>>51683961No, but I don't play nu-gen (6 and up IMO but I'll admit 5 is borderline) so for me they never left.
The biggest reasons are:
>I don't like Kingler (I'll concede that Strength hits like a fucking freight train with him)>I don't like Furret>Linoone is pretty meh>I don't like Bibarel>I don't like WatchogBirds are okay, but being required to run:
>Pidgeot, or Fearow if I'm feeling frisky (Gen 1)>Pidgeot again or Crobat (Gen 2)>Swellow or Crobat (Gen 3)>Staraptor or Crobat (Gen 4)>Unfezant (Gen 5) in EVERY playthrough is infuriating. Crobat's cool. He's not THAT cool.
I've made wondrous use of Surf in every Pokémon game I've ever played, so that one will never upset me. Dive and Fly have their uses, but see my above complaint for Fly. Roughly 10% of KOs in my entire singleplayer Pokémon career have been a Golbat or Crobat using Fly.
They would be a phenomenal game mechanic if they were out-of-battle techniques strictly and solely. What I mean is, that if a Pokémon COULD learn the HM, you can use it's out-of-battle usage without learning the move. You'd still have to plan your team around those moves, but now my Kingler can do more than just click Strength. Though their status as re-usable TMs is a great help.
Hell, I wouldn't even be mad at their original status if the bad ones (IE: not Surf, Fly, Waterfall or Strength) weren't bad moves. For example:
>Cut becomes a 70 Power 100 Accuracy Steel Move (Normal in Gen 1 for obvious reasons, and it occurs to me that this would be really good on Aggron)>Rock Smash Jumps to 60 Power (Fishing for Defense drops fits my preferred playstyle like a fucking glove.)>Whirlpool's Accuracy Goes up to 90 and its Power up to 40>Dive jumps up to 90 Power to match Fly>Flash bumps up to 100 Accuracy>Rock Climb was 100 Accuracy and Rock Type (Or Fighting, I'd definitely take Fighting)>Defog was in its 2022 state in the Gen 4 gamesLess than 1% of the playerbase would complain about HMs if they were like this.
