Little things you like about Pokémon

I like Pokemon Amie and Refresh. They are really fun and useful features. Playing with your Pokemon and seeing how they react is fun, and so cute! Even the most terrifying beasts become adorable here. I also like how some of them get extra details which might not be seen in battle, like Land Form Shaymin getting extra flowers on its back. I also appreciate how Amie and Refresh give useful bonuses in battle too, as opposed to being nothing more than useless gimmicks. Both are great features that I hope will be kept and improved in the future.

Roaming legendaries is a concept I have always disliked, and I'm very happy that the newer games and generations are moving away from it. The last time we had any real roamers was in B/W, which were released more than 6 years ago. I'm also very happy that OR/AS didn't feature the Lati@s roaming in the same way as R/S/E did, I hope future remakes follow up on this so that we will never have any more roaming legendaries in the games.

I appreciate how Game Freak are sometimes taking baby steps with features in the games. They don't need have a perfect execution of a feature on the first try as long as they manage to make it better eventually. A good example here is the IV checker which has been improved in literally every generation ever since it was first featured in Emerald. Another one would be the PC Box system which had a very rough start but has since then mostly been getting better and better with every game.

I really like the Funfest Missions in B2/W2. They are one of my favorite minigames in the series, and they seem to be really underrated since I don't really see a lot of people talk about them or mention them. I really liked them, doing all sorts of different missions was a lot of fun, including things you don't usually do in a Pokemon game like helping lost kids get home or playing Rock-paper-scissors with preschoolers. They were also great for farming various items, and I liked how they could be done literally anywhere as opposed to being limited to just one or a few areas.

I like how the newer games and generations give you a good reason to re-explore the region once you have beaten the game. In Gen 5, the seasons were enough for me to go through Unova four times just to see how the landscape changed. X/Y had the hunt for Mega Stones, while OR/AS had a similar hunt as well as the ability to catch all Pokemon that are exclusive to the DexNav. S/M has the Eevee Quest, collecting Zygarde Cells/Cores and various battles that are only available during the post-game.

I also like how they since X/Y have been having some kind of post-game story, first the Looker Missions, then the Delta Episode and then the Ultra Beast quest. On that subject, I like how you aren't forced to complete the Ultra Beast quest in S/M in order to explore the post-game areas or go to the Battle Tree. In comparison, I found it somewhat annoying how OR/AS forced you to complete the Delta Episode before you could go to the Battle Resort.

Last thing for now. I want to talk about trainer classes. Backpackers are my favorite trainer class in the series.


Why? Because they symbolize one of the main things you experience in the Pokemon games: Travelling. It is just you, your bag, your Pokemon, your memories and your experiences. The Backpackers are nothing more than that. Then the Backpackers in the games often tend to say very funny things, which can be hilarious. One detail I noticed is that all Backpackers in X/Y are male while all in S/M are female. Gen 5, which introduced them, is the only one so far which features both genders in the same games.


My second favorite trainer class is Fairy Tale Girls. I think they are a creepy-cute concept done right, Game Freak absolutely nailed it. I don't know if I should find them terrifying or adorable or both at the same time and I love it. Then Fairy is my favorite type so I might have a slight bias towards them because of that as well. I miss them somewhat in S/M but I hope they will make a return in the future.
 
After watching some parts of a White 2 playthrough yesterday, I remembered how underappreciated the Marine Tube is.

It's easily one of the best looking areas in the series. And now that I think of it, Alola sorely misses having a similar location for Pokefinder purposes.
 
After watching some parts of a White 2 playthrough yesterday, I remembered how underappreciated the Marine Tube is.
tbh i think the gen 5 games are the prettiest looking games in the series. oh sure the graphics got so much nicer with gen 6/7 but there's something more impressive about beauty done right on an old console than beauty done right on a new console (and that's why I prefer Kirby's Adventure to Nightmare in Dreamland lmao)
 
Gen 5 gets so much hate for some designs, or the complete reboot or the monkeys, or the linear map, but it's my favourite generation :)
I really appreciate all the great things Gen 5 has to offer:
- fixing the HP bar problem the other gens suffered, especially in Double Battles
- HMs aren't as commonly needed to overcome obsticals in-game and overall less HMs
- Pokemon can get EVs after reaching lv100
- a completely fresh start to a gen by having no previous gen pokemon during the main story giving somewhat of an even ground to both new commers and experienced players

Also there are few personal things I liked like the Online being more accessable, weather wars making otherwise rarely seen abilities very common and Game Freak starting to buff old Pokemon more intensively without relying on new evolutions. In this case Hidden Abilities... besides being a pain to get even today.
 
I think BW2 is better than BW1 in terms of Gen 5, feels like a good middle ground between the good features Gen 5 bought and appeasing a bit more to other fans by including other non Gen 5 Pokemon in it. I think the reboot was a good idea but one that shouldn't be repeated ever again, since I don't think they could create enough new designs without completely falling flat, Gen 5 already had a few copycat designs off other gens (especially Gen 1).

Also, not sure if this classifies as little, but the Pokestar Studios is one of the things I like the most about Pokemon. For me it was such an engaging side activity you could participate in that managed to use Pokemon battles in a way that wasn't the same old we've seen time and time again (closest this game has got to a more traditional large HP boss fight seen in JRPGs and the closest to "scripted" boss battles). Having fans actively respond to you and give you things also made the activity worth doing (at least slightly, the things they gave never were big). I know some battles facilities also have fans for you (as well as ORAS contests if I remember correctly) but apart from contests this is the only times the fans actually felt like fans to me. Of course the films themselves were great...at being bad. When I first saw them Game Freak managed to make them so bad they were good (as was probably their intention). They seem to be either this or cringe-worthy on purpose, and I love it.

Especially when the whole plot of a film is about your assistant getting their glasses stuck in a time machine.

Brilliant.
 
The fascinating thing about a lot of Unova Pokémon is that the devs still managed to avoid fattening up the cast with palette swaps, even though Alola eventually did that with regional variants anyway. It seems that adding so many Pokémon at once was (almost) a mistake that Game Freak learned from by adding fewer new Pokédex spots in Gen 6 and the first part of Gen 7. I still loved all of them, though.

I like that PokéStar Studios tried to use bosses with larger HP stats, even if said HP was a base 100 for all of the props maxing out at 404, rather than a value in the thousands. We still have not received a scripted battle during the story, though. The PokéStar stories were stupid, but they were quite enjoyable, at least ironically.
 
The fascinating thing about a lot of Unova Pokémon is that the devs still managed to avoid fattening up the cast with palette swaps, even though Alola eventually did that with regional variants anyway. It seems that adding so many Pokémon at once was (almost) a mistake that Game Freak learned from by adding fewer new Pokédex spots in Gen 6 and the first part of Gen 7. I still loved all of them, though.

I like that PokéStar Studios tried to use bosses with larger HP stats, even if said HP was a base 100 for all of the props maxing out at 404, rather than a value in the thousands. We still have not received a scripted battle during the story, though. The PokéStar stories were stupid, but they were quite enjoyable, at least ironically.
I loved how silly the movies were. Granted, they were probably made to be this way so it'd be clear what the correct choices would be for the rental Pokemon you're given for the first time through a script, but they're certainly enjoyable enough to want to do over and over, and possibly see what happens when you deviate from the script.
 
I didn't expect concept art for the Ultra Beasts to hide gems of comedy:

Bishonen and bloodthirsty.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and it tastes fine.


... or disturbing imagery.

Now Pikachu knows how Parasect feels...
Guzzlord's kind of adorable when sleeping. I wonder why they chose to demonstrate Buzzwole's grabs and Leech Life on Pangoro?

Now I want to see the concept art for the other Ultra Beasts.
 

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Guzzlord's kind of adorable when sleeping. I wonder why they chose to demonstrate Buzzwole's grabs and Leech Life on Pangoro?

Now I want to see the concept art for the other Ultra Beasts.
Also another thing I didn't notice about Nihilego's concept art until reading about it on TVTropes: when its surrounding Lusamine it's sucking up Z-Crystals she apparently had on her. And if you remember, when they fuse into Mother Beast its "eyes" have colorful diamond-shaped pupils and there's other such crystal floating in its tentacles (also the diamond on Lusamine's chest is also notably gone):


Not sure exactly what this means. Did the Z-Crystals somehow power-up the fusion and if so in what way? Was such a fusion only possible because of the Z-Crystals (as it didn't fuse with Pikachu in the concept art)? Is it the Z-Crystals giving Lusamine's Pokemon the Totem Boosts or Nihilego's neurotoxin?

As for the other Ultra Beasts, they're not that interesting. It's just mainly different poses, angles, and emotions to know who it would look and act:


Okay, the caption is a bit funny and the way the legs bend.

It gives a big smile when angry?
 
Speaking of Xurkitree...

can I just say how much I love this is a play on "Circuitry"?

Lusamine and the Z-Crystals are definitely interesting, never noticed that detail before (just assuming they were generic dots). Perhaps it was the fusion that created them instead of Lusamine having them on her? Either way it's an interesting detail.
 
Even though it's been confirmed that the UBs are based on invasive species, I love how Game Freak also inadvertently made them somewhat represent the seven deadly sins.

  • Nihilego is Envy because of its parasitic nature and tendency to live "through others", if that makes sense.
  • Buzzwole is Pride because it's constantly showing off its muscles.
  • Pheromosa is Lust for its ability to infatuate all sentient beings (except, apparently, in battle).
  • Xurkitree is Greed for its voracious appetite for electricity.
  • Kartana is Wrath because it's literally a weapon. Granted, this one's probably the weakest because the lore states that Kartana doesn't attack enemies on its own, but that could be taken to mean it's easily provoked.
  • Celesteela is Sloth because of its standard VGC playstyle where it uses Leech Seed and then stalls out the battle.
  • Guzzlord is Gluttony and should need no explanation.
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Now, on to what I originally wanted to talk about in this post!

I'm admittedly biased because I grew up with RSE, but I love how timeless the third generation, and especially Emerald, feels.

With modern games, I usually play through them once, and then after that only keep them around for breeding and competitive play. I might do the occasional main story run in Black 2 or X (etc.), but I never play them just for the sake of playing. That is, I get bored of them.

But at the same time, I can and often do spend hours at a time playing Emerald, on a save file I completed the main story and Hoenn Dex on years ago. Sometimes I mess around in the Battle Frontier, other times I do Contests, and sometimes I'm content to power through the E4 with my Gardevoir and Absol. I've had the save file for about 4 years now; I haven't gotten bored of it yet, and it seems as though I won't for quite awhile. In addition, I also have Ruby and Sapphire carts that I do new runs through on a fairly regular basis.

Thinking about it more, I think I've found a few factors for why this is.

Emerald has some of the most postgame and off-the-beaten-path content in the series. There's the Battle Frontier, Contests, Trainer Hill, and a whole host of optional areas, so even after you finish the main story there's still stuff to do. Platinum and BW2 are also fairly good in this regard, but everything else doesn't really have anything beyond a barebones battle facility and *maybe* some extra plot such as the Delta Episode or the Ultra Beasts. (I am considering GSC and HGSS Kanto as part of the main story here with Red as the final boss)

Second, the art style. I feel like the DS generation of games haven't really aged well in terms of aesthetics; Gen IV marked the beginning of the shift from sprites to 3D models, so while what they were able to do with the technology was impressive at the time, looking back now the low-polygon models for overworld buildings don't look very good. This is especially true when you consider that most overworld buildings were models but everything else (NPCs, etc.) were still sprites. The fifth generation was honestly the worst for this, since they started experimenting with zooming and angles. This is great for the fancy 3D Castelia City buildings, but for the character sprites...

you end up with the player character facing forwards but aligned to a grid that's rotated 15 degrees. Even worse is zooming, which either reduces detail on the sprites to zoom out, or expands the pixels to zoom in.

Whew, did not mean for that to turn into a rant on overworld art style. But let's examine that of the third generation now:

Even though it's a 2005 pseudo-remake of a 2003 pair of games, it still looks good! Yes, everything is a sprite, but more importantly, the art style is consistent. Thus, the player can get accustomed to the sprites and subsequently fill in the details in their head. In addition, even though the screen resolution is only 100x64 240x160, the sprites look really nice for the restrictions. This is compounded by the GBA's massively greater colour capabities compared to the GB or GBC which make the world really feel alive. The Pokemon sprites also look excellent in my opinion; Gen IV's are admittedly better for the most part, though Gen V's suffer from the same zooming problems. Models, as we all know, are pretty much hit-or-miss.

And, admittedly, Pokemon somehow doesn't feel right without the grid-based movement system. I feel like Sun and Moon made a good attempt at a non-grid overworld but kind of botched the execution, but we have seen it work before with Colosseum and XD (Still gen 3, incidentally!)

To sum it up: Three reasons I love the third generation. 1) The large amount of postgame; 2) The art style still holding up today; 3) the strongly enforced grid-based overworld. While Platinum may still be my favourite game overall because of the main story, physical/special split, and awesome Pokedex, it'll never be a game where I can pick up a save file I've had for 5 years and still find things to do in it.
 
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One of my favourite parts of any Pokemon game are the secret(ish) places that are not at all needed to progress the story, but are still there anyway. For example, Kala'e Bay in Pokemon SM, which is a place that is very easy to miss if you are rushing through the game. Kala'e Bay not only looks gorgeous, but is also the only place in the game where you can catch a Shellder. Because of this, the bay isn't a useless piece of filler; it is a gem. There are numerous other places like this across Pokemon games, and I feel that they really show what Pokemon is all about: exploring and discovering.
 

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I found this neat little graphical representation of Pokemon types by generations, including Megas and other Alternate forms (hence the numbers) while surfing Reddit. Thought it was neat so I wanted to post it here. Makes you realize just how many poison types were in Kanto, and how Fairy is even worse off in Sinnoh than Fire is.

(The Alolan forms were grouped in w/ Kanto btw)
 
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I've personally always liked the fact that Pokemon just "faint" in battle instead of being killed. It's a little piece of sweetness that I can't help but love.

Shiny Ho-oh

The color palette always struck me as being thematic. The faded feathers bring to mind a later stage in it's life cycle before the eventual rebirth. Also, I just think it looks nice. (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
 

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Pokemon Diamond and Pearl turn 10 years old in the US today (gee does time fly), and while the games have a load of problems and are often regarded as the worst games in the series, there's still one major thing the games gave us that I think many players today, especially newer fans to the series, take for granted: Wireless and online play.

Pokemon has always been a multiplayer-based franchise since the beginning, but our trading and battling was limited to people we knew irl, and required annoying link cables/crappy wireless peripherals. As a result the whole Pokemon fandom was pretty secluded. But then D/P came along and dramatically expanded our circle of connectivity from just a irl friend/family member to any fan in the whole world, distant friend and stranger alike. Pretty much everyone here on Smogon and other sites such as Serebii have played with other online users in order to trade and battle, and have made several new friends as a result of it. It's pretty safe to say Smogon would be nothing like it is today if online play was either delayed or never implemented.

Also, Gen IV was the best era for OU imo.
 
New Thing: The Strange House in BW2.

This is the best regional ghost house in the whole serious. Playing through Black 2 again and doing this, I realised just how good it is. The music is great, it's jarring in places and really gives the area a spooky vibe. It also helps you can hear other objects in the background apart from the music. The furniture moving as you leave and enter places, forcing you to enter certain locations actually feels better than other Ghost Houses in the series, not sure how to describe it, but I think it's really well done. The small details, such as pictures appearing upside down when you re-enter an area (you might not have even noticed it at all!) or portraits falling off the wall is also a nice touch. It's very easy to miss, but if you pay attention there's a lot of it in the house, and you can interact with them, which is also pretty cool. You also don't hear about it, it's just a location on the map, you're never forced to go there or forced to "see" it (Old Chateau). Many players I'm sure didn't realise its existence and just continued with the game, you have to explore a bit to find it, which I think is also cool, as it isn't forced on you.
 

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New Thing: The Strange House in BW2.

This is the best regional ghost house in the whole serious. Playing through Black 2 again and doing this, I realised just how good it is. The music is great, it's jarring in places and really gives the area a spooky vibe. It also helps you can hear other objects in the background apart from the music. The furniture moving as you leave and enter places, forcing you to enter certain locations actually feels better than other Ghost Houses in the series, not sure how to describe it, but I think it's really well done. The small details, such as pictures appearing upside down when you re-enter an area (you might not have even noticed it at all!) or portraits falling off the wall is also a nice touch. It's very easy to miss, but if you pay attention there's a lot of it in the house, and you can interact with them, which is also pretty cool. You also don't hear about it, it's just a location on the map, you're never forced to go there or forced to "see" it (Old Chateau). Many players I'm sure didn't realise its existence and just continued with the game, you have to explore a bit to find it, which I think is also cool, as it isn't forced on you.
Not to mention it's the haunted location that has a creepy story attached to it. Let's look at other haunted locations:

Gen I: Lavender Town/Pokemon Tower. Pokemon Tower is a Pokemon graveyard and that's pretty much the start and end of it. Well, no, there is the story of the Marowak Ghost, but that's more treated like a road block than really delved into (also it's to show how cruel Team Rocket is). It's a spooky location, naturally, and has several creepypastas connected to it, but nothing to sink your curiosity into.
Gen II: If anything this gen is a nightmare retardant, having turned Lavender Town into a much nicer place by moving all the graves out of the Pokemon Tower and into a memorial house, knocking it down, and replacing it with a radio tower. Don't know why the spirits stopped being unruly being moved from a big tower to a small house (or how they fit all the dead Pokemon into that one house unless they're all cremated), maybe they're happy now that they have some music and radio shows right next door they can listen too.
Gen III: Mt. Pyre. Another graveyard, though that's just it and it's questionable how haunted it is. At least in the original games, ORAS did bring in some ghosts though its more in a relation to Phoebe. First we have that mysterious ghost girl that appears in Phoebe's Elite Four room the first time you face her, than post game you can find her talking to the spirit of her grandmother (though all you see is her carrying a one way conversation to a grave). But we don't really learn who the ghost girl and Phoebe's grandmother spirit is at rest and likes the player so no badness comes from that. Oh, and there's also that Hex Maniac "ghost" from XY that's still looking for someone.
Gen IV: Ah, the Old Chateau. First game I think to have ghosts of humans. We see a ghost of a little girl and an older gentleman. What's their story? Who knows! Oh, sure, there's fan theories revolving the antidote in the trash can but there's nothing written anywhere mentioning the ghosts. Infact they pile up the mystery by revealing this was the childhood home of Charon. Maybe the Sinnoh Remakes would shed some light onto this mystery.
Black & White: Like there's a Pokemon graveyard, but it's not haunted. There's Relic Castle, but it's not haunted either. N's Castle can be a bit creepy, but it's not suppose to be a haunted place and the creepiness more comes from N's Room as we see more of his inner psyche. Though there is that girl who vanishes on the Marvelous Bridge with little explanation aside an old woman saying a girl used to play with her Abra on that bridge. Maybe she just teleported away with her Abra...
Gen VI: The haunted location in this game was a basis of a joke. An old man tells a "scary" story, except the only scary thing about it is if you pay him a tip. Your friends are even with you and they say how lame it is and walk off. There is the Hex Maniac "ghost" who's looking for someone and you later find again in ORAS, but I have a feeling who they're looking for might have been in Z version... so no end to that story.
Sun & Moon: There's the abandoned Thrifty Megamart which is used for Acerola's trial. Though the creepiness mainly comes from the Totem Mimikyu living there, it able to create an illusion over itself to look like a Pikachu, able to manifest a backroom it decorated with Pikachu drawings and photos, and your Pokefinder activating without Rotom Dex's control. The Po Town, Aether Foundation labs, Lusamine's room, and Ultra Space is more spooky but they're not haunted, just really messed up.

But Black 2 & White 2's Strange House is different. That vanishing girl from Marvelous Bridge? There's no more ambiguity about it, she's a ghost. As you go through the Strange House you encounter her a few times, the first time saying how she's in an endless nightmare. Second time she mentions hearing her dad's voice telling her to forget the Lunar Wing and "stay here with me". If you read the books you can on the book shelves they're all about dreams in relation to Pokemon and moves... including ones about Darkrai and Cresselia. Final encounter she gives the player the Lunar Wing, saying she appeared on Marvelous Bridge to give the wing back to the Pokemon it belonged too, no longer needing it. It tells a pretty clear story: the girl is a victim of Darkrai's, dying in her sleep (probably due to Darkrai's Bad Dream zapping her health) before her family could get the Lunar Wing. As a ghost she tried giving the Lunar Wing back but I guess Cresselia couldn't sense her so she remained alone on the Marvelous Bridge. But the story has deeper elements, like the Darkrai speaking to her in her father's voice telling her to not accept the Lunar Wing and stay with it in the nightmare. What was Darkrai's reason for this? Was it so it could keep feeding on the girl (if Darkrai's are able to feed on the nightmares they give), or is this a tragic story of a lonely Darkrai only wanting a friend? And even with all this that still doesn't explain what happened to the house. Where did the girl's family go and why did they leave the Lunar Wing? The girl doesn't seem malicious so why is there such a feeling of dread exploring the house? Once again, could this has been Darkrai's doing? Angry because the family was trying to wake the girl up, thus taking her away from it?
 
I really enjoy the way Unova tried to explore other parts of the Pokémon world besides real-world Japan. The region's Pokémon designs feel like they're almost as well researched as Alola's endemic species, and they're not just a bunch of American stereotypes like the Merican Yo-kai in YW3 (I still love their personalities). They're mostly animals, so it makes sense that not all of the monsters take influence from humans. In fact, it's the other way around with the icy snowballs we know as Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe; as such, Unovans have designed Castelia Cones after them.
 
In fact, it's the other way around with the icy snowballs we know as Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe; as such, Unovans have designed Castelia Cones after them.
As forgettable as the Vanillite line is, I did like that fact that they pointed out that no, these are not Pokemon that happen to resemble human-made objects. Humans made objects using them as an inspiration.
 
I really enjoy the way Unova tried to explore other parts of the Pokémon world besides real-world Japan. The region's Pokémon designs feel like they're almost as well researched as Alola's endemic species, and they're not just a bunch of American stereotypes like the Merican Yo-kai in YW3 (I still love their personalities). They're mostly animals, so it makes sense that not all of the monsters take influence from humans. In fact, it's the other way around with the icy snowballs we know as Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe; as such, Unovans have designed Castelia Cones after them.
Talking of which, I like that after Gen 4 we've gotten regions not based on Japan; every country has something very unique to it so it's great to see Game Freak exploring that rather than remain land-locked.
 

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