Oct 11, 2007

As much as we love Pokemon - enough to devote thousands of hours to the series, collectively - the games are far from perfect. While we've enjoyed so much of our time in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, there were a few aspects of our adventures that drove us batty. In this week's Pokemusings, we're going to go to that dark, angry, and bitter place by venting about five things we can't stand about the mainline Pokemon games.

1) The Run Button - Holding down a button to run was acceptable in 1996, when Pokemon Blue/Red was released in Japan. When Pokemon Gold/Silver was released in 2000, the run button was mildly annoying. Well guess what Game Freak? It's now 2007 and using a run button is just stupid. There's absolutely no reason you should have to hold down a button in order to run in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. It's archaic. It's annoying. It shouldn't be requisite in a modern game.

Above: Raticate is nothing more than a filthy rodent

2) Pokemon that Look Like Real Animals - A large part of Pokemon's appeal is its cute and creatively-designed critters. Unfortunately, there are way too many Pokemon that don't fit this description. We don't care what you say about Poochyena. It's just a frickin' dog. There's absolutely nothing special about Swellow; it's just a garden variety bird. The worst offenders of this type of Pokemon are Rattata and Raticate; they're just filthy rodents. Seriously, how lame do you look facing off against a trainer with a cute Pokemon like Meganium or a cool one like Charizard when you bust out a dirty rat Pokemon?