Source
r/pokemon•
Uninformedperson

The technological leap from gen1-gen 2

Discussion

I have to admit that I am still amazed at the technological leap between gen1-gen2. GF fixed nearly all of the problems of gen1 (special stat, limited bag slots, bad sprites from behind, stupid moves/mechanics with freeze crits wrap sleep psychic, etc, lack of move power/descriptions ingame), and yet they added SO much to gen2. A revamped Kanto, way better OST (dem trainer battle and Red battle osts), Pokemon breeding, shinies, day/night cycle, two new types, etc. Not only that, but the graphics in general were significantly better than gen1. And the cherry on the cake was that Gold/Silver still ran on the monochrome GB (not Crystal though which added the Battle Tower and animated sprites).

Is this technological leap just because Gold/Silver had a bigger budget, or what? Even though Pokemon is now 3d, I still find myself more impressed with how Gold/Silver maximized the technological limits of the Gameboy. Gen1 looks last gen compared to gen2, especially in regards to sprites. GF really went above and beyond to fix the problems with gen1 and then subsequently improve upon it and then adding repeatable content in the Battle Tower.

Posted Jul 21, 2017, 11:29 AM UTC

9040
kappa23•

Probably had a bigger budget because of Red and Blue's massive success

They had a better console to work with in the GBC

64
wanderer995•

But it still worked on the og gameboy. Even without color gs is still a huge tech jump from gen1

20
Paxton-176Have you ever met a Sloth on an all Protean Diet?•

I didn't know GS worked on the Original Gameboy. I looked at my original carts and they say "Nintendo Gameboy" on the top, and Crystal version says, "GameBoy color.

5
Frolossus•

also iwata being a god

16
SidewaysInfinityThe Desert Spirit•

Iwata deserves to be made like a patron god of the company or something, like that cat that worked as a greeter on the underground

4
AeroTheManiacFluffy Wuffy Whimsicott•

As much as I love Gen 2, the graphics were not the biggest increase. Everything else was fantastic though. Imo, the biggest leap is Gen 2->3, with abilities, EV's, the perfect storage system, contests, party screen sprites, double battles and a 60 fps.

53
sometipsygnostalgicpumpkin party in team aquas water apocalypse•

i disagree, the graphics upgrades were fantastic. finally pokemon looked like pokemon.

33
jaredletosombrehair•

gen 2 sprites are the GOAT.

13
AeroTheManiacFluffy Wuffy Whimsicott•

That's true, I sort of excluded the battle graphics. I'll give it that, the battle scenes were fucking gorgeous in Gen 2.

8
SacredBeard•

They kinda already did this with yellow though that was only for front sprites iirc.

2
Frolossus•

yeah yellow definitely looked amazing for it's time

6
Elune•

I honestly struggle to go back to the original gen 1 and 2 games because of how big of a difference abilities make and how much better the storage system is now. Honestly gen 3 and 4 had the biggest impact on the series IMO, hidden abilities from gen 5, megas from gen 6 and different forms from 7 were big in their own rights but didn't effect the series as a whole as much Abilities and the separation of type from Special/Physical were easily the biggest changes though.

15
Frolossus•

you got the revamped EV/IV system, double batttles, contests and natures in gen 3. whereas gen 2 brought about breeding/gendered pokemon/eggs, multiple new types, 2 regions, battle tower, special stat split, move tutors, move deletions, time machine trades roaming legendaries, night/day cycle, berries, & friendship evolves, proper backwards compatibility, egg moves etc

in my mind it's no competition that gen 2 was the most influential in the entire franchise to date and established the majority of the staple features you still see in modern pokemon games

whereas lots of more recent features like contests, mega evolutions, mining underground, all get lost after a generation or so

it's also important to note that gen 2 would've been the last of the franchise if g/s weren't as successful as they ended up being. no other entry in the franchise can claim that.

8
Elune•

Game play feature wise true, there were a lot of new things in gen 2 that changed a lot of how the games worked but I was referring more to the battle system, it's pretty hard to go back to gen 1/2 after getting used to the new system.

Abilities and Physical/Special move separation were huge game changers to how the battle system worked, which is one of the bigger parts of pokemon. Abilities meant some pokemon got a huge edge now and the move separation meant some pokemon could make better use of their stats, IE Poliwrath could use physical water moves now instead of all water moves being special and make use of it's higher physical attack.

2
Frolossus•

the phys/special split was a gen 4 thing though. and pretty much the only thing gen 4 contributed.

if gen3 + 4 + 6 + 7 combined their changelogs into one game it'd start to be comparable to gen 2.

each generation after 2 gave fewer major changes per generation

gen5 i felt like was really the odd one out and contributed the smallest number of new features to any game and basically amounted to a more polished gen 4 styled game

7
wanderer995•

That should have come in RSE though...not gen iv. Lots of moves just went unused because the Pokemon that could use them had the wrong stats (dragon claw being special for example).

Also this isn't about which games are tne most playable. It's about the biggest generational leap in Pokemon.

4
JarretBird15PSYDUCC•

It's probably the furthest back you can go and have the game still function relatively the same. It was my first gen, and I loved it.

3
lastlivingkid•

In my opinion 2->3 wasn't that big of a leap. Quite a few features were removed, like day/night, trainer rematches, animated sprites, radio, battle tower, 2 regions, 16 badges...

1
Paxton-176Have you ever met a Sloth on an all Protean Diet?•

Trainer rematches existed in RS, so did the battle tower.

Radio didn't matter, I bet majority of the players had the sound off, because they didn't want to bother other people and headphones would stop any player from hearing someone try to talk to them.

It would have been nice to have day and night, but timed events still existed.

Animated sprites are such a small thing that would normally go unnoticed. I think they went away if you turned off battle animations.

And 2 regions was more a gimmick with gen 2, it was more of the devs saying, "We know RGY wasn't the best we could have made it so here it is again, but kind of updated."

3
Fenyx4_HOENN CONFIRMED!•

As much as I love Generation 3, I still have to fault it for the lackluster time feature implementation compared to Generation 2 - after Generation 3, every other subsequent generation has prioritized and replicated the day/night graphical feature of Generation 2, to the point that Pokémon Sun/Moon even use it as a sort-of gimmick. Generation 2 made time much more integral to regional design, and Generation 3 just looks strange now due to omitting a fleshed-out day/night feature. Then again, the day/night feature seems much easier to pull off in three-dimensional overworlds, but that's just a testament of the dedication poured into the Generation 2 games.

Animated sprites are less important, but if so much effort can be put into move animations (which are also affected by the Battle Scene options), you would think that each Pokémon's main sprite could receive at least 1-2 additional frames of movement.. Granted, movement is also more easily achieved with three-dimensional models, and Generation 4 similarly skimped on them a bit, so the lack of moving sprites is somewhat glaring but doesn't detract too much in Generation 3, especially because the lively overworld helps to make up for it, as do the 386 unique moving menu sprites.

With the "2 regions" thing, I saw Generation 1 as the best incarnation of Kanto that Game Freak could achieve at the time, considering that Generation 2 downgrades much of Kanto (such as Viridian Forest having its trees cut in Generation 2, compared to proper full trees in Generation 1 and Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver). The much of Kanto that was in Generation 2 was not an "update" but more of a bonus, since Kanto technically wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place. I agree that the "2 regions" thing has been a gimmick mostly relegated to Johto-based games, especially because it helps make the Johto games to be stand-out/unique experiences, not to mention that 2 regions is unfeasible to do in every game due to the seemingly-increasing sizes of subsequent single regions, as well as the time constraints for every core series Pokémon videogame.

2
supermariozelda•

If I remember correctly, they originally weren't going to include Kanto in G/S, but Iwata was very insistent on adding it, so he compressed G/S in his own time to less than half of it's original size.

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captain_spudI like grapes.•

Not exactly right on that timeline. They were having trouble fitting Johto on the cart, so he figured out a new way to compress it. The new compression was so effective that they now had room for Kanto, so they tossed it in.

Same end result, of course. But the rationale wasn't "we have to do this, go figure it out"; it was "solving this other problem lets us do this anyway, so why not?"

38
Veteran_Trainer•

Yup, also not the only time Iwata saved the day for Pokemon. The battle system code from Red and Green were pretty buggy and didn't work right when trying to put them into the first Stadium game, so he fixed that all, too.

8
JoJoX200•

He played a big part in Zelda:OoT's file size compression iirc. It's pretty cool that the way to the top for him was file compression and saving space of all things.

7
Crobatman123•

I think Gen 3 is a bigger leap TBH, Gen 1 and 2 isn't as huge.

7
Frolossus•

you got the revamped EV/IV system, double batttles, contests and natures in gen 3. whereas gen 2 brought about breeding/gendered pokemon/eggs, multiple new types, 2 regions, battle tower, special stat split, roaming legendaries, night/day cycle, berries, & friendship evolves

in my mind it's no competition that gen 2 was the most influential in the entire franchise to date and established the majority of the staple features you still see in modern pokemon games

it's also important to note that gen 2 would've been the last of the franchise if g/s weren't as successful as they ended up being. no other entry in the franchise can claim that.

in a lot of ways gen 2 is still a marvel that the more recent gens haven't been able to replicate.

0†
MegaWeavileplz•

Don't forget Cover Legendaries Gen 2 started that.

3
Crobatman123•

Gen 3 brought (most importantly to me) the revamped PC system, the first box trio (though not always with 3rd games, still a thing today), and the revamp of the EV/IV system isn't given enough credit. IVs and DVs weren't very well done, and Gen 3 is the only game so far with big enough changes that transfer between games was impossible. Gen 3 also introduced wireless trading and more than one mythical pokemon per generation, not to mention the minigame, contests, which eventually evolved into things like the pokeathelon, musicals, and pokestar studios. It also introduced secret bases (which, admittedly, is a new feature merged with the rebattle feature in Gen 2), and had two teams, which is exclusive to Gen 3. If we're going off of generations, Gen 3 introduced the remake as well as the first console RPG pokemon game, and started the Mystery Dungeon series, which still have the best stories in any pokemon games. Gen 3 also had better graphics, which made the pokemon more real to me.

2
Frolossus•

the only reason pokemon weren't transferable was because of technical limitations that were more recently resolved.

nothing can express my disappointment in playing gen 3 after the high of gen 2 and realizing there was nothing to do in the post e4 until emerald came out much later. then not having backwards compatibility on top of that

i don't view more mythicals as a good thing. i'd rather instead they shifted towards less of them.

i'd also argue that the new ev/iv system isn't strictly better than the old except in the 1 case of shiny pokemon generation. the new system single handedly drives this notion that 99% of the pokemon you pick up or breed are absolutely worthless and promotes the need to soft reset for perfect legendaries and other tedious tasks that break immersion

most of the other features presented in gen 3 have faded in and out of later generations and had nowhere close to the persistence of features added in gen 2.

gen 3 is also the turning point of the series where i'd say it became worse as a single player experience as a result of focusing on a more cinematic and repetitive story as opposed to the very bare bones and open ended feeling presented in the first 2 generations.

i feel like overall more damage was done to the franchise than progress was made during gen 3 and the single most redeeming quality it had was emerald having the most interesting post game content since before or after crystal

1
Crobatman123•

Still, they couldn't be transferred. I loved Gen 3. Despite the lack of an aftergame, I still enjoyed it, mostly due to contests. Gen 2 is the only game with such a large aftergame, and I feel they're the only ones that could do that due to the perfect placement of them, with the perfect chance to optimize coding but still not having a shit-ton of stuff. However, we could very likely see such a large aftergame on the Switch seeing as it's a home console that's made more portable.

I think more mythicals is a good thing when it means 2 mythicals per generation.

The new IV/EV system is just better. EVs are more limited, which, while making pokemon less infinitely trainable, makes it actually realistic.

the new system single handedly drives this notion that 99% of the pokemon you pick up or breed are absolutely worthless and promotes the need to soft reset for perfect legendaries and other tedious tasks that break immersion

That's just a symptom of people being older and understanding the game. While pokemon in Gens 1 and 2 had twice the chance of being good, the system was still flawed. I prefer pokemon having more variety of stats, but beyond that Gen 2 still had a merged special stat... in DVs. Also, SRing for legendaries is rather easy, because almost no one expects even 5 or 4 perfect IVs. 3 is usually enough, which is guaranteed. Even so, this is true in Gen 2 as well. While it does kill immersion, people chose to do it, and if we stayed with DVs the same thing would happen there. Also, something very important I forgot to mention about Gen 3 is that it introduced abilities. Those are pretty huge. It also expanded upon held items well, and made growing berries a fun passtime. Natures are also important.

2
desultorysockje me souviens•

I want that to be the way each generation feels, tbh - why else have a new gen, instead of a 3rd release? The new features/design/stretch of capability is what sells the game, even if the newest game on a new console is weak at first - taking in account for the changes between Yellow and its predecessors, and Crystal and G/S.

Gen 1 was good because it was fresh and new.

Gen 2 was good because it added a lot, like you said, the graphics got a tweak and so did stats, but mostly they now played with adding content and seeing how much they could fit. More Pokemon, more replay value, more animation.

Gen 3 was good because it added yet more, further expanding stats and the purpose of breeding, but it also had a severe graphics upgrade, added contests, still kept the replay value they added in Gen 2 but focused more on the one continent - I sort of suspect that the reason we otherwise have not gone back to previous areas was because they began to have a conflict of space; in Gen 2, it got compressed to fit, but between doubling the Pokemon since Gen 1, changing a LOT for sprites and colours and battle moves, it probably didn't work anymore.

Gen 4 was a bit different. Graphics weren't a big upgrade but they changed some stuff, added Pokemon of course. They brought buddy Pokemon into HGSS which was unique, but otherwise it kinda played to me the same as Gen 3.

Gen 5 began turning the graphics more 3D, but it was a slow turning point. I think because very little other than Pokemon felt new, this is why I didn't like Gen 5, personally.

Gen 6 really began steering the 3D motion, mostly in battles. New Pokemon, but at this point most of the features were slightly changed between games but it was more or less definitive what the games needed.

Gen 7 gave the overworld true 3D RPG style. I do praise them for that.

All in all, it does feel like the biggest jumps came from Gen 1 - Gen 3. But, why fix a system that isn't broke, right? After Gen 3, we had all 6 stats, IVs, EVs, breeding, Battle Frontier/Tower/Maison, etc. It's all been content changes - new areas, quality of life changes to the features we already have, and new Pokemon.

7
yowmeister•

Gen 4 was the physical/special split which was HUGE for making certain Pokémon relevant. A big personal favorite from gen 1 was hitmonchan. It learned all those elemental punches and it was complete shit bc in Gen 1-3 all of them were evaluated on the special stat. I distinctly remember when young me was going to roll out that hitmonchan with all those punches and literally none of them did damage. It also made crunch have a bit of a bite (heh) to it since Tyranitar and others now could use their large attack stats optimally

Gen 5 was also the first to get online play "right". Obviously it's been improved since then but for the time it was wonderful.

Edit: autocorrect doesn't know Pokémon names

17
desultorysockje me souviens•

Oh, my mistake, I thought the Physical/Special split was in Gen 3. And yes, I suppose making note of the online additions is important, I didn't think of that - but it's not a big feature to me, so I sorta forgot haha

4
MetaKnightsMetaniteclassic•

I don't find the graphics of gen 2 to be amazingly better than gen 1's graphics, especially in the overworld, though I do love the colours. Gen 2 also has its share of crazy glitches, though none are as infamous as Missingno., the Mew glitch or the ZZAZZ glitch.

I also think that the leap from gen 2 to gen 3 was a bigger leap just because of DVs being completely revamped. That doesn't even factor in abilities, EVs, double battles and wireless communication. I also think that gen 3 to 4, while not as big a leap, was more significant with the introduction to the physical/special split and wi-fi communication.

And finally, I would hardly call Kanto revamped. It was a ghost town. I'm fairly certain that Cinnabar's volcano erupted so they wouldn't have to construct a cohesive town there (but it was definitely cool to see what could change in 3 years).

Gen 2 is vastly superior to gen 1 in almost every way, but I feel like this post is somehow giving it too much credit. They were both built on the same engine, which is something that no other gen has had to do.

5
Wasperine•

Then you'd probably be downright shocked to hear about Japanese Crystal's Pokemon Mobile System.

2
nowayyeahright•

I read somewhere that Gold and Silver were going to be the last Pokemon games, so the developers worked really hard to create the best experience the series could offer. Could also explain why later games lacked certain features, particularly revisiting old regions.

2
KELDEO_FUCKERDoesn't diddle keldeos!•

The easiest way to see how much better Gen II over Gen I was how much more convenient everything was. And that was before IV/EV breeding was a thing!

2
QuantumElectronicsDuToxic Stall FTW!•

The tech leap is actually in large part because Nintendo staff actually got involved in the development of G/S when GameFreak said they couldn't make it all fit on a single cartridge. Iwata gave them a compression technique that not only made it so the whole intended game fit, there was so much space left over they could add the Kanto region!

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trademeple•

i prefer gen 1 and 3 kanto over gen 2 and 4 they removed alot of things including areas from kanto hgss adds some of these things back that were removed but still not all of them return.

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