>>36198926>Like I guess the split is neat for competitive players?It was neat for absolutely everyone, as it overturned a huge amount of Pokemon's usability for the best. Gengar could finally use special-type Ghost and Poison moves, while Sneasel, before a really bad Pokemon, not only got a really good evolution, but made his two formerly special typings, Ice and Dark, into physicals with the moves it could learn so it could actually use its great Atk stat, pushing it into one of the best Pokemon we have gotten to the date.
You and many are completely understimating the importance that the physical/special split was for the series overall, it was an absolute godsend that changed how the game is played since then. Compared to the changes we got in later generations, they fall flat as they were never exploited as much as we wished except for Gen 5's Hidden Abilities. Help me here, as I want to mention what I consider is the main feature of each generation:
>Gen 5's Dream World and Hidden Abilities: Where we got newer abilities that made a lot of Pokemon more useful. Dream World was also fun for 1 hour per day-limited minigames but locked Berry farming to it.>Gen 6's Mega Evolution: A really neat idea to make weak Pokemon into powerhouses, increasing their usability. Unfortunately many of them were used on already strong Pokemon and eventually dropped when they had so much potential.Gen 7's Z Moves and Alola forms: The former being just a move turned into a one use flashy nuke, the second being locked to a handful of Kantomons only where GF didn't even bother in creating more for USUM when the concept itself was really interesting.
>Who the heck was Gen 4's rival anyway? I've completely forgotten.Barry, who has one of the best rival teams in the series.