HGSS

>these objectively shittier games was pokemon's best era
nah

You do realise that I meant they were the outliers between a quartet of amazing games, right?

You do realise that I meant none of them are amazing, right?

You do realize that’s an objectively wrong statement, right?

That flop is nothing

Johto's Level Curve issue extremely overblown to the point where half the time people don't even know what the fuck they even mean. I agree that the balance could be much better, but most Pokémon games are terribly balanced, since you could just steamroll everything with an overleveled starter and most trainers in Pokémon are either weak or stupid. In most Pokemon games the Elite 4 and maybe the last gym leader are the only ones who pose any threat at all .
The Johto story is solid (Rocket was defeated, They tried to rebuilt, You stop them, They try to summon their leader, You stop them, and HGSS add n more stuff with the Kimino girls and other side characters). Its not amazing, and the climax being a phone call to Giovanni is laughable compared to weather titans locked in biblical duel or traveling to the Distortion world, but low stakes=/=bad. If anything its a blessing because Johto's story is simple enough to follow while not getting in the way of you exploring the region. Most the time, whenever Pokemon does anything more complex they royal fuck it up with shit writing or shoving annoying characters you don't care about in your grace (with Gen 8 being be biggest example of them putting flash and spectacle over actually making any goddamn sense) Gen 7 is probably the only high stakes story that is genuinely interesting.
Also, the "small region" complaint never made any sense to me. How is Johto to small? In GSC it was "Small" due to being on a tiny cartridge, and in HGSS they went out of their way to expand it. Why is Johto the only region that's called small when Gen1 Kanto was just as small, and that didn't even have a post game.

(1/2)

People call Galar, Alola and BW1 Unova small as well, user.

holy shit bros I love playing red and blue but with shittier map design and constant pointless handholding

Speaking of which, it always bother me fans seems to flip-flop between whether or not Kanto is Post game just to make their "too small" complaint make sense.
When they want to say that the main campaign is too short, they say Kanto is postgame, but when they want to say that GSC/HGSS has no postgame, the suddenly decide that Kanto is part of the main campaign. Pick a lane ffs.

Finally about the about the distribution/Johtomons, I actually agree to an extent. In fact, I think that BW/B2W2 do quite a few things better than HGSS (putting the main focus on the new mons, reusable TMs, and better EXP curve). My issue is when Johto/GSC/HGSS get singled out or when its few issues overblown when most of the problems are due to (tech limitations, common to most Pokemon games, or an issue with Game Freak/TPC refusing to let Gen2 pokemon and characters get the spotlight that every other gen gets) the latter of which as only gotten worse over time.

>People call Galar, Alola and BW1 Unova small as well, user.
Galar actually is pathetically small, but Alola and Unova? Maybe Alola might seem small due to the being unable to surf between islands making each single island seem closed off, but doesn't Unova have a lot of side areas.

I enjoyed Black, but storyshit creep is bad, as is region linearity. My favorite is firered, but would be electricyellow if it existed. Gen 3-5 regardless, though 1 had the best aesthetics.

I'm just saying what other people said about Unova prior to that massive expansion it got in B2W2.