This one is tough to write a review for. I still think that for the time they released, Platinum, HGSS, and BW2 are the best games in the series hands down, and the overall quality of the series has gone down since then. But also, GameFreak has continued to add so many QoL features over time that it makes it harder and harder to play older games in the series over time.
This playthrough was a nuzlocke, and I didn't even lose the nuzlocke, I just got bored and gave up around the 4th gym. Luckily this game at least has the PSS split, I refuse to play any game older than Gen 4 any more because of that. But the lack of reusable TMs, the overabundance of HMs, no Fairy types, all detracted from my experience with this game. However, I think the worst QOL issue is just the lack of diversity. There are so few pokemon available to me compared to later games, and almost every pokemon has a garbage movepool, which is hurt further by the scarcity of TMs, which are not reusable, and no move relearner until the 8th gym.
And then there is the issue that I had heard about before but never noticed until this game but Johto's level curve is terrible. There are several massive level jumps in certain areas of the game, some of those rival encounters are brutal (I had 5 pokemon die in the portion of the nuzlocke I played, and all 5 occured between the two rival fights in Azalea and Ecruteak, in both of which his team was 5 levels higher than my team and every other trainer in the area including the gym leader). And meanwhile, the wild pokemon in the area don't increase in level at all. The wild pokemon around the 8th gym are level 20. So grinding is incredibly useless, and you can't really add anything you catch to your team either.
I still want to give a good score, because this game was amazing when it came out, and GF clearly put more effort into this than they have later games in the series. At the same time, the lack of QoL from later games, combined with some poor design choices in this game in particular, made it age pretty poorly imo
This playthrough was a nuzlocke, and I didn't even lose the nuzlocke, I just got bored and gave up around the 4th gym. Luckily this game at least has the PSS split, I refuse to play any game older than Gen 4 any more because of that. But the lack of reusable TMs, the overabundance of HMs, no Fairy types, all detracted from my experience with this game. However, I think the worst QOL issue is just the lack of diversity. There are so few pokemon available to me compared to later games, and almost every pokemon has a garbage movepool, which is hurt further by the scarcity of TMs, which are not reusable, and no move relearner until the 8th gym.
And then there is the issue that I had heard about before but never noticed until this game but Johto's level curve is terrible. There are several massive level jumps in certain areas of the game, some of those rival encounters are brutal (I had 5 pokemon die in the portion of the nuzlocke I played, and all 5 occured between the two rival fights in Azalea and Ecruteak, in both of which his team was 5 levels higher than my team and every other trainer in the area including the gym leader). And meanwhile, the wild pokemon in the area don't increase in level at all. The wild pokemon around the 8th gym are level 20. So grinding is incredibly useless, and you can't really add anything you catch to your team either.
I still want to give a good score, because this game was amazing when it came out, and GF clearly put more effort into this than they have later games in the series. At the same time, the lack of QoL from later games, combined with some poor design choices in this game in particular, made it age pretty poorly imo