>>540929872/2
Speaking of features that weren't as great as I remembered: pokeathlon. It's great that I can quickly spam some games to grind out an evo stone that I want. But most of the games are clunky/tedious. The hurdle game, relay race and brick breaking games are good. The other 7 weren't. I was champion of all 5 games using random pokemon I caught in the wild without any kind of conditioning or apricorn supplements. Still, better than stuff like pokemon Musical that's less engaging and has no payoff.
The phone number system was shit. I did not get a single call all game from any of the NPCs that could find any items. I did not get calls for rematches until I was 7+ badges in. Your mother calls constantly and there's no option in the menu to stop the phone from ringing.
Movesets were hit and miss. Some mons have appropriate enough learnsets, like Quagsire. Others, like Xatu (which I was initially excited to use for Chuck), learn no flying (except Fly, after Chuck) or psychic moves at all, until Psychic in the 60s, when the game is well over. In fact, Xatu learns nightshade at level 6 (likely forgotten if you catch a natu level 23+, leaving it with no damaging moves) and then its next offensive move is future sight at 42. Not even Confusion, why? I boxed it all game. Letdown.
The postgame facilities are a nice add from Platinum but without any of the QoL features we see in gens 6+ (especially changing natures), I'm not very interested. Gen 3 can be excused somewhat since it was the first iteration of the new stat system, but gen 4 really should have added a mint-equivalent by now, and ludicrous still that gen 5 didn't make any strides. The Entei and Raikou I got were useless because of their natures and there's nothing I can do unless I start a new game, so I guess I'm not using them. Customizing pokemon is a huge draw to these games in general, and having the QoL tools to tailor their stats in these games would have made the postgame 100% more fun.
