4th Gen Negatives and Positives

[curiousnathan]

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What were some of the negative aspects of the DPPt series, in your opinion?
What were some of the positive aspects of the DPPt series, in your opinion?
Did the positives outweigh the negatives or vice versa?

Discuss!

 

[Aslan]

Positives:

I've gotta say I'm impressed with the Pokemon introduced in this era. The starters were well-designed in my opinion and the way they made Team Galactic stand out from other evil teams was great. I'm really pleased that they made Team Galactic go beyond the 'stealing all the Pokemon for our own use' plot and use a much more sinister case of destroying the Pokemon universe. Overall I actually found this game quite challenging in some places, the gym puzzles were always fun (Candice always managed to confuse me with all of the snowballs here and there :p) which was great. also liked the new Battle Frontier and how they always tested your true ability. Overall the new features such as the Poketechs were quite good as well- they were unique and fun. The places to explore were endless and there was a lot to do in the aftergame!

Negatives:

As they say not all games can be perfect. I found the surfing speed in D/P appalling, (we were moving at snail rates) and the beginning for me seemed to drag on forever compared to other games in the series. It was just boring, the beginning- I don't know what was wrong about it, but I never enjoyed the first part of the game compared to something like HG/SS. Overall I can't think of anything else to complain about- except the lacks of certain types in D/P (Flint's team was ridiculous), they really needed to introduce some more. Though Platinum fixed these mistakes, the game still had its flaws with the beginning.

 

[Hikamaru]

Positives:

I do have to say the 4th Gen Pokemon were really fun and there was not only strong ones and the cutesy ones but also the number of evolutionary relatives to past Pokemon that were introduced was what made Sinnoh stand out. The starters never disappointed me and it was our first group of starters that all got a second type by at least their final stages and also Team Galatic's plot was definitely something different than most previous villains, and the Gym puzzles were kinda fun too. And not to forget it had the female player character who inspired my own PC username.

Negatives:

The main problems, specifically with Diamond and Pearl was the sluggish speed, a.k.a. "snail's pace" especially when surfing. God it annoyed me, and also the terrible Pokedex distribution, in D/P there was a severe lacking in certain types, with Fire being the most egregious one. Because if Chimchar wasn't your starter, you'd have to settle with an underwhelming Ponyta as your Fire-type. Even the Gym Leaders and Elite Four's teams did not all contain their specialty type, like Flint and Volkner. At least Game Freak learned their lesson and fixed all these problems with Platinum.

 

[XeroNos]

Negatives : The un availibility of VS Seeker and some useless places like Amity square
Positives : Sinnoh region the best of all regions with cool story line

 

[Arlo]

Negatives:

• Surfing speed (I honestly didn't think much of it until I saw so many other people complaining, but then when I paid attention I did notice how slow it was).
• The weather animation at the beginning of each turn.
• Fog
• Mt. Coronet
• The general lack of Waters and Fires in Diamond and Pearl, and the difficulty of using Psychics, since damned near everything in the game learns Crunch or Night Slash.
• The Safari Zone (the mud and the lack of unique pokemon).
• 8 HMs

Positives:

• Dawn
• Great set of starters.
• Beautiful and interesting region
• Team Galactic - the perfect balance of evil and cheesy, IMO.
• Most of the new evolutions.
• A bunch of the new pokemon (especially Luxray, Lucario and Bronzong)
• Great music
• Cynthia - easily one of the most badass champions ever.

 

[CliCliW]

Negatives:
-Slow Surfing speed. It's horrific when you've just played Black/White.
-Battle Speed. Battles are pretty slow-going. The weather animations, etc.
-having to reselect the same item if you want to use it on another Pokemon, which was improved on in Gen 5.
-Bronzor. Hate it with a passion.
-Again the lack of fire types. That said it did compel me to use a Ponyta for once and he was pretty decent. My boyfriend named him Alice.
-Barry (?) your "I'll fine you a bajillion Pokedollars if you're late!"
-The impossibility of honey trees.
-Crappy Safari Zone

Positives:
-The awesome Starters. I love Torterra so much! :)
-Shinx (Or the availability of a decent Electric type early on)
-The graphics (okay, they're not amazing, but I still love them!)
-Team Galactic are pretty cool.
-The awesomeness of the region layout.
-The ability to climb Mt. Coronet (and Mt. Coronet in general)
-The music!
-The Poketch apps are awesome!

 

[classiccartoonsftw]

Negatives:
-The lack of Fire types in the Sinnoh Pokédex
-Flareon not getting Flare Blitz
-Munchlax being obnoxiously rare in Honey Trees

Positives:
-Dawn
-Most of the introduced Pokemon
-Evolutions from already existing Pokemon
-The starters
-The graphics
-The music
-Team Galactic
-The Poketch
-Physical/Special split
-Easier trading

 

[Sheep]

The negatives... definitely the Pokemon designs. Sinnoh introduced a lot of Pokemon that I felt were totally unnecessary (Chingling among others) as well as Pokemon that were, in my opinion, designed poorly. I also hated the new contests. :( Other than that I didn't have any other gripes about this generation.

Positives: the region design! It was great and I really enjoyed going through it. The introduction of the physical and special split was also a real lifesaver. Can't forget the wonderful graphics as well, right? That was a huge jump from R/S/E.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I liked Platinum's Battle Frontier; even though it had less facilities than the Emerald one, it gave me other challenges to do besides the Battle Tower.

I didn't like the slow speed of Diamond/Pearl; it was very annoying.

 

[Aeroblast]

A lot of Diamond/Pearls problems were rectified in Platinum, such as slow surfing speed, lack of fire types.

But I have to agree with PlatinumDude, the pace of the games overall were just too slow, especially with D/P.

Now moving onto positives, Pokemon designs were good, region design was fantastic, and it was a smooth translation from the 3rd generation in my opinion, especially with introduction of Pal Park.

 

[Golden Warrior]

Positives:

- New Pokemon were pretty cool.
- Introduced a ton of new evolutions for old Pokemon. (Male counterpart for Gardevoir.)
- New HMs were pretty cool.
- Pal Park.
- Finally a visible division between Physical and Special attacks.
- Music.
-Whole new style of Mystery Gift.

Negatives:

-Overall, the entire game was slowly paced. Battles and battle animations took long times to play out compared to the Advanced Gen.
-Probopass.
- Honey trees were a nice idea, but terribly hard to use if you don't have much time in your day.


I can't think of much else, but overall, mainly positives. However, the slowness of the game really did make it less enjoyable, for me anyway.

 

[.:batto:.]

Negatives:
Surfing speed. It's like slow motion from going walking to surfing.
Lack of Pokemon available in the honey tree. The honey trees suck.

Positives:
The starters.
The graphics.
The region.
The snow. {XD}

 

[Palkia]

POSITIVES

• Well designed region.
• Likeable characters (aka the villainous team leader isn't too pretentious, Cynthia looks believable as a champion.)
• Basic, yet well executed story.
• Excellent postgame.
• Psychical/Special split changing the way the player thinks about movesets.
• Easy to use pal park.

NEGATIVES

• Notable lack of pokémon type and variates, most egregious shown in the lack of Fire types.
• The refined art style and the overall presentation felt like a step down compared to Emerald and definitely FireRed/LeafGreen. (Although I like it more than Gen V's overall style)
• Game is very slow, to the point of borderline unplayability.

 

[Aeroblast]

Oh, and I forgot. I personally think DPPt have the best original soundtrack out of all main Pokemon games, so that's a big positive.

 

[Jumpleet]

Positives:
- Physical/Special split, which I thought Nintendo would do in Ruby/Sapphire
- The story went more in-depth than any other Pokemon game before it
- The fact that we only have to see the Pokemon for it to count for the regional Pokedex
- Made Pokemon like Aipom and Sneasel more useful in the long run by giving them evolutions
- The jump to the DS gave more connectivity

Negatives
-Slow walking and surfing speeds make for an almost unplayable overworld
-Lack of available Pokemon
-Pastoria Great Marsh makes the annoying Safari Zone gimmick even less of a reason to exist
-Honey Trees misused
-Mt. Coronet may be the most drawn out dungeon in Pokemon history
-Distortion World extremely misused
-Defog