Has Pokemon always sucked?

[lord.jeff]

The show had a few moments but for the most part it's pretty bad. I'd also like to say why the hell did Ash never catch any pokemon, I'd capture about three pokemon between each town, Ash caught one every third town, even as a kid I was bothered by that.

 

[aksel]

Short answer: Yes. We were just young.

Long answer: A few weeks back, I was digging trough the basement at my parent's house. To my surprise, I found a box full of VHS tapes that I thought had been lost forever, including the entire first season (and part of second season) of Pokémon. Looking for a nostalgia trip, I spent a few days watching through them.

To my surprise, I was greeted by an ensemble of awful writing, insignificant plots, trivial morals, horrible puns and, to top it off, the Team Rocket motto, which was shown in almost every single episode. Seriously: Fuck. That. Shit.

What also surprised me, was that I really, and I mean REALLY hated the Pokémon. The voices, freaking repeating their names over and over again and the battles, which I mostly just fast-forwarded through.

I did however enjoy Brock a lot more, with his dirty jokes. The narrator as well. They were some pretty funny fellows.

It's like watching The Mask, having not seen it for 17 years; there are a lot of things you didn't get back then, and will actually find funny. Everything else... Not so much.

Even nostalgia can't save you.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Everything up to Johto was great. Johto was where it started going downhill, and everything aftet that sucked.

 

[Furioso]

Asking if it has always "sucked" is so fucking subjective.

The fact is, it's always been the same. Ever since Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue, it's been the same basic game.

You start out, the game assumes you've never played any other Pokemon game, you pick your Pokemon, your rival is fucking dick and picks the one you're weak to, you do something for the Prof of the series, you go out into the world, you catch Pokemon, you fight Gyms, you unravel some weird shit that each game 'Team Rocket' clones are doing, you defeat them, you beat the Elite 4, and you become Pokemon master.

It's the SAME thing over and over. It doesn't mean it sucks, but that it's been really played out.

Go back and read the OP, he is talking about the anime, not the game

OT: The first season carries some nostalgic weight with me, but I am 99.9% sure that if I went back and watched it I couldn't get past episode 1

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

The games, always awesome but they aren't the subject matter right now.
The anime got pretty bad with the last couple of seasons, but i found the first 2-3 to be really enjoyable

 

[Thespian]

The first two or three seasons had cringy moments but also super epic moments.

Nowadays, the ratio is greater, in favour of cringe. For every exciting gym battle episode, there's twenty "Help Character of the Day find Pokemon of the Day's lost flower/berry/trinket/tutu"

 

[Dizeazedkiller]

We got a troll methinks....But you do realise its for kids right? Its supposed to teach them stuffs isn't it? (This may be wrong haven't watched it since i was young....Moral of the story and all that jazz, so the main character has to keep making mistakes so they can learn.

In the old series you sort of got a sense of learning what beats what, basically all it was teaching you was a more complicated version of rock paper scissors. Then the series with Dawn rolls around (the girl sidekicks gt younger and more fetishy each season) and ashe decides in the big tournament battle that hes going to no, not use thunderbolt against the flying pokemon, but use quick attack and goddam iron tail. AND THE BASTARD HAD GIGA-FORCE. The show teaches kids to be retarded. Apart from the pokemon it says these are the good guys, they do everything right, these are the bad guys, they are stupid.

OT: Honestly i think the first series seemed to have a flowing story, whereas the others... don't. They just seem bad, and the pokemon design is getting lazy.

As a side note the games are bad to. I enjoy them up until i get all my 6 main pokemon to lvl 20 and then i cbf grinding them any higher. I'm not saying they should make it faster to level, im just saying they should make it more entertaining, maybe make it an actual 3d gme where you can control your pokemon in fights instead of just taking turns.

 

[Furioso]

As a side note the games are bad to. I enjoy them up until i get all my 6 main pokemon to lvl 20 and then i cbf grinding them any higher. I'm not saying they should make it faster to level, im just saying they should make it more entertaining, maybe make it an actual 3d gme where you can control your pokemon in fights instead of just taking turns.

That probably won't change, they are already very popular with the current formula, maybe turn based games just aren't your thing

 

[Tiger Sora]

It died for me somewhere back around the early 2000's they were in Johto. And I just lost all interest in the show. It just really went downhill than, or it was always as bad and I just started recognizing the flaws and such as I got older.

 

[KeyMaster45]

The show is delightfully campy, and that campness goes all the way back to the first series. In a way it does suck for it's often hamfisted moral lessons, but it is a kids show. Though let's be honest, nobody watches it for the gooey story bits, they watch it for the battles and to see Team Rocket get smacked around. Though Jesse, James, and Mewoth appear to have taken a level in badass with this latest series. As someone who hadn't watched since the first series I was rather impressed at how after 10 years they finally got their shit in gear and are at least giving the kids a run for their money.

 

[repeating integers]

I remember realising how shit the voice acting & writing was at around the time Ash shouted: "HAY LOOK! A MOUNTEN! LET'S GO CLIMB OVER IT, QUICK!"

Ever since then, I have avoided it. Love the games though.

 

[Sewer Rat]

I went back and actually watched the show, and yeah, it was pretty damned goofy. But, this may be the nostalgia goggles talking, I felt it was an enjoyable kind of goofy. I really haven't watched any of the new seasons (I quit at Advanced) but even then it was just getting pretty damned silly and tired, so I'm guessing it can't be much better now.

Not to mention the sheer level of backtracking the story has done is pretty amusing.
"YES! I have some of the most powerful pokemon ever! New Continent? LEAVE THEM ALL BEHIND!"
not to mention the fact that Ash's original hat was supposed to be the "Special uber prize winning glory hat" but then his mom gives him a new one and he just throws it on and never mentions the old one again. This is especially jarring considering he spent an entire episode going on about how awesome it was and chasing after a rabid pokemon (a mankey I believe....) to get it back.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yup the anime is fucking horrid, but as a kid you don't mind so let's just say it's for them

 

[Doc Theta Sigma]

The anime has definitely gotten worse. Sorry but after four or five seasons I refuse to believe Ash will get his arse handed to him by the first Gym Leader of a new region. EVERY GOD DAMN TIME. Frontier Brains? No problem. Gym Leader that most rookie trainers can handle? Well god damn I forgot how to battle.

 

[The_Critic]

Original Charmander episode in season 1 is excellent, everything else meh.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

How could a show featuring this line be considered bad?

Damn it! I was gonna post this too. Best line ever.

I was about to rush in here to defend the games, but yeah the anime is kinda eh.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Pokemon has always been AWESOME in my opinion. Along with Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and everything else by Nintendo.

I do think that they focus too much on adding new Pokemon instead of new game mechanics. Still, they're continuously pretty solid jRPGs. Certainly more solid than the direction Final Fantasy has gone, Pokemon is giving you more options(slowly but surely), while Final Fantasy is giving you less.

Edit: Oh, you're talking about the anime. Eh, the humor is still much the same. Though it's pretty stupid that Satoshi/Ash is still considered the same age as when he started. They can keep him young looking or whatever, but when you're 10 years old for over 10 years, it's ridiculous. It's not like the creators have to shrink his eyes, make him super tall, and give him a beard. Just stop calling him 10 years old. And let him actually mature a little bit mentally.

jumped the gun there I see.

OT: I never watched beyond the first series back when I was a kid, and while I enjoyed it then, I seriously doubt I would now

 

[Leemaster777]

While nostalgia certainly has a role in it, I'd say that the original series DOES hold up, to a small extent at least. It does start spiraling downward after the first season, however.

I've seen several of the Pokemon movies, and really, the first one is the only one that is actually worth a damn. Mostly because it has a legitimately threatening villain in Mewtwo, and it's the only time I'm aware of where the ethics of cloning, capturing, and battling Pokemon is called into question.

Really, I think that one of the major problems with the anime is that it IS basically one extended story about Ash. Two other long-running kids anime, Yugioh and Digimon, actually got this right. Each series has separate characters and situations, and only have the mildest connection to each other, if any at all.

Funnily enough, Pokemon seems BUILD for this kind of structure, as each new series of games starts in a new area, with new protagonists. But for some reason, they decided to go with long-running continuity on one character, and I feel the series has stagnated for it.

"But", some of you may say, "What about Pikachu, the series mascot?" Well, they could have handled Pikachu in a similar manner as Yugioh and Digimon. Each series of Yugioh features a Kuriboh of some kind, and each season of Digimon has a kid with goggles. Make it a tradition for one of the main characters to get a Pikachu, or equivelant Pokemon (like Pichu, Plusle/Minun, etc.). Problem solved.

Just my take on it.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Everything up to Johto was great. Johto was where it started going downhill, and everything aftet that sucked.

Now that I think about it, that's actually pretty accurate, God the newer episodes suck.

OT: No, I thought they were awesome despite all the bad writing and the differences in logic between the games and the anime, like Ash using Thundershock on an Onyx(!!!) and winning.

It's pretty damn campy, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

 

[Dizeazedkiller]

As a side note the games are bad to. I enjoy them up until i get all my 6 main pokemon to lvl 20 and then i cbf grinding them any higher. I'm not saying they should make it faster to level, im just saying they should make it more entertaining, maybe make it an actual 3d gme where you can control your pokemon in fights instead of just taking turns.

That probably won't change, they are already very popular with the current formula, maybe turn based games just aren't your thing

I play Warmachine, a turn-based tabletop game, and i thoroughly enjoy it. I guess i just went of track and mentioned something that had no link to my original statement. Basically what im trying to say is that the pokemon games are fine turn based but the execution isn't very good or entertaining, its just being recycled, but i guess the young'uns that are actually meant to be watching the show or playing the game wouldn't have played or watched earlier games or seasons, so i guess the makers think they can just go on recycling the whole thing without adding much on...