Pokémon

Kason Birdman wrote:LOL 6.5! Gamespot is fucking hilarious.

I kind of.... enjoy them a lot. First skyward sword, now this. Gotta have respect for them.


I don't think I'm being sarcastic... but it's so hard for me to tell

Sauxuas wrote:Does everybody have a version of 5th gen?

Mogotoo wrote:

Sauxuas wrote:Does everybody have a version of 5th gen?

I have Black.
You have White.
Kason has BW2.
That's all I know.

Kason Birdman wrote:You left out first gen!

Mogotoo wrote:Pokemon.
Fuck yeah.

These games are just so much fun. The sheer customizability you possess really make it an RPG then just some regular Character Growth Game. So far, there are five distinct generations of Pokemon.

Which one's the best?

There's a lot of aspects to consider, and one generation might be best at one but worst at another. To start, I'll be comparing the gameplay of each generation, which I believe to be a vastly major component of the franchise.

Here's how it works. Pokemon, rather than trying a new formula with each set of games, takes the previous games and just expands on them. Growth of the game mechanics will be the judging criteria for my list.

Also, I will not be including 1st gen for this list. The easier and more immediate answer is that I haven't directly played it. The other is that 1st gen had a different purpose from its sequels. It was the start of a completely new franchise, so it needed to come up with completely new gameplay. The sequels don't have to do this; they just had to expand on what 1st gen initiated. 1st gen, on paper, did way more than an other gen, but only because it was a new IP and it had to do that. By excluding 1st gen, I feel I'll have a more focussed approach to all of this.

One last thing; don't expect any surprises.

#4: 5th (Black, White, Black 2, White 2)
I should note that the single-player mode is not really a factor here. I'm looking at the general gameplay, the battles and such that form the basics of Pokemon. 5th gen has great story mode; it's just that it didn't do much else.

Triple battles? Cool, but it's virtually the same behaviour-wise as double battles. Double battles brought a whole new idea of using more than one of your pokemon at once (but that's for later); 5th gen just made it bigger.

Musicals? They're just the new variant of contests (again, for later). Not that I've ever been to a Musical. I'm sure they're just as fun as contests.

Rotation battles? Okay, this is actually pretty cool. You can change your pokemon and attack in one turn. That said, it doesn't really change all of battling. It's a fun new way to play, but not all the time.

5th gen's focus was on polishing the little things. Battles (and everything in general) was faster. The story mode was harder and actually pushed you to use a full party. TMs didn't break. I appreciate it, but there was no general paradigm shift like in the other generations.

Everything about 5th gen-the minor tweaks to gameplay, the fact that it's on DS-makes me feel like this is the game that 4th gen should have been. Speaking of which.

#3: 4th (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver)
This is kind of the opposite of 5th gen. There wasn't very much in the way of little improvements. The game actually got slower (relative to the last gen). The story had the same formula as before (seven gyms, climax with villains, rest of the Pokemon League, surprise Champion). The number of pokemon added was almost as low as second gen.

But there is one thing, one HUGE thing, that makes 4th gen worthwhile. Physical/special split. This is what 5th gen was missing; a change that affected battling as a whole. Back in the first 3 generations, the 17 types were (about) evenly divided into physical and special. All attacks of a certain type were either physical or special. Not so with 4th gen and onward. Now, each attacking move gets assigned to either the phsical or special category.

Now, Tyrannitar and Seaking can get STAB and utilise their better stats. New moves were made to fill niches: Focus Blast for a special Fighting move, Flash Cannon for a special Steel move. Game Freak had an idea,
Game Freak wrote:
What if each type had both kinds of attacks?
and it changed the Pokemon world forever.

As for the advanced connectivity features, that's more of an accomplishment for the hardware than the software. Of course you'll be able to trade Pokemon across the Internet if the technology allows it. Why not?

#2: 3rd (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, LeafGreen
5th gen had a bunch of little improvements, 4th gen had one big improvement. The next two gens have a bunch of big improvements.

Abilities. Just...the physical/special split may have changed battling, but abilities expanded battling. You didn't just have four moves anymore. You now had a special trait for each of your pokemon. And they were diverse traits. Some increased move power at low health. Others prevented loss of stats. Still others prevented certain status conditions. This is exactly what is great about Pokemon; everything from before is kept, and more is just piled on.

Natures. There are about two dozens of these, and each pokemon has one stuck to it randomly, forever. Most (except for, like, five) would add 10% to a pokemon's base stat while subtracting 10%. This gives all pokemon the chance to add unforseen boosts to their powers. Alakazam at level 100 can get about 40 extra points in Special Attack with the right nature.

Pokemon Contests. This generation was the dawn of pokemon minigames. 4th and 5th gens have their own stuff, but 3rd gen introduced it. These competitions against trainers used your pokemon's same moves (after a preliminary round of judging your pokemon's attractivenes according to the competition occurring at the moment), but the moves had completely different rules. It allowed you to use pokemon in ways you would have never done before.

IVs go up to 31. I should mention this only since this is the sole reason for 2nd and 3rd gens being incompatible. Game Freak, in the first two generations, assigned a random value of 0-15 for each of a pokemon's stats. This gave each individual pokemon slightly different stats. In 3rd gen, the values go up to 31. Not exactly world-shattering, but again, this is to blame for FireRed and LeafGreen.

Double battles. This was the beginning of the idea of sending out more than one pokemon at once. Again, not world-shattering, but it was a great, fun new way to battle. Your two pokemon could gang up on one, and some moves hit more than one target. Great idea, and perfectly reasonable too.

#1: 2nd (Gold, Silver, Crystal)
2nd gen had a lot of opportunity to be awesome, seeing as how 1st gen was kinda messy. Namely, Psychic types being overpowered and a few types hardly being represented (in both moves and actual pokemon). It's pretty close between this and 3rd gen (sorta like between 4th and 5th), but 2nd gen's improvements are just on a slightly higher scale than 3rd.

Two new types. TWO. NEW. TYPES. When I got the 2nd/3rd Pokemon handbooks, this blew my mind. And now that I'm older, I can appreciate how this helped balance the gameplay. But it's more than that. The elemental balance between the original 15 types was (and is) very detailed and intricate. There's a lot to consider in terms of balance. So to successfully slip in two more types is a wondrous feat. Plus, Dark and Steel are flat-out awesome.

Breeding. Yeah, 1st gen didn't have genders. Or eggs. Breeding is important, particularly in competitive play, seeing as how some moves can only be obtained for a certain pokemon through breeding. Is it tedious? Kinda. Worthwhile? Absolutely.

Special becoming two stats. I didn't even know this at all as a kid! Apparently in 1st gen, Special Attack and Special Defense were represented by a single value. So not only did Alakazam have a monstrous Special Attack, it also had a monstrous Special Defense. 2nd gen went, FUCK THAT SHIT, and split it up so that it behaved more like Attack and Defense. This opens up a lot of opportunities. Now a pokemon can have high Special Attack but low Special Defense, and vice versa. Now a move can change one of the two stats without affecting the other. Having the two is something I've taken for granted my whole life. It's kinda cool to see that it was actually added later.

2nd gen's improvements have an overall deeper impact on the gameplay than any other generation. It is one hell of a sequel.

Okay, I think that's it.

Kason Birdman wrote:Ah ok.

ps I find your ranking hilarious.
Although I do agree with it.
(well, I suppose I haven't played 5 or 4 enough to judge yet.[well, I've played 4 till gym 4 or so, and 5 to gym 2, and so far I like 5 more, but I am playing 5.2])

Kason Birdman wrote:Yeah, that's for sure lol.

Sauxuas wrote:imo 2nd gen > 1st gen

Kason Birdman wrote:It's hilarious because they are ranked in the exact order they came out.

Vyzor wrote:I started actually but my save file dooked out