdeveloped compared with RBY, but it was still there, unlike in most one-region games. Sure, you couldn't immediately get the Kanto starters or legendaries, but that wasn't really any different from the typical version-exclusive phenomenon, and now you could breed the starters to get as many of them as you wanted. GSC didn't have as many downsides to disappoint fans, so it was more likely to be a crowd pleaser than more recent entries in the series. In later games, a player's net reaction depends on both how upset he is by the removal of old features and how much he likes net additions, while in gen 2, there are very few downsides vs. gen I (unless you loved glitches, which were less numerous in gen 2), so a player's reaction is less likely to be negative.
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Exactly. {:3} This, of course, goes back to Gen 2 being the only Generation to be a direct sequel to the previous one. GSC's very setting was meant to build onto RBY's, so it makes sense that it would do the same mechanically, as well.

The likes of RSE, DPP, BW, and XY, on the other hand, were all meant to be hard reboots, flinging you into brand new regions with few to no connections to the previous ones (and with only a fraction of the total Pokédex), so their removals of various features made more sense (however much it pissed off fans). They weren't designed to build onto any previous games, so GF didn't feel an obligation to bring back all of the previous games' features.
 
One word: Kanto.

Gen. 2 is my favorite set of games partly because it is set in 2 regions: Kanto and Johto. This makes a for a longer and more diverse game, as well as an epic ending.
 
I don't know if anyone agrees with this, but one of the reasons I enjoy GSC so much is because the Elemental Punches are available as TMs in Goldenrod Department Store. :) So much type coverage so early in the game! So many Pokémon can learn them! And they're so cheap! At least in comparison to the Game Corner's prizes, which aren't as valuable with their inferior Accuracy.

Also, I enjoy playthroughs of GSC and RBY because of the simplicity in certain areas. For example, you can max out DVs in every stat. I hate playing through the newer games knowing EVs are going towards stats I don't use...! I know there's Super Training, but I'm not going to EV train my in-game team just for the sake of not being annoyed by my knowledge of the hidden mechanics... Also, In GSC and RBY, I don't have to worry about catching a Pokémon over again because I drew an undesirable Nature...
 
Stormerbuzz35 said:
Theres just one thing that bugs me. The changes made to lavender town. They changed the music way to drasticly imo and the whole thing with the Pokemon tower. t.
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That's because after the events in the first game, the ghost in lavender town is finally in peace :) The town isn't haunted as before. That's what I've read and it make a lot of sens for me. The ghost rest in peace, the town is happier.



Gen 2 is the best games for me. I loved the soundtrack, the landscape, we got 2 maps and that's the only time it happened. The day and night circle, the small amount of new Pokemon. Oh, and the bug catching contest. Am I the only one who got crazy for this? I loved that :3
 
I liked GS because of the post game. You beat the elite four and o guess what! You get to go to kanto to face all the old gym leaders from the first games? Epic. A lot of people thought that made the games too long but I disagree and think more games should offer the option to travel around and face the leagues in multiple regions. Can't forget crystal which added in moving sprites which was crazy for the time. All in all best gen in my opinion.
 
Gen 2 is awesome due to the large amounts of additions and improvements they made compared with Gen 1 (Pokegear, Berries, Held Items etc.). It's also a very good sequel to Gen 1 too.
 
Fire said:
There was no day/night system, everything felt strangely plastic and Team Rocket was gone. The rival was also suddenly no mysterious or mean thief or your old childhood friend - instead it was some kind of overly friendly new neighbor. Silver was a very interesting new twist, too, and it's a shame rivals have become so... lame, really, nowadays.
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I echo your points entirely. R/S/E seemed so obviously deficient in certain areas compared to G/S/C. That the game would change time of day was such a great feature. Running around in Johto at night while lying in bed at night was splendid. Withdrawing that feature from R/S/E somehow made it more hollow, more 2 dimensional.

And narratively, the rival was indeed a trivial addition in R/S/E. Brendan/May was a clear sign that Pokémon had taken a decidedly childish turn. This oddly cheerful and sappy character could hardly be a rival (which was unfortunately transmitted to ORAS too).

Even the battle animations of Gen II seemed more impressive than that of its descendant. I will always remember the impotent drops of gentle water used for Water Gun in Gen III. Bleh.
 
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