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[KAL2006]

The Legendarys in this one was a bit too much.

Pokemon Red and Blue had Mew Two the man made Pokemon and Mew the first ever Pokemon. As well as the Legendary trio of birds.

The Gold and Silver had 2 more birds and some time travel Pokemon.

Then Ruby and Saphire had Ground and Water Legendarys which were cool.

But them this one had a God which let's he honest we can't top that. Then you have the Regi Pokemon that just look awful and you have Time and Space. The Pokemon mythology was just too much and not your cool legendary that were in the previous generation but so over the top in terms of power.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

To further elaborate on my point from earlier, one of the main criticisms I have for Diamond/Pearl is that it took the Pokemon mythos too far whereas Gen 3 was an introduction to it. Like did we really need Supreme God Pokemon Arceus and Time/Space Pokemon of Dialga and Palkia? Compared to Gen 3 and upcoming Sun/Moon the Legendaries, while powerful in their own right, are more grounded to (Pokemon) Earth as they represent common mythological aspects such as Earth, Sea, the Sun, the Moon, etc.

I actually agree, very strongly. There's ridiculous dissonance generated from a ten-year old kid having control over a monster that can apparently use it to rewrite space and time, and yet somehow that monster can still lose to a giant chicken or a rock rhino on a bad day. Legendaries were best when they were just very rare and very powerful Pokemon. Even RSE was starting to go to far, but since Gen 4 and onwards, the legendaries have just been awful, awful. The sense of design creep actually goes into their visual design as well - Palkia and Dialga are ugly as all sin.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Behold, the song of my people

 

[Fancyarcher]

Nah, Barry was the last true rival who had a full team that grew along side yours and all rivals that proceeded after him didn't match up to him.

Plus he's miles better than the group of friends in X and Y, now they were pointless as the did nothing what soever in the story, with Shauna being shoehorned into the Team Flare plot.

Yeah. I really wouldn't call the character pointless either. He actually played a role in the plot, or at least Game Freak tried to include him in the plot. Plus, he was probably the most "energetic" rival up to that point, which made him different enough.

Also of note is that this was the first generation where your rival wasn't the first trainer you battled.

Also, wow, I never realized just how many people hated Diamond / Pearl. I'm glad I wasn't posting on video game boards back in 2007.

 

[Kindekuma]

Fuck me, has it really been that long? Diamond is probably my favorite version, I've sunk hundreds of hours in that game. I remember holding my DS up to get Wi-Fi service for the Trading Network since the connection in my house was weak as hell.

D/P/Plat. gen probably has the best music too.

 

[Takashi]

But Celebi was never the one to control time, he is simply a time traveler by the Grace of Dialga and our God and creator Arceus

I never said celebi was a master of time though, just that we already had a Pokemon related to time. The masters of things would be stuff like kyogre or groudon. But that's exactly my point tho, celebi was fine as just a time traveler; there was no need for a Pokemon that completely governs something like time and much less a literal god Pokemon.

Sorry I'm at work so it was hard to articulate.

 

[Rutger]

Wow, it's been that long?

These were the games that brought me back into Pokemon. It's a story I've heard often from other people, I lost interest sometime before gen III until I noticed some friends playing D/P in high school. I'm glad things went how they did, I went back to gen III afterwords and it was a pretty big disappointment. If I had played through the painfully dull Hoenn region beforehand, it probably would have taken a lot longer before I felt like returning to the series.

The original D/P games had some issues looking back, namely the speed. Platinum fixed things up nicely though and it still stands near the top of my favorite Pokemon games, alongside HGSS and BWB2W2. I wont want to go back to either Diamond or Pearl when I have the superior Platinum, but I have a lot of fond memories with them.

I'm looking forward to whenever we see Gen IV remakes. Though with Gen VII being released at the end of the 3DS's life, I'm expecting to have to wait a while longer.

 

[Espada]

I never said celebi was a master of time though, just that we already had a Pokemon related to time. The masters of things would be stuff like kyogre or groudon. But that's exactly my point tho, celebi was fine as just a time traveler; there was no need for a Pokemon that completely governs something like time and much less a literal god Pokemon.

Sorry I'm at work so it was hard to articulate.

Celebi is a time traveler, Dialga is Time-God. Nothing is wrong with that, it's a pretty cool concept. Finally giving us a God pokemon also capped what they've done with legendaries since. Notice how they've pulled back quite a bit on their significance in the generations that followed Gen IV.

Anyway, D/P were a pretty major milestone for the series in many ways. The Phys/Spec split was the biggest mechanical change since the original Special split back in Gen 2, Poketch was a really useful tool (more so than the Pokegear), the entire Wireless battling/trading framework we now enjoy was introduced (goddamn those were wild days), many of the items used for IV training/hold items were introduced in Gen IV, the competitive scene was awesome then, we got one of the best champions in the entire series, we got our first actual rival since Gen 2 (who ultimately trounces Silver), and the list goes on and on.

But the game was technically flawed, with absolutely horrid performance in battle and really dumb decisions like Rock Smash and Defog. Still, Platinum came around and improved on D/P significantly. It's still one of the best Pokemon games ever made.

 

[WrenchNinja]

It seems a bit narrow-minded to focus on how much time battles take. I get that people get annoyed by it by modern standards but at the time of release? Really? That's what truly bothers you?

I dont have to compare it to modern standards, i can just compare them to R/S and Fr/Lg.

I'm playing through platinum and firered right now and it is frustrating as hell. So yes, the speed bothers me. It bothers a lot of people as you can see from the thread and whenever the 4th Gen get brought up.

I could name more examples. My point is complaining about battle speed shouldn't be the factor that makes or breaks a game. That's like saying previou games don't have a mach bike. It's silly.

and my point is when you have to deal with such a sluggish battle system for tens to hundreds of hours, that takes a toll. It's not silly at all.

 

[Dark Orchid]

I have a lot of nostalgia for D/P, but they're still the worst in the series. Had a lot of fun the first time through when everything was a mystery and everybody was running around looking for all of the legendaries and evolution methods, but playing through again needs at least a 5 year cooldown for me. I played Diamond and Platinum again this year and wow they don't hold up, compared to every other gen which I can comfortably go through at any time.

-The obvious problem: the speed. I have no idea how this passed any sort of testing. Briefly went back to Platinum first to get some things off of it and decided to test the surf speed, thought it was bad. Played through Diamond completely and then got to surfing and uh... wow. Battles were also agonizingly slow even without animations.

-Honey Trees. Yes, let's segregate a tenth of the already small regional dex into a feature that takes 8 hours to work and was originally cut from Gold and Silver for a much better field move idea. Let's also put one of them into one tree at 1% rarity that changes depending on your ID. Let's also have a Pokemon appear in these trees not able to evolve 75% of the time. Let's ALSO make the most common Pokemon in them be the bug that was on Route 101 in the last games. Great plan.

-Pacing. You literally save all of space-time and absolutely no one hears about it. You have a dragon that controls the fabric of reality now and have the option of catching the embodiments of emotions themselves, and this 8th gym leader doesn't think you're worthy of even fighting, even going as far to make plans to quit after beating you. What?

-Time-based friendship evolutions. No, really, I didn't want my Budew to evolve until level 42 at all, it was totally planned.

-Cyrus. This character was so terrible even the head translator had to speak up to Game Freak about him, and is probably why Platinum was the last game he worked on. He is said to be emotionless but starts gleefully yelling about the end of the universe on top of a mountain. There is also no reason for anyone to be following him whatsoever, which was somewhat fixed in Platinum.

However, D/P did bring about a lot of great changes to the series. Physical/Special split, easier EV training, Wi-Fi (even though most of it was taken from earlier systems in Japanese Crystal), and better balancing in battles. Honestly D/P was the last time I enjoyed 6v6 singles, which is sadly something they've moved away from since.

 

[Illucio]

The most painful thing about these games was finding all the mons needed in the Sinnoh Pokedex in order to get the national. x.x...
I still think it's the series worse, but it still has a ton of redeeming things about it.

 

[Regiruler]

Going to put this out there: Bronzong was so much cooler before the transition to 3D, now he just looks kind of dumb.

 

[Firemind]

and my point is when you have to deal with such a sluggish battle system for tens to hundreds of hours, that takes a toll. It's not silly at all.

Agree to disagree. It's silly. Similar to how people complain about the box system in Gen I.

-Pacing. You literally save all of space-time and absolutely no one hears about it. You have a dragon that controls the fabric of reality now and have the option of catching the embodiments of emotions themselves, and this 8th gym leader doesn't think you're worthy of even fighting, even going as far to make plans to quit after beating you. What?

That's not what pacing means.

 

[UncleSporky]

It seems a bit narrow-minded to focus on how much time battles take. I get that people get annoyed by it by modern standards but at the time of release? Really? That's what truly bothers you?

I'd much rather talk about the actual content, which was a breath of fresh air because of the physical/special split. Battles felt new, which is more than can be said about X/Y's Megas. You can catch cool Pokemon relatively early. Gible can be caught as early as after the sixth gym. Larvitar is only available after you beat the sixteen gyms in G/S. Bagon is only available after the eight gym. Beldum only after you beat Steven. Deino only in Victory Road. You get the idea.

Level-up moves aren't as barren as in G/S or as late as in B/W. The B/W starters learn their most powerful STAB moves at lvl. 62. That's stupid. Compare that to D/P where Torterra learns Earthquake immediately after he evolves. Infernape learns Close Combat at lvl. 41. Emboar doesn't even learn a Fighting move naturally.

I could name more examples. My point is complaining about battle speed shouldn't be the factor that makes or breaks a game. That's like saying previou games don't have a mach bike. It's silly.

I don't care about which pokemon learns which move at what level if hours of my time are being wasted. I mean, this is after all just a video game, I'm spending some of my own precious time to play this thing, and the game is just moping along taking way too long to get anywhere, both in movement and in combat.

If I spend 100 hours playing a given pokemon game, and you give me the choice between learning moves at good levels(?) but 40 hours were fat that could've been trimmed in the seconds between attacks or extra frames spent walking, vs. some slightly janky movesets but I accomplish almost twice as much in the same amount of time...I'll take the slightly jankier one every time. I will not have my already-wasted time wasted even more needlessly.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Agree to disagree. It's silly. Similar to how people complain about the box system in Gen I.

To me, silly is complaining about a pokemon not learning their best move right after evolving or not being able to find a powerful pokemon earlier instead of endgame

 

[ChrisD]

My favorite generation for a number of reasons. The only Pokemon game I've bought an extra copy of to replay is Platinum. Four complete playthroughs. <3

The world is the funnest to traverse, actually feeling like an adventure imo.

Going to put this out there: Bronzong was so much cooler before the transition to 3D, now he just looks kind of dumb.

This is unfortunately true for a lot of Pokemon. Some are more lovable in 3D, but a good few got hit with the opposite.

 

[Skii]

Man I loved that generation. Me and all my friends came into school after summer with Diamond/Pearl and were always playing/trading/discussing it. It was the best.

 

[Gengahrrr]

Locking all the new evolutions to post-game was a completely idiotic move.

 

[ChrisD]

Also, because I feel the urge to make my horribly contrary to the norm opinions known:

Torterra and his entire line are great designs

Empoleon and Infernape are also neat, penguin in a suit is such a silly yet wonderfully executed idea

Electivire and Magmortar are really cool

Mamoswine, Lickilicky and Weavile are awesome

Glaceon and Leafeon are the best eeveelutions and still haven't been topped (Glacy is best~)

Dialga is such a great Pokemon in design, he's cool but also lovable

Giratina should be edgy to the point of cringe, but I think he juuuuust stays out of that realm, so he's a neat one

Regigigas is the best Regi

Space Goat Stuck in a Fence, aka Arceus is dumb -- probably the one opinion I have that aligns with most people -- BUT his intended area, the Hall of Origin was friggin' awesome, and I give props to the Devs on it

 

[Dark Orchid]

That's not what pacing means.

It is absolutely what pacing means. What should have been the final act was shoved into the very end of the third act with a second final act afterwards which was yet another copy of the same final act the previous 3 installments had. Black and White fixed this problem and then X and Y brought it back in a very similar way.

 

[Nanashrew]

I never finished Pearl but I'll never forget DELELELELEWHOOOOOOP in my life.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Agree to disagree. It's silly. Similar to how people complain about the box system in Gen I.


That's not what pacing means.

The Box system in Gen 1 (& 2) was legitimately bad. interface wasn't intuitive and if you forgot to switch to a clean box before catching a new Pokemon you lose the capture. Gen 3's total refresh of the system was so much better it's not even funny. I don't see how pointing that out is "silly" when you need a well done storage and cataloging system in a game that's about collecting monsters.


And yes, Gen 4's battle system was slow. It was especially bad during late game and online when opponents have higher HP and thus cause the bar to drain slower.

 

[CazTGG]

The Box system in Gen 1 (& 2) was legitimately bad. interface wasn't intuitive and if you forgot to switch to a clean box before catching a new Pokemon you lose the capture.

Counter-point for Gen II's box system: You could use it to gain all three Johto starters, without trading or breeding, on a single cartridge, so long as the internal battery would work at least.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Okay, yknow what, I feel like that asshole who came to the party just to shit on the birthday boy/girl.

I do like a lot of things about Diamond and Pearl. I like the nods to the Lake of Rage and Red Gyarados at the beginning, the Jasmine cameo, Cynthia who is probably the best champion the series has ever gotten. Seriously, that Garchomp, Lucario, Roserade, they're no joke.

The Sinnoh region is a well designed mountainous area. Lots of different locale with distinct looks like Floaroma Town, Canalave, and Sunysore. The whole place centring around this one mountain range was a nice touch which makes this region one of a kind. Even the Pokemon legendary lore centres around it.

There's several memorable characters with Game Freak further trying to develop the gym leaders, for example we get Father and Son gym leaders with Roark and Byron. We have the friendship between Volkner and Elite 4 member Flint. Even the rivals dad is a big shot being the head of the Battle Tower.

Another nice touch are the small mini dungeons where you partner up with another trainer and proceed with double battles. This is also the first time we have wild double battles, with a unique method of capturing Pokemon, at least one of the wild pokemon has to have fainted before you can catch the other. It's a great way to train, each trainer has a unique look, and they end up helping you out at the Battle Tower in the post game.

 

[wmlk]

That region man. It was also the start of the best generation of games including spin offs.

Platinum + HeartGold/SoulSilver released, and the Mystery Dungeon series peaked here.

 

[ar4757]

Favorite set of starters as a whole

Usually I dislike one starter but not that gen

And I really like the snowy environments, and how peaceful of a region it is.

I think "tranquil" sums up Sinnoh

 

[iPaul93]

Worst gen.

Worst post.

 

[Dark Orchid]

As much as I was shitting on it up there, I do think a remake could potentially make it one of the best games in the series. On one condition, it's not just the "ORAS treatment". Look at the way Alola is shaping up: not everything is facing the same way, everything seems to be based around exploration of the four islands. For a region based around a mountain, Sinnoh could benefit greatly from that sort of shape and design. Continue fixing the plot like was done with Platinum, change some of the more aggravating mechanics, and you'd have a really good tribute to these games. If they just did what they did with ORAS again I don't think it would be a wise way to carry the momentum from this year.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

As much as I was shitting on it up there, I do think a remake could potentially make it one of the best games in the series. On one condition, it's not just the "ORAS treatment". Look at the way Alola is shaping up: not everything is facing the same way, everything seems to be based around exploration of the four islands. For a region based around a mountain, Sinnoh could benefit greatly from that sort of shape and design. Continue fixing the plot like was done with Platinum, change some of the more aggravating mechanics, and you'd have a really good tribute to these games. If they just did what they did with ORAS again I don't think it would be a wise way to carry the momentum from this year.

Platinum with a quicker interface/battles and all the good features from later gens would be amazing. But yes, it needs to be a better effort than ORAS.

 

[GreatFalco]

Only gen I haven't beaten (I got to victory road though). Too slow to enjoy and way TOO MANY zubats to even walk. I was so pissed off everytime I walked through a cave...

 

[Dark Orchid]

Was sort of in disbelief that it had really been 10 years. Went back and checked:

Where did that decade go.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

The generation with the best competitive scene. It's a shame Black and White ruined it, at least XY patched it up somewhat.

I'd argue that XY made it worse. Mega-Evolutions centralized the meta game to the point where it's rare to see a team not run a M-Evo (not to mention some of the more broken ones like the M-Gengar and later Primals in ORAS). The Fairy type also became hilariously powerful after being originally intended to nerf Dragons, and yet, Dragons are still quite powerful.

It's stuff like this that makes me think that GF has a rather facile concept of their own battle system and metagame as a whole. They don't really focus enough on base stat distribution in relation to competitive impact.

 

[GamerJM]

Best gen. It was the last one that felt somewhat nonlinear and had an acceptable postgame, and it's not really hard to come back to like 1 or 2. Hopefully S&M will match it.

 

[Carl7]

I loved everything in gen 4 except Palkia and Dialga. I want the remakes to feature weavile and garchomp in the front cover.

 

[woopWOOP]

I missed out on a few generations of Pokémon, including Diamond and Pearl, due to falling away from games for a while.

I have a 3DS now and I'd love to go back and make my way through every generation again, and the ones I missed. Is there some way to carry my creatures all the way through from Gen I to current day?

Kind of. It can be a pain to transfer tho.

The Gen 1 and Gen 2 Gameboy originals are stuck in their own system and can't be traded to the newer games, with the exception of the recent Gen 1 VC releases that supposedly allow you to upload your monsters to the Pokemon Bank system and newer games at some point in the future.

Gen 3 and onwards allows you to transfer monsters to the new generations in different ways, tho not back.
For Gen 3 -> Gen 4 you need a Nintendo DS and have both the GBA and NDS cartridges slotted at the same time. After beating the champion in Diamond/Pearl you can transfer monsters through some Safari park style minigame (tho no more than six a day...)
For Gen 4 -> Gen 5 you need two systems and have them connect through Download Play. Not sure if using both a DS and 3DS works, but two of each does atleast. Beat the Gen 5 champion and you can transfer as many as you want through a much shorter minigame.
For Gen 5 -> Gen 6 you need to download the Pokemon Transfer within Pokemon Bank. With it you can upload your Box 1 monsters to Pokemon Bank anytime you want.
The Gen 1, 2 and 3 games all had a remake on GBA (gen3), DS (gen4) and 3DS (gen6) respectively so it's possible to play through each gen's region and transfer your monsters to the latest games. The games hardly switch up the 8 gyms concept so you'll quickly burn out if you try playing the games one after another

By the way if you're thinking of trying Diamond and Pearl, you're better off going with Platinum instead. It has some more stuff, better monster distribution and fixes some of the saving speed issues.

 

[Kurita]

My favorite generation. Absolutely loved everything about it. The region, the music, the pokémons, the characters... Platinum is basically my favorite game ever.

 

[Firemind]

I don't care about which pokemon learns which move at what level if hours of my time are being wasted. I mean, this is after all just a video game, I'm spending some of my own precious time to play this thing, and the game is just moping along taking way too long to get anywhere, both in movement and in combat.

If I spend 100 hours playing a given pokemon game, and you give me the choice between learning moves at good levels(?) but 40 hours were fat that could've been trimmed in the seconds between attacks or extra frames spent walking, vs. some slightly janky movesets but I accomplish almost twice as much in the same amount of time...I'll take the slightly jankier one every time. I will not have my already-wasted time wasted even more needlessly.

It's not slightly worse though. People seem to forget how bad some of the games were. In G/S, Pokemon learn useless moves all the time. Take Heracross for example. The only useful move it learns is Megahorn at lvl. 54. It's not so different from, say, Pinsir in R/B, besides the fact Pinsir is a rare Pokemon and Heracross is quite prominent in a number of routes. And if you think you can patch him up with TMs, oh boy, have I got news for you. Defense Curl is a TM in G/S. Defense Curl! I think that deserves more scrutiny than your pet peeve.

To me, silly is complaining about a pokemon not learning their best move right after evolving or not being able to find a powerful pokemon earlier instead of endgame

I'd argue having less than capable Pokemon wastes more time than some extra battle animation. You say it's frustrating which seems to indicate it's something game breaking. I mean, I think the dialogue when you encounter and defeat a random trainer wastes my time but you don't hear me complaining about it.

 

[Torokil]

Worst pair of games, Platinum fixed all its mistakes though.

And that jazzy ost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gVjsQW-Puo&list=PL179D9EEB47465C35&index=30

 

[Cess007]

The gen that franchise fatigue hit me hardest... Everything felt so been there, done that from a casual perspective...

This is me. I remember even reaching the Elite Four and then.. just dropped. The franchise fatigue just hit me when I noticed i was doing the same thing for the 4 gens.

 

[nickgia]

4th Gen will always have a special place in my heart. I was deep into competitive battling for the first time and I really enjoyed the single player after being disappointed with Sapphire. Platinum is probably the best pokemon game.

 

[ChrisD]

Worst pair of games, Platinum fixed all its mistakes though.

And that jazzy ost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gVjsQW-Puo&list=PL179D9EEB47465C35&index=30

No Pokemon OST will ever stack up to DPPt, tbh. The jazz was such a different type of music for the series, and it was wonderful.

 

[Gravidee]

Diamond was the most amount of time I've ever spent on a game, over 500 hours. Played that thing night and day, in conjunction with Pokemon Battle Revolution.

 

[Caelus]

The music and environments in this game were incredible, these were the games I grew up with as a child, but replaying them just feels like a nuisance due to the slowness.

Seriously, the OST is damn good, nice and jazzy and atmospheric. I wonder if these'll get made for the NX.

 

[Lucky Seven]

... and I was 10. God, I feel like a grade schooler when i'm on GAF.

 

[Espada]

Platinum with a quicker interface/battles and all the good features from later gens would be amazing. But yes, it needs to be a better effort than ORAS.

I'm legitimately afraid they're not going to learn anything from ORAS and screw up the remake for Platinum.

 

[Reset]

First post is right. Well except the XY part.

I'd argue that XY made it worse. Mega-Evolutions centralized the meta game to the point where it's rare to see a team not run a M-Evo (not to mention some of the more broken ones like the M-Gengar and later Primals in ORAS). The Fairy type also became hilariously powerful after being originally intended to nerf Dragons, and yet, Dragons are still quite powerful.

It's stuff like this that makes me think that GF has a rather facile concept of their own battle system and metagame as a whole. They don't really focus enough on base stat distribution in relation to competitive impact.

Meh, I'd take the Mega spam over the weather spam and genies spam. Don't really have a problem with Primals(never were OU) and Mega-Gengar/Kanga as they got banned pretty early on so eh. Plus 5th gen is worse just for introducing team preview.
I know Gamefreak doesn't care about balancing their own games as Stealth Rock has remained untouched since 4th gen, but I really enjoyed the 4th gen meta with no team preview, weather wasn't so prevalent, and with no broken DW abilities given to pokemons.

 

[Mr-Joker]

Yeah. I really wouldn't call the character pointless either. He actually played a role in the plot, or at least Game Freak tried to include him in the plot. Plus, he was probably the most "energetic" rival up to that point, which made him different enough.

Barry was really fleshed out in Platinum as he went from an impatient kid to a mature kid understanding that there was no quick and easy way of becoming a strong trainer and he understood his limit which is why he bailed out after helping defeat Mars and Jupiter.

Also, wow, I never realized just how many people hated Diamond / Pearl. I'm glad I wasn't posting on video game boards back in 2007.

I just ignore the haters as every generation has them and it doesn't stop gen 4 from being my favorite.

Granted I am not saying that gen 4 is by any mean perfect as no generation is ever 100% perfect but I am able to overlook its flaws as they didn't distract the whole experience for me.

I actually agree, very strongly. There's ridiculous dissonance generated from a ten-year old kid having control over a monster that can apparently use it to rewrite space and time, and yet somehow that monster can still lose to a giant chicken or a rock rhino on a bad day. Legendaries were best when they were just very rare and very powerful Pokemon. Even RSE was starting to go to far, but since Gen 4 and onwards, the legendaries have just been awful, awful. The sense of design creep actually goes into their visual design as well - Palkia and Dialga are ugly as all sin.

I hate it when folks pull the "being controlled by a ten year old" nonsense as they forget that can also be applied to any Pokémon like Gyarados who is known for destroying entire cities but "yet still lose to a giant chicken or a rock rhino on a bad day."

Furthermore the games outright states two thing;

1. It takes a trainer of great skill and mastery to not only capture a legendary Pokémon but also control them.

2. The Pokéball actually caps Pokémon full powers, hence why Cyrus straights up gives the player the master ball as it was unless to him.

-Pacing. You literally save all of space-time and absolutely no one hears about it.

Why would they? The event took place on top of Mt Coronet and was quickly dealt with before it got out of control.

You have a dragon that controls the fabric of reality now and have the option of catching the embodiments of emotions themselves, and this 8th gym leader doesn't think you're worthy of even fighting, even going as far to make plans to quit after beating you. What?

You're either misremembering or you don't actually pay attention as Volkner did not think that the player wasn't worthy of fighting and he only planned to quit to challenge the Elite 4 because he was bored.

Volkner never did looked down on the trainer and like the other NPC in Sunnyshore didn't know about Team Galactic as Cyrus never went there as he was from there.

-Time-based friendship evolutions. No, really, I didn't want my Budew to evolve until level 42 at all, it was totally planned.

Not exclusive to gen 4 nor is it a problem as raising Pokémon happiness isn't difficult as I have done it just fine with my Budew by getting her to evolve by Level 19.

-Cyrus. This character was so terrible even the head translator had to speak up to Game Freak about him, and is probably why Platinum was the last game he worked on. He is said to be emotionless but starts gleefully yelling about the end of the universe on top of a mountain. There is also no reason for anyone to be following him whatsoever, which was somewhat fixed in Platinum.

Again you're misremembering he does no such thing in Diamond and Pearl.

It is absolutely what pacing means. What should have been the final act was shoved into the very end of the third act with a second final act afterwards which was yet another copy of the same final act the previous 3 installments had. Black and White fixed this problem and then X and Y brought it back in a very similar way.

It's fine and nowhere bad as X and Y as Team Galactic was properly paced out which admin leader being fleshed out.

Also the adventure ends when you become champion of the region but in the case of Black and White it was left wide open as Team Plasma interrupt your Elite 4 challenge thus setting up the sequel which did end with you becoming champion.

Also again Gen 4 was not the only game to that as Gen 1,2,3 and even 5 with Black and White 2 did it.

 

[ckfy63a]

Ah, Pokémon Pearl...I had a kind of similar experience to OP, this was the first game I imported from Japan (from Himeya Shop, for those who remember them) with my own saved-up money. I was nine years old, and also couldn't understand any of the text. After about 9 months of frustration, I decided to try my hand at learning Japanese -- eventually, I was able to speak/read/write proficiently, and I actively studied the language for about 7 years...all thanks to these games, so many opportunities opened up... Seriously, Gen IV remakes might just be in my top 3 most anticipated titles for NX.

 

[Rutger]

Meh, I'd take the Mega spam over the weather spam and genies spam. Don't really have a problem with Primals(never were OU) and Mega-Gengar/Kanga as they got banned pretty early on so eh. Plus 5th gen is worse just for introducing team preview.
I know Gamefreak doesn't care about balancing their own games as Stealth Rock has remained untouched since 4th gen, but I really enjoyed the 4th gen meta with no team preview, weather wasn't so prevalent, and with no broken DW abilities given to pokemons.

Game Freak does care about balancing their game, they just don't care about 1v1 like Smogon does. Stealth Rock hasn't been touched because it's not a big deal in the 2v2 format they focus on.

 

[Syntsui]

Shoutout to evolving Haunter with the Wi-Fi trick.