A Look at Pokemon: Generation 4

Intro
A new region, new Pokemon, new attacks, and new abilities, and for me this is the peak of the Pokemon series.  That's not to say any generations after this one will take the series downhill, it's just that this generation took some of the biggest steps in the Pokemon history and won big time.  And the importance of those steps haven't been repeated in Gen 5.  What did they do right above all the other games? Well keep reading to find out.

Graphics
The game continues to use sprites but I'm okay with that.  The way they work with it seems to set it apart from other games and it's something I wouldn't change.  The overworld is no longer sprites but a 3D world in the Pokemon style.  One can see the dept of the land while all other characters are sprites is unusual, the sprites themselves don't look bad in a three dimensional land.  And with it being the DS the bottom screen is used for other things that I'll get to, but also the commands in battles which has a fantastic layout style.

Plot
The story starts out with the player and the player's best friend out on the lookout for the infamous Red Gyarados at the lake near their hometown in the Sinnoh region after hearing it appeared there in a news report.  Recklessly going into the grass they are attacked by Pokemon and they use the ones that happen to be nearby.  After that the region professor, Professor Rowan, allows you to keep the Pokemon the two start their quest.  The quest like the other games has been get all 8 badges and all, though they do kind of mix it up with a female champion for once, Cynthia.  Along the trip the player may run into another trainer that would join them for a short time, unlike Colosseum were the extra person did nothing the trainers here have their own Pokemon to use in battle.

The badies of this generation are called Team Galactic.  Having a space theme to them, they are after the Pokemon that control space and time to recreate the world.  A plus to them is that unlike the other games (not including the Gamecube games) instead of just the boss and grunts there are some high ranking officials in the team as well. In the Platinum version Team Galactic gets another member who, while you don't fight, acts as the leading scientist and the one who created all of Team Galactic's weapons and tech.  Where they Team falls is it's leader Cyrus.  Cyrus is really flat and not really emotional, don't get me wrong I understand that is what they meant to do... but,  I would have liked to see some emotion from him.  Like in the result of a battle he wanted to win but lost, direct setbacks like that should have unlocked the emotions he kept hidden, but that's just me.

Gameplay
Perfect.  This is the generation that perfected the gameplay of the series.  With Gen 2's typing and Gen 3's nature and abilities, Gen 4 gave the final tweak the series needed.  Physical and Special splits for moves.  In the earlier generations a move was special or physical by the type alone.  That was trashed and with this split people take a new look at Pokemon.  Now Pokemon like Feraligatr that has higher attack than special attack can now make use of it's type and greater stats with physical water moves, giving moves like Waterfall a shine for this Pokemon aside from using Surf.  It is no longer a laughing matter to give Hitmonchan the Thuder/Fire/Ice Punch moves.  A trainer can easily take control of Omastar's high special attack power to use AncientPower.

A small touch was added to breeding, but it was for the better.  In the games before all Pokemon hatched from eggs at level 5.  Kind of makes little sense when you consider the Pokemon next to the starter town tend to be under level 5.  This was corrected to now have Pokemon start off at level 1 and start from there.  A good choice I say, and again a small thing that was added but for all the right reasons and made sense this time.

The Underground, is a playground for trainers.  By digging in any location we can explore the land under the Sinnoh region, being able to travel from one side to the other... most of the time.  In the underground tunnels trainers can dig up all kinds of treasure like, plates, shards, evolution stones, even fossils.  With the Secret Bases of Gen 3, for Gen 4 the Secret Base is now part of the Underground.  So like before you can get all kinds of things to make your base look nice.  And one of the treasures, spheres, can be used to buy things for your base or by traps.  In the Underground trainers can connect with each other and play Catch the Flag, with the goal being to take the flag of the other person's base and get it to yours without be caught.  That is were traps come in, trainers can set up traps to catch people who steal a flag from their base.  The only problem with the game would be if the trainers had their bases in other parts of the Underground, but I have never come across this problem personally but I'm sure someone has.

The idea of the Mystery Gift was in the other games but not as important as it is now.  The function known as the Mystery Gift is now used to activate any events, be it in a local area or a Wi-Fi event.  Events could be for items that unlock areas to catch rare Pokemon, like Darkrai and Shaymin.  Other events can be to obtain special Pokemon like Mew or a Shiny Pichu.  Unlike generations before it event Pokemon now come in a special pokeball, a Cherish Ball, that is all red and Pokemon come out in a flash of colors.

The Poketch is the new device for the Sinnoh region, and is more handy than the Pokegear and PokeNav.  With time of day and night back from Gen 2 the Poketch keeps track of the time on the DS clock, both digital and analog.  It even has a calendar that keeps track of the day, month, and year the same way as time.  It even has its own map, a very useful thing as it even tracks any roaming Pokemon that are on the loose without you having to go all the way at the Pokedex to see where it is.  You can even see the happiness of your Pokemon without having to visit one person in the whole game that has to tell you that.  In games before there as always been a dowsing machine, this time one is part of the many functions of the Poketch.  There are a few functions that can even help you with breeding, like the one that checks compatibility of two Pokemon, a daycare checker to see how the Pokemon you left at the daycare are doing and if they had an egg, and a pedometer that can help you keep track of the number of steps when hatching eggs.  There is of course other functions that are not that useful in the game but they are fun to have like , a coin flip, calculator, memo pad, roulette, and  so on.

Pokemon in generation 4 also have new evolution methods.  One of which is gender evolution where if the Pokemon is a certain gender it will evolve into a certain Pokemon.  Like Burmy where males become a Mothim and females become a Wormadam.  Some Pokemon like Combee that evolve into Vespiquen need to be female, meaning that males never evolve.  Other gender evolutions need a Dawn Stone to make that possible.  Next method is items, unlike the trade with items this one is to hold the item.  Once the Pokemon levels up with the right item it will evolve, also note that those evolutions require to be a certain time of day too.  Pokemon can also evolve from a level up in a certain location.  As long as they are on the right place it can evolve at any level.  There are also evolutions based on attacks in these games, all you have to do is level them up with the attack and there you go.  It is strange when you consider that some Pokemon that use that method have learned those attacks in previous generations.  The last one is requiring you to have another Pokemon in your party to evolve.  This rule only applies to Mantyke, who needs to have a Remoraid in the party, to evolve into Mantine.

Super Contest, yeah so for this one instead of just Contest it had to be Super because....... SUPER!!!  There have been some changes to how the Conest work.  Pokemon this time eat Poffins to gain stats in the returning contests of Cool, Cute, Beauty, Smart, and Tough.  For the first round of contest it will be showing off your Pokemon like before but this time you get to dress up your Pokemon in whatever you find on your trip, from masks, feathers, and even rocks the list goes on.  The second round is the dance off which is a new thing where you match the beat of the Pokemon before, while trying to create your own beat that will be difficult for the others to copy.  And the last round is the appeals with using moves once more.  This time there are three judges and your goal is to appeal to the one that would likely not be picked by the others to gain more points, or plan your actions to snag a lot of points when a judge's meter reaches a certain point.  And while old moves are the same contest type before the effects on the appeals of this generation are different from before.

Wi-Fi.  This is what the generations of the past painfully lacked.  With the DS's ability to connect to other DS systems wirelessly and connect to the internet for a global scale the series has become.  So since the DS doesn't need cables anymore this does win over the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance systems that required players to have paid for a link cable to trade and battle.  With the help of friend codes people can trade with friends and people on the internet without be next to each other.  Trading with people you don't know is also possible with the help of the Global Trade Station, or GTS for short.  Trainers can deposit a Pokemon and ask what they want to trade it for.  Or search for a Pokemon they want and see if the price for the trade is good with them.  There are some limited actions on the GTS, first being you can only look or ask for Pokemon that you have seen on the Pokedex.  Next is that when you narrow down what you are looking for, you only get 7 choices, with no way to scroll to find others that want to trade, sure you can narrow it down by so much but it would be nice to look at some then scroll through others.  Final and biggest problem with the GTS is the impossible trades.  When you look for certain Pokemon yet you find that all 7 spots are filled with Pokemon no one can touch because what they ask for is impossible and they know it.  Now it wouldn't be that big of a problem if let's say you could scroll through them like noted before, but this works two problems against you messing up your chance to find someone who is willing to trade fairly.

With the use of the Gameboy Advance slot on the DS one can easily connect to the Gen 3 games with the Gen 4 games.  The only downside to this is that Pokemon from the Gen 3 games are transferred and not traded.  So you send Pokemon to Gen 4 but can't send any to Gen 3, of course this is bad considering that Gen 2 could trade with Gen 1 despite the changes in game design and just because it is two different systems still isn't a good excuse.  Plus transferred Pokemon can have no HM moves so you have to delete the moves with the Move Deleter in one of those games.  The Pokemon that are transferred over to the Gen 4 games go to Pal Park.  It is an area that you can catch those Pokemon in different areas and the faster you do it and the rarer the Pokemon you can get some high scores.  You are however limited in transferring 6 Pokemon a day and you would have to wait 24 hours if you change your DS clock.  While Pokemon not having HM moves isn't that big of a problem the good thing is that a trainer can let a Pokemon carry over anything they want with them over to the game, even TMs that we'll get to.

I haven't talked about TMs before because they were pretty basic as they only gave Pokemon new moves and they changed from the first 3 generations with new moves and always being only 50 of them.  Now however is something big regarding TMs.  Like I noted before Pokemon from Gen 3 can even carry over TMs.  This means that the Gen 4 games can use all of the Gen 3 games TMs and with more added with a total of 92 TMs.  So have a TM in your Gen 3 game that you never used before but would like to use it on one in the Gen 4 games?  Well put that TM on a Pokemon and send it over, it's as simple as that.  And it makes it easy in some cases where rare TMs like Iron Tail is easy to get in games like Fire Red and Leaf Green.

The games of this generation have the Battle Tower, but not the Battle Frontier... but we'll get to those details.  Unlike the last Tower where Pokemon can be set to the level, if you enter a level 50 challenge any Pokemon above that level will have their level dropped to 50 with stats fixed if they were that level.  Also taken from the Frontier style is the leader of the Battle Tower, who happens to be the father of your rival.  There is a multiplayer mode where you can join another person to battle in the tower's double battles.  If you don't have someone to play with you can also pick one of the characters that joined you briefly on your journey.

Battle Frontier like in Emerald returns in this generation's 3rd game, Platinum.  If anything this trend needs to stop and have the Frontier in every future game instead of a special thing for a 3rd game only.  This one has only five areas of battle instead of the seven that the last gen had.  So like before the Battle Tower returns here the same as it was in Diamond and Pearl.  The Battle Factory works the same as it did last time, with using rented Pokemon to battle.  The Battle Hall is a new one, where a trainer uses one Pokemon, or two in double battles, and pick a type starting at difficulty level of 1-10.  So that means to battle 170 battles to complete the Hall.  The Battle Arcade uses a roulette to decide what can happen in a battle.  You can give your opponent or yourself a status aliment, create a weather effect, gain or loss extra levels, or anything else.  The last one is the Battle Castle, unlike the Tower your Pokemon do not get healed after every battle.  Here you gain points from battles that go to healing HP, PP, getting an item, or even learn what Pokemon your opponent will use in the next fight.

Pokemon
Gen 4 has the second fewest Pokemon released for a generation at 107. Out of all those Pokemon 28 of them are Pre-evolved or Evolved forms of Pokemon of earlier generations that's about 25% of them.  That is the most considering Gen 2 had 19 of them out of their 100.  While some of them are alright there are Pokemon that didn't really need to be there, but we will love them anyways.

This also marks a first as all the starter Pokemon evolve into a dual-type evolution.  Interesting combinations out of them and for a few make up for their starter weakness to another type, like Torterra has a bit of a fighting chance against Infernape with its ground type, and Infernape against Empoleon with its fighting type.  But with the fire starters it marks the second time fire has been paired with fighting, and it can only last so long.

A change that happened to all Pokemon, well not all but many, is differences between male and females.  Kind of like Nidoran back in gen 1 but it's for more Pokemon than just them.  Pokemon like female Pikachu now have a V-shaped dent in their tail, female Wobbuffet wear lipstick, and male Milotic has shorter hair-like fins.  There are others but this generation created them and have many for the gen 4 Pokemon.  Like the Starly family which male and female differ from the spot on their forehead, the Shinx family in that females have smaller manes than the male, or even the Hippopotas family that differ in colors from male and female (not to confuse one for a shiny easily).

Heart Gold and Soul Silver
Like the Gen 1 remakes these games are better than the original, hell even better than Fire Red and Leaf Green.  It takes the perfected gameplay style of Gen 4 and use it full swing.  Plus the world is a lot more visually appealing than in the Gold and Silver games.

The biggest deal of Heart Gold and Soul Silver is now the leading Pokemon can follow you wherever you go.  Yeah inspired by the Pikachu that follows you in Pokemon Yellow this returns with now all Pokemon in the generation 4 national dex following you.  This leads to you being able to talk to your Pokemon, and interact with them outside of battle.  Now some Pokemon are too big so when you go into a building the Pokemon will return to their pokeball.  There isn't really any point to having your Pokemon free and following you around but it's just mindless fun and something that should be used more.

Places that were scrapped from the Gold and Silver games get a comeback here with the Safari Zone and Viridian Forest.  Where the Safari Zone was in the first game is now the Pal Park and a new Safari Zone is in the far west of the Johto region.  In that Zone you can give whatever fields you want and add objects there.  It's good but I don't have fond memories of it, losing my chance for a shiny Riolu being the case.  The Seafoam Islands return as they were before and not just the gym in Gen 2.  The Battle Frontier comes into this this version as the remakes came out after the Platinum game, unlike the Gen 1 remakes that came before Emerald.  The Battle Frontier is the same as Platinum even with the same Frontier Brains.  Another area added is the Pokeathlon Dome, home of the Olymipic-like Pokemon events.  The Dome's events are fun and require the right skills a Pokemon has to complete them, and the store offers many things trainers can't get easily, even evolution stones.  Out of all places though Heart Gold and Soul Silver did not add the Sevii Islands from the Gen 1 remakes.  Might be a bit repetitive considering how there isn't any new Pokemon to get there, but I feel that they could have done something to make the islands new and refreshing to us in a way we didn't see before.

Team Rocket gets major improvement with the heads of the team having their own looks and names so they don't have a generic look to them.  While the Gold and Silver games gave them more to do, these ones gives them the character they needed so much.  And with an event Celebi one can learn more about Team Rocket breaking up 3 years ago and what the scientist said back in Fire Red and Leaf Green.

The best touch to Heart Gold and Soul Silver is the.... well Touching.  Instead of scrolling through a menu on the top screen the menu is on the touch screen and makes things a whole lot easier.  Heck even you can set the Running Shoes to run all the time and not have to hold the "B" button all the time to run.  Even using the Box fuction on the PC uses the touch screen making moving Pokemon around much less of a hassle than ever before.

A new add-on is the PokeWalker.  A device that lets you transfer a Pokemon on the device and run with them, going towards leveling up Pokemon, finding new items, and catching Pokemon you don't normally get yet in the game.  The best it has to offer is the Yellow Forest event area where there are nothing but Pikachu and some might have Fly, or even Surf in their movesets.  In fact some other Pokemon can have moves that are normally not in their movesets.

Pokemon Battle Revolution
Talk about a waste.  PBR was a step back from the games that came before it on the Gamecube, heck even the N64 games had more.  That's not to say the game is bad... it just leaves out so much that this could have easily been a big title game for the home console versions.

Battle Revolution takes a page out of Stadiums book but misses a few things.  Back then you had rental Pokemon, now there are some but it's way too few requiring people who have a Wii, DS, and a Gen 4 Pokemon game to fully use it.  If you have these things already and want more challenge from the games then go right ahead and get it, if not then don't bother.

The game has Colosseums but works more like the Battle Frontier with Colosseums having their own rules different than just normal battle.  Some include a Tournament battle, Baby battle, and a Roulette battle where you could get the other's Pokemon and they could get yours.  It makes the game a challenge, more so in the second round... again it's sad that a game like this had no more added to it.  And depending on which version you used the final boss of the second round could use different Pokemon.

For what this game did right that I want to see in more games from now on is the ability to create your own trainer.  Sadly limited, what it did have was good.  From trainer type to skin color, and even the clothes.  Limited but a good start.  The other going was gifts in the form of mystery gifts.  Most are TMs and other items but they are only once a game use.  Though you do get a powerful Electivire, Magmortor, and Surfing Pikachu.

Replayability
Like every game before it more Pokemon are added to have the "got to catch them all" thing go longer but it's more than that.  Much of it's replayability comes from the Wi-Fi, with trading and battling people anywhere.  Know some people that have the right games on a forum you go to?  You can battle and trade with them!  Plus the Battle Frontier continues to give some of the most challenging battles in the game.  And if you have everything but want more then Pokemon Battle Revolution is okay for that extra challenge.

Final Thoughts
This.... this generation is the best of the series, but I said this is the peak so yeah.  Generation 4 gives us what is the perfected style of Pokemon and any one of the main games would be perfect, even with the generation 2 remakes clearly surpassing their original games.
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And to end the look at this generation we look at the best and worst of designs of Pokemon. Now a few things to note.  Not all will be about appearance alone but how they are presented in the series.  Also no Pokemon on the worst list can be explained through species of real life animals, take Beautifly for example, it is a butterfly like Butterfree but based on two different kinds.  Also this list is hard to make, while some of my favorites are on the best list it goes by design.  Last rule is that pokemon may be grouped in one spot by family, or if they are part of a group (Ex: legendary trio thing), and of unrelated pokemon might be together if they have something similar that bugs/fascinates me.  Finally any Pokemon on my worst design list is not a Pokemon I hate.

Top 5 Worst and Best Pokemon Designs of Generation 

Worst



5 Finneon and Lumineon

If only because I felt that these Pokemon never really broke any new ground as fish Pokemon, yeah they have a butterfly look to them but they just come off as kind of uninteresting to me.

4  Chingling

It's cute but not to the point where I think it was needed.  Chimecho really didn't need a pre-evolved form.  Just proof that cute isn't always a good thing.

3 Lickilicky

Much like Chingling, Lickilicky is also a Pokemon that wasn't needed.  Oddly I do think it looks better than its pre-evolved form Lickitung, but I already did the worst design list for the first generation.  It came down to mostly Pokemon connected to the previous generations.  Maybe if Lickitung didn't exist and Lickilicky did then it might not be here.

2 Tangrowth

This is the last one following this pattern, trust me.  Out of all the Pokemon connected to the previous games THIS one left the smallest impact... well no impact really.  I just can't imagine who really wanted an evolved form of Tangela but here it is..... and boy is it boring.

1 Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf

The backstory of them is fine, yet... well they have a similar style to Mew and yeah the differences are nice but not good enough.  And the worst crime of all is that out of the Trios before and after them they are only psychic types when they should have had a second type like many others.  They're not bad but as far as designs go I feel that they really didn't get much love.

Best


5 Electivire

While there are other Pokemon with connections to the older generations that have good designs this one is the best of those.  It's look and abilities makes it more than worthy of being Electabuzz's evolved form.  And with the right moves this Pokemon can be a major powerhouse for anyone's team.

4 Rotom

References are fun, and this little guy knows it.  Rotom is based on Pulseman, a character from a Sega game believe it or not.  But the character of Pulseman was designed by none other than the Pokemon artist himself Ken Sugimori so it all works out.  It's also the first Pokemon that does posses things, objects that would allow it to change it's form getting a new attack too. (and change it's ghost type but that's Gen 5 stuff)

3 Lucario

One of the first Pokemon of Generation 4 that we learned about, even starting in a movie before Gen 4.  Lucario grabbed attention from people by its canine appearance.  It seems Lucario is based on Anubis with it's jackal like head.  What is amazing is how it does resemble Anubis yet not being related to anything involving death.  Anubis would use a scale to judge peoples' hearts much like how Lucario uses aura to see peoples hearts.  While its Steal type seems out of nowhere that is a fact that doesn't bother me or bring down how Lucario works.

2 Garchomp

This Pokemon is a Dragon/Ground type and is better than the Gen 3 Pokemon with the same type Flygon.  The big thing Garchop has going for it is the land shark style it has and it is badass with the fin on top, hammerhead shark head, and spikes that come from it's legs and arms.  And while having a shark look the Dragon type seems all too fitting.  I could just imagine a Jaws movie just with a Garchomp swimming in the desert terrorizing people.

1 Darkrai

What can I say, it's Darkrai baby!  The first Dark type legendary Pokemon, and the master of sleep, with its moves focusing mainly on sleep related moves, even with its own signature move Dark Void putting all to sleep.  It's shape is also slick with it resembling an hourglass, and its coloring is great with mostly black with some white hair, red collar, and light blue eyes.  Of course being a Pokemon that causes nightmares it has a very nightmare-ish appeal to it that makes it the best of this generation.


Pokemon Art (c) Ken Sugimori
Information Source Bulbapedia