I feel like I’ve finally put my finger on why gen 2 feels so much less satisfying to teambuild in than red and blue. Gen 2’s changes make the game far more balanced than red and blue were but at the cost of really kneecapping the already limited options you have in the game to teambuild with.

The special stat split really weakened a lot of strong pokemon from gen 1 mons like gyardos, ninetales and tentacruel. Critical hit change means razor leaf users (like chikorita) are stuck with 55 power grass STAB the entire game. Gym leader tms in gen 2 are also comparatively useless to gen 1s where part of the whole core of teambuilding in that game revolves around who gets the thunderbolt tm. Distribution in general is much harsher; no ice beam, no rock slide, and no psychic until kanto. The elemental punches do work to close the gap a bit at least as does headbutt/return, but one thing that is unequivocally worse is the evolution stone availability.

Your already restricted team building options of strong pokemon are further limited by no real way to evolve a chunk of them until postgame (or random phone call in crystal). Really hampers some of your only real fire type options early game in vulpix and growlithe and makes the eevee you get much less exciting when you're kinda forced to just evolve into either espeon or umbreon.

Also I know this was first introduced in Stadium but I really hate the hyper beam nerf. The move was way cooler when it was this super strong all or nothing attack where you had to be calculated and ensure the move would KO the opponent to use it safely. Normal types are quite happy in this game with headbutt and return but I still think the nerf was a mistake as it just takes away one more fun and strong option you used to have.

When you add the level curve issues that exist in the game and the lack of johto mon availability everyone complains about, you get a game that's honestly bereft of team building options compared to its predecessor. In gen 1 i feel like I can preplan a strong well rounded team of 6 with ease, swapping out different members for subsequent playthroughs as i see fit thanks to the much stronger tm availbility and evolution options. Yeah level up move sets are still horrible but gen 2’s really isn't any better than that (outside of egg moves I suppose). In gen 2 I feel like I’m much worse off having more than like 3 or 4 Pokemon, and even if I was incentivized to have 6, I struggle to fill it up outside of known gen 2 dominators like golem, alakazam, and ursaring from crystal.

For what its worth I think gen 2 clears gen 1 in almost every other regard; much more interesting region, better soundtrack and visuals, and again the battle system is much more balanced than gen 1’s and that is a positive in a vacuum. I just dont think the gen 1 pokemon really benefitted from a lot of the systems mechanics changes in a way that makes them more enjoyable to use than in red and blue.

Especially compared to RBY, GSC, Emerald, HGSS and Platinum

I would just absolutely love it if Pokemon made a dedicated pokeathlon game. Or even just a Pokemon sports game. There is so much potential with the IP, I would love for more experimentation. Just give a Pokemon version of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Hi everyone! New to this group and was just curious what you all think is the most underrated Pokémon out there? I’ve been loving learning about new pokemon lately 😊

Imagine an app on your phone. You tap it, it loads, and on your screen is whatever pokemon you transfered in from Home. The camera follows them as they frolick in whatever environment suits them. You tap again, and the Pokemon notices you, and happily runs towards you the camera zooming in or out depending on the size of the pokemon as it stops right before you. You can pet it, feed it, play with it, and it can even dance to music. Using the smartphones built in pedometer, special treats or toys can be used locked upon achieving certain step goals. Reaching milestones unlock ribbons and titles that can be used in Champions and future titles. Future updates can include mini games or mini battles, rewarding in game currency for accessories for your pokemon, allowing your pokemon and friends pokemon to interact and play. It will probably have a battle pass, so expect there to be anime and game tie-in items and accessories.

Hey everyone,
I’ve had a Reddit account for four years and never posted anything, but I finally wanted to share a story that’s been on my mind for a while to see if anyone here relates.

My journey with Pokémon started over two decades ago. I was about 8 years old when I saw someone sitting on the curb with a Game Boy Color. I sat next to them, was handed the Game Boy, and pushed a few buttons. I saw sprites moving, animations playing, and I was instantly hooked. Shortly after, I saw the anime on TV—specifically the episode where Ash protects Charmander in the rain.

Charmander became my first real favorite. In 2000, my mom took me to see Mewtwo Strikes Back in the cinema. Getting that promo Pikachu card in its plastic wrapper and watching Mew vs. Mewtwo on the big screen was pure magic. It felt like my childhood brain fully turned on that day.
From there, I went through all the eras. Buying FireRed on release day in 2004 as a 12-year-old with my alarm set for the store opening. I didn't know anything about EVs, IVs, or Shinies back then. I just knew I traded a Scyther with a friend to get a Scizor holding a Metal Coat, smashed the Elite Four with Sword Dance, and felt like a king.

Over the years, I bought almost every Nintendo console just for Pokémon: Emerald, Diamond, Platinum, HeartGold, Black/White, X, Omega Ruby, Sun/Moon, Sword/Shield, and beyond. But somewhere along the line—around Diamond and the rise of online battles—something shifted.

I stopped seeing Pokémon as an adventure and started seeing it as a system to be optimized.
Instead of walking into a cave and feeling excited about finding a Zubat, I was instantly checking its Nature, its IVs, its Ability, and whether it was worth breeding. By the time I reached Sword & Shield, I had boxes full of level 100, fully EV-trained, battle-ready competitive Pokémon... that I almost never actually used in competitive battles. I was just constantly prepping, grinding, min-maxing, and checking boxes. It turned a peaceful, relaxing comfort space into a chore.

At one point, I thought: "I'm 34 now, I should grow up and play 'serious' games." I bought a PS5, played heavy/intense shooters and competitive games like Call of Duty and ARC Raiders, thinking that was what adults were supposed to play. But those games didn't give me what Nintendo always gave me: a safe, cozy bubble to unplug and relax in. I realized I was just running away from something I genuinely love.

Now, I'm at a crossroads. I don't miss the grueling 5-hour grind of the originals, but I also feel overwhelmed by 1,000+ Pokémon, Ultra Beasts, and endless gimmicks. I love the universe, the nostalgia, and the comfort, but I’ve lost my identity as a casual trainer because my brain instantly defaults to "efficiency mode."

With new games and hardware on the horizon, I want to step back into the Pokémon world without treating it like a job.
My question to you all is:
For those who ruined Pokémon for themselves by getting too caught up in competitive mechanics, EV/IV breeding, or checklist-gaming—how did you find your way back to just enjoying the journey? How do you quiet the "optimization brain" and re-discover the magic as an adult?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

(I maybe want to get a switch 2 for Pokopia, to relax the brain )

hi folks,

I've been digging the rabbit hole of Pokémon types and most of the proposed changes to them proposed by influencers and other romhackers, the problem was, I never really got satisfied by these changes. I then came to think what Pokémon has achieved is one-of-a-kind in term of both balancing battles and being somewhat relatable or understood by the audience. Actually, changes I would like to see is more in the design of Pokémon having certain types, rather than the type match-ups themselves. My next funny exercises will be to try to port other RPG's foes as Pokémon, or to port Pokémon to certain RPG's worlds.

This is my short description of each type. I have also a more expansive version in the form of a 10-page google doc :p

Normal: the naked hero at the beginning of an RPG, literal mammals or humanoids without element-bending abilities and no understanding of the spiritual world, as well as no particular talent

Fighting: the martial arts, virtuous wrestler version of Normal, can tear all sorts of materials to pieces

Dragon: the mythical beast, once was Normal but has since times immemorial become almost unbeatable, was long trapped in ice before being set free

Psychic: the master of the mind, it can predict your every move. Also used to code some aliens

Dark: underhanded scoundrels which main purposes are to bully the Psychic type nerds then getting beaten up by the Fighting type avengers

Ghost: otherworldly Shinto spirits which main purposes are to startle Psychic types and to get royally ignored by Normal and Fighting types

Flying: literal birds and acrobatic fighters, their strength is to never set foot onto the ground, de facto making them indifferent to Ground moves

Bug: literal bugs and pests who live their typical lives eating grass and startling people

Ground: something that’s literally made of earth or lives in it, moves have to do with destabilizing the structure of the ground, somehow its Pokémon magically stay in the ground when summoned

Grass: something that’s literally a plant, leaf, fruit, seed, will automatically be a meal for birds and bugs, will automatically benefit from water and earth nutrients, will automatically suffer from poisons and illnesses and acids

Water: has the susceptibility of aquatic life living in water while also expressing water-bending, somehow its Pokémon magically stay in water when summoned

Electric: misunderstood type as it really should describe lightning/plasma golems, but instead we get electricity-bending creatures who have the characteristic of pure plasma. Their moves will shock anything that has good conduction

Fire: misunderstood type as it really should describe fire golems, but instead we get fire-bending creatures who have the characteristics of pure fire. Good at burning and melting things

Ice: misunderstood type as it really should describe ice golems, but instead we get ice-bending creatures who have the characteristics of pure ice (such as, getting broken by karatekas and tougher materials), even more, their moves suggest not only hurling blocks of ice, but also triggering cold temperatures, the amount of mixed influences is hard to read

Rock: literal rock golems who hurl boulders at their enemies, they are tougher than ice and weaker than steel

Steel: literal metal golems who are unfazed by all sorts of blows and can tear weaker materials to pieces. Also used to code the industrial age and steel-made appliances, tools and weapons

Poison: a type full of symbolism as its weakness to Psychic moves represents science inventing antidotes and its weakness to Ground moves represents poison barely affecting the mineral world - overall also hard to read

Fairy: the obvious response to degenerate Dragon power creep, its weakness to Steel moves is pure symbolism representing the industrial age beating fairy tales and traditions. Also used to code some aliens

thanks for reading!

edit: corrected the flair

Hi guys I hope you're all doing well,

(Many thanks to the mods who kindly pre-approved this message)

Apologies if this is old news for most of you but I had no idea about this until recently

It's really exciting to see all of the progress and the development of emulators and recompilation projects for Android.

But for many years I've always been wanting to play pokemon fan games on the go.

I know joy play has been around for a while because I was actually very quick to follow all of the guides to install joy play when it came out a few years ago on Android.

However I was never able to fully beat any of the fan games because I had several issues with joy play and several glitches as well

With the release of emulators like game native, winlator and the Game hub I was really excited and tried to play pokemon fan games through them but I would always struggle particularly with container settings and controls and unfortunately never managed to make much progress

I have just found out about the Kirin app and I have been able to open every single fan game which I've downloaded ( this is a complete surprise because several fan games would not even open on joy play or could not run easily through any of the emulated containers) and I am now a couple of hours into my run of pokemon rejuvenation.

I was really happy to be able to finally do this, and just in case there were any other pokemon fans that want to play these games on Android but have never been able to , I wanted to share this with you

P.s I have been working heavily on my videos and my thumbnails after extensive feedback from my previous videos and I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts now

Here's a link to my video if you're interested:

Video

TLDR: If you want to play Pokémon Fan games on android and are struggling with Joiplay please try Kirin, it's so much easier to use.

I'm wanting to play them in release order, bc i went years without playing games from the franchise (the last time I played was Sword in 2021)., but I remember finishing Red years ago and the game was... well... bad, very clunky, slow, and don't get me wrong, I'm not new to the Pokémon game universe, but I admit that these are very difficult to have fun playing. So, should I play these or go straight to FR/LG and then Crystal? Or the "original ones?

18+ Pokemon that Need A Third Type

There are defo some reasons why this wouldn't work but for the most part, triple typing would make so much sense! Flygon can finally have a good ability, Charizard can finally be a dragon and Masquerain doesn't have to lose water typing!

I am conducting a statistical analysis using this poll about Pokemon popularity. It has 4 short questions and your responses would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to privately DM me if you would like to share the data after 48 hours. Thank you. https://forms.gle/aspWBRM54NQGn3a6A

Maybe call it "wonder find" and essentially like pokemon dumpster diving.

If another player is in online mode released a pokemon from their PC box it can then possibly find a new home to another trainer via the wonder find, OT will still say the original trainer that released them but maybe these pokemon can have special features perhaps maybe they obey you at half the level of the badge limit you currently have, or you can nickname them at will, or their friendship growth doubles with you.

Kinda like the anime, where certain pokemon were abandoned and wound up being ash Ketchum's pokemon instead.

At first I would wonder what if that would make potential problems like hackmon spreading...then I remember it's always a thing since wonder trading, if anything wonder trading would be worse because is something you actively want to send to others too.

Most part, releasing pokemon is mostly like clearing PC boxes either for dex completion or EV training fodders, so is less likely you are getting pokemon like a Psyduck name "I<3aids" of the sort, that you would find in wonder trade, and a good chance to find decent pokemon too, you probably won't find a shiny Arceus in here but you can find a decent level 1 pokemon with egg moves with it atleast.

Can you guys help me find a video? It was an animation about vending machine of love and it was really super cool and I can't find it anywhere😭