Weakest Remakes/Third Versions in the Pokemon Franchise?

[Papasmurf]

I'd honestly say OR/AS were by far the weakest. The lack of Battle Frontier, the main quest having even less differences from the original Hoenn games than Ultra SM compared to the original SM games, all very lackluster in my opinion. Even the Delta Episode was nowhere near as good or moving as the Emma sidequest in X/Y. All around very disappointing when HG/SS incorporated many events from Crystal to make it a complete package such as Suicune not being just another roamer that tries to Roar itself out in every battle. The closest thing to an Emerald reference that OR/AS had was a conversation between big gay Wallace and Steven.

By contrast, I'd probably say HG/SS were the best remakes by a mile. I used to not like all the random changes from the original GSC games, but they've grown on me now, and adding back in all the missing Kanto dungeons like the Seafoam Islands and the Cerulean Cave was a huge plus when Kanto was so cut down, it was practically half the size of Johto in the original games.

FR/LG were about smack in the middle. They were faithful to the original games while adding in new content, although it was disappointing that that E-Reader that was supposed to unlock additional Johto Pokes in that one cave was never released, and it would've been cool if you could somehow travel to Mt. Silver after the Sevii Islands sidequest to fully complete Red's story. Still, much better remakes than the travesty that was OR/AS (which I'd honestly say were the closest things to a cashgrab in the series up until USUM, which probably had the gayest sidequest in the series in the Rainbow Rocket arc).

As far as third versions go, my favorite was Platinum, followed by Emerald. Yellow was OK, much bigger changes than Blue at least, but other than being able to collect all the starters it was nowhere near as much of an expansion as Crystal or Emerald/Platinum with the YUGE addition of the Battle Frontier.

Never played Black/White 2 nor watched many clips of it on Youtube so I can't judge.

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

Black White 2 is great.

 

[Papasmurf]

Black White 2 is great.

You'd have been like 8 when it came out, so of course it's great to you

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

Black White 2 is great.

You'd have been like 8 when it came out, so of course it's great to you 2

Thats the target audience for Pokemon.

 

[Papasmurf]

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

The ifunny watermark kills the meme.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

OR/AS would probably be the weakest as whilst Gen 6's mechanics are a step-up from Gen 3's, ORAS didn't add much new from what X/Y established beyond a few new broken Megas and the Meta-reshaping Primal Evolutions. Even the Delta Episode was a step down from the Looker mission with it overall being a journey that really dragged on at its early stages and became too rushed towards the finale (eg. giving you a 100% chance of catching Rayquaza), though at least it was better than how the Ultra Beast mission played out in Sun/Moon (1,000,000 Poke is a nice reward, but not compared to two legendaries).

Weakest third edition would probably be either Yellow or Crystal. The former was great when it came out for being a decent portrayal of an anime-inspired story in the Gen 1 games, though is now obsolete when the majority of these aspects are pulled off far better in the Let's Go games (beyond the rival being yet another friendly one). Crystal had nothing wrong with it, but didn't expand on the original games as much as Emerald or Platinum would do.

 

[SSJ2]

The worst one I played was Black 2. There was nothing memorable about it to me I just remember that it sucked. I’d probably say OR if I got further than the 3rd gym.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

I wouldn't really count Black 2/White 2 as a third version or remake, considering they're direct sequels to Black/White's plot.

 

[Papasmurf]

I didn't even get Black 2, ORAS or USUM

 

[Kyo]

ORAS would've at least been more enjoyable if rebalanced. Exp acquisition was changed so that every participant in battle gets full exp, whereas pre Gen 6 it was evenly split. If you catch a wild pokemon you also still get full exp (this concept on its own isn't necessarily bad). Of course there's also the exp share which gives every non-participant 50% exp, so with it turned on your team is overall gaining 250% surplus exp across the board. Extremely strong for something that's only meant to mitigate grind (and evidently keeping it on is the way Gamefreak intended for you to use it, if Let's Go is any indication).

XY is easy but at least tried to mitigate this by leveling up the enemy trainers, with the last gym leader going up to level 59 for example. The game is less of a cakewalk if you selectively use the exp share as a result (or turn it off entirely if you like that kinda challenge). We can compare this to ORAS where the last gym leader only goes up to level 46 -- a mere 3 level upgrade from RS. Even with the exp share turned off you're going to be gaining levels more quickly on average, and while these are optional the DexNav will also give you easy access to powerful egg moves from the very start of the game and you're handed a legendary for free in the middle of the game (XY at least tried to put up a pretense of you earning the free Lucario).

The lack of any Emerald content outside of the post-game short story kinda hurts. Lifting battles straight from the inferior RS games hurts too.

The appeal of a remake is also being able to play through an old region with the new and improved mechanics. ORAS generally plays better than RSE but falls short in many areas where XY brought in improvements to the series overall. Character customization is gone, though I understand perhaps they wanted to keep the player characters true to the original, Gamefreak needs to understand that having the option is acceptable and that players who'd like to keep the default look can choose to do so. I would at least understand if they prevented you from changing hat/eyes/hair but at least gave you different clothes. XY was still ironing out kinks with the 3D but introduced a good template for a proper hub town in the form of Lumiose City. The revamped Mauville City feels like an attempt to do the same, but falls flat imo, both in terms of what's available compared to Lumiose as well as the fact that you don't really revisit it as much as Lumiose (I believe there's one time when you go back to battle Norman, and then one time to surf East from there after getting Surf). The zoomed in 3D camera and controls were bad in Lumiose but clearly still a work-in-progress, but somehow managed to feel worse in ORAS imo. There're also the little things, for example XY streamlined berry farming by having this big berry farm, which is a lot more convenient than having tons of tiny berry patches scattered across the entire region. XY had roller skates, that's a cool little gimmick, why not have it here too?

I'm aware that ORAS replaces the Abandoned Ship with Sea Mauville, but I don't really remember which one I prefer. As a kid the Abandoned Ship was super cool though.

Credit where credit is due, as slow and unskippable as the cutscenes were they were far more tolerable than in SM, some of the ones early game serve well to add some charm (e.g. watching the Beautiflys go through), and for the most part they improve the narrative imo, if only for the addition of facial expressions (even though your dumb as rocks blank slate of a player character barely has any). The rival in RSE sucked, they're the more experienced trainer that just takes beatings lying down and then basically gives up in Lilycove without ever fully evolving their starter pokemon. ORAS handled the rival a lot better and made them feel a lot more like a real character. Wally was better in this game too and I enjoyed his exclusive battle theme.

Battle Frontier being under construction is a slap in the face if I've ever seen one. You could've just not mentioned. What's the point of mentioning that part? Is that supposed to be an easter egg? Garbage.

I don't actually know if I'd consider ORAS the worst one, just have a lot of opinion on it since I started out with RSE (technically my first was Silver). In a vacuum it's a decent game. As a remake, meh. HGSS still holds the crown. FRLG is a little overrated but with how dated the Gen 1 games are, it's not hard to see why and while one might recommend Emerald over ORAS for experiencing Hoenn, RBGY is just not worth it unless you want to tickle a '90s nostalgia boner or play around with the bugs.

As third versions go, I'd say Platinum > Emerald >> Crystal > Yellow. They're all improvements over their original versions either way. Platinum had the most work cut out for it though and did a really good job.


What does everyone think of Let's Go? Just wondering. I don't think I'll get SwSh right away if at all but would kinda like to try Pokemon on the Switch in some form. [mention]Captain Cadaver[/mention] [mention]Kenshi[/mention] [mention]SuperSaiyan2[/mention] @whoeverthefuckelse

 

[Papasmurf]

I never got Let's Go (couldn't have if I wanted to without investing in a Switch, which I never bought). Felt like they were milking Kanto way too fucking much after the infamous nugget bridge in Sun/Moon and the fact that Kanto has been a playable region in all 7 games of Generation 1/2 as well as their remakes, totalling a whopping 11 games you could explore Kanto in before the Let's Go games. That, and the deletion of abilities and not including at least some Generation 2 Pokemon made it feel retardedly limited.

 

[SSJ2]

Let's go is a nice looking game on the surface, but it is pretty damn easy and leaves you with nothing to do upon completion. I don't regret playing the game but I was definitely expecting more. I was not a fan of the go style encounters with wild pokemon at all either.

I still spent 45 hours on the game, so I got my use out of it. If I was you though I'd just wait for seord/shield