You know, when I kept seeing the "omfg 2nd gen is teh bestest!!!1one" arguments on this forum, I scratched my head and wondered just why it is people just adore the frack out of this generation so much, and then it hit me:
Nostalgia Bias.
You know why? Because it was the first game most people ever played. I played RBY first, personally, so I'm inclined to have this same bias in this argument and say that Gen I was my favorite.
But what frustrates me about this topic is that nobody ever argues why
Johto is the best. People always go with the mindset that
Gen II is the best. Why are you bringing up Kanto? Kanto's not a part of Johto.
My arguments in that Johto was not the best region stem from the fact that as a standalone region, it sucked. It
was more of a sequel than a standalone region, and that's part of what makes me prefer the later generations (Especially Gen IV) - Johto
needed Kanto; without it, it outright sucked. Imagine not being able to travel to Kanto and get the other 8 badges, do that pointless and tedious Power Plant quest, and most importantly, partake in the epicness that is the Red battle. Would you be so inclined to sing its praises? You came all this way to fight an Elite Four who caps off at the halfway mark? Yeah, fail.
1. The new features. You're right when saying R/B introduced the most features, since they were the first games, but I would say Johto introduced some of the most important features since then. These features are the introduction of Dark and Steel types, the split of the Special stat, breeding, held items, the day/night and day of the week system, shiny Pokemon, and rematching trainers. There are many more changes, but these are the most important in my opinion. Also they were the first Pokemon games that really had color. :P
Dark and Steel were introduced solely to balance Psychic-types. IMO, Steel is an unbalanced type nowadays because most of the offensive Steel-types are incredibly difficult to take down and force Fire attacks to be used.
The Special split was necessary, though. Imagine Blissey with 155 base Special Attack...*shudder*
A lot of the introductions in Gen II were great, but IMO, Gen IV's was the best for competitive battling with the physical/special split and the necessary reordering of end-of-turn aftereffects, so that Pokemon didn't just roll over and die to Sandstorm.
2. The Pokemon designs. Even though G/S was the generation that introduced the least amount of new Pokemon, those new Pokemon have some of my favorite designs. There's Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Furret, Sneasel, Scizor, Skarmory, Heracross, Kingdra, Ursaring, Donphan, Raikou, Espeon, Umbreon, Ampharos, Steelix, Azumarill, Hitmontop, Houndoom, Lugia, and many others.
Sudowoodo, Dunsparce, Wobbuffet, and a few others. There weren't many ugly Pokemon in Gen II, but the ones who were, were just horrid IMO. And besides, cool-looking or not, a lot of them couldn't battle for nothing. It took until Gen IV had the smart idea of evolving the vast majority of the terrible ones until they got marginally useful. And even then, Gliscor became the only one with real merit, and he's still not even that good (despite being my personal favorite).
And lol @ Typhlosion; have any of you seen how God-awful ugly it looks in the anime? XD
3. The Johto region. I've always found Johto to have some of the most memorable locations: From Goldenrod with the Radio Tower and Magnet Train, to Azalea where you rescue the Slowpoke, to Ecruteak with a historic, Japanese feel, to Olivine with its towering lighthouse to Blacktorn with the Dragon's Den, to the relaxing National Park, to the cold Ice Path, to the enigmatic Ruins of Alph, to the Lake of Rage with the Red Gyarados.
Violet = that place you go so you have 1000 directions to track the dogs in.
Azalea = some old guy makes balls for you
Goldenrod = gigantic and confusing, and you're here all too much.
Ecruteak = actually a neat and generally interesting place. plus there's ho-oh. and the dogs.
Olivine = that tedious lighthouse and that random gym leader with no flunkies that's actually really hard in gen II.
Cianwood = you get your badge here and then never go here ever again. except in gen IV, when they fixed this.
Mahogany = like goldenrod in that you're here for too long. stupid team rocket...
Blackthorn = omfgdragons. the place is so boring it makes me sick. the dragon's den is sorta nice but it's still a rather dull city IMO.
What was that about an interesting region?
Oh, and the Dark Cave / Mt. Mortar; possibly the most useless dungeons EVER? Every single dungeon in Johto felt tedious, unnecessary, and boring. The only saving grace is the Ice Path, whose wild Pokemon are at least interesting.
4. The ability to go to Kanto. While taking much less time to complete than in R/B/Y, the ability to go to Kanto was still a very significant achievement. Considering the GameBoy's low memory, it was also a technological achievement to have so many more maps and trainers in G/S than in R/B/Y. It added significantly to the post-game content, which certainly isn't a bad thing, either. Lastly, I've always loved the idea of being able to explore the old world in the newer games and seeing what's changed and what's stayed the same over time.
Again, fuels the argument that Gen II is the best gen, not Johto is the best region. Going back
was nice, though. My biggest problem is that the difficulty curve dips in the beginning, then just SKYROCKETS. If they went something like: 52, 55, 58, 61, 64, 67, 70, 73, 81, then I'd be a bit more ready to take on Red (since I don't just train one Pokemon, my starter, and no other Pokemon, my team's ~60 at best when I fight Red) I just
hate the downright retarded difficulty curve in Kanto. That whole part about "seeing what's changed and what's stayed the same over time" is a good argument however, and I'm sure it's what got a lot of people into Gen II as a whole.
5. The rival (AKA Silver). Silver is easily my favorite rival from any Pokemon game. Blue was a jerk, Brendan/May didn't seem to care about battling much, Wally seemed like a weakling until the very end, and Pearl (Barry) was a bit too much of a clown to take seriously. Silver, though, hit every note right. He did what he wanted to and never apologized for it, which made him feel like a legitimate threat. In addition, he's one of the few characters in any Pokemon game to have good character development, which isn't something you see every day.
Even though Blue was a jerk, he's still better than Silver IMO because you want to put Blue in his place and shut him the hell up. Silver isn't someone you feel you
need to beat, and he felt more like an obstacle than anything else. However, he probably had better character development than 90% of Pokemon characters period, and his attitude and nature did make him feel like a threat.
Still, I thought Blue (Green? XD) was the better rival overall, because he was the Champion, for God's sake! (SPOILER ALERT!)
6. The music. A lot of my favorite Pokemon music is from G/S/C. From the National Park theme, to the Ecruteak theme, to the Kanto trainer theme, to the Kanto Gym Leader theme, to the rival theme, to the Surfing teme, to the Kanto wild Pokemon theme, to the legendary beast theme, to the Champion theme etc. I can't really explain why I like a piece of music, but you can always find the G/S/C music online if you're curious about them.
This is something I simply can't argue. No ifs, ands and buts about it; Gen II had better music than anything before or after it. The only thing that can possibly compare is the console music, IMO, and that's because Pokemon + Guitars = epic. There are a few themes you can nitpick from the other generations, but virtually every theme in GSC is memorable.
However, RBY's Champion theme > GSC's, IMO. I don't know why everyone loves GSC's so much, and the horrible remake of it in HG/SS. Nostalgia Bias! XD
7. The battle with Red. I highly doubt a future Pokemon game will ever have a final battle as amazing as the battle with Red. It was probably the biggest twist in any Pokemon game; taking the character you played as in the very first Pokemon games and then making him your final opponent in the newer ones. It shocked everyone and led to a fantastic final battle.
Without a doubt, Red is the biggest twist ever to be put in a Pokemon game. My problem is that, in Gen II, his team had Espeon in it, which just got all the Eeveetards to think that Ash was catching one in the anime (because half of them don't realize that the manga does indeed exist, which is a truer representation of the games than the anime, IMO). That, and as outlined earlier, with him, the difficulty curve just skyrockets a full 23 levels. And Blue was no cakewalk.
I don't want you to feel that I'm attacking you with my counter-arguments. I simply quoted your post because I felt it presented the most, and the strongest, pro-Johto arguments, and I thought it would be a good base to present counter-arguments to each of your points.
Gen IV might have had uninspired designs, but they can still kick ass. Has Heatran, a giant volcanic train Pokemon, ever fought you? It's not very fun watching your Charizard's Flamethrower turn it into a crazy-powerful killing machine. :V
On top of that, I'll end by saying, looking at GSC's competitive metagame makes me want to cry. Nothing but stall wars and CurseLax...for shame.
