4th Gen Experiences Recount

[sirboulevard]

The annoucement of HGSS made me cry, like really hard. Johto was my home region and my Crystal version had been long dead by that point. When it came out, I cried harder. Much harder.

Gen IV will remain one thing for me: coming home.

 

[Hikamaru]

HG/SS was a notable game in my time playing Pokemon because I never played anything before 3rd Gen, so Johto felt like a new region to me. I had quite an interesting team, but the best moment was definitely slaying Lance's Dragonite trio using just a Miltank.

D/P/Pt on the other hand, were games I never completed regardless of how many restart playthroughs I did. But during my time playing, Sinnoh was still a unique region at its time, and having the protagonists wearing scarves (and in Platinum, coats to protect from the cold) definitely showed off the "cold" theme to the region. It also had a lot of cute Pokemon, which was what made me enjoy it at the time.

 

[Biogoji]

Gen 4's my favorite generation of Pokemon and I have alot of good memories from the games.

Side Games: Just wanted to quickly mention the side games which I think are some of the best side games of the series Pokepark is a bit of a kiddy but fun game. The mystery dungeon games are great and the Ranger games are pretty good as well. I still remeber the first day I got expolers of time and kept resetting until I got to be Squritle or coming home from school the day after my birthday and finding Pokepark sitting next to my Wii which I spent the entire afternoon playing......Once I explained to my mother that I had taken my Pokewalker to school and lost it at Lunch.

D/P: Diamond was the first Pokemon game I owned and I still remember noob me trying to beat Gardenia with nothing but a Level 24 Prinpulp a Level 20 Craindos a Level 7 Onix and a Level 4 Startly and then never playing Diamond again until 2011.

HG/SS: I had never played or heard of The Gen 2 games until one sunday afternoon when I went on Serebii and found these pages about a new Pokemon game called Heart Gold and Soul Silver that would be coming out around the time of my birthday. I spent a couple of hours reading through the pages being amazed at new Pokemon I had never seen and that I could get the Kanto and Hoenn starters as well as being able to go to Kanto. And I also remember trying to use Google translate to figure out what was being said in the gameplay pictures.. And then a few months later I got it and along with it came the Pokewalker but the next day I took it to school and at lunch i lost it along with my Bayleaf. That night I tried to play Heart Gold but didn't have any good Pokemon so I put it down and didn't touch it until the next night. I was in bed and didn't feel tired so I grabbed my DS and started a new game on Heart Gold holding my DS under my pillow and trying to look like I was asleep so my mother wouldn't see me due to me sleeping with my door open, I picked Totodile and soon I was on a grand adventure battling against Team Rocket, The Red Gyarados, Silver, Ho-Oh, the Gym Leaders and the Elite four with Feraligatr, Pidgeot, Butterfree, Ampharos, Poliwrath and Flareon at my side. Oh and I really hope that the one day they're bring back the cameras scattered around the region where you can take photos of you are your team seriously how cool would that be in 3D.

Platinum: Ok so nowadays I don't really like Diamond and Pearl that much the Pokemon selection isn't really good *Cough Chimcar and Ponyta only fire types Cough* but Platinum however is an amazing game. Let me set a picture it was a Thursday Night and from 2009 to 2012 every thursday night me and my mom would go to my grandparent's house for dinner and so would some my aunt and some of my cousins. Now one night at around eight I was sitting on the couch watching TV with the rest of my family in the kitchen and the Ads came on and one of the ads was for Platinum it showed the battles and some of the routes but then it showed stuff like the Distortion world and the Float Parade which despite the fact I had played quite a few 3D platformers blew me away and I run into the kitchen practically screaming about it so my mom and my cousin said they had to go for drive and when they cameback they had a a copy of Platinum and for days the only thing I did aside from school was play Platinum. I have so many fun memories as while I was still a noob I at least knew how to build a team of even Pokemon I remember getting payback on Gardenia with my Starviva, going through Fatina's gym, fighting Crasher Wake on the way to the airport, traveling to Snowpoint through the Snow routes. Fighting Candience at my grandparents hours, finally beating Cyrus and catching Girtania and beating the Elite four.One of the first things I remember when I think of platnium is when I fought Byron for the first time. I had woke up about an hour before I had to go to school I started playing Platnium I was up to canalave city and after beating my rival I went to take on the gym. I had no idea about Steel types but had managed to make my way to him and he wrecked my team until all I had left was my Machoke who sweeped his team until it came to his Bastidon who was able to tank a few hits from Machoke it was a close battle with both on low health but Machoke managed to pull through and with a final vital throw I had gotten my sixth badge. My copy managed to survive being chewed up by my dog but I lost it about four years ago but late last year when we rearranging my room we found it and over the last few weeks I have been replaying Platinum and it has proven to me while it's my favorite main series game. My only regret is that I didn't get to experience the GTS.

 

[blue]

Gen VI was the most revolutionary generation for me, that's probably the reason why it remains my favourite.

HGSS - These are exceptional entries in the franchise, the games offer so much content and there's not really much I could flaw about them. The introduction of the follow-me feature is quite possibly my favourite aspect of those games, and having a much longer gameplay time with being able to Johto and Kanto makes the games so much more enjoyable and long lasting. ORAS still remain my favourite remakes, but there are some aspects of HGSS that I prefer over ORAS.

Platinum - Favourite game without a doubt. As I've stated before the storyline in Diamond & Pearl is my favourite of any of the games, and Platinum expanded on that by adding new twists and characters. The difficulty shifted upwards with Gym Leaders getting stronger teams which for me is another great attribute to the game. Platinum is the most re-playable game, I've probably played through it fully about 3 times now and I'm currently on my 4th run which is just as enjoyable as previous playthroughs. Sinnoh is my favourite region due to the layout of how it is, the different cities and towns connected by Mt. Coronet just really makes it easy to travel from one area to the next. You've got the snowy area to the north, then you have the more tropical areas to the east, so there's a different variety of climates within the region. Overall I think Game Freak did a fantastic job when they made Platinum, it really felt like a real step up from Diamond and Pearl which is how it should be.

 

[PlatinumDude]

The first Gen IV game I started with was Diamond. I had so much fun with it I replayed it 3 times, each with a different starter. Eventually, the slow pace got into my nerves, so my favorite Gen IV game became Platinum, and later, HG/SS.

Unfortunately, I lost my first Platinum and HeartGold cartridges in an airport, so I had to buy replacement copies in the US.

 

[Genrely]

Gen IV is my favourite gen, which is probably mostly due to Diamond being my first game and what got me into the franchise in the first place. Some of my most clear memories about the game was when I was convinced Chimchar was pronounced Chimarmar for some reason, and repeatedly losing to Bertha at the elite four because the only pokemon I used was Infernape.

 

[Thepokefansophia]

Generation 4 of pokemon is without a doubt my favourite because I have loads of memories playing the games. Although yes gen 4 did have alot of flaws that I noticed. For example it was really slow the text and the battling. Personally I felt that there wasn`t enough pokemon in the games.
Also the legendaries introduced in Sinnoh were amazing, I mean Arceus the original one!.
However more of my memories come from the Sinnoh movies such as The Rise Of Darkrai and Girantina and The Sky Warrior.

 

[Judge Mandolore Shepard]

When it comes to the Gen IV Pokemon games, the first thing that I recall was the US release date for Diamond and Pearl. I recall they came out on April 22, 2007. That date happened to be three days after I had turned 19. That paired set was the first time I ever broke my tradition of ever buying the second version listed of the paired versions. As for when Platinum came out, I recall buying it as well. As for Heart Gold and Soul Silver, one experience that will always annoy me is that the slot machines were replaced with the Minesweeper-eque Voltorb Flip.

 

[100greenmen]

This is the story of what for me, the best generation of Pokemon. Although I don't really care for platinum as much as I did before, It was probably the most memorable Christmas present I'd ever gotten from my mother. My introduction to pokemon with Leafgreen was simply magical, but when I heard that there were more pokemon and more games, I simply had to have it, but I didn't think I would ever be able to get it. I rarely ever got a chance to earn money and my mother was strict about getting video games for me, and that just made getting it all the better.

When I started that game it was as if I had been introduced to Pokemon all over again. New world, new pokemon, new moves new everything. Playing through was electrifying. Battling Cyrus and his goons over the legendary pokemon was heart-pounding. Catching Giritina and using him was awesome. Beating the elite four after many tries felt amazing. The final showdown with Cynthia, a figure of serenity and power, this is where things got real for me.

Fighting against my rival was an awesome experience in leafgreen, but at the time it fell flat against this new challenge. While I had a grudge Ryan (the rival) for acting like a jerk, It was a serious moment fighting him. Compelling, was the moment leading up to the final fight with him. But Cynthia. Was a whole other story for me. I knew nothing of her. She appeared calm and confident all at the same time, not a jeering snotty ten-year old. This woman was more powerful than me and she was going to easily knock me aside. I was just another challenger destined to fall to her.
This wasn't Ryan, this was no petty rivalry. This was a real challenge, and things just got really serious.

As I expected, the fight was brutal, Just moments before she sent out her first Pokemon I had been wondering what she had on her. At this point I had done a fair amount of research online and knew most Pokemon, so when she sent out that Spiritomb I despaired. The one Pokemon (that I knew of) with no weakness. To make matters worse, The Pokemon I sent out was Gallade, weak against dark and unable to hurt it with drain punch or psycho cut.

Now to save space I'll skip most of the details but it eventually came down to Milotic and Giritina. Giritina had been poisoned from touching Roserade and had 3/4ths of it's health. I knew it could learn ice type moves. Giritina would most assuredly feint if it hit me. So I did what any sensible person would do in that situation, I prayed it would move first and used shadow force. It did move first, Milotics ice beam missed, shadow force hit, crit. And I just won the battle. I had never felt more accomplished in my life until I beat her. Was so excited I couldn't stop thinking about my victory for the next few days. And to top it all off. It was only my first try.

Well that was my story about my most memorable moment in Pokemon platinum. I eventually bought Pokemon Heartgold when it came out but I feel that this post has gone on long enough. Even if platinum is my least favorite pokemon game now (OmegaRuby at a close second) I can not deny that it was a blast to play. Grinding to get the fully decorated villa was totally worth it.

Edit: It it worth mentioning that Pokemon Heartgold is my absolute favorite pokemon game. In my mind it's perfectly paced, plenty of things to do after beating the elite four initially, and of course, The best boss fight in any pokemon game ever, hands down (rival from gen one is a close second).

 

[Lrachelr5]

For me, ge 4 was my first experience of Pokemon, with my first game every being Diamond for my birthday

 

[FireSnow]

Gen IV, next to Gen II, brings back the best memories for me. It was the region home to my favorite pokemon all time, had my favorite evil organization, and had really solid post game content. I remember playing that first run and choosing Piplup cause it was the cutest, at the time (chimchar has since passed it as my favorite Gen IV starter), and setting off an adventure that is second to none in my experience. From the beautiful region to the memorable characters to the expansive region, I couldn't turn my attention towards anything else. It was just such an amazing generation of games and I am now becoming very nostalgic and will now go play my Diamond copy again.

 

[Usagi-Chan~]

Gen IV is honestly my favorite Gen, if only because it represents the absolute pinnacle of my love for Pokémon. It started before I even had a DS to play them on, and I got over halfway through Diamond on a choppy, miserable DS emulator running on an old Windows XP computer. I was a member on here before I could even play through an actual Pokémon game. I finally got my first DS, a cobalt blue DS Lite, for my 10th birthday in 2008 and got Diamond that same month. Diamond was an experience, even with all the complaints in hindsite, I played the hell out of that game. My starter was a Chimchar, and my team (or the only notable members) were that Chimchar which would become an Infernape, and a Typhlosion that I received as an egg from a member on here (whose name has been lost in my head after all these years). I logged over 300 hours on that game before I slowed down, eventually to make things interesting I bought an Action Replay, which was nice just to be able to use the event items that never made it to the game. My best friend at the time was super into Pokémon (we had matching vintage Gameboy carrying cases, the ones with different Pokémon on them), and I remember being so excited to break the news about Platinum's announcement it him, it was amazing. That was the first time that I was there for every single info leak and low quality scan. When Platinum eventually did come out, a different friend was at my house and I legit left to go get it with my mom while he was still asleep at my house, I could not wait at all to get it. That time around I picked Turtwig as my starter, and now it's a level 80 Torterra that stays in my Pokémon Bank. I beat Platinum in (I wanna say) 10 days, I couldn't put it down. It was everything I loved about Diamond version but even better. Summer of 2009 was when I got my first ever shiny in the wild, it was a Graveler on the route right after Veilstone, I was so scared of it self-destructing that I used a Master Ball but it was 100% worth it. Moving forward, I remember being here on Pokécommunity when that first five second video of HGSS was released, I wanted to scream so loudly because Johto was my other favorite region, at that point I had given up hope on a remake, there was endless speculation and dissection pertaining to every aspect of that video. I put way too much time into my copy of HeartGold, and it was the first game where I really strove to have a balanced team, all I remember at the moment though was I had a Typhlosion, Ampharos, and Dragonite for sure, I'll have to dig out my copy and check for my full team. HGSS was also the first release where I bought both games, though I ended up using SoulSilver as a copy to mess around in, and eventually just used it to download event Pokémon. At first I really tried to get a SR shiny, but 12 year old me really did not have the patience for that, so I kinda gave up pretty quickly. All in all I probably sunk well over 800 hours into Gen 4 and the worlds of Sinnoh and Johto were practically a defining aspect of my pre-teen years.