5th Gen Seasons

[Altairis]

In Gen 5, the cycle of seasons was added to the Pokemon games! The seasons would change every month whenever one entered & exited a building. This change was mostly aesthetic, however, some areas became accessible due to presence or lack of snow in certain areas. Most famously, however, the Pokemon Sawsbuck changed form to match each season!

Did you think seasons were a nice addition? Or was it a useless one? Do you hope it'll return in future games?

 

[Hikamaru]

I liked this feature, it made Unova feel quite realistic plus having some stuff only available in certain seasons made it even more worthwhile to return to certain places to get everything. I was kinda upset they removed it in X and Y for some weird reason, but I do hope it can get brought back in maybe 7th Generation.

Also, having Deerling and Sawsbuck's form change with the seasons was a nice little touch and it's not that bad to use in-game either due to its decently good Attack and Speed. I like the winter variant of them best, but all seasons look really nice.

 

[Yato]

I loved the addition of seasons. Like Hikari stated, it gave a realistic feel to the games, and made them worth playing more often in order to access areas that were only available in certain seasons. (Admittedly, I found it annoying having to wait for certain seasons, especially if I had to wait three months, but at the same time, I could easily remedy that by changing the date on my DS/3DS XD) I also really loved the subtle music changes in the routes, and the vacation-y track Undella had when you visited it during the summer. Needless to say, it was disappointing that XY didn't have seasons. I can't see ORAS having them, either, but hopefully GF will consider reintroducing seasons for future games. If they do return, especially in a future generation, it'd be neat to see more Pokemon whose appearances change based on the season. I liked how they did this with Deerling and Sawsbuck a lot, and GF doesn't necessarily have to base these Pokemon on irl animals that change appearance seasonly. (It's Pokemon, after all; real world science doesn't necessarily apply!)

 

[Hiatus]

I was a huge fan of this feature, because, as stated before, it brought more realism into BW/BW2. Unfortunately, though, I've never played these games enough to notice much change as far as these stuff go. :( I would have, but they just weren't as fun for me as previous games. Black and White were okay, but Black 2 and White 2 were not; to me, they simply felt as if they were only some rehash. If this weren't the case, BW2 would've been one of my favorite Pokémon games of all-time, I'm sure.

 

[Arlo]

I like the seasons a lot - both the concept and the execution. It's great to see the terrain change through the course of a "year."

I can see a downside to them, but it doesn't really apply to me. I would imagine that they're a problem for impatient completists though, since it's about impossible to catch everything in a single playthrough unless it covers at least two seasons, and one of them is winter. But I'm patient and I rarely feel a need to complete everything anyway, so that's fine.

The first season change on my first playthrough was from Fall to Winter, and I actually went out of my way to be sure that I was playing the game at midnight so I could see it happen. And even after all this time, I'm still sort of excited when the seasons change.

 

[Pepperton]

Not going to lie, it was really annoying when I wanted a Pokemon that can only be found in a certain season, while that season was months away. :[ Other than that, the feature was a really cool, realistic addition to Pokemon that I liked, and made the environment more visually appealing, in my opinion. There's really no way around the encounter issue I stated unless they want to drop the realistic aspect of it, because obviously Ice type Pokemon won't show up in the wild when it's summer, haha. A shame that the feature hasn't continued to be implemented in games after B/W - I hope at some point, they revive it.