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Pokemon Game Appreciation Thread

Dax01 said:
No. Leaf>>>water.
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smh Dax, smh.

I've always been a Water lover, but Empoleon didn't do much for me in Diamond, so I went with Infernape in Platinum.

My Platinum playthrough so far has been way different from how I went through Red and Silver (never finished Diamond, only played a bit of Sapphire and FireRed on emulators since I was too young to buy myself a GBA and my family didn't want me to have one).

No water moves until Surf, no psychic moves, lot's of rock and fighting moves. For Soul Silver I'm going back to my roots though. Special attack <3

I'm still sad my Silver cartridge died, I had the ultimate team all raised from Lvl 10 and under with no rare candies, Feraligatr, Raichu, Dragonite, Houndoom, Alakazam, and ??? I don't remember who I had!
 
upandaway said:
1251036039082.png
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:lol :lol :lol

Fantastic.
 
Regulus Tera said:
Fuck grass, water, and fire starters. Next-gen should be psychic, fighting, and dark starters.
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I've always wanted this.

Or, a game where you can choose any pokémon (except legendaries) and any town to start in from any of the four (five?) regions. Wild pokémon and gyms would be tailored to the highest level pokémon in your team, with the E4 being in the 80s at least. A fan can dream :lol
 
I picked the water starter in Gens I and II.
Skipped Gen III, but in IV, I picked Infernape.

Gen II's starters are the weakest overall, IMO.

Typhlosion shares the same stats as Charizard, but doesn't really have Charizard's versatility. Yes, Charizard is 4x weak to rock, but he also is immune to Earthquake (free switch ins). And Blaziken/Infernape fit the offensive role much better with higher overall offensive stats and movepools.

Feraligatr is overshadowed by Gyarados, which is basically the same Pokemon with better stats (and the Intimidate ability is useful in more situations than Torrent is). The only advantage that I see it has over Gyarados is access to Superpower and Swords Dance. That said, water type monsters are generally best at tanking, because of good defensive stats and resistances. The other 3 water starters do this better than Feraligatr; Blastoise has the defensive stats and can use Rapid Spin (very useful since nowadays everyone uses Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock), Swampert has high stats overall and is really versatile (Curse, stealth rock), and Empoleon has tons of resistances and and can play an offensive or defensive role because of its movepool.

I'm not a big fan of grass starters, and Meganium's meh-ness doesn't do me any favors. You can only really play defense with it. You can do that with both Venusaur and Torterra AND be able to deal some decent damage (especially Torterra). It doesn't get the crucial resistance to Fighting that Venusaur has, can't dish out huge damage like Torterra, and isn't as offensively versatile as Sceptile.

Overall, I think that Gen III has the strongest starters, even if Blaziken got overshadowed by Infernape.

Regulus Tera said:
Fuck grass, water, and fire starters. Next-gen should be psychic, fighting, and dark starters.
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That would be awesome, but I don't think that elemental triangle is as easy to understand for children as fire/water/grass is.
 
upandaway said:
God I love his design. They really went all out. Look at this (I've been looking for a chance to post it):

http://i880.photobucket.com/albums/ac6/bikkou/1252780926449.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

Looks like something out of Monster Hunter, pretty crazy.

I still cant believe Haunter/Gengar is one if not the best (?) ghost ones in the game still. Not that I mind a Haunter is awesome,Gengar..not so much :lol Oh and Alakazam! good ole 152 pokemon.
[IMG]http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/4/42/EP072.png
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selig said:
Two more points i´d like to mention:

1.) I hate the high number of legendary Pokemon. Whats most annoying: They are taboo for many ingame-competitions, and many of them are considered cheap when playing against human opponents (at least back in the days, noone within my circle of friends was allowed to use Mewtu, too powerful). Either lower the number of legendaries drastically, OR dont limit their usage.
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I've always felt that legendaries were for gameplay purposes. As someone who likes the single player of Pokemon, I thoroughly enjoyed going on legendary quests and beating them/capturing them with a billion balls, like they're a secret boss in the game or something.
 
Regulus Tera said:
Fuck grass, water, and fire starters. Next-gen should be psychic, fighting, and dark starters.
Click to expand...

Ha, that´d be great. Also, if Nintendo leaves the story as flat as in the past, they really could let you start in a town of your choice.

If we´re talking about awesome Pokemon now, I´d like to mention my 2nd favorite one (after Charizard):

Sneasel, though I prefer its German name Sniebel.

215.png


(It´s really weak, though :( )
 
Still can't believe something as badass looking as Haunter evolved into that... thing. And his appearance has only gotten lamer with time. Stupid purple blob.
 
Why would you do that? said:
I've always felt that legendaries were for gameplay purposes. As someone who likes the single player of Pokemon, I thoroughly enjoyed going on legendary quests and beating them/capturing them with a billion balls, like they're a secret boss in the game or something.
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Yeah I came to like catching legendaries, ever since I fully trained my awesome Gallade (False Swipe, Double Team, Hypnosis and Mean Look. If only he also had Frisk I could also use him to check up on held items and he would be the most useful Pokemon ever) it's been a blast trying to set up against a legendary then and wail at him.

I caught Giratina on the first Quickball though, even though it has a catch rate of 3. That was nice.
 
Absol (Mean Look + Double Team + Swords Dance + Baton Pass) -> Breloom (False Swipe + Spore) combo, imo. With a Synchronize Abra in front, naturally.

One of these days I need to learn how to screw around with the RNG. Last time I checked up on that stuff it seemed way too obnoxious, and all of the guides I saw were too concerned with shinies and not IV spreads.

What is wrong with people. Most of the shinies don't even look as good as their standard schemes!
 
Regulus Tera said:
Fuck grass, water, and fire starters. Next-gen should be psychic, fighting, and dark starters.
Click to expand...

Grass/Dark
Fire/Psychic
Water/Fighting
?

The reason they do the triangle in that fashion is for the newbies - it's a elemental triangle that logically makes sense, yet if you go against it you can still do some damage.
 
Ondore said:
Grass/Dark
Fire/Psychic
Water/Fighting
?

The reason they do the triangle in that fashion is for the newbies - it's a elemental triangle that logically makes sense, yet if you go against it you can still do some damage.
Click to expand...

Water/Dark or Water/Psychic, I don't like Fighting-types :D
 
Ondore said:
Grass/Dark
Fire/Psychic
Water/Fighting
?

The reason they do the triangle in that fashion is for the newbies - it's a elemental triangle that logically makes sense, yet if you go against it you can still do some damage.
Click to expand...
I didn't like it that this gen they made it so each starter could beat any other starter. It seemed to take away all the fun of having a Pokemon specifically to defeat your friend's starter if yours was weak to theirs.
It also kind of ruined the point of your rival choosing the starter strong against you.
 
Johnlenham said:
This guy was the real badass, was awesome when I got him in Silver :D

http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/8/82/248Tyranitar.png

This one is also another good one.
http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/thumb/f/fa/445Garchomp.png/150px-445Garchomp.png]
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I would rank the crazy dragon pokemon near the end of each pokedex with three evolution stages that the champion always has (even though tyranitar is a bit different) like so:

1.
373Salamence.png


2.
149Dragonite.png


3.
248Tyranitar.png


4.
445Garchomp.png




Cool Pokémon:

Ninetails:

038Ninetales.png


Drapion:

800px-452Drapion.png


Aerodactyl:

800px-142Aerodactyl.png


Funny how you remember them and you're like "Wow I'd forgotten about how cool he was".
 
selig said:
Ha, that´d be great. Also, if Nintendo leaves the story as flat as in the past, they really could let you start in a town of your choice.

If we´re talking about awesome Pokemon now, I´d like to mention my 2nd favorite one (after Charizard):

Sneasel, though I prefer its German name Sniebel.

215.png


(It´s really weak, though :( )
Click to expand...

I loved Sneasel, hated Weavile's design but he's so much stronger. :(
 
You and me are night and day, buddy. Flip the top 4 and switch Dragonite with Salamence (should have been called Salamance).

Also Drapion is a horrible, horrible Pokemon. I hate his design. Ninetails is cool though (could upload more fanart for her but eh).

Edit: Actually you know what, don't switch Salamence with Dragonite. I'd rather have the Mummin over that hideous toy-looking thing.
 
Ramma2 said:
My younger sister grew up watching the original Pokemon cartoons, and even collected some of the cards. By proxy I absorbed some of it, the cartoons mostly, but I never played any of the handheld games until I had a DS Lite. I had heard people ranting and raving about the Pokemon games for years now so I figured hey why not I'll give it a try! Picked up Pokemon Diamond, popped it in and...

The pokemon make unintelligible screeches and squawks like it’s a damn Atari 2600 game. I was fully expecting them to sound like they do on the cartoons! This ranks right up there with the ending of Half Life 1 as my 2 greatest gaming disappointments ever.

I guess since this is an appreciation thread, it was a good game otherwise. My son is playing my copy of Diamond now, has about 45 hours into it and just got the 7th badge.
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I am confident that if every time you sent out charmander to fight your Gameboy/DS screamed "CHARMANDER!!!!!" the games would not have half the success they've had.

n3ss said:
Pokemon Trading Card Game on GBC is crack...
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Man, a thousand times this. When the pokemon TCG first came out I was maybe 11 or 12 years old. I loved the game mechanics and found it a lot of fun and saw a lot of potential for strategic play. My local place had a couple of tournaments in which I placed first and second, but I quickly grew tired of the stupidity of buying into TCG's and the fact that the average Pokemon TCG player was extremely annoying and barely knew how to play the game, let alone play it well. The gameboy version of the card game was a thousand times superior to the actual card game itself, because I could play the damn game and have challenging opponents without dealing with all that crap. Also, the music was great.

Anyway...

Something I don't think gets enough mention is the overall atmosphere and mood of the Pokemon games. The way the games put you on an epic adventure, but it's always about achieving a personal goal and going at your own pace, doing it how you want. The music, scenery and characters do wonderful things to create this mood, and no other game/series has ever pulled this off better. Ultimately, THIS is why I can sit for an entire rainy afternoon with a pokemon game and completely lose track of time.

I've always said, and I think tons of others would as well, that if I had to choose one video game world to inhabit, it would be the pokemon world without question.
 
OMG Aero said:
I didn't like it that this gen they made it so each starter could beat any other starter. It seemed to take away all the fun of having a Pokemon specifically to defeat your friend's starter if yours was weak to theirs.
It also kind of ruined the point of your rival choosing the starter strong against you.
Click to expand...
This was one of my favorite changes made for DP. :P It was nice to have a starter chain that was balanced against each other.
 
upandaway said:
You and me are night and day, buddy. Flip the top 4 and switch Dragonite with Salamence (should have been called Salamance).

Also Drapion is a horrible, horrible Pokemon. I hate his design. Ninetails is cool though (could upload more fanart for her but eh).

Edit: Actually you know what, don't switch Salamence with Dragonite. I'd rather have the Mummin over that hideous toy-looking thing.
Click to expand...

Ah drapion grew on me. I kind of like that he is absolutely hideous (despite liking the design), I guess that's sort of what they were going for.

See what I think they have gotten worse at is the basic pokemon. Not in the sense of the weedles and the ratatas but the first or middle evolutions of pokemon. There, I think the design is sometimes not as good as it used to be. However, the final stages are for the most part still awesome.

For example, Dragonite and Tyranitar are both cool pokemon, right?

But then you look at each pokemons' previous evolutions - pupitar and dragonair.

247Pupitar.png

148Dragonair.png


There's just no competition!

There are quite a few more examples, but this was one of the most obvious I could think of. Others may come down to taste.

More cool pokemon:

Pidgeotto:

519px-017Pidgeotto.png


Milotic:

350Milotic.png


Luxray (was so goddamn useful to me in Diamond)

405Luxray.png


Ursaring

217Ursaring.png
 
So we're talking about favorite Pokemon, eh?

I dunno if I'd call it my favorite, but the one Pokemon I make a point of including on my team if I can is Milotic.

350Milotic.png


For those not in the know, this is a reasonably powerful water type that evolves from a joke of a water type named Feebas. So, basically a carbon copy of Magikarp/Gyarados. One thing that makes it different is its rarity. Feebas can only be found in one lake of the game, and it can only be found on about 5 different individual tiles of that lake. Which means that you have to surf along a few hundred individual tiles on the map, fishing 2 or 3 times on each one to see if you can snag the bastard. And oh yeah, the location of the Feebas tiles change to random positions each and every day.

So when I finally sucked it up and went down to this lake to try and find this thing, I expected an hour long slog in line with the sort of timesink you get out of typical Pokemon activities. Instead, I snagged one on the very first tile, on my very first attempt.

It was meant to be.

Fake edit: ^hi5
 
The whole getting Feebas and then bullshit evolving him was the most frustrating thing in the Ru/Sa generation. I really hate some of the elaborate ways you can evolve monsters now. This thread has given me the need to beat Diamond, which I never have, so I think I'm going to restart it and hope for the best.

My favorite new Pokemon:

Drifblim.png
 
Sixfortyfive said:
So we're talking about favorite Pokemon, eh?

I dunno if I'd call it my favorite, but the one Pokemon I make a point of including on my team if I can is Milotic.

350Milotic.png


For those not in the know, this is a reasonably powerful water type that evolves from a joke of a water type named Feebas. So, basically a carbon copy of Magikarp/Gyarados. One thing that makes it different is its rarity. Feebas can only be found in one lake of the game, and it can only be found on about 5 different individual tiles of that lake. Which means that you have to surf along a few hundred individual tiles on the map, fishing 2 or 3 times on each one to see if you can snag the bastard. And oh yeah, the location of the Feebas tiles change to random positions each and every day.

So when I finally sucked it up and went down to this lake to try and find this thing, I expected an hour long slog in line with the sort of timesink you get out of typical Pokemon activities. Instead, I snagged one on the very first tile, on my very first attempt.

It was meant to be.

Fake edit: ^hi5
Click to expand...

I never EVER managed to catch a Feebas, in any of the games. Believe me I tried, spent hours surfing for the bastard...the only truly rare Pokemon that isn't an event-only one.
 
I'd say Generation II had by FAR the worst designs except for the starters and about 10 others. The rest utterly suck. Since we're doing lists might as well start mine.

1)
Charizard.jpg
Will always be my all time favorite pokemon. People underestimate him because of his stats. If you train it right, and put some good moves it can become a sweeper.

2)
tyranitar.jpg
Looks like Godzilla, and an absolute beast. Hate it's sandstorm ability though.

3)
Blastoise.jpg
A turtle with canon shells? Yes please

4)
Lugia.jpg
Best. Bird. Ever.

5)
Rayquaza.jpg
Likely my most favorite legendary pokemon.
 
RBY

Rattata
019.png

Raticate
020.png


OK design

GSC

Sentret
161.png

Furret
162.png


Worse design than RBY IMO, but not horrible.

RSE

Zigzagoon
263.png

Linoone
264.png


The character design isn't that bad, but the names suck IMO.

DPPt

Bidoof
399_1.png

Bibarel
400_1.png


The designs, the names, both suck IMO.

Best out of all of these for me is Raticate.
 
So now this is literally an appreciation thread for Pokemon?

Huh.jpg


RaiAndPika01.jpg


Always preferred Raichu. Still my favorite after more than a decade. &#9829;
 
Am I the only one that doesn't like the design of blastoise? His face looks like Giovanni/a cat (turtles don't have ears.) I prefer more organic designs, like ninetails, or dragonair, or Flygon, or abra, or even pikachu.
 
Oh hey cool, here are mine. They are infinitely better than all of these. You guys have horrible taste.
Bayleef and Crobat not included because I only have official art.

1212055310993.gif


1252780618135.jpg


1255281377806.jpg

(How could you say 2nd gen starters are the worst? Jerks)
 
In addition to Raichu and Sneasel, I also have an affinity for Togetic. Togekiss is like the coolest-to-dumbest evolution design though, but he's a special powerhouse so I have to love him. <3
 
The only pokemon I never want to evolve is Pikachu. I just can't do it. The tv show and playing through Pokemon Yellow just would never let me. And if I do, I usually just reset my game.
 
DR2K said:
The only pokemon I never want to evolve is Pikachu. I just can't do it. The tv show and playing through Pokemon Yellow just would never let me. And if I do, I usually just reset my game.
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Raichu is much better. In every way. Wuv~~~~~~~~~~~~~++
 
Regulus Tera said:
Fuck grass, water, and fire starters. Next-gen should be psychic, fighting, and dark starters.
Click to expand...

The problem with that is that although the circle is similar to Grass, Water and Fire, it isn't identical. Dark is completely immune to Psychic, rather than just resistant to it, giving it a small advantage, which slightly undermines the fact that they're all supposed to be perfectly balanced.

The only other three-type cycle I can think of that works exactly the same way is Fire, Rock, and Steel. And that's a pretty unappealing selection.
 
HappyBivouac said:
Man, a thousand times this. When the pokemon TCG first came out I was maybe 11 or 12 years old. I loved the game mechanics and found it a lot of fun and saw a lot of potential for strategic play. My local place had a couple of tournaments in which I placed first and second, but I quickly grew tired of the stupidity of buying into TCG's and the fact that the average Pokemon TCG player was extremely annoying and barely knew how to play the game, let alone play it well. The gameboy version of the card game was a thousand times superior to the actual card game itself, because I could play the damn game and have challenging opponents without dealing with all that crap. Also, the music was great.
Click to expand...

Still hurts that Nintendo at least partially translated Pokemon TCG 2. I remember playing it for a few minutes at E3 and being pretty excited. :/
 
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