Pokemon!

[YoshiEgg25]

I have no idea what your on about but i'm intrigued. Care to explain?

Generally fully-evolved pokemon are put into Tiers according to strength, similar to fighting games. The top tier is Uber, which consists of most Legendaries, Wobbuffet, and Garchomp. Below that is OU, or Overused. These are stronger, and consist of pokemon like Blissey and Machamp. Borderline are between OU and UU, and is the smallest group. Examples include Crobat, Gallade, and Porygon-Z. UU, or Underused, are pokemon that aren't bad, but aren't as good as the upper tiers. Examples include Steelix, Lanturn, and Moltres. Then there's NU, or Never Used, which is the lowest tier used in competitive play. Most of these range from alright (Ampharos, Electrode) to Terribad (Spinda, Luvdisc). The only tier below that is NFE, Not Fully Evolved

"Stronger" in this case being relative.

Sometimes, it's their defensive abilities (Blissey's ridiculous Sp.Def, for instance), their speed (Ninjask), their moveset (Infernape) or their ability (Hippowdon's Sand Stream) that make them great. Sometimes it's a combination. Sometimes it's too much and they're banned to Ubers (Wobbuffet's Shadow Tag ability combined with Counter/Mirror Coat/Encore).

P.S. Not all legendaries are banned from play. Heatran, Azelf, and Celebi, among others, play a huge role in the standard metagame; however, they're held back by the fact that since they can't breed, they can't have perfect IVs.

P.P.S. Salamence was also banned to Ubers a while back, and Wynaut counts under the Ubers tier as well.

[irixith]

If one has never played pokemon but wants to see what all the fuss is about, where does one start? Does one go all the way back to Red/Blue, or one of the more modern ones? I see there's a lot of love for HeartGold/SoulSilver. Can one only play one and get the core experience, or do they both have to be played?

(..and stupid question time..)

Does one really have to "catch them all", or can you get through the game with only a small number?

[Dylan]

If one has never played pokemon but wants to see what all the fuss is about, where does one start? Does one go all the way back to Red/Blue, or one of the more modern ones? I see there's a lot of love for HeartGold/SoulSilver. Can one only play one and get the core experience, or do they both have to be played?

(..and stupid question time..)

Does one really have to "catch them all", or can you get through the game with only a small number?

No matter which game you pick, you'll get the gist of it. It'd be comparable to looking into the Megaman series, but being unsure of which game to try out first between 2 and 3. While I will agree that all Pokemon is not equal, the formula for each game is fairly consistent.

As far as catchin' 'em all goes, I only ever bothered to do that with the first generation. You can just as readily achieve the rest of the game's objectives with your small, elite party if you like. In all honesty, I can't imagine being bothered with catching them all again anyway.

[YoshiEgg25]

If one has never played pokemon but wants to see what all the fuss is about, where does one start? Does one go all the way back to Red/Blue, or one of the more modern ones? I see there's a lot of love for HeartGold/SoulSilver. Can one only play one and get the core experience, or do they both have to be played?

(..and stupid question time..)

Does one really have to "catch them all", or can you get through the game with only a small number?

Where to start: I'd definitely start with the original Red/Blue/Yellow, or, if you don't have access to it, FireRed/LeafGreen. Then go to Gold/Silver/Crystal, and again, if no access, HeartGold/SoulSilver. I think that the stark contrast of what happened in three years time when you return to Kanto in GSC is awe-inspiring, and it shows much more in the original Game Boy Color games.

As for the "are the linked versions the same" question: Essentially. The only differences between the two are typically the Pokemon you see there, although Black and White are bucking the trend by having whole areas exclusive to the game (Black City and White Forest). The third in a series (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Platinum) typically has a bunch of extra stuff and you can catch more Pokemon in them than if you had just one of the other two.

And no, you don't really have to catch 'em all. Personally, I never have. The closest I've gotten is my Diamond version, and I'm at somewhere between 420-430 caught out of 493. It's just one of those completionist things that people like me feel that they have to do.

[CRTGAMER]

Back to the root cause.

I just discovered my old Gameboy and Pokemon blue. I havn't played it in about 10+ years but im hooked again and pouring hours into it on the train. But as im nearing its end i'm wondering with the many many new games since red/blue, is there a game where you can battle random people across wifi? Also which of the newer games would you say is the best for someone who can barely remember 50 pokemon let alone hundreds, but still has great upgrades from red/blue eg wifi(if applicable)?

To get a Pokemon resurgence, I thought the first OCD collect them all was already bad.

The Pokemon game that got me hooked is N64 Pokemon Stadium. That extra feature, the transfer pack with blue and red GB carts, unlocking all the data on various Pokemon. Silly, but pretty cool.

Thanks a lot, now I have a bug to pop that cart back in, Snap anyone? (Draws curtains so not to get embarrassed)

[Erik_Twice]

P.S. Not all legendaries are banned from play. Heatran, Azelf, and Celebi, among others, play a huge role in the standard metagame; however, they're held back by the fact that since they can't breed, they can't have perfect IVs.

Breeding doesn't prevent you from having perfect IVs thanks to RNG abuse so you can have perfect Azelfs and Celebis. However some of Heatran's natures don't have a perfect spread, IIRC.


@Friss.Meister

In the "standard" metagame or OU (Overused) you can use any Pokémon that is not in the Ubers category. Ubers is a ban list and is not meant as a balanced metagame, though some people like it as such.

In the UU (Underused) metagame you can use any Pokémon except those deemed OU or BL (Borderline)

OU Pokémon are those that appear in one of each 20 OU teams (Don't remember the exact number). If it's on the OU tier you can't use it in UU. In the same vein, a Pokémon is UU if it appears in one of each 20 OU teams.

Borderline is a banlist like Ubers. Some Pokémon can utterly dominate UU like Frosslass but they are of little use in OU so this category was created to balance the metagame.

Normally a Pokémon's tier is a reflection on their overall power and versatility. Qwilfish is amazing in rain teams but outside of them is useless so it stays down, for example.


BTW, Exeguttor is now UU, I always thought it was underrated in DP.

[Ack]

[YoshiEgg25]

P.S. Not all legendaries are banned from play. Heatran, Azelf, and Celebi, among others, play a huge role in the standard metagame; however, they're held back by the fact that since they can't breed, they can't have perfect IVs.

Breeding doesn't prevent you from having perfect IVs thanks to RNG abuse so you can have perfect Azelfs and Celebis. However some of Heatran's natures don't have a perfect spread, IIRC.

Abusing RNG can only happen through breeding; a.k.a. abusing it to hatch a Charmander with perfect IVs. However, Azelf, Celebi, etc. can't breed, and so the only way to get it is in the wild. In the wild, Pokemon can't have perfect IVs.

Shoddy basically tells you what is and isn't legal; all IVs are set to 31 for each Pokemon unless it can't, meaning the legendaries outside of Phione.

[Para]

Pokemon was so much fun back in the day. I spent countless hours play with/against my friends and brothers.

After Red and Blue the Pokemon just started to get ridiculous. No effort or creativity is put into any of the Pokemon past the original 151. I know I will get a lot of arguments for hating on the newer gen Pokemon, but its the sad truth. I have younger siblings and cousins who are big into Pokemon now, and I just shake my head when I see the crap that they are growing up with compared to what we used to have.

Refer to examples:

Luvdisk?

...

Hoot Hoot? Are the shitting me?


Rereleasing the same game concept with uninspiring "new" designs made millions (billions?) of dollars so I don't really blame them though.

I am aware that the newer games have a lot more new features and different story lines, and they are worthy successors of the original Red/Blue versions, but my problem lies with the Pokemon themselves, not the actual games.

Great, now I feel like a loser for going on a two paragraph rant about the problems with Pokemon.

[Frizz.Meister]

Great responses i never knew that pokemon battling had evolved so far from me and my friends splitting our pocket money for the ludicrously expensive link cable.

I picked up Leaf green today for a huge £0.99 and its a huge step up from blue and red, great fun. Also i read somewhere that you can actually transfer your leaf green pokeom to the newer games??? How does this work and is it worth doing (ie can you only do it after you've trained your newer pokemon up to equal levels?

As for the tiers/leagues how are these games organised? is it shoddy.com?