6th Gen Friend safari or Regular safari?

[Odyssey]

Friend Safari. Yeah, there's not much to it besides the interesting Hidden Abilities + 2 IV mechanic, but the Safari Zone is one of the most frustrating places in any Pokémon game. With the Safari Zone, you can't battle a Pokémon and have to use rocks and bait instead. It doesn't help that you use Pokéballs at Pokémon with full health. Not only that, but the rock and bait mechanic never made sense to me, so I prefer to leave them. Plus, the Friend Safari has much more Pokémon to offer. I like having a wide range of creatures to catch.

 

[Vinny Vidi Vici]

I hate old safari mechanics so I'm in favour of the Friend Safari. The whole thing with pokeblocks, going closer, throwing rocks or whatever, I can never remember what they do and what the ideal way of catching a pokemon is. The Friend Safari was a bit of a pain when it came to adding friend codes of random people over the net so you could have the best pokemon available but really if you want a HA pokemon, it's not too hard to find one over the net as people breed them all the time as trade fodder. I'll still take the Friend Safari where hundreds of pokemon are available and you can go in and catch the ones you want with little fuss as opposed to doing the whole limited steps safari ball only torture that was the old method. Like seriously, if you're playing Emerald and you want to catch a Wobbuffet, you're liable to spend 15 minutes trying to find and catch the bugger. You want one in XY? Pick the friend whose Safari has it, it shouldn't take more than 5 encounters to find one, put it to sleep, False Swipe, Dusk Ball, easy. Shouldn't be anymore than 2 minutes.

 

[Cerberus87]

Friend Safari. Yeah, there's not much to it besides the interesting Hidden Abilities + 2 IV mechanic, but the Safari Zone is one of the most frustrating places in any Pokémon game. With the Safari Zone, you can't battle a Pokémon and have to use rocks and bait instead. It doesn't help that you use Pokéballs at Pokémon with full health. Not only that, but the rock and bait mechanic never made sense to me, so I prefer to leave them. Plus, the Friend Safari has much more Pokémon to offer. I like having a wide range of creatures to catch.

The Hoenn Safari Zone is even worse, because you have to use Pokéblocks to attract Pokémon. If you don't bother with Contests and Berry Blending, you're handicapped.

Of course, they could just sell Pokéblocks like they sold Poffins in Platinum, but I'm not so sure they'd include that feature.

 

[Kenchiin]

Why not both?

I'm in for it.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

They could have both.

I'd prefer if the regular Safari Zone stayed the same and they added the Friend Safari to a post game location.

It's possible the features of the DexNavi will make the Friend Safari obsolete though. (Since you can use it to get pokemon with hidden abilities etc) Being able to find non Hoenn pokemon by soaring to new islands probably doesn't help either.

 

[Synful Kyn]

I like both. Regular safari has set pokemon in them but can bring that sensation of working for the catch. Friend safari made it easy to pick what safari you want, and help with breeding. I think both are good and I would like to see both in the games.

 

[Cerberus87]

I like both. Regular safari has set pokemon in them but can bring that sensation of working for the catch. Friend safari made it easy to pick what safari you want, and help with breeding. I think both are good and I would like to see both in the games.

Working? It's completely based on luck! Luck is present in all catches, but in Safari Zone even more so, because you lose elements to reduce the amount of luck, like special Pokéballs and hurting the target Pokémon.

Even GF admits that. In RBY, they said catching a Chansey in Safari Zone was "all up to chance". ^^

 

[Zeturic]

It's unlikely that they'd remove the regular Safari Zone - you have access to it before the post-game in the originals, but to replace it with the Friend Safari, they'd have to block it off until after (because the Friend Safari has non-Hoenn Pokemon, and, though they don't care about trading, they've always made it so that you can't get something not in the Pokedex by yourself).

Plus, the Hoenn Safari Zone is pretty important. With some exceptions, it is mostly inhabited by Pokemon that can only be found there - there's a theory that, all of the Pokemon in it were imported, that none of them are normally native to Hoenn. Where in Hoenn would you expect to see Heracross, Pinsir, Rhyhorn, etc, other than the Safari Zone?

 

[RedJ]

I'd be okay with the Safari Zone if and only if they make some additions to it. The Pokemon that you find there in the originals aren't worth catching, but if they add more to it and maybe even allow you to use the DexNav while there, that would be great. Otherwise, I'll take the Friend Safari, although with the DexNav being a thing I don't see them bringing that back- why would they when you can catch most HA Pokemon in the wild?

 

[Brigidd]

Besides all the safari ball thing, I really hope it's the regular safari zone - I used to have a lot more fun trying to catch pokemon, and there were more of them, not just three... Plus, it didn't require to find people who had them to be able to catch the ones you wanted. AND it was a bigger area to explore!D:

 

[BriCKson]

I loved the old Safari zones... I just think they need a few updates. I know many have said it but they need to add HA pokemon to the Safari zones and give them the 2iv mark. I would actually like to see an even bigger safari zone with a lot more pokes added. I did not care for the friend safari at all. I spent way too much time searching for someone with a ditto safari... While others who had it could have a lot easier breeding experiences.

 

[Sheep]

As someone with an almost-full 3DS friends list I definitely prefer the friend safaris. Sure there are only three per but with many rare Pokemon included, boosted shiny rates, and guaranteed 2+ perfect IVs I have a hard time saying no. I value that sort of thing a bit more than a mixed safari zone full of Pokemon I already own (having completed my Pokedex).

Though I certainly wouldn't say no to both of them. :3;;

 

[skyburial]

Safari Zones are bad, period.

I don't know if I told this in the 4th gen journal thread, but catching a male Yanma with Speed Boost and a good nature in the Great Marsh was one of my worst gaming experiences of all time.

This. It took me all summer to catch a Yanma. I figured out pretty quickly that the cheapest way to catch 999 Pokemon for a Mew on the Ranch was the Pastoria Great Marsh, and passed the time by making a point to catch all the super rare pokes that dwelled within.

Yanma took close to a month to catch, but the backup plan was to accept Halie's Yanma trade. I ended up doing both and evolving one into a Yanmega ^_^

 

[Cerberus87]

This. It took me all summer to catch a Yanma. I figured out pretty quickly that the cheapest way to catch 999 Pokemon for a Mew on the Ranch was the Pastoria Great Marsh, and passed the time by making a point to catch all the super rare pokes that dwelled within.

Yanma took close to a month to catch, but the backup plan was to accept Halie's Yanma trade. I ended up doing both and evolving one into a Yanmega ^_^

Really? I was so lucky then! (it took me two days I think) And I made a point to get a male one with Speed Boost.

 

[curiousnathan]

I prefer the regular safari. I'm just hoping that they'll include rarer Pokemon in it at even harder rates of capture.

 

[CrystalXShine]

Hm....I think they will bring the old safari back, like they have done with FR/LG and HG/SS. However, there will be changes made to make the safari zone more...fun. XD In HG/SS, we got to move around decorations and affect which Pokemon resided in the zones; a customization feature in the loosest sense of the word. It was kind of enjoyable, but I hated waiting for the decorations to take effect....>.>

I guess I would be all for a new and imporved safari zone, since we already have friend safaris in X/Y.

 

[Hikamaru]

I was watching a YouTube video which compared scenes from R/S/E to OR/AS and a few months back there was that one scene from a trailer which depicted Brendan sneaking up on a Pikachu whose tail was sticking out of the grass (which was a patch of normal grass while there was some very tall grass at the top in the same scene) and I think that might be what is the Safari Zone now, given it's the only place in Hoenn where wild Pikachu are found.

There was no really tall grass there in the original games as far as I was aware of, so it appears they completely changed some of the grass patches there which I think is a first for a remake compared to its original version, because as far as I know in Johto there was no really tall grass other than the National Park and it stayed that way for HG/SS. Here is the first case of a remake actually changing the grass compared to what the original was, but we have to remember Hoenn has a lot more space now compared to the originals if the video was anything to go by.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

I was watching a YouTube video which compared scenes from R/S/E to OR/AS and a few months back there was that one scene from a trailer which depicted Brendan sneaking up on a Pikachu whose tail was sticking out of the grass (which was a patch of normal grass while there was some very tall grass at the top in the same scene) and I think that might be what is the Safari Zone now, given it's the only place in Hoenn where wild Pikachu are found.

There was no really tall grass there in the original games as far as I was aware of, so it appears they completely changed some of the grass patches there which I think is a first for a remake compared to its original version, because as far as I know in Johto there was no really tall grass other than the National Park and it stayed that way for HG/SS. Here is the first case of a remake actually changing the grass compared to what the original was, but we have to remember Hoenn has a lot more space now compared to the originals if the video was anything to go by.

You forgot about the grass on the route leading to Fortree? (the one closest to Mauville) That was the first tall grass in the series. Btw some spots in Johto and Kanto seem bigger in their remakes too when compared to their original layouts. So it's a remake thing to make the region bigger with the remakes xD.

 

[Hikamaru]

You forgot about the grass on the route leading to Fortree? (the one closest to Mauville) That was the first tall grass in the series. Btw some spots in Johto and Kanto seem bigger in their remakes too when compared to their original layouts. So it's a remake thing to make the region bigger with the remakes xD.

Apparently that sort of tall grass appeared as early as G/S/C (although the tiles for that didn't look like it back then), but R/S/E was the first case to have it on an entire route as opposed to just one small area, but yes I see the point but the thing was I never played a Johto game until HG/SS so it was hard to compare those.

 

[Pepperton]

Both would be ideal. The safari has always been a wonderful place, and with the nature in Hoenn, it just makes too much sense to have one in there somewhere. Also, Friend Safari was an awesome addition to the games as it supports interaction and gives players an incentive to help each other out in an easy way.