The 4th generation of Pokemon was set to be a big deal, at least in my childish mind. It had been 4 years since the release of Ruby and Saphire on the Game Boy Advanced, and as a young kid during those times, the anticipation was palpable. Waiting every month for new information from CoroCoro in Serebii, learning about the new Pokemon you would befriend and battle with, the mysteries of the region you were about to explore. It was unbearable. So when it was finally released in my area, and I finally got to play it for the first time I was... whelmed.
Let me be clear, this is a very good game. All of the new Pokemon introduced are still classics to this day, like Lucario, Infernape, Luxray, Garchomp, Roserade, etc. The story and world are also interesting, dealing with the deities of the Pokemon world. The battling was now even more fun than I remembered, as this was the generation of the Physical/Special split. You could be more strategic with your Pokemon builds while also having a rich number of your favourites to choose from.
The problems come with the layout of the world, the limitations of your story team, and the overall sluggishness of this game. The story, while interesting, was hit hard by the constant need for backtracking and the constant need for HM users. It felt like I was going in circles at some points, and was quite infuriating.
I love a lot of the new Pokemon, but not having access to a 5th of the new Pokemon until post-game was a crazy idea. More than that, the Type balance was completely insane, with the most notable being only 3 different fire-type Pokemon lines to use before post-game, with one of the lines being the starter. It also didn't help that of the almost 500 Pokemon available at the time of its release, you were limited to 150 throughout the main storyline. That is absurd.
The worst part was just how slow these games felt. HP would fall at a snail's pace, the running felt so slow, and saving the game usually took over a minute to finish just because of how much it needed to do. IT was severely underoptimized. With everything said here, it may come off as a game that I didn't like, however, this is still far from the truth. There is a lot of good here as well, and it is still a generation I hold near and dear to my heart, but these games are not without faults.
I would recommend trying this generation out, specifically the Platinum version as it fixed almost all of the problems I had with these games. You could also play Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl if you want a similar experience but in my opinion, those games are more egregious than these. These are good games and deserve to be recognized, but they are certainly not the best of this console generation.
Let me be clear, this is a very good game. All of the new Pokemon introduced are still classics to this day, like Lucario, Infernape, Luxray, Garchomp, Roserade, etc. The story and world are also interesting, dealing with the deities of the Pokemon world. The battling was now even more fun than I remembered, as this was the generation of the Physical/Special split. You could be more strategic with your Pokemon builds while also having a rich number of your favourites to choose from.
The problems come with the layout of the world, the limitations of your story team, and the overall sluggishness of this game. The story, while interesting, was hit hard by the constant need for backtracking and the constant need for HM users. It felt like I was going in circles at some points, and was quite infuriating.
I love a lot of the new Pokemon, but not having access to a 5th of the new Pokemon until post-game was a crazy idea. More than that, the Type balance was completely insane, with the most notable being only 3 different fire-type Pokemon lines to use before post-game, with one of the lines being the starter. It also didn't help that of the almost 500 Pokemon available at the time of its release, you were limited to 150 throughout the main storyline. That is absurd.
The worst part was just how slow these games felt. HP would fall at a snail's pace, the running felt so slow, and saving the game usually took over a minute to finish just because of how much it needed to do. IT was severely underoptimized. With everything said here, it may come off as a game that I didn't like, however, this is still far from the truth. There is a lot of good here as well, and it is still a generation I hold near and dear to my heart, but these games are not without faults.
I would recommend trying this generation out, specifically the Platinum version as it fixed almost all of the problems I had with these games. You could also play Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl if you want a similar experience but in my opinion, those games are more egregious than these. These are good games and deserve to be recognized, but they are certainly not the best of this console generation.