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Why Gen 5 Was the Worst Gen
Topic Started: Jun 19 2013, 04:59 PM (264 Views)
+The Librarian
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Admirable Adversary
Let me preface this by stating this is just my opinion and it's meant mostly in jest. I love Pokémon, and even at its worst its still more fun than a lot of games out there. So here is my top ten reasons why Gen 5 of Pokemon was the worst!



#10 -These things


#9 - What are they wearing?


#8 - They Brought Barry Back...


#7 - Too many Dragons!


#6 - A THIRD Fire/Fighting Starter


#5 - More Big Dumb Uber Mascots


#4 - Removals


#3 - Unova is Boring


#2 - They seriously dropped the ball with the plot

And finally....
#1 - This. WHY.



So in conclusion, I think that Generation V of Pokemon introduced a lot of really interesting mechanics and ideas. I like that they had a more serious plotline, I just think they could have done more with it. I liked a lot of the Pokemon's designs, I just think they could have done a little more to make some of them more interesting. I like a lot of the changes they made, I just think they didn't try with some of them (the Barry/Bianca bungle and the Fire/Fighting fiasco seem to me like they were just trying to recycle material). I think the next generation has a lot of promise and will most assuredly have its own quirks. Hopefully though, it rights some of the wrongs made in the last gen. I mean that's all we can hope for really, that they realize the mistakes they made last time, and make the next experience even better! (And just for the record, I'm not actually convinced Gen V was the worst, I just did this for giggles mostly)
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Ender
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Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit. And yesterday a deer. And today you
I have two complaints, one which you didn't cover.

The simplicity is the worst part imo.

In all of the previous gens, you have forks in the road, and usually you have to think about things.

Gen 1- Poison/Grass/Psychic can be done in whatever order you want. You have to find out things like the secret hideout of the Game Corner, where to find the Legends (they don't run up to you or get forced into battle in this game!), reaching the Surf HM, two different ways to Cinnabar Island... You can change the order you do things and really personalize your run (making speedruns viable). Legends are a side quest, not forced upon you. The version mascots are not legends.

Gen 2- It's not clear whether Fighting/Steel/Ice should come first. You have to go back to Goldenrod City when the Rockets misbehave, after you get Fighting/Steel/Ice badges in any order. Plus, you have to figure out how to deal with the Ampharos in the lighthouse, and I mean... It includes Kanto... It's Gen 1 in a different yet dynamic order. Kanto's a freaking sandbox with its liberty. Legends appear on the cover art, but you aren't forced to fight them at all. You can catch both Ho-oh and Lugia in both games, though. The roaming trio is a sidequest you have to work at, in addition to the Unown dex.

Gen 3- OMGWTFBBQ?!?! -> makes you think about what to do -> good. SO many things you have to figure out, so many forks in the road, and Emerald version has vast differences that make it practically its own game. I could go on a rant on this gen's complexity, but that would turn out into a novel-length post. Ok, you have to fight the legends in this game, but it's not that bad, honestly. The trio is a real sidequest that, without the internet, is pretty interesting. You also have contests, the puzzle house, soot collection, battle tower, and secret bases. Roaming legends continues here. In the Gen 1 remakes, there are also the extra islands added to the game.

Gen 4- You have to do some backtracking and stuff, not as complex as previous gens... It's not completely straightforward, although it is moreso... Contests are still here, but now you're forced to battle the legend and you cannot get the other. The roaming legend sidequest becomes trivial with the app that tells you all of them. Contests continue, though the system is different. This is the game with the absolute biggest number of event-exclusive Pokemon, making for either more cheating or more frustration with region-exclusive events. This is where the metagame got interesting, however. Gen 4 brings back Gen 2, so include the whole Gen 2 thing here. In addition, you get the Pokethlon and Poketch.

Gen 5- Every single town is laid out one by one, straightforward path. Every city, you walk in, fight the gang, get a badge, go to the next city, fight the gang, get a badge, go to the next city... GAH!!! You have so much more dialogue, and everyone tells you every single thing you should do and the game forces you to do those in that specific order. You are literally forced to catch the legend just to fight the other. The Librarian has already addressed the pathetic plot of this gen. There are no contests. The "side quests" are just short dialogues. You spend a whole hour on mandatory dialogue alone (don't believe me? Time it yourself! fastest text speed mashing the A button/minimal-length responses does you no help). Dreamworld was a kinda neat thing and all... but honestly, I liked the Poketch better. You had to earn the watts and steps to unlock what you needed so you can find and catch the items and Pokemon you are looking for. I know so many people who couldn't get their DreamWorld account linked to their games. A lot of people don't like the DreamWorld, but imo, it's the best part about Gen 5.



My other complaint is tutorials. Admittedly, FireRed+LeafGreen were the worst about this, guiding you through the details of picking attacks in a mandatory walkthrough. Ironically, the game that was best about the tutorials were Red/Blue/Yellow. You get nothing at all unless you ask people, and when you ask, you get the information you need. In Gen 2, you have the option to say no. At least in Ruby/Sapphire, it's not a big "YOU'RE STUPID AND NEED TO LEARN AGAIN!!!"- it's disguised as "How about you help this other nooby catch his Pokemon?" That's a neat little cover-up. They didn't even bother for Gen 4 and Gen 5, and more than likely, Gen 6 is going to be another "YOU'RE STUPID!!!" one. There should be a "Do you want to learn about ___?" option. It's stupid. They walk you through how to run, how to navigate the PokeGear...

Mom: "Do you know how to operate the PokeGear?"
Me: "Yes."
Mom: "That's right! Just select it on the menu and... blah blah blah"
...
"Do you know about insert gang name here?"
Me: "Yes."
"yeah, they're the group that made a ruckus awhile ago but now they're disbanded..."

I said YES for a reason. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the game. I say the option that says "I know this, skip this because I played this game already, let me be, anything to skip the extra few minutes of dialogue" and the game says screw you, dumbass.
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+The Librarian
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Admirable Adversary
I totally agree. I hated fire red/leaf green because of stupid things like the "Teachy TV" and other crap that just slowed down the game. I already knew it all. I was hoping they'd add something new. They didn't. It' was really lame. I was MUCH more impressed with HG/SS remakes. Interesting, creative, just great aesthetically. And yeah, the simplicity of gen 5 made the whole thing so...tedious. Hopefully, from the look of the gen 6 map so far it seems like it might have more of an open feel to it, though of course there will be SOME direction, but at least its not a circle like gen 5. It seems the capital will be sort of a hub, but from there there seem to be a bunch of different spokes that you can go off on. Also gen 6's legends seem MUCH better. They're not giant. They're not derpy looking (like Arceus). Hell, it seems they've even payed attention to the competitive side of it a bit, realizing that they over did it with the dragons and have decided to try to level the playing field. Good on them for that.
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+Linky Blade
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The Ambitious
#10: Yeah, I agree that those designs are bad...But I want to say that Gamefreak really was intending to make genies with them, so I don't believe they're half-assed pokemon, and that's the only reason I'd ever criticize a pokemon's design (Ahem...Bidoof...)...

#9: I don't think much of the attire cause I like their outfits...Different region different style...Japanese game/anime clothing never make sense...lol...But I will surrender that they look significantly weirder than any other gen...

#8: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa...Bianca is cool!...I love how she plays the role of someone who realized she had a different dream from the norm...Although, it is kind of disappointing when you see a character who had such little confidence and she seemed like she gave up for something easier, but I don't feel that was what it was supposed to be...

#7: If this were a few years ago, I'd agree with you...Something I realized with each generation...There's always one or types that get a significant increase in species amount...But I'll concede that Dragons need to stop taking the legendary spaces and storylines...

#6: Agreed...Seriously, why do we get another Fire/Fighting starter?...I liked Infernape better than Blaziken, so I let it slide there...I think they could've ended Tepig way differently...

#5: Okay, I have to disagree with a lot of this...I agree Zekrom and Reshiram aren't very good, but I have to say, starting with Gen. III, the legendaries started getting more exciting...Their personality might not have been shown in the design, but it was more in the lore...That's where it went from Legendary being really rare pokemon to really rare pokemon that contribute to the creation of the planet and have purpose...Like, with Gen. II, we have Ho-Oh who resurrected the Legendary Beasts and Lugia who has relation to the birds, and Celebi who is the protector of nature...Then they took it up a level in Gen. III and created the weather trio...Their personality was in their lore...The golems, okay, they were just another lesser trio who were kinda hidden, but they were interesting and ended up with a backstory later on...Generation IV was the big jump to where they became gods, and almost every legendary introduced served a purpose...HOWEVER:

I kinda agree on Reshiram and Zekrom...I mean, I think they looked a lot better on paper than in execution...Because of the way it was set up, the lore didn't help much with their personalities, and they served more as stepping stones for Kyurem's rise to greatness...Yeah, as you said earlier, the genies were kinda stupid too...I liked the Swords of Justice/Musketeer trio though...

#4: Yeah, I agree, this was severely disappointing...Same with the interface...HG/SS had the best interface of em all...

#3: This is true...

#2: You see, this would be where my biggest counter-argument comes in...Where it went wrong with pokemon, it makes up for in the plot...The moral issue here isn't so much about whether or not it's right to capture and train pokemon, but it's moreso trying to get across the idea of Points-of-View...Besides that, several times, it shows Team Plasma members who are questioning if what they're doing is the right thing, and several other good guys also wonder that way...It's just that the good pokemon trainers don't question it because they are all fully aware of their specific reasons they train their own pokemon...The idea with N is more along the lines of him being brainwashed at an early age and not given the chance to even see the alternative point of view...While it doesn't do a great job of showing why anyone would think the other way around, I would think that's more because the majority of people you see in the game are trainers who understand already their personal reasons for having their pokemon...

1. Okay, forget every counter-argument I had...

For me, the plot was easily 3843984 steps higher than Gen. IV, which was 2 steps higher than Gen. III...I feel like it goes like this:
Story: Gen. V...
Lore: Gen. IV...
Map: Gen. II...
Pokemon: Gen. II or III...
Legendary Design: Gen. II...
Region: Kanto...
Rival: Silver...
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Ender
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Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit. And yesterday a deer. And today you
The Librarian
 
Is this what Game Freak thinks we Americans dress like?

No. The guys are wearing more traditional outfits for Japan. They just felt like sexualizing every single female character while making every male character ever so boring. Tis anime. What'd you expect?

Linky Blade
 
For me, the plot was easily 3843984 steps higher than Gen. IV, which was 2 steps higher than Gen. III.

You gotta admit, Pokemon storylines just suck. It's the gameplay we go for. If anyone was in it for the story, they'd have gotten bored of it in favor of Chrono Trigger, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Castlevania... Guitar Hero 3 has a better storyline than all the Pokemon games combined.
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dragontamer74pe
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I'm a dragon tamer so I'll like more dragons, right? Wrong! Hydriegon would've been uber in gen 4 as it has no counters. Haxorus too. Then we have terrakion and keldeo which are also op. Genies bar landorus-T are op. Conk makes machamp usless. it's basically just a better version. Gen 5 got the biggest power creap ever. It's pathetic. They screwed up badly and pokemon will be far less fun without some serious banning. Then we have these people who don't think something is hugely op so it'll stay when it still sweeps teams. Gen 5 just ruined competitive battling and introduced the most annoying ability ever. Basically created op pokemon and made battling a giant speed creap. Gen 6 will mess up the metagame even more as it only is there to sell so we'll get a bunch of fairies (as it's the new type) and around 6 more dragons until we have a huge amount of pokemon. Imo they should give us more pokemon to use as how are we supposed to cover around 200 pokemon with a team of 6 when around 100/200 have 2-4 sets. That's lot of things to counter and in the end we'll be trying to counter over 1,000 sets with our team of 6 pokemon. Team matchup is what the metagame is basically deciding the game. You can't counter all 500 odd sets and if they have one of those (they normally have 2-3) it basically becomes who can sweep with their pokemon that owns everything first. Nice Metagame.

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+The Librarian
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Admirable Adversary
Personally i like the idea of TONS of Pokemon all countering different things. I mean the more there are the harder it is to just use one or two and destroy everything and to have to counter those. I'm not a fan of countering specific pokemon, but what i DO like is countering strategies or strategizing around ideas not pokemon. It'd be awesome if somehow we could just kind of do away with the need for OU pokemon or at least make it way broader and there be a huge pool of really great usable pokemon who all do different things or similar things in different ways. Like Conk isn't a BETTER version of Machamp, just a different one. I mean machamp can abuse confusion and perfect accuracy, while conk has more bulk. I mean I think that the more we have the more this kind of thing can happen...that is if they stop with the power creep.
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Ender
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Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit. And yesterday a deer. And today you
I agree. I hate having to build a team with Volcarona, Cloyster, Aron, Smeargle, and Breloom in mind specifically. Well actually Sub Prankster solves most of those issues, but still...
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+Excaria
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Well, this post will jump around a bit with no particular sense or order but I'll touch on what I think:

My favorite gen is gen 3, and I'll defend it for all it's worth =) The outfits were good. People complain about the Legends lacking character, but the trio are suppose to be ancient Pokemon. You don't see any more or less character shown in others like claydol and bronzong. Latios, Latias, and Jirachi have character in them.

The outfits have been getting progressively worse. Yes.
Map/plot layout was boring, you knew where to go and what to do the entire time, with no real side tracking.
The lack of minigames, The musical was decently fun, but the movie thing is terrible, was a dissapointment.
I'm not entirely sure why people rant about just emboar. Why not rant on the other two starters as well? Pure grass and Pure water have both been done twice before. No one complains about them. Why is that? Because their uses are different? Blaziken and infernape are used differently than emboar. infernape is a priority pokemon that can use sp attack or attack, while blaziken, with speedboost is a speedy sweeper. So realy, why complain about emboar, at least it has a second type.
My biggest complaints are this:

They didn't use the one legend of this generation in the game that was the best, MELOETTA! *Insert keyboard spamming here* Seriously, you can do a lot with her. She has the grace and elegance in her aria form, and fiery flamboyant personality in her pirouette form. They could have done something with her! It makes me really sad cause she is my favorite Pokemon, and not even the anime does any justice to her.

(I'm outa time to finish all my thoughts, but this is some of what I think)
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+The Librarian
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Frost, I totally agree. Meloetta is BOSS and deserves some game time.

Also I think the reason we hate fire/fighting is because its such a clear slap in the face. I mean yeah, pure grass and pure water have happened before but in very different ways and with a pure type it seems less intentional since those HAVE to be there and a second type is optional. Fire/Fighting on the other hand had no reason to have to happen again. Plus there's such a clear association between pokemon with identical dual typing, Look at Swampert, Quagsire, Gastrodon, and Seismitoad. All of them, though they have some clear differences seem way more similar than pokes with identical single typing, like Flareon, Entei, Magmortar, and Torkoal. They're all the same type, but they all have very different feels to them which is much harder to do with identical dual types I think.

Plus, I mean everyone likes to have interesting starters. I mean if you play the games you have to put up with them at least for a little while so we hope each gen brings about some new ideas to play with. Also I know personally i REALLY liked serperior since its just so dang sassy, but I agree Samurott could have used some help (they should have given IT the secondary fighting type)
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Ender
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Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit. And yesterday a deer. And today you
Meganium is a rather feeble wall-type of Pokemon while Sceptile and Serperior are more offensive (physically and specially, respectively). Blastoise is a bulky hard-hitter lacking speed while Feraligatr has a setup + priority usage and Samurott has decent-but-outclassed mixed damage offensiveness with actually decent speed. They are all somewhat different, but rather consistent is the Water-type's complete lack of speed in every single generation. This makes only the wally ones (Swampert and Empoleon) more viable.

Yeah, Samurott needed fighting more than Emboar. Why does Emboar even have Fighting?

Yes, Meloetta could have been done better. Honestly, I think they should have just had Genesect be part of the storyline. Keldeo could have easily just been an acquirable Pokemon that comes out when you have the Three Musketeers. At least it's not as bad as Gen 4, where we had 5 Pokemon that could not be acquired in-game.

Speaking of which, I have a complaint about events. In Gens 1 and 2, we got 1 event Pokemon each and that made them really special. Gen 3 had that same kind of event Pokemon (Jirachi) but also Deoxys (which I guess is kinda fine... it's a cool idea but it would have competely destroyed the game by making it super easy). But why didn't we get access to Shaymin or Manaphy? I get it, Arceus and Darkrai are broken [and should never have been made]. Both Shaymin and Manaphy could have fit the role of the Generation Event Pokemon. What's even worse, I would never have even heard of Shaymin or Darkrai at all if not for people abusing cheats to get them.

Dragon-types became legends... ugg... Gen 3 there were 3 but that's fine- Rayquaza was the cool one while Latias and Latios were more difficult finds. You really had to earn them all to get them. Gens 4 and 5 force you to battle the 30-foot tall Dragon-type Ubers and they gave you the Master Ball just before the fight just to make it easy.
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+Excaria
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Heh, I myself never use my masterball on the main legendaries (unless I intended to save and soft reset for nature/iv's)

I thought gen 3 did good with the dragons legends. Rayquaza was the big mascot legend, while latias and latios were just two annoyingly hard to catch little dragons. And getting the other legendaries, the regi brothers, was fun to do.

I'd say my second biggest complaint about gen 5 was black and white 2. I failed to see why they made these. A follow-up story for an underdeveloped plot that left you hanging and wasn't concluded? No, they changed the plot up a little and didn't deal with the previous plot.

Just to introduce two new pokemon, Kyurem-B and Kyurem-W(Which, if you include them, we have 8 fully evolved dragons) as well as giving Kyurem a roll in the generation? Perhaps, but why didn't they do anything with other legendaries from other games? And making two new games to introduce two new pokemon....?

They changed the time to a year later, changed the map up, added 2 Pokemon... ugh, I didn't understand this. I realize it could be like an emerald or platinum, but they way they did it was better.
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Ender
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Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit. And yesterday a deer. And today you
Agreed with Frost. The BW story was wrapped up as it was (as stupid and flawed as it was), so there was no need for a stupid 'sequel'. I'd have prefered a remake of Hoenn over a big copy-pasted game. I felt like buying B2W2 was just like buying a Call of Duty.



Oh but I did like Challenge Mode. It made an extra 5 minutes of grinding in the beginning of the game and no other change.
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