Discussion Returning to HGSS- Things I Didn't Notice

[Scattered mind]

So this is not going to be a full review or something like that about the games, just things that I am now aware of about these games including their original titles. These things are just some negative aspects of the game in my opinion that I feel that if had beenintroduced today they would have been criticized or at raise an eyebrow or two at the very least.

1) The Gen 2 Pokemon. I really didn't realize up until my recent replay of the game that gen 2 Pokemon, the new Pokemon that are supposed to be introduced and get the focus in the games, are just.... missing. And also not distributed in a good way. There are way more gen 1 Pokemon throughout your playthrough up until you get to the Elite four. In the beginning of the game, your option of using a new Pokemon is very limited. And a lot of the new Pokemon that are available to you are for some reason really hard to find. You can get a Heracross before fighting Miltank, but you have to know to use Headbutt on spesific locations to get it. And even then it doean't learn any fighting moves until level 20 or something. You can get Natu and Chinchou- 2 new Pokemon with a nice typing, but you have to go back once you get Surf in order to find them. Meaning you are probably not going to be aware of them unless you actively seeked for them. Also just wow how many new Pokemon are either a trade evolution or a Pokemon with no evolution at all (or a baby Pokemon which is just a gen 2 Pokemon turning into a Gen 1 Pokemon). If you are looking to play with new Pokemon that can evolve, you are going to struggle a lot.

2) Gym leaders are... weird. The first, second, forth, and fifth gym leaders do not use ANY gen 2 Pokemon. And they could easily do so. The fact that Morty the Ghost type gym leader does not use Misdreavus buffles me, as well as the Bug type gym leader not using Heracross or Ariados. Also, it is funny to me how the fifth gym leader has only two Pokemon.

3)Houndour, Larvitar, Morkrow and other new Pokemon can only be found in the Post game region. I get the idea of distributing the new Pokemon throughout the two regions, but it just doesn't work in practice. The reason for that is the fact you will never use these Pokemon unless you are willing to grind for them a lot just for the sake of having them on your team- because other than that, once you get to Kanto you already have a well established team of six Pokemon and the Kanto region is basically a cake walk. So they may as well just put these new Pokemon to be available throughout Johto instead of placing them in Kanto and giving the player no real reason to ever use them in their playthrough.

A bit of a rant I know, but I really I just wanted to share these points because these games have been my favorite Pokemon games of all time. Pokemon Silver was my very first Pokemon game. So it's just interesting to look back without the nostalgia glasses and pick on some of the flaws I never payed attention to back then.

I wonder if other people had similar realization about their nostalgic Pokemon games.

 

[Serperior]

I recently finished my playthrough of HeartGold that I didn't touch for several years. My team was/is: Typhlosion, Crobat, Espeon, Jumpluff, Ampharos, and Quagsire. I made a mental notation when clicking through my team that three of the six Pokémon were found on Route 32. This was surprising to me.

The Gym Leader thing threw me for a loop also - there's no excuse as to why Falkner shouldn't have a Hoothoot when at least one of the Sages in Sprout Tower had one. Whitney made the impression she did on fans new and old because of how devastating her Miltank was. I don't think any other Gym Leader in the franchise comes close to claiming that feat, aside from maybe Giovanni being the leader of Team Rocket and creating a little bit of shock factor at the end of RBY.

I thought (aside from Whitney) that pre-Kanto Gym Leaders and wild Pokémon were underleveled/underpowered. I don't remember having trouble against any of them. Red was certainly a welcome challenge at the end (I didn't realize that I would end up being the one that was underleveled and actually had to formulate a legitimate strategy to win) but aside from those two characters...eh. Perhaps the second round of the Elite Four was challenging also. I had a far more difficult time progressing through Pokémon White than HeartGold.

 

[StarlightSearcher]

About point 3, that was the case in the originals. The only Dark type you can get before Kanto (legitimately, without trading/breeding) is Umbreon. Larvitar makes sense in Mt. Silver, considering what it evolves into.

Also, Whitney was never hair-pullingly frustrating, or the stuff of nightmares that others claim she is. Morty has always been, and will always be so much more annoying than Miltank.

I never understood why Pryce is Gym 7 when his levels make sense he'd be fought as Gym 5. Instead the plot subtly nudges to the west; towards Olivine and the sea. You basically end up going to Mahogany after you clear out Chuck and help out Jasmine, and by that point; you are probably about 5 to 10 levels stronger than Pryce. Making him an absolute pushover. The game should've made the Lake of Rage side plot required after beating the Dance Hall Rocket Grunt.

Like, he unintentionally says something about the lake, and runs away after blabbing about the secret experiment Team Rocket has been doing at the lake. And instead of surfing directly to Cianwood to get the SecretPotion and the "5th" Gym. Chuck should've been Gym #6, because of how the level structure goes from the area around the Lake of Rage, to the sea routes leading to Cianwood, to facing Jasmine. What I'm trying to say it doesn't flow very well, you're going to Level 31 to Level 35, then back to Level 31 for the ace monsters of the Gym Leaders (Chuck, Jasmine and Pryce).

 

[FireLizard]

That's why I think the new games are better than the old ones.

Just my opinion btw.

 

[Scoop]

I feel like I've been one to notice HGSS's flaws a lot of the time I go back to it. While the game is really good, some of the things you've mentioned and the atrocious level curve are what holds it back from being that "perfect" experience in my eyes, compared to the general consensus. My favorite games in the series (Platinum, BW/2) don't suffer from this as much, since Platinum's leveling is pretty consistent due to things like Iron Island with that one guy grinding and proportional levels for wild Pokemon, or the VS seeker. And BW/2 of course gives out Lucky Eggs and Audino which makes grinding a LOT more bearable. You don't really see this in HGSS and that's legitimately my biggest issue with it. It's tedious at a LOT of parts in the game to the point where I almost have to trade over to Platinum and grind there. I've gotten used to it but I feel as if this isn't something that should happen. It's sort of the opposite of the new broken automatic EXP share you can't turn off that gets rid of any effort needed to win anything in the game. They need to strike a good balance and I think BW/2 does this well.

Also, Whitney was never hair-pullingly frustrating, or the stuff of nightmares that others claim she is. Morty has always been, and will always be so much more annoying than Miltank.

Finally, someone shares my sentiment. I've had so many more issues with Morty than Whitney ever gave me.

That's why I think the new games are better than the old ones.

Just my opinion btw.

By new games, do you mean like gen 6 onward or?? Interested in hearing this.

 

[AuraJackle]

Gsc and to a lesser extent HGSS are actually the worst designed rpgs in the series. The points you mentioned are good but another thing that has irked me every time I play the game, is how far out of the way you need to go to level up a freshly caught Pokemon. The pokemon you catch outside of mahogany town are criminally low level and of course there's no vs seeker so the game is very slow if you want to progress with a even team. And yes my God the fact that you cannot get larvitar until the end of the game is just dumb doesn't matter how strong tyranitar is you need to lv it up to 55 first so they should have put it as a rare spawn in a cave mid game. I still like the games but you need more than 2 regions to make a good Pokemon game. The story like most Pokemon games is also trash team rocket is the worst team

 

[Scattered mind]

Also, Whitney was never hair-pullingly frustrating, or the stuff of nightmares that others claim she is. Morty has always been, and will always be so much more annoying than Miltank.

Hmm come to think of it, yeah Morty was a tough on too. However, by the time you get to defeat Miltank you are ready to face its Pokemon and their levels. The issue that I think I struggle with Morty mostly is Gengar's speed combined with Hypnosis. These two gym leaders are actually very good as a challenge. From there you pretty much have no problem until you get to the last gym leader, which is also challenging in my opinion thanks to her dragons and their good resistances against all the starters.

It's sort of the opposite of the new broken automatic EXP share you can't turn off that gets rid of any effort needed to win anything in the game. They need to strike a good balance and I think BW/2 does this well.

Oh yeah the grinding in HGSS is real. But it's not just because of the lack of EXP share. I think it's mainly because the wild Pokemon are super weak throughout the region. I mean, around the last Gym's town, the highest level of Pokemon is 20+.

 

[Scoop]

Oh yeah the grinding in HGSS is real. But it's not just because of the lack of EXP share. I think it's mainly because the wild Pokemon are super weak throughout the region. I mean, around the last Gym's town, the highest level of Pokemon is 20+.

That's exactly what I mean. I don't mind grinding when it's a little bit more streamlined, because it gives me more time with each of my Pokemon and it lets me establish how I want to use them-which is where I think things like the VS Seeker in FRLG/DPt or Audinos/Lucky egg in Gen 5 works so well. The Johto games have such pathetically low-leveled Pokemon to where grinding really starts to test your patience.


This actually reminds me of something I WISH these games would do. I would love if they had both the EXP share from pre-gen 6, and ALSO the new one with the choice of turning it off. The new EXP share is useful for mass-evolving Pokemon, say, for a living dex or something. The old one was also ridiculously helpful as it would allow you to focus on one single Pokemon who was lagging behind the rest.

But instead, since LG and SWSH we have the one that just doesn't turn off making the already pathetically easy Galar region even easier. The option of turning it off was the one saving grace about the new system.

 

[bbb888]

Also, Whitney was never hair-pullingly frustrating, or the stuff of nightmares that others claim she is. Morty has always been, and will always be so much more annoying than Miltank.

I never understood why Pryce is Gym 7 when his levels make sense he'd be fought as Gym 5. Instead the plot subtly nudges to the west; towards Olivine and the sea. You basically end up going to Mahogany after you clear out Chuck and help out Jasmine, and by that point; you are probably about 5 to 10 levels stronger than Pryce. Making him an absolute pushover. The game should've made the Lake of Rage side plot required after beating the Dance Hall Rocket Grunt.

Agreed. Why do people complain about Whitney's Miltank? In the same city, Goldenrod, you can get a Machop in a trade. Machop resists Rollout AND has type advantage over Miltank. Seriously, am I the only one who does in-game trades??

Also, after you beat Morty (gym 5) you can skip Jasmine and Chuck and go straight to Pryce since you already have the HMs you need and nobody stops you. This is exactly what I did in my Crystal walkthrough on my YouTube channel. By doing this, the levels make more sense

 

[AuraJackle]

Agreed. Why do people complain about Whitney's Miltank? In the same city, Goldenrod, you can get a Machop in a trade. Machop resists Rollout AND has type advantage over Miltank. Seriously, am I the only one who does in-game trades??

Also, after you beat Morty (gym 5) you can skip Jasmine and Chuck and go straight to Pryce since you already have the HMs you need and nobody stops you. This is exactly what I did in my Crystal walkthrough on my YouTube channel. By doing this, the levels make more sense

Plenty of people who play pokemon do not want to take the time to train some Pokemon that they either don't like or do not plan on using for that playthrough. Whitney is pretty difficult to beat objectively speaking without doing any sort of excessive grinding or using a specific counter.

 

[FourteenAlmonds]

Also, Whitney was never hair-pullingly frustrating, or the stuff of nightmares that others claim she is. Morty has always been, and will always be so much more annoying than Miltank.

Really? That's interesting to me, as I've never had any difficulty with Morty at all. I've always felt that any normal-type absolutely wipes the floor with pretty much the whole gym, and I've generally just used it as an opportunity to get the newly-hatched Togepi up to level, if I decide to use it during that run.

 

[FireLizard]

By new games, do you mean like gen 6 onward or?? Interested in hearing this.

Yeah,bc I've grown up playing Pokèmon X.But also generation 5 isn't bad,is really good.

 

[SableyeGuy]

I think everything about hgss was listed here, but gsc is super flawed, if not some of the worst in the series.

 

[Scoop]

Yeah,bc I've grown up playing Pokèmon X.But also generation 5 isn't bad,is really good.

You must have started Pokemon earlier in life than I did, because I would argue I didn't really grow up on a Pokemon game, I grew up more on Zelda, though I spent my teenage years playing through all of the games starting with Platinum. I do think that XY has a lot going for it though and it's easily one of my favorite regions. Despite all the shortcomings I still think it's really fun to go back to, and to me, definitely better than games that came after it (barring maybe ORAS but I usually just play Emerald instead).

I think everything about hgss was listed here, but gsc is super flawed, if not some of the worst in the series.

I think RBY is still probably the most flawed games in the series (barring Sword and Shield but I've driven my dislike of that game into the ground by now), but GS (I haven't tried out Crystal yet though I own it on 3DS) does have a LOT of frustrating mechanics in my experience. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing and and I love that Gameboy Color aesthetic, the soundtrack, etc. but my GOD some Pokemon I wanted to use had god awful learnsets on top of the things that always got on my nerves about the Johto games.

That's not at ALL to say that these are bad games in the series though, Gen 2 is an insane upgrade from Gen 1 and HGSS is a really solid remake. They just carry some flaws that detract it from being "The BEST games in the series EVER" when it's preceded AND succeeded by games that have its level of gameplay while also not having some of its flaws.

 

[SableyeGuy]

Yeah rby is probably the worst, gsc is the second worst. They were good for their times...

But the remakes fixed lots of their flaws.

Why do you think swsh is the most flawed in the series? The only problems i had with it were max raids and pokemon being cut (which happened in gen 3 and people still love those games to shreds) which i don't mind too much since most of my favorites didnt get cut and theyre adding back some of the pokemon anyway.

 

[FireLizard]

You must have started Pokemon earlier in life than I did, because I would argue I didn't really grow up on a Pokemon game, I grew up more on Zelda, though I spent my teenage years playing through all of the games starting with Platinum. I do think that XY has a lot going for it though and it's easily one of my favorite regions. Despite all the shortcomings I still think it's really fun to go back to, and to me, definitely better than games that came after it (barring maybe ORAS but I usually just play Emerald instead).

In fact I started playing Pokèmon when I was 7,when the Kalos was arriving and Unova was leaving us.
But actually,my Pokèmon childhood started with Black and White,thanks to my elementary school friends who introduced me to Pokèmon,especially the anime and the card game.
Ah,I'll never forget how many times me and my best friend(who was a girl)we collected Pokèmon cards together...

 

[Scoop]

Why do you think swsh is the most flawed in the series? The only problems i had with it were max raids and pokemon being cut (which happened in gen 3 and people still love those games to shreds) which i dont mind too much since most of my favorites didnt get cut and theyre adding back some of the pokemon anyway.

This is just some of them, I don't know if I covered everything, but...

Spoiler: The list of things SWSH does wrong to me

• The game is way too short, most Pokemon games take a good chunk of time to finish, but Sword and Shield can be beaten in like, 10 hours. For $60 that's unacceptable.
• The region has barely any content in it. The wild area is empty and the 10 routes are tiny hallways with no secrets.
• The game is pathetically easy.
• The game is even more hand-holdy than Sun and Moon.
• The visuals are worse than Pokemon Battle Revolution for the wii and that game is 13 years old. This is a switch game, it shouldn't look this cheap if it's such a huge title.
• The Pokemon being cut wasn't out of programming difficulty like in Gen 3. While that initially was a flaw, you can now, retroactively obtain every Pokemon yourself within gen 3's games. There's no reason for them to have cut over half the dex, even if a lot of them are now coming back. This won't be acceptable until all Pokemon come back. I have a living dex, and I want my living dex to actually be preserved past gen 7.
• Another problem with the visuals, Pokemon aren't in scale even though they absolutely could be. Yes this was a thing in gen 7 and 6 as well but Pokemon were in scale in Let's Go. Why that game but not the actual mainline one?
• More of a personal gripe, but Dynamax continues to be another pointless mechanic, that killed Z-Moves, which were ALREADY a pointless mechanic that killed Megas, which was an incredibly solid mechanic. Every Gigamax pokemon could have been a mega, but we've gotta have some flashy big bang bazinga mechanic that's going to be abandoned the next game. Megas could have been a mainstay that helped buff Pokemon who needed them.
• The game, in general, feels unfinished. TPC's handling of it plus Game Freak's awful short-staffing problem due to having 100 employees total developing two games split between them is going to make the important Pokemon game with a deadline not be what it could be. I guarantee you most of these problems wouldn't exist if SwSh came out this year rather than last.
• Team Yell.
• It doesn't feel like it improves over anything Sun and Moon already did. Sure, the Wild Area is great in concept, but it's executed so poorly that it just kinda feels like filler. It could have been this huge thing you could spend hours in, but you can go hunt for Pokemon (except ONLY when you have a set amount of badges because arbitrary level caps, so the game doesn't even encourage more than minimal exploration in the campaign) and do raids that barely work.
• It's continuing a direction of the series I'm not necessarily a fan of, but that's another story for another day.

Is it a glitchy mess like Gen 1? No, but also remember what systems we're on. It's a gameboy vs a Switch. Don't get me wrong, I think Gen 1 is the second worst part of the series, but I've played through Yellow and I did have fun with it. That being said, Kanto as a whole has a lot of flaws but they did actively fix them in each succeeding game.

Not to mention, TPC and GF's handling of the development of this game AND the negative feedback fans gave just absolutely turned me off the whole summer leading up to it. TPC rushed this product because of merchandise. Game Freak isn't good at developing console games, especially when short on staff. I know this isn't a fault of the game, but the handling of these things is part of what makes this game sting even more as a Pokemon fan. The DLC does improve upon things, don't get me wrong, but I don't feel as if we should be spending an additional $30 to "complete" an already full-price game. The game should have been finished and had more content when it released, which leads me to my biggest problem with it.

If I'm paying $60 dollars for the game, compared to a $40 3DS Pokemon game, logically, you'd expect the game to have 50% more content for 50% greater a price (not an exact estimate but you get what I mean). Instead, we got half the content for an additional 50% of the price. That's not acceptable.

It's why I think Pokemon needs more ambition finally-it's on consoles now after all. A more open-ended game where you can explore a large, open-ended region filled with things to do and secrets to find, and to take on a Gym Challenge that involves more than just hitting A a bunch of times to win. Hell, even if it stays less open ended, all the Pokemon, at least a standard-sized campaign and Hard Mode (which I don't know why they kept that only in BW2) would be more than enough to make me at least satisfied.

That being said, if you DO like the game more power to you, I'm glad you can like something that I want to like. I just have a lot of issues with it to where I consider it my least favorite Pokemon game.

 

[SableyeGuy]

I agree with some of the things you said especially about the routes. Its pretty easy, although I found allister sorta dificult. However,
“The visuals are worse than Pokemon Battle Revolution for the wii and that game is 13 years old. This is a switch game, it shouldn't look this cheap if it's such a huge title.”
Thats not true. The visuals arent worse.

Edit: two problems you didnt mention are hop, the worst rival ever, and max raids completely taking the value out of shinies.

 

[Scoop]

“The visuals are worse than Pokemon Battle Revolution for the wii and that game is 13 years old. This is a switch game, it shouldn't look this cheap if it's such a huge title.”
Thats not true. The visuals arent worse.

I'll admit that's a bit of an exaggeration, though I think PBR (and other games like Stadium/Colo/XD) have more lively animations for the Pokemon. Actually going up to the Pokemon, or having animations of being hit, or attacking that involve the characteristics of the Pokemon itself are something that's largely missing from the mainline 3D games. Either way I don't think SwSh is up to par visually for what a Switch game can be, some of the textures in the environment can be pretty bad. The switch has some really pretty games, but this ain't one of them to me. For the most part it's basic-looking but there's just some parts of it that really detract from it to me is all.

Edit: two problems you didnt mention are hop, the worst rival ever, and max raids completely taking the value out of shinies.

Ugh, Hop. He's really really bad, even down to his actual design (something he shares with his brother who's legitimately my least favorite character design in the series).

Also I'm not too familiar with Max Raids, are they akin to PoGo where the shiny rate is bumped up from the standard? (It's around 1/20 on eligible Pokemon in raids on Pogo iirc)

 

[SableyeGuy]

No but there are exploits where you can keep on resetting until you get a shiny and host it multiple times so a bunch of people can get the shinies and that just takes the value out of them. And the pokemon have much higher catch rates. Although an event did bump up the shiny rate for magikarp, and one event made it so that you cant get shiny 5 star charizards.