Eh, that's an exaggeration. While it may be dependent on the meta, I would say there's a decent handful of other genuinely good Rock-types, such as Rhyperior, Tyrantrum, H-Arcanine, and Glimmora.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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really fascinates me how hard people turned on hgss tbh, feels like not too long ago it was considered easily one of the best pokemon games. personally i have a lot of fond memories of playing it but it really does feel hard to get into it now. an underrated problem with the games imo is that the team rocket encounters are so boring. the hideout and radio tower events are cool conceptually but the actual gameplay is just fighting the weakest grunts over and over again and its so tedious. i basically always drop the vanilla game at one of those points, it's just so stale. fighting a bunch of grunts is always pretty dull in pokemon games but something about hgss makes them feel especially boring, i guess it could be the limited choice of decent mons making the gameplay as a whole feel less interesting.
The vast majority are like that though, and have been that way for most of pokemon's existence. Rhyperior is lucky enough to have Solid Rock as an ability, as well as kinda minmaxed stats that wouldn't be out of place in a modern game. Tyrantrum, even with the nuke that is RH head smash, has to patch up its speed through scarf or DD. Mega Diancie and Nihilego also had the benefit of just having high stats and UB minmaxing respectively. There's a few others like the Lycanrocs (barring midnight) and Archeops at full health, but most rock types are just slow and bulky unfortunately. Golem, Gigalith, Aggron, Rampardos, Stonjourner, Probopass, Coalossal, Crustle, etc. Most are decent in lower tiers, but there's a reason they end up there, and most wish they had the same stat spreads/abilities but without the Rock typing. It's just a curse for defensive mons most of the time. Kinda says something that even with Shell Smash, one of the more busted moves in the game, there are other sweepers that tend to be a lot more reliable than the Rock-type users of this move b/c of how poor their speed tiers tend to be
The actual curse of Rock Types is actually, as I implied above earlier, Rock Slide.
They cannot make a fast, strong rock type, because i can promise you that the very istant one exists it starts spamming rock slide all over VGC. Ironically the only fast rock slide with an accurate rock move we have is Ogerpon, which sees nearly no use due to the competition with the other better 2 forms (though, still has a niche and got a couple top 16 placements recently).
Rock is a VERY STRONG offensive typing. They legitimately cannot afford to make (phisical) fast strong ones because it'll tear a new anus to any VGC player and turn it into even more of a RNG lottery than it already is.
VGC players from gen 6 and 7 prolly remember this meme I post every now and then.
Incidentally, H-arcanine is seeing play specifically for that reason. Despite the presence of the much better intimidator in lando-T (in this format at least, since it basically weakens and 1hkos ogerpon and urshifu with tera flying, 2 of the 3 most common mons, as well as threatening Tornadus with... you guessed it.. rock slide), H-Arcanine having a much more nuclear rock slide as well as a slightly better speed tier while ALSO having reliable +2 priority has given a solid, defined niche. Added bonus when Incineroar comes back in DLC2, it's a intimidate pokemon that outspeeds and threatens to 1hko Incineroar while resisting its fire stab and fake out (Incin often did not run a phisical dark stab in favour of Snarl).
Stab rock slide is good enough that in limited dex, Gigalith was a very solid Trick Room mon due to how hard its Rock Slide hit on top of its deceptively good bulk due to the sand Spdef buff, same as Stakataka later on despite having one of the worst possible types in the game.
As far as singles, noone cares at GF, they don't balance for them (not for 6v6 anyway), you get your Knock Off Tyranitar that you've been asking for 4 generations in a row
Such is the life of phisical rock types and why they can never be good.
Incidentally the very few recent special rock types have seen some success due to both basically being minmaxed (Mega Diancie, Nihilego, Glimmora) due to how good rock is a offensive type.
I dont think the team rocket issue is underrated, if anything its the one thing people complained about when hyping up hgss was the popular opinion.
I'm insufferably smug about this topic just because I've disliked these games for YEARS, but also it's kinda annoying how the replies to me not liking it went from "oh you're so quirky so different so tryhard" to "we get it hating on hgss is popular now". You cannot win god bless
Older Pokémon games a whole have a lot, and I mean a lot of quality-of-life issues that tend to get overshadowed by nostalgia and what I’ll call “collector’s value”. Every game has its biggest weakness- Sinnoh’s pacing, Kalos’s lack of stuff to do (insert obligatory Pokémon Z comment here), Johto’s horrible Pokémon selection… they’re all major flaws, but it comes down to which of those flaws you think is the biggest detriment relative to what is being gained. In other words, a game that takes away a lot of content but doesn’t add much to fill in that void isn’t going to be viewed as a fan favorite. Conversely, a game with a lot of content still won’t be enjoyable if the content itself becomes stale.
For the context of HeartGold & SoulSilver, I think this is a case of “they’re great Pokémon games, but they’re not the best video games”, if that makes sense. The Pokémon selection issue in Johto is less of a problem of how many Pokémon you can find, but rather just how many of them aren’t as viable as the top tiers. The gap in viability between Johto’s strongest and weakest Pokémon for a playthrough is much bigger than most regions, which much like pre-Platinum Sinnoh makes subsequent playthroughs far less enjoyable than they could be.
I'm not a VGC player (just don't like the fast-paced nature, plus it seems like metas get even more centralized than in singles, w stuff like CHALK or the treasures this gen) so I'll take your word for it. Their poor balancing of rock types predates VGC though, and it probably started out as a flavor thing; of course Regirock and Golem probably couldn't move fast. Thats kinda what I was saying, offensive rock types have a great STAB but most are just too slow.The actual curse of Rock Types is actually, as I implied above earlier, Rock Slide.
They cannot make a fast, strong rock type, because i can promise you that the very istant one exists it starts spamming rock slide all over VGC. Ironically the only fast rock slide with an accurate rock move we have is Ogerpon, which sees nearly no use due to the competition with the other better 2 forms (though, still has a niche and got a couple top 16 placements recently).
Rock is a VERY STRONG offensive typing. They legitimately cannot afford to make (phisical) fast strong ones because it'll tear a new anus to any VGC player and turn it into even more of a RNG lottery than it already is.
VGC players from gen 6 and 7 prolly remember this meme I post every now and then.
View attachment 561645
Incidentally, H-arcanine is seeing play specifically for that reason. Despite the presence of the much better intimidator in lando-T (in this format at least, since it basically weakens and 1hkos ogerpon and urshifu with tera flying, 2 of the 3 most common mons, as well as threatening Tornadus with... you guessed it.. rock slide), H-Arcanine having a much more nuclear rock slide as well as a slightly better speed tier while ALSO having reliable +2 priority has given a solid, defined niche. Added bonus when Incineroar comes back in DLC2, it's a intimidate pokemon that outspeeds and threatens to 1hko Incineroar while resisting its fire stab and fake out (Incin often did not run a phisical dark stab in favour of Snarl).
Stab rock slide is good enough that in limited dex, Gigalith was a very solid Trick Room mon due to how hard its Rock Slide hit on top of its deceptively good bulk due to the sand Spdef buff, same as Stakataka later on despite having one of the worst possible types in the game.
As far as singles, noone cares at GF, they don't balance for them (not for 6v6 anyway), you get your Knock Off Tyranitar that you've been asking for 4 generations in a row
Such is the life of phisical rock types and why they can never be good.
Incidentally the very few recent special rock types have seen some success due to both basically being minmaxed (Mega Diancie, Nihilego, Glimmora) due to how good rock is a offensive type.
With the DS games, I think there is a nostalgia factor, but it's also an issue of effort/content. In Gen 1 and Gen 3, there wasn't much you could do outside of beat the elite four, complete the dex, and battle with people if you were lucky enough to have the technology and friends who wanted to battle locally. Gens 4 and 5 had a lot of post game content and side things like the Pokeatholon, plus all the cool wifi stuff which is sadly down now. The only games since BW2 to have much of that have been ORAS and USUM, and I didnt like how ORAS did it honestly. I do think people ignore the flaws that Platinum/BWs/HGSS had because of this though; theres a lot of QoL stuff that later games did add (you couldnt even automatically put a new repel on until BW2)
people "turning on abc pokemon game" is just always going to happen
when I was new to the franchise with Gen 5?
ignoring gen1ers (which is arguably also the cycle) the opinions I saw were:
GSC (not HGSS specifically, Johto as a whole) = goated, so much content, great region, best music, it has Trainer Red!! either this one is the best one or ->
RSE = usually The Best One, goated games with all the content, great region, best music, it has Steven Stone!!
and as I grew up with the series it slowly shifted to
HGSS = the best games, goated, so much content, great region, best music, it has Trainer Red!!
DPP = The best games, so much content, great region, best music, it has Cynthia!!
and then
BW/B2W2 = The best games, so much content, great region, best music, it has N/Cynthia!!
I'm not one to say the cycle means every game will get this treatment. I don't think XY will get some major renaissance because even at the time, when people actually liked the new Pokemon game for once, a lot of it was reasons besides the region/characters/music itself. How it was modernizing things, Megas, 3D (people thought it looked really good btw), etc.
I think ORAS is at the start of its cycle, especially with BDSP making more people look at it, and Sun and Moon is on the rise afterwards. These games have plenty of content.
and IMO it is deserved. I don't think there is an actual "downfall of Pokemon", but if it existed, it was with the Switch era, not the 3DS era. how are you gonna look at XY/ORAS/SM/USUM, all of which are at the minimum quality titles, and say that this was the downfall of Pokemon?
the Switch era will be where it gets interesting, but I'm sure kids growing up with it will remember the innovations of Raids, the big Dynamax battles, the character designs, etc.
when I was new to the franchise with Gen 5?
ignoring gen1ers (which is arguably also the cycle) the opinions I saw were:
GSC (not HGSS specifically, Johto as a whole) = goated, so much content, great region, best music, it has Trainer Red!! either this one is the best one or ->
RSE = usually The Best One, goated games with all the content, great region, best music, it has Steven Stone!!
and as I grew up with the series it slowly shifted to
HGSS = the best games, goated, so much content, great region, best music, it has Trainer Red!!
DPP = The best games, so much content, great region, best music, it has Cynthia!!
and then
BW/B2W2 = The best games, so much content, great region, best music, it has N/Cynthia!!
I'm not one to say the cycle means every game will get this treatment. I don't think XY will get some major renaissance because even at the time, when people actually liked the new Pokemon game for once, a lot of it was reasons besides the region/characters/music itself. How it was modernizing things, Megas, 3D (people thought it looked really good btw), etc.
I think ORAS is at the start of its cycle, especially with BDSP making more people look at it, and Sun and Moon is on the rise afterwards. These games have plenty of content.
and IMO it is deserved. I don't think there is an actual "downfall of Pokemon", but if it existed, it was with the Switch era, not the 3DS era. how are you gonna look at XY/ORAS/SM/USUM, all of which are at the minimum quality titles, and say that this was the downfall of Pokemon?
the Switch era will be where it gets interesting, but I'm sure kids growing up with it will remember the innovations of Raids, the big Dynamax battles, the character designs, etc.
this is basically accurate, glad to say I liked BW/B2W2 before everyone started the annoying posting about how they were the best video games ever created. i still think they're the best and BW1 feels the most like an actual JRPG (in general the DS was good for these, i mentioned MegaTen and the original Strange Journey is a top 3 game in that series imo). I will be curious to see how much of it XY gets vs ORAS because XY were incredibly lacking overall, and most of the praise seemed to only come with ORAS honestly. In general, it will be interesting to see how the switch games are remembered, as the fanbase seems like it is skewing older overall compared to how it was when DPP/BW were new. Maybe I'm just getting that impression from looking at posts on here/other social media platforms from older teenagers/adults who like Pokemon, but it seems like kids would rather play other things currently. obviously it's one of the largest franchises in the world, but a lot of that also comes from the anime and the mons they can market as merchandise (pikachu, charizard, lucario, mimikyu, greninja, etc.), and there doesn't seem to be the same enthusiasm there used to be for the actual games
(I sent this while somebody else was also typing, apologies for the poor timing)
If I’m being honest, the more I think about it, I don’t think there ever was a downfall for the series in the traditional sense. I think our nostalgia for the older games has gotten so high that we learn to appreciate them more when newer games that don’t meet our standards get released. But here’s the thing- games like SwSh and SV aren’t meant to be the ones for older fans to enjoy. Newer generations on newer hardware are specifically designed to be popular amongst the younger audience growing up with that system. We need to stop and realize that the large majority of people who grew up with the Switch era games are absolutely loving them. We just don’t see it in person because the Internet is pretty much an echo chamber for people’s so-called “hot takes”. If we were allowed to all have our own childhoods and they can’t have theirs, I think that says more about us the fans than it does about Pokémon as a franchise.
Pokémon is such a great franchise on account of there not being one clear-cut “best game ever” like many of its contemporaries. People love having definitive versions of a series with all of the content from previous entries, I get that, but the problem with this philosophy is that if you do make a hypothetical perfect game for your series, what’s the point of the rest of the series anymore?
I don't necessarily agree with that. I think even in the 3DS era, most people (who knew what they were talking about) saw frame drops in Sun and Moon as less of an egregious optimization problem, and more of what it actually was:
Game Freak was legitimately pushing the system to its limits. As they did with Generation 5, and did with Generation 2. I don't think Game Freak truly peaked technically on Gameboy Advance, but I think those three generations stick out to me as games that truly pushed their systems to the limits.
With the Switch, I am not a developer (yet). But I can say as someone who is really a nerd about specs, and how the system works, and the technical details of different games; they've never hit their stride on Switch. I think that has more to do with their engine and genre shift rather than anything.
LGPE was a more traditional Pokemon game (technically, stuff like Go catching doesn't really change the technical details that much under the hood) and ran well and looked fine. And this may be a bit controversial, but Sword and Shield outside of the Wild Area looked fine in my opinion as well. AKA, when it was 720P Sun and Moon. My only issue with SWSH from a visual standpoint outside of the Wild Area was the lighting, honestly. And the UI, why are the battle elements all white. I thought we learned from that.
Basically, the further away Game Freak goes from traditional Pokemon (semi-topdown design, fixed camera angles, etc.) and keeps the scope (or increases it), the worse the engine/codebase is equipped to deal with it, and the more timeframes get tighter.
In Scarlet/Violet you can't just set the camera angle in the most flattering way and cheap out on some assets, everything in the setpiece has to work with full camera control. That is a big increase in scope, even if a lot of people sitting on the couch playing won't realize this. It's also a big issue for optimization.
These issues are solvable, but two major problems: First of all, again, the engine/codebase. Basically every Pokemon game on Switch besides BDSP shares most of its code with LGPE. Which shared its code with SM. Which shared its code with.........
They need to revamp their shit for 3D development! But that takes time. People shit on Bethesda for using the same engine for like 12 years, but Bethesda didn't go from making 2D Platformers to 3D platformers in those years! Secondly, they need more time to be able to make it work. Legends Arceus had support from Monolith Soft, even they couldn't fix the problems of making a 3D open camera game in 2 or 3 years.
Legends Arceus runs a lot better than SV, but it is also a much smaller game in terms of actually original content. Most of the game time is repetitive tasks in the same 5 smallish areas, that combined would at best be about 1/2 of SV's open world. Still doesn't feel like hitting their stride at all.
Game Freak was legitimately pushing the system to its limits. As they did with Generation 5, and did with Generation 2. I don't think Game Freak truly peaked technically on Gameboy Advance, but I think those three generations stick out to me as games that truly pushed their systems to the limits.
With the Switch, I am not a developer (yet). But I can say as someone who is really a nerd about specs, and how the system works, and the technical details of different games; they've never hit their stride on Switch. I think that has more to do with their engine and genre shift rather than anything.
LGPE was a more traditional Pokemon game (technically, stuff like Go catching doesn't really change the technical details that much under the hood) and ran well and looked fine. And this may be a bit controversial, but Sword and Shield outside of the Wild Area looked fine in my opinion as well. AKA, when it was 720P Sun and Moon. My only issue with SWSH from a visual standpoint outside of the Wild Area was the lighting, honestly. And the UI, why are the battle elements all white. I thought we learned from that.
Basically, the further away Game Freak goes from traditional Pokemon (semi-topdown design, fixed camera angles, etc.) and keeps the scope (or increases it), the worse the engine/codebase is equipped to deal with it, and the more timeframes get tighter.
In Scarlet/Violet you can't just set the camera angle in the most flattering way and cheap out on some assets, everything in the setpiece has to work with full camera control. That is a big increase in scope, even if a lot of people sitting on the couch playing won't realize this. It's also a big issue for optimization.
These issues are solvable, but two major problems: First of all, again, the engine/codebase. Basically every Pokemon game on Switch besides BDSP shares most of its code with LGPE. Which shared its code with SM. Which shared its code with.........
They need to revamp their shit for 3D development! But that takes time. People shit on Bethesda for using the same engine for like 12 years, but Bethesda didn't go from making 2D Platformers to 3D platformers in those years! Secondly, they need more time to be able to make it work. Legends Arceus had support from Monolith Soft, even they couldn't fix the problems of making a 3D open camera game in 2 or 3 years.
Legends Arceus runs a lot better than SV, but it is also a much smaller game in terms of actually original content. Most of the game time is repetitive tasks in the same 5 smallish areas, that combined would at best be about 1/2 of SV's open world. Still doesn't feel like hitting their stride at all.
this meme is how it feels to use DD Mence in gen 3 OU. the 30% never goes my way when it matters
Not sure how Gen 2 can remotely be considered obscure when the games sold over 20 million copies (outsold RSE last I checked, too) and was on a fairly successful console. (We don't actually know what GBC unit sales are, but they seem to be at least whatever Gen 2 sold as, possibly even more. Did pretty damn well for its short lifespan.) Sonic CD was on the Sega CD -- which barely anyone owned -- and was the debut of Metal Sonic and Amy Rose. Those factors combined is how the game ended up with so much mystique.
Simple answer for the previous Gen 2 reverence is nostalgia. Not that complicated.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Pivoting to a different thread for this reply (because it'd divert the thread it came from too much) to agree w/ this and defend the Johto leader teams for a sec. I've put a fair bit of thought into retooling the Johto leader teams over the years and I think their lack of representation on the whole is less to do with flavour and more to do with stats. Viability is definitely the issue here in most cases.
Falkner
So for Falkner there's not really a better choice than Pidgeotto - he's got to be better than all the crappy NPCs who already use Pidgey, and assuming you want an ace Pokemon on a similar level to Onix you basically have to go 2nd stage (keep in mind that although Onix has a pretty astronomical-looking defence stat of 160, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Butterfree - and even Charmander to an extent - can all capitalise on its terrible Special stat. Very few other Pokemon have such a lopsided stat spread you can exploit that way). So Hoothoot is out, and Noctowl is way, way too bulky for that stage of the game even if it was ridiculously underlevelled. It sort of proves the point that his Pidgeotto is so underlevelled as it is.
And you probably want a Normal/Flying mon because anything else makes things a little too complex type-wise. Farfetch'd is about on par with Pidgeotto and I think it actually would have been serviceable. Honestly there's not much in it but maybe Farfetch'd just didn't seem impressive enough for a Gym Leader's ace. In my hypothetical Johto do-over, perhaps Farfetch'd is used by one of the gym trainers or something while Falkner would use Hoothoot in place of his Pidgey but keep Pidgeotto.
Natu, Spearow, Delibird, and Doduo are all too weak while Murkrow is a little too strong, and given that Falkner specifically trains bird Pokemon anything like Zubat or Ledyba is out; they also wall Chikorita even harder than Pidgeotto does. Skarmory would have been out of the question as it's far too strong - only Cyndaquil and Mareep would be able to beat it - and Togetic wouldn't be appropriate as it spoils the story of the Mystery Egg.
Bugsy
Then when it comes to Bugsy, again Scizor is too strong, and tbh Scyther is only really manageable because he has the cocoons with it. Unless you're using a Geodude or Onix Scyther is a pretty brutal foe - moreso in HGSS but even in GSC if it gets a couple of Fury Cutters off it's nasty.
So maybe Pineco or Ledyba would have made his team a bit too difficult. His Kakuna can at least poison you, though. In my hypothetical do-over I'd probably keep the cocoons, but maaaaybe you could swap Metapod for a very passive Paras that enfeebles you with status instead.
Whitney
Well, this is the one everyone likes so not really many notes here. It could be asked why she doesn't use, like, Aipom or something but given that Game Freak nerfed her Miltank in HGSS they probably felt that a third Pokemon on her team was pushing it.
Morty
Okay so I wanted Morty to use Misdreavus as much as anyone. I don't think we'll ever see another gym based around one single evolutionary line again and frankly I hope not.
Everything about Ecruteak Gym is cool except the Pokemon they use. Seriously, if Saffron Gym can use Ghost-types why the fuck can't Ecruteak Gym use Psychic-types or Dark-types?
Anyway. Real talk though: it's kind of easy to forget how weak Misdreavus really is considering it was a fairly serviceable wall in Gen II/III but it's far, far weaker than Gengar. And it'd look really odd to have a cool new Ghost on his team and for it not to be his ace.
So, I kind of get it, even though it's disappointing. The remakes should have changed it though.
Chuck
Chuck is actually the one where it's the exception that proves the rule. Because Poliwrath works really well for him as an ace: it's Water, so suits the vibe of an island gym, it's far stronger than Hitmontop, and it gets Dynamicpunch and has a whole strategy around being able to actually make it hit reliably, which no other Fighting-type can do.
And yeah you could have Hitmontop or Heracross as his first, but the same logic goes for Morty as with Misdreavus. It's also rare to have two dual-typed Pokemon - Primeape isn't used by anyone else so Hitmontop was reserved for Bruno. Heracross learns no decent Fighting moves in any case.
Jasmine
Jasmine's a weird one. I don't know why she wasn't given a Forretress or a Skarmory, beyond the fact they share types already used by earlier gym leaders.
Beyond that, her team reflects Steel being a new type - Magnemite changed from a sole Electric-type, and Steelix is the evolution of an older Pokemon. I would at the very least though have evolved one of her Magnemite: Magnemite-Magneton-Steelix feels more natural, and is the same progression as Pryce's team.
Pryce
Pryce I think was simply an attempt to be different from Lorelei. They spread all the Ice-types out - Sneasel is a special Pokemon only used by Silver, Jynx is used by Will, and Lapras is used by Misty. Meanwhile Delibird and Smoochum are too weak.
That leaves Piloswine, Dewgong, and Cloyster. The latter two could conceivably both have been on his team, but they share a type and Piloswine, Cloyster, and Dewgong might have been considered a shade too strong for the fifth gym leader. My Johto do-over would have fixed Pryce in place as the seventh gym leader and given him the strong team he deserved.
Clair
And then with Clair - there's not much you can really do here. Gyarados is redundant (I'm baffled as to why HGSS gave her one). I've always thought that Nidoqueen and Feraligatr would fit aesthetically and mechanically for Clair, but three Dragonair and Kingdra is much harder than it looks because, at that point, you are unlikely to have a Dragon-type of your own; best you can do is bring a Jynx or a Swinub from the Ice Path. Kingdra legit seemed to have no weaknesses to me as a child.
Would I do things differently I were the director of HGSS? Yes, yes I would. By that point the Johto species shouldn't have been secret and hidden away like they were in the originals. But when you look at what they had to work with in GSC, it starts to make a lot more sense.
More than any other region, Johto's teams get defended on the basis that the devs faced a bunch of teambuilding restrictions that inhibited what they could do, even though those restrictions (if they were even thought of as such during development) were entirely self-imposed!
Yeah they could have easily buffed Natu (seriously, as someone who likes Xatu a lot, why did they make its level up learnset so shitty for the longest time? At least it got one of the best abilities in the game) and given it to Falkner. It even makes sense considering the proximity of the RoA. Same goes for most of the other decisions.
I don't mean to defend the Johto teams, moreso just say: They don't really matter?
Ultimately Johto did a good job at doing what it actually needed to do: Make the (two) Champion teams memorable. The first time I tried Showdown it was in 2014 and I was remaking Trainer Red's team in like, BW OU lol.
Ultimately most of the time, only 1 gym leader will maybe stick out, but generally the time spent on fighting a gym leader should be memorable, but generally isn't IMO. I don't think Johto is a deeply worse game because a few trainers have subpar teams, when IMO that's just the norm.
You gonna tell me what Kalos gym teams all were? I can remember some of them, but even they are pretty meh. Unova teams are decent, but most of them are only 2 or 3 Pokemon also. You have Sinnoh which in my opinion has some of the weakest gym and Elite 4 teams, Hoenn is decent but still true, etc.
The main thing is just having those few endgame trainers that people remember, and IMO Johto did do that.
Ultimately Johto did a good job at doing what it actually needed to do: Make the (two) Champion teams memorable. The first time I tried Showdown it was in 2014 and I was remaking Trainer Red's team in like, BW OU lol.
Ultimately most of the time, only 1 gym leader will maybe stick out, but generally the time spent on fighting a gym leader should be memorable, but generally isn't IMO. I don't think Johto is a deeply worse game because a few trainers have subpar teams, when IMO that's just the norm.
You gonna tell me what Kalos gym teams all were? I can remember some of them, but even they are pretty meh. Unova teams are decent, but most of them are only 2 or 3 Pokemon also. You have Sinnoh which in my opinion has some of the weakest gym and Elite 4 teams, Hoenn is decent but still true, etc.
The main thing is just having those few endgame trainers that people remember, and IMO Johto did do that.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Not denying that. It's weird: Heracross learns no good Fighting moves in Gen II. Could they have given it one? Yes, yes they could!
There's odd choices in just about every game though. Wattson having Magneton rather than Manectric as an ace in RS, for instance. At least that one got fixed.
Vivillion/Surskit.
Aurorus/Tyrantrum. (technically I think it was the pre-evos, but it was the two fossils from this region which is cool and memorable).
Hawlucha, Machoke, some other non-Lucario, non-dark mon with no coverage.
Weepinbell, Skiploon, Gogoat.
Emolga, Magneton, Heliolisk. (And they COULD have done a lot more with this one than they did and I hate it. Just give us a good volt turn team for once!)
Mawile, Sylveon, something else.
Psychic. I remember nothing about this gym other than the aesthetic. A lot of Psychic mons all fit the same mold, fast special attackers, which is good for effectiveness, bad for me remembering if it was Kadabra or Espeon that I one-shot.
Avalugg, Cryogonal, Abomasnow, I don't recall anything else because it's ice, you just spam SE moves and move on. He abused hail which was cool, but also did not matter in any way.
Checking my list...Yep, I was right. Except that I assumed Wulfric had more than 3 mons(WHY does GF want Ice to suck so hard?) and of course I ignored Olympia's team entirely. Every one has a Gen VI mon as their ace, which helps(I only remembered Surskit on Viola but just assumed she'd also have the regional butterfly with a cool gimmick), and this gen was small teams, which made it easier.
It's interesting you specifically chose Kalos for this list. Because the gym teams in Kalos suck. Grant's gimmick is cool and I wish we saw it more often(GSC Brock is the only other time a Rock-specialist uses the fossils IIRC), Valerie is reasonably well-made, and Clemont is at least positioned well to tell the player "Catch a damn ground-type for this fight", but none of them are as challenging as various random route trainers. But even with that, I remembered their teams.
My unpopular opinion: The decision to base the Regions on stuff IRL is really interesting, but I think limits their design options far too much. GF would be much better off if they decided to just scrap real-world inspiration beyond "ooh, let's pull in some Amazon Rainforest over here, and toss in a battle atop the temple at Tenochitlan for the final fight. Oh, and I want a really tough poison gym, pull up the list of venomous Australian creatures for the Zubats of this game."
While I think that he should probably have a member of the Electrike line, I also feel that it makes a lot of sense for his ace to be found in New Mauville. While not as much a consideration during the development of RS itself, Mageton feels more unique as an ace since later Electric leaders (or Surge, for that matter) all focus on animalistic Electric-types.
RBY OU sucks. It is the worst OU meta of all. Do you hate seeing the same Pokemon on every team? Are there certain mechanics you find really cheap and annoying? If the answer to either of those 2 was yes, don't play RBY OU. Sleep is broken. Crit rates being based on Speed is dumb. Wrap and all the variants are just stupid. The Psychic type is OP. The Normal type is also OP. Special only being one stat, just...why? Attack and Defence got separate stats, why didn't Special?
RBY OU isn't just my least favourite OU tier to play, it's flat out my least favourite tier full stop (though SS Ubers and ORAS Ubers come close, fuck Calyrex-Shadow and fuck Primal Groudon.)
RBY OU isn't just my least favourite OU tier to play, it's flat out my least favourite tier full stop (though SS Ubers and ORAS Ubers come close, fuck Calyrex-Shadow and fuck Primal Groudon.)
Does that mean that the Gym Leaders aren’t even meant to be memorable, or at least not anymore since the second generation, and are just fillers for sake of extending the game? Because even if the game is made for a younger audience in mind, I doubt kids would find any Gym Leader memorable because of their team, but because of what design and personality they have.
There’s no harm having a large cast of memorable characters than just a few ones, otherwise it feels like waste of resources. Kid Icarus: Uprising doesn’t have just memorable main cast and end bosses, but also memorable bosses and side characters like Magnus and especially Dark Pit.
In my opinion? Gameplay wise?
Yes. I don't care about them gameplay wise and I think they are in fact, mostly filler, mostly formulaic, and almost all of them do not serve the purpose of being an interesting part of the game.
I think that Game Freak also agrees with your assessment, which is why in the last two generations, Gym Leaders have gone from parts of the game that mostly serve as a formula/progress tracker ("I have X badges, I am X way through the game!", arbitrary bosses are not that uncommon in JRPGs tbh), to being bigger parts of the marketing and more of characters.
Sword and Shield tried to make them more special with Dynamax, and stadiums. I think they are doing fine outside of the gameplay part. But if Falkner had a Hoothoot / Noctowl instead of a Pidgeotto, I really don't think it'd change Falkner's effect on the average players experience. Which is why my opinion is more "for most gyms, the teams do not really matter", than "The Johto Gym Leader teams are good."
I feel like most gym leaders that aren't newer and have more memorable teams, is mostly out of challenge. But if we judged Johto gyms by challenge, I think it'd be unfair in a series where I'd say almost every gym leader is extremely easy. Whitney Miltank is in fact memorable, but not because of Miltank, more because of the difficulty players faced. In another world, Whitney has a Tauros and somehow it also has Milk Drink, and some other status move. People as kids struggle very hard to fight it, and it's known infamously as "Whitney's Tauros".
Adding to this, there's a reason why the vast majority of fan-works give all the bosses full teams of six mons; it allows for far more memorable and actually tense boss encounters that challenge your skill. Just look at the first Gym battle of Reborn for an example:
Obviously, this isn't exactly threatening, but for a first "major" boss fight? This works. It actually asks you to consider things like team composition and set-up, rather than just being essentially an enemy trainer with slightly higher levels. And that's....fun? It's actually making you meaningfully engage with the game? Dunno why that's such a controversial stance.
....Not really?
Sure, the Gym Leaders might have more overt personality now, they're, but the majority of them still only exist to give singular boss encounters. There's no greater story significance to them beyond that, and consequently their characters are pretty one-dimensional. Look on Pixiv and you'd see the Paldea Elite 4 vastly outdoes the majority of the Gym Leaders (besides Iono, who was basically tailor-made to appeal to otaku), simply because fans took to liking the interplay they were given. Because those kinds of settings are what create interesting characters.