The Worst Gen 4 Pokémon

[@shepskydad]

Don’t know why I thought Rotom was catchable before the National Dex. My bad!

[@funkymachine]

He's available in platinum pre nat dex

[@dragongamer4753]

Platinum

[@The_hot_blue_fire_guy]

Probably because you can in platinum. Just another reason why platinum is way better than DP and always will be.

[@oof5992]

It's a platinum only change. One of the many reasons platinum is great while Base DP are games worse than X and Y.

[@co8wei]

@@oof5992 Base DP are somewhat challenging unlike X & Y. That alone makes them leagues better than X & Y.

[@blue0035]

The fact that Munchlax is such a difficult find is one thing, but the fact that BARRY got one is even more confusing

[@eaterofkirbs4917]

literally the feature that requires the most patience. and barry got one.

[@Squirtle_Squad_Supremacy]

Barry also got the 2nd rarest, Heracross

[@jrlaps521]

And Heracross too, which is only a 5% encounter and second rarest

[@fairerplayz4759]

Tbf i have a friend a lot like Barry, and he caught Giratina first throw in a regular ball during the same run he got Pokerus

[@Danielgil28893-x]

The impatient rival got the pokemon that requires more patience... If he got a Spiritomb i would lose my mind

[@invenblocker]

Barry's main personality trait is that he's impatient. Which makes him catching Munchlax even weirder. Even with amazing luck of getting it on the first try, I'd still be surprised if he had the patience to get even one tree Pokémon.

[@mississippiking1366]

And he has two, with that Heracross he has

[@smugglefish8171]

I have a headcannon that Barry is actually patient and walks a normal speed, but everything around him is slow.

[@mentadere]

I think it actually makes sense, since he doesn't actually "wait", but go running across all Sinnoh using honey in each tree until he gets back to the first one

[@ThePiplupGuy]

Probably an NPC gave him the last munchlax

[@smugglefish8171]

@@ThePiplupGuy Or maybe they were someone else's Honey tree Encounter and he caught them before he noticed some random Bug Catcher was watching in shock

[@Guzuma]

i believe that if you save before a honey tree encounter, and encounter a combee at the honey tree and it’s male, you can just reset for a female one

[@renbothegoatman]

As someone who did that once or twice yes it's true

[@linkthepringlesman3951]

It’s actually the easiest way to get a female Combee in the series, as far as I’m aware.

[@PansyPops]

You can also soft reset for a shiny one if you have the time.

[@absoluteatrocity4019]

@@linkthepringlesman3951 well in SwSh comber is a wild over world encounter in the wild area and I’m like 60% sure that if they’re female that difference shows in the over world.

[@Treeckoboi1]

​@@PansyPopsok frying pan.

[@DanielPereira-ey9nt]

I still don't understand why the devs though it was a good idea to make the new evolutions post game

[@jrlaps521]

Some of their base forms couldn’t even be found in D&P without transferring or using dual slot mode, both of which require the gen 3 GBA games. So some of the new evolutions were unobtainable unless you or a friend had the right gen 3 game, or eventually got Platinum when it came out

[@robertlupa8273]

Probably because they wanted to have _exactly_ 151 Pokemon in the dex, but didn't want to remove any that were already in. So if you're sad that one of the new evolutions didn't make it in, remember that stuff like Wurmple or Hoothoot took their place.

[@ismellupdog]

They did that sort of thing for way too long. Gen 3 was brutal too, I'll never forget the fakeout evolution from my Golbat in LeafGreen :(

[@filiporvik2782]

Been a habit ever since Gen 2.

[@suiway]

Pearl for me was like "Here's two new pokemon you love, a bunch of pokemon you can access but don't like, and here's a BUNCH more that you can NEVER access... but that you also don't really like anyway. Try to have fun I guess. Oh ya and you know how you've always wanted a Gengar since it's one of your all time favorites but you never had anyone to trade with? Well we thought it would be really fun to get you excited by an ingame trade for Haunter and then actively piss you off by giving it an everstone."

[@ArmageddonD11]

20:29 Ambipom has 100 Attack, 115 Speed, and Technician. Also Heracross is a honey tree-exclusive in D/P/Pt. Both mons are great for casual playthroughs.

[@robertlupa8273]

Even without Technician, it can hit pretty hard with Return. I'm not sure if I would call Heracross good for casual playthroughs, considering how hard it is to find. The only reason why I got mine (and another one) on my first playthrough was because I went out of my way to hatch eggs for a shiny Ralts, and even then it took many, MANY checks of Honey Trees to get even one Heracross (and it was on emulator speed-up). Don't get me wrong, Heracross is amazing, it's just that I wouldn't count on getting it. ...although after doing the math, Aipom looks pretty rare too, although not as bad as Heracross's 5% in Group B only: 5.5% in DP, 10% in Pt. Less than Cherubi, but still fine... I think.

[@Squirtle_Squad_Supremacy]

​​@@robertlupa8273 Heracross is still a good pokemon. It's rarity doesn't affect the viability much but if you want one of the best bug types in history it's probably worth it.

[@usernametaken017]

​@@Squirtle_Squad_SupremacyYeah but like. Is it really worth it if you're just trying to be the game casually

[@adstheflareon8770]

Now, i will use a lumineon, a kricketune, a vespiqueen, a mothim, a pachirisu and a cherrim for a diamond playtrough, pray for me. (Also cute doggo as always)

[@kinaria10]

3 Bug types 😰

[@youwereboringd59]

​​@@kinaria10 3 Bug types 😁

[@theperson9073]

3 Bug types 😊

[@frazzianimations9027]

Good luck as your gonna just have Kricketune for until the second gym 😅

[@skotiaH2O]

Heracross is definitely worth the effort of using Honey Trees Also Rotom is postgame only in Diamond and Pearl, it's only available as soon as you get Cut in Platinum

[@shepskydad]

The non-Gen 4 Pokémon is the only useful Pokémon obtainable from the Gen 4 mechanic. How ironic.

[@symphomaniac]

Why did DP invent like no fire types, barely any electric types, but made a bunch of bad new bug types? I hate the DP dex so much

[@thevalkyriemercenary9463]

​@symphomaniac at least we got a great regional bird and broken pseudo legendary oh and also lucario

[@isenokami7810]

@@shepskydadeven then, though. I recall trying to do a mono-Fighting run of Diamond with the clause of allowing non-Fightings if they evolve into Fightings (mostly to excuse Chimchar), in large part because Diamond and Pearl have exactly six fully evolved Fighting types in the regional dex, I think. That includes Heracross, though, and yeah, that killed the run at Floaroma. Searching the trees for any specific Pokémon, let alone the rare ones, is like hunting for Feebas if each line cast took six hours: the amount of random variance, and the chance the one you want is actually there and you just missed it, throws any sort of methodical checking in the trash.

[@tabbender1232]

@@shepskydad Honey trees were originally a gen 2 mechanic actually. It was scrapped from gen 2 then they reused the idea in gen 4

[@Red-yt2dk]

I was so ready to complain that you didn't mention Park Se-Jun's Pachirisu at the 2014 world championships, but you did it. God speed you magnificent bastard.

[@sigiligus]

>knowing competitive Pokémon players by name You are a cringe nerd and also gay

[@RoflCannon6]

“Pachirisu is the worst electric of this gen.” That one guy who won a tournament because of Pachirisu: Hold my potion

[@manjackson2772]

Yeah cause it had a very specific niche in that one metagame. The year after, with all the pokemon that were back into the meta, it was useless again.

[@OpaloAzul]

Hold my berry*

[@Vesdus]

"That one guy who won a tournament." Lmao. It wasn't just "a tournament". You mean that one guy that won the Pokemon World Championship?

[@keeganbanner3035]

@@manjackson2772 It's still a World Champion

[@isidorodaviddoro1920]

You need to understand the circumstances behind it, it's not that pachirisu is good

[@oof5992]

Tangrowth isn't just locked to Post game, He's locked to Fire red. Tangela is the only non legendary non starter pokemon not available in DP, so players were forced to transfer one from Gen 3 to get a tangela and tangrowth. Insane.

[@robertlupa8273]

Peak DP stupidity

[@SSBBPOKEFAN]

Not true. Tropius is also exclusive to transferring via Pal Park...for some unexplainable reason.

[@oof5992]

@@SSBBPOKEFAN My apologies, tropius too isn't included. But yeah tangela makes even less sense since it got a new evolution.

[@mr.sniffly5297]

In addition, many more pokemon are technically also locked to the gba games to make use of the ds dual slot feature

[@isidorodaviddoro1920]

Pokemon diamond and Pearl really came out incomplete

[@tedscheett9420]

I know you said you wouldn't do third versions, but humor me for this one. I had previously attempted a Ground Monotype challenge of Platinum and I was scratching my head furiously on how on earth I'd beat Gardenia. Sure, I could use Grotle with Bite, but I needed something a bit more reliable. Everything that I could get until that point wouldn't get the job done, except for one Pokemon that I completely forgot existed: Wormadam Sandy Cloak. This pepperoni pizza slice hit all of Gardenia's team for super effective damage with Bug Bite (Platinum exclusive) and Confusion. This isn't to say that Wormadam is a godly Pokemon, far from it when it's ability is ANTICIPATION. However, this is one such case where I can argue that even a Pokemon like Wormadam can be good. But Lumineon? Yeah, I don't think so.

[@shepskydad]

Wormadam’s Anticipation is especially good for blind playthroughs! I’m glad to hear someone else appreciates it, at least a tiny bit :)

[@greyscaleadaven]

Listennn my lumineon did work against Cynthia's Milotic in BDSP lmao Also used a trash cloak wormadam like a discount special scizor in PLA, it was alright I guess Jokes aside, I do love pokemon that are only useful in one challenge or game for one specific thing. It's why I learned to love Magcargo, because in Colosseum it gets flamethrower as a slugma at a ridiculously low level. It's fire/rock typing also fit perfectly on my team with my meganium, quagsire, and medicham as it resists flying, poison, bug, fire, and ice to cover them, and works very well against grass with it's fire STAB. It also enjoyed having a water absorb mon with a rock resistance, meganium handled water and ground for it, and misdreavus was immune to both ground and fighting. It worked as a bulky pivot with QuakeSlide, and Yawn for putting shadows to sleep guaranteed (which was a very clever way of repurposing an otherwise suboptimal pokemon). Also found a similarly bizzare scenario with Spinarak/Ariados in XD, with the combination of Dig, Signal Beam, and Night Shade making it hit surprisingly hard with Bug STAB (which was good in gen 3) and having a surefire way of reducing HP of shadows safely. Plus, it evolved at 22 and retained genuine usefulness against psychics and darks with silver powder/choice band up until the very last fight where I had to bench it for catching purposes (It would have still killed the Exeggutor, but 4 birds is bad for bugs and I needed to catch exeggutor so it got benched for salamence lmao)

[@robertlupa8273]

Wait, Wormadam can learn Confusion? Well, it certainly confused me! 😅

[@hibbs1712]

People want to sleep on Lumineon so bad. stormdrain and tailwind alone make Lumineon competitive. Average bulk on top of the bonkers 91 speed stat let’s Lumineon set tailwind before taking fatal damage in plenty of key instances. All while completely negating water damage via storm drain. Leading stormdrain Lumineon and intimidate arcanine has led me to numerous victories using my stormdrain team. Do not sleep on the neon fish.

[@mariskaajoy3899]

Pepperoni pizza slice 😭😂

[@Elwasserspiegljan]

I have heard that it was a funny thing that the most impatient and headless rival gets one of the most difficult encounter. "He probably slaped the first honey on the first tree and he got a munchlax"

[@darthmaul5413]

the real reason gen 4 is remembered is because Platinum and heartgold and soulsilver if Diamond and Pearl was the only sinnoh games (x and y with kalos) the gen would suffer a lot

[@suiway]

FINALLY I get to see someone actually acknowledge this! I hated Pearl so much that it killed my interest in Pokemon games for ten years. There's a reason out of all the games in the series, Diamond and Pearl playthrough teams are known for being the most predictable BY FAR. The dex in those games was awful and SUPER limited. TONS of the new pokemon are either baby forms of old lines or new forms of old lines locked in the post game. Then what there is of the new ones is distinctly unbalanced as hell. On the one hand, ya we got Garchomp, but on the other hand we got *three* forms of Wormadan AND Mothim, even though there were ZEROOOOOOOO new wild fire types. Imagine trying to enjoy a pokemon game where after the starter the only other wild water pokemon you could catch in the *entire* game was Psyduck. That's what they did to fire type and Ponyta. Even the elite four member who is supposed to be a FIRE SPECIALIST only has infernape and rapidash for fire types. That's like if a water specialist had Empoleon and Golduck, then like... Marowak, Lickitung, and Xatu. You know how many NEW non legendary/mythic pokemon/evolution lines ruby and sapphire introduced? *63*. Diamond and Pearl?... 32.

[@sintheemptyone8108]

Outside the HM bloat and the pokemon lineup that felt more like a retread of Gen 1 & 2 rather than its own thing, D/P are the main reason why Gen 4 is located within the middle pack when it comes to rating the generation IMHO.

[@theamazingspooderman2697]

my guy stated fax

[@tabbender1232]

Sinnoh was already a beloved region before Platinum came out

[@valenby]

Speak for yourself. I played diamond when it released and loved it to death. I had several friends that I played with as well. Diamond and pearl were very liked when they came out. They had flaws, but were still very liked. I spent a lot of time on forums and such back then and i can assure you these games were loved at the time by most, It wasn't until later that people started to care about the flaws as much. That being said, diamond has become almost unplayable to me personally as i would rather play platinum 9 times out of 10

[@fritz1651]

Purugly is really bad ingame. It works great as an early boss how it is intended, but it lacks attack power and utility in the late game. Skuntank as its counterpart is way more useful ingame and in competitive.

[@redhead_bebs]

Pickup has some use. ☺️ When I played Brilliant Diamond, I used a party of 6 Pachirisu to get both of the Shiny Stones for my Togetic and Roselia to evolve before you would normally find shiny stones.

[@scistical]

i have been grinding for thunder stones and dusk stones for a whole week straight 😢😢

[@yukiizura]

I always knew Diamond and Pearl were awful compared to Platinum, but that section at the end with the evos... wow. I'd love to know what they were thinking, or if they thought at all, when making *that* decision. I largely agree with your list (I only disagree with Spiritomb, since one Nasty Plot lets it blast through anything, though full agree on its awful HP and encounter mechanic), but nothing will compare to the catharsis of hearing you tear Lumineon a new one. My very first playthrough of Diamond, when I was like, 6 years old, I found a wild Finneon and completely fell in love. It to this day ranks in my top 3 least favourite Pokémon for the sheer disappointment I experienced from it's astounding ability to do 12 damage with a supereffective attack. stupid fuckin fish 💀 (congratulations on the upcoming wedding tho~)

[@beansguy2479]

Since you are talking about a playthrough point of view, I agree on everything you have said except for Lumineon. Yes, it is a bad battle pokemon, but it is one of the BEST HM/Environmental Move Slave. Sinnoh is notorious for requiring the most number of HM moves to pass through, like in Victory Road. So most of the time, you have to have 2 HM slave plus your Fly pokemon. The best HM slave is Bibarel with Normal/Water typing and can learn all land and water HM. But it only has 4 moves and it can't learn Flash and Defog. Lumineon can be taught with water HM like Surf and Waterfall, and also Flash and Defog for caves, while Bibarel has the Strength, rocksmash, rockclimb and cut.

[@robertlupa8273]

23:48 Fun fact: Tangela can't be found anywhere in DP, so you literally _have_ to transfer it from FRLG through Pal Park if you want Tangrowth. Now for some "bad Pokemon" suggestions: - If you were to include version exclusives, *Glameow* is for some bizarre reason found _way_ later than its counterpart Stunky, being found right around Canalave City, A.K.A. where the Steel Gym is. While it won't take too long to evolve (about 8 levels), it doesn't really get much better. The only reason why Mars's Purugly was so stong is because it was grossly underlevled. By the point at which you naturally obtain it, its bad-except-speed stats just aren't good enough. At least it gets Hypnosis and Body Slam, I guess...? - Another Pearl version exclusive (which I actually forgot was the case), *Shieldon,* is pretty bad too. It's clearly meant to be a wall, but it can't really do anything with it, as it has horrible offensive stats and doesn't learn that many useful status moves _(only like Swagger and Metal Burst. Oh and Toxic, but that's TM only)._ Plus its HP is bad, so it isn't actually that tanky _(like Spiritomb you've mentioned in the video)._ And, while the method of obtaining one isn't the worst and it can be found early, it still requires you to go out of your way AND get lucky to obtain it. - Not a Gen 4 Pokemon, but Feebas is back in Sinnoh, just as if not MORE annoying to find! Yaaaaay. 24:27 Oh, absolutely. I don't care if there was some corporate reason for preventing you from getting most of the new evolutions (and their preevolutions) before postgame, it's a stupid decision that should've never been made. Thank goodness Platinum fixed most of these (I say most because Electavire is still way too late in the game for my taste). Side note: happy to hear about your future marriage ^_^

[@fruitfruitfederation3932]

I remember disliking OG 4th sinnoh due to a criminal lack of fire types.

[@suiway]

The only reason Diamond and Pearl didn't get completely blasted on release over the near total lack of fire types was because of how Infernape is so insanely popular compared to either Torterra or Empoleon. The only gen that compares in terms of heavy favoritism for one starter that I can think of is gen 6 with Greninja vs Chesnaught and Delphox. Most people that gen picked Infernape, so most people probably didn't bother even looking for another fire type. If the popularity had been more equal that gen, there would have been SOOOOOOOOOO many more people who actively noticed the extreme lack of fire types.

[@ericbeaudry8118]

@@suiwayhes very correct. I picked chimchar and went full ape mode for every run going forward. It wasnt until i was like 20 when i went back to play with a turtwig that i noticed my only option was ponyta and was blown away by the quiet suffering of my family members

[@frasergibson5763]

Barely any fire types, yet there’s a fire type gym. Yeah, makes sense

[@fragnite60]

20:12 no only he caught a Munchlax, he has also a Heracross as well !!!

[@AtlasNovack]

Its a shame Lumineon sucks as much as it does. I love the way it looks :(

[@LoudWaffle]

Fineon is like Goldeen/Seaking. They were definitely designed mainly as a filler fish to make the world feel more "lived in," but I also think both are GORGEOUS, but they are really borderline unuseable. At least Seaking has a good attack stat that it can make use of after gen 4...

[@Amelia4111]

There should be 3 N's in Finneon!

[@leonardobarbosatelles2779]

I used Charap for the entirety of one of my plautroughs of Platinum, and the little guy did not disappoint

[@RandomPokefan]

As bad as Pachirisu is, It’s one of my favorite Pokémon ever and I have literally never played a sinnoh game without one on my team. I just can’t overcome the bond and nostalgia I have for it. 😂

[@poligmalunanera1843]

While playing Platinum, I decided to build a mostly unpopular team: - Kricketune - Chatot - Lumineon - Carnivine - Medicham - Houndoom It was so fun to use this team, especially Chatot and Lumineon (Two of my favourite 4th gen Pokémon.). Furthermore, Cynthia was not so hard as I expected her to be, I managed to handle her quite easily.

[@datboi9539]

Male Combee needs an evolution. Maybe one based on the gaint asian hornet and mmake it a bug/dark type.

[@shepskydad]

I just want a swarm of Combee to be the evolution. Kind of like Wishiwashi's form change.

[@eb8515]

I mean there's a good reason it's a female evolution only. They're bees, which have queens and not kings. (And I assume the reason they're mostly male while most bees are female is because it'd have been difficult to implement a "only (insert qualifier here) female combees evolve" style evolution at the time.)

[@daryback7103]

Well, why not a beehive made of combees? It would fuse all your ideas, and it would be noice. And to make it more unique to vespiqueen, make it have a unique honey theme attack, or a swarm attack named Tsunabee or something among those lines.

[@king6595]

Good take

[@speokeosai]

@@eb8515 why not a soldier bee for males? Seems like an obvious setup to me

[@Firescizor]

Bro really got so hurt by the Honey Tree mechanic that he even didn't spare a thought about the stupid, ugly mud pile that is the Great Marsh 😩😩 god, that's an awful place... and what you get for going there? Freaking Carnivine? Jesus Christ...

[@OfficialAshArcher]

Bro fuck the great marsh 😂

[@darthmaul5413]

Rotom is post game in Diamond and Pearl get the National Dex to unlock

[@robertlupa8273]

For literally no reason. Actually no, they IS a reason: they wanted the dex to have exactly 151 Pokemon. Yes, they thought Wurmple's 5-stage family was more important to include than actual new Pokemon.

[@kylelundgren5133]

Chatot It's only good if you want to rng manip encounters in your game.

[@adrianopa1440]

Speaking of early Pokemon, the absolute best, IMO, is Zigzagoon. It has Pickup, so you catch a lot of them and as you travel you get free items. They also learn the HMs for Cut and Rock Smash, which are necessary for the game, but not useful in battle. Linoone even learns Surf, if you haven't committed to a Water Pokemon yet. It's not a good Pokemon per se, but it's a damn useful one.

[@PsiPaula4]

22:10 I can't possibly disagree more. At least in PLA it can be done all by yourself. If you don't have any friends with a copy of DPP or you only have one DS, and one copy of a gen 4 Sinnoh game, Spiritomb is literally impossible in this day and age.

[@magicalgirllaurie]

Honestly I managed to Toxic stall Cynthia’s Milotic with a Pachirisu so I think the squirrel deserves some appreciation

[@YawnBlue]

Every time I go back to DPPt, Lumineon and or Finneon are the ones I keep forgetting to catch/skip the encounters of, making have to hunt online to see what I'm missing before I can get a National Dex.

[@jamesdesormeaux1074]

Fun fact, in Gen 4 you only need to see a pokemon for it to count towards getting the national Dex and you will get it by just battling every trainer you pass by. Just don't skip trainer battles.

[@GMSryBut]

15:40 "Everthing before 21 requires a Heart Scale" Also Shepsky "Gives us literally 1 second to show us the attacks before Lv 21"

[@CaptainEffort]

I’m playing Platinum with RetroAchievements, and one of the achievements was for catching a Munchlax… Thankfully I got incredibly lucky, catching him within a week. But I’ve heard some horror stories of it taking people months.

[@Tuskor130]

I'm going to step up to bat for Kricketune. Now I'm not disagreeing with you, Kricketune is pretty bad. But if we're talking about the worst Bug type to use in a playthrough of Diamond and Pearl, someone has it beat pretty hard. Sure, Kricketot is only available during the morning and night, but you can just change the clock in your DS to be morning or night. You know what the DS clock can't help bypass? The honey trees. Mothim is worse than Kricketune. (inbound massive yapping, skip the wall of text to see the TLDR) Kricketot has a 10% chance to be encountered, and only at morning or night, but it's as simple as changing the clock in your DS and walking around the tall grass. Burmy has a 10% (or 20% depending on the selection of Pokemon) to appear in a Honey Tree, but it's evolution is based on gender, so after breaking past that 10%-20% chance you then have to break through the coinflip of hoping that Burmy is male. And then when you look at it's stats, sure Mothim has a higher Attack stat and Special Attack stat than Kricketune, but in terms of the Attack Stat, Mothin's only physical move it gets via level up is Tackle. It gets Bug Bite at level 15 as Burmy but that's in Platinum, and we're judging these Pokemon by their debut title. You would have to use both the Aerial Ace TM as well as the U-Turn TM to give Mothim physical STAB, and you need TMs to get it physical moves *at all.* Aside having higher Atk and SpAtk, both being 94, Mothim can't actually make use of it's 94 Atk with it's movepool, and can't really make use of either of it's offensive stats since it's far too squishy and slow to do literally anything. It's Def, SpDef, and Speed are all terrible as well. Funnily enough, Mothim has 1 more point of Speed than Kricketune, and one less point of Def and SpDef than Kricketune. Kricketune does hit less hard than Mothim, but it's actually capable of using it's Attack way better than Mothim if for no other reason than learning X-Scissor at level 26. While a terrible candidate for basically any TM, Kricketune also funnily enough gets Swords Dance which, if you're just truly built different, can let your Kricketune set up for a sweep. In comparison, Mothim's list of TMs is about what you would expect for yet another "Butterfree but worse" Pokemon. The most notable TM it gets in DP is Dream Eater. Not because it's a solid move, but because Mothim is literally incapable of putting anything to sleep. It's only status move is Poisonpowder. TLDR Mothim may have better offenses than Kricketune, but if we're talking about the entire roster of reasons behind picking a Pokemon, then Mothim's availability is F tier. At least Kricketot's time-of-day availability can be circumvented by changing your system's clock. You can't do that for the honey trees.

[@arielalejandrodelfabro1740]

Thanks for talking about Spiritomb I also play in emulator and (even without emulator) DS Wifi is now not an option Plus, I plan to use Mothim in my final Team. Wish me luck with Hawkmoth, my Mothim with ground hidden power

[@shepskydad]

If you use Mothim only when it has a great matchup it shouldn’t be terrible 😂

[@Daehpo]

22:40 I did a playthru of Platinum a few years ago and was trying to get the national dex. Somehow I managed not to have encountered a Lumineon, which isn't that surprising since only 4 optional trainers have one or you need to either fish for it or evolve a Finneon. However, I completely forgot about it's existence and had to look up what it was.

[@Rivecha]

I get you're talking about the initial release, but I used both Lumineon and Cherrim in my first Brilliant Diamond playthrough, and I really enjoyed using them! Especially Lumineon, I love how it looks like a Butterfly. I think that its super pretty!

[@RoninCatholic]

Grass might be my favorite type, but "[grass type Pokemon] has more bad matchups than good ones" is sadly true across the board, aside from Gen 1.

[@MrJoshemerton]

Not me using both a Mothim and Lumineon on my current Diamond Save😂

[@orlandoment]

Thankfully for finding a female Combee it's not too bad, I found when playing through Diamond that you can save in front of honey trees before encountering a Pokemon. The thing is that if the tree is a Combee, the gender is always random so if you end up getting a male you can simply keep soft resetting for it.

[@shine-ub6eb]

Hope everything goes well in your wedding, much love

[@MaliciousMalcontent]

Vespiquen in A+ in an ingame team. You can solo Fighting and Ghost Gyms, deal with all Gyarados in the game, it can solo all Team Galactic encounters and it can solo Bug, Ground, Psychic Elite Four, and set up to solo Cynthia with Attack Order, Heal Order, Defend Order, and Toxic. It's just incredible when played along side a bulky Water Pokemon like Empoleon.

[@cristhianmlr]

*she

[@kendrajameson8385]

They really need to give vespiquen queenly majesty as an ability

[@mitchlmitten5874]

Currently doing a fighting monotype run of platinum, and I am glad you recommended it, but the honey trees make it nearly impossible to catch Heracross. I cannot believe I beat Fatina without one.

[@natnew32]

Wait fantina? How would Heracross help?

[@patricktinley6581]

​@@natnew32Heracross has night slash as a level 1 move, but i'm not sure if you can have that move before fantina since move relearner is in pastoria city.

[@mitchlmitten5874]

​@@natnew32I thought bug resisted Psychic, oops

[@TheAzulmagia]

With as impatient as Barry is shown to be, I have no idea how he waited long enough for Munchlax to show up.

[@LexVanguard2004]

TIL that Combee wasn't a Gen 5 Pokemon like I've believed for like 10 years

[@that-guy-pearce]

Diamond and Pearl are bad to the point of being incredibly charming

[@shepskydad]

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[@suiway]

There's nothing funnier to me than the gen 4 lovers that couldn't shut up about wanting gen 4 remakes getting upset that brilliant diamond and shining pearl are too much like diamond and pearl and not enough like Platinum. "Diamond and Pearl" is my three word rebuttal to anyone who says gen 4 is the best pokemon gen.

[@FlareStorms]

God I love the limited brain cells they used for this game. It's so charming

[@Nagasakevideo]

Limited 3d graphics

[@chadachi3970]

@@suiwayEven then BDSP is far better than DP, not as good as Platinum of course but I would have to have a gun to my head to play DP again over any other sinnoh game.

[@AzuGoat]

24:20 No, no. You're right. Gamefreak fumbled so much in gen 4 that was remedied in platinum. Especially with the availability of fire types

[@tabbender1232]

Fire types are not that important

[@davisdawson5047]

I would love to see the redemption series after you have finished this one, where you show how the bad pokemon do in their later reappearance. For the post-game exclusives, it is something they did to further encourage trading. It's so the big brother/upperclassmen or whatever who play the game before can help the younger one by sending a Houndour egg or evolve their magnetmite for them.

[@drygnfyre]

That'd be interesting. I think a good example of this is Zen Mode Darmanitan, it was so much better just by changing its typing and stat distribution. HAs from Gen 5 on made a lot of older Pokemon much more viable.

[@zaneheaston8254]

To quote Bismix from his Pokémon Platinum video It’s been 15 years, & I still don’t have a Munchlax

[@vectinator7605]

I played a Nuzlocke of Pokémon Y and Vespiquen, named Honey as everyone was named after breakfast items, made my final team. I counted the berry farm as a separate route and only allowed myself the first tree spawn and it was a Female Combee. She did die to one of the Elite Four members, but she was the best Bug Type I had.

[@av2279]

I'd have to argue against some of the pokemon on this list, particularly Vespiquen. Isn't it supposed to be on the list if the pokemon itself is bad stat wise, movepool wise, etc, or integrated badly into the game (like Plusle/Minun not being being good doubles Pokemon in Ruby/Sapphire where there were too few double battles to begin with)? Vespiquen doesn't have any of that... Yes, it has bad availability (if you didn't know about just resetting for gender), but bad availability (in a vacuum) doesn't mean the Pokemon sucks- otherwise, why isn't it Munchlax instead of Vespiquen? Also, what is with judging the Pokemon only on how much damage they can deal? 80 Att and SpA aren't even bad, but besides that, Vespiquen is very useful as a tanky pivot, not some sort of sweeper (which I think plenty of players would guess, given both its defenses are over 100). It's something you can switch in on multiple resisted and neutral hits, and then pivot out into a more favorable matchup, perhaps after using Toxic, Captivate or Swagger to make it even more favorable. If you use stab U-Turn on it, it becomes one of the better slow pivots, getting the new Pokemon in safely after Vespiquen takes the hit, too. And if all else fails, try Destiny Bond, which could be useful for taking out individual endgame threats that you otherwise don't have good answers for. I think Vespiquen could have easily just not been on this list.

[@Julford]

Oh geez you absolutely ripped into one of my favorite gen 4 designs. It's okay Lumineon, at least I will love you...

[@LucasMontes-g3x]

My boy kricketune needs an evolution

[@dbzmaster1213]

World Champion Pachirisu: "Am I a joke to you???" (But yes it's definitely bad lol)

[@2d2600]

Only recently found your videos and I love them all so much!!!

[@ryanleaming2103]

Maybe locking things behind the post game is an effort to make the game harder? X and Y are good examples of just making everything available before the end of the game and people thought they were too easy? I like having a ton of stuff available before the end game because it makes replays so much better and more varied.

[@shepskydad]

A very good point. There are several Pokémon, especially pseudo legendaries, that I think should be late in the game, if not post game. But there is definitely a balance. It needs to be varied like you said, without being a cake walk.

[@thecactussword4304]

As crazy as it is to say, Kricketune, Mothim, Chatot, and Vespiquen were all staple choices in playthroughs I'd make of Gen 4. I've always loved Bugs, so Gen 4 was a dream come true for me then and even now to a good extent, I really appreciate the boost in usability. As for Wormadam, I would actually 100%, wholeheartedly recommend using her in Gen 4. She has a single weakness, and it's Fire, the type they forgot to give any Pokemon besides like, Infernape. She completely wrecks the gyms, little can land a solid hit. She's like a mini Bronzong. As for Vespiquen and her Pressure ability, how rare is it that a Bug/Flying type is not only given Fly, but the exact movepool and ability to make use of it too? Substitute Fly Heal Order Toxic With that, you can pretty much just burn turns and bleed out your opponents moves all day. As simple as she is, I used her in most playthroughs as a Flyer, even more than the likes of Chatot or even Staraptor and his impressive stats.

[@darthmeticulous6901]

Munchlax and how frustrating it is to find is only made worse to me because of what happened in my playthrough of Platinum. So here’s the story: As per usual, after you’ve gotten the seventh gym badge, you can finally rock climb up to where Team Galactic and your rival ultimatetly reach (Spear Pillar), and you proceed to engage in a double battle, which goes as follows: You and your rival vs Mars & Jupiter. So what happened? My rival has only his Munchlax. Now I expected him to eventually fail, but… I was NOT expecting him to be KOed in the FIRST TURN. Yeah, I was basically forced to fight both Mars & Jupiter BY MYSELF from turn 2 to the end. Luckily, my starter was buffed up and could take the pain long enough to eventually beat them both, but I will never forget that, and I actually said after the fight… “You expect me to believe my rival got seven gym badges, and yet gets destroyed THAT easily by Team Galactic?” (I figured he’d lost to them before when it came to trying to stop them from capturing Uxie, but I never imagined he would fall THAT fast) I was not keen on wanting to train a Munchlax, needless to say.

[@Vic_Chaos_]

I've actually played DPPt so many times that I've used most of these in a playthrough. The only one I haven't used is chatot. When mentioning electric types, you forgot Magnezone who's also locked behind the nat dex, by the way. Also, until Platinum, Rotom was locked behind the nat dex, too...

[@dazeen9591]

Cherubi was my first honey tree encounter and honestly it became one of my favourite pokemon to use in the game. It was my first actual grass type next to budew.

[@LucOfLegends]

I actually used a Mothim in my BDSP playthrough (which obviously isnt reflective of base Diamond and Pearl) and it actually turned out pretty nice, though it seriously benefits from the modern movepool editions. I still don't feel like using it in DP though.

[@natnew32]

Yeah the bugs with modern movesets can be pretty good actually. I had a Sleep-inducing setup sweeper with two special STABs in Alola, which is good by any metric, regardless of the fact that it's Butterfree (with Compoundeyes Sleep Powder, Quiver Dance, Bug Buzz, and Air Slash). Began suffering near the end because stats but sleep was essential for multiple totems. It was actually my lead vs the champion!... well that's because using it as anything else was impossible (couple of pointed stones made sure of that) but still!

[@jordyflores8457]

The way I used a pachirisu for the elite and it ateee

[@EndertheDragon0922]

I was listening but not watching the video since I was doing something else, and when you started talking about pachirisu I was like, “Pachirisu? I don’t remember it being that bad.” Then I looked at the screen and realized I got pachirisu mixed up with emolga. I completely forgot pachirisu existed.

[@bladeRoller]

Bro: Pachirisu is bad Pachirisu: extremely tanky off the bat. Charm with high speed neuters even the hardest physical attackers, which theres a ton of through the game, problematic fight? Pachirisu charm 3 times, which he survives no problem. If you were nuzlocking or not overleveled all the time, youd realise how amazing pachirisu is.

[@freddieperkins6953]

I hear what your're saying about kriketune, but when I was a kid playing d/p I was struggling against gardenia (don't ask me how 😅) and she took me down to my last Pokémon which was a very low level kriketot that I caught and hadn't leveled up at all. I could only use bide to attack so I thought it was over but somehow hit arely lived through the 2 turns before it destroyed her turtwig. It leveled up like 10 levels and evolved and after that battle it became one of my favourite Pokémon, I wasn't planning on keeping it but after winning me the gym badge I couldn't get rid of it 🥲 I love that little dude

[@Amelia4111]

Left off the C in Kricketot! Barely is supposed to start with a B!

[@freddieperkins6953]

@@Amelia4111 ☝️🤓

[@TunaBear64]

RIP Spiritomb, is now unobtainable in DPP via legal methods.

[@RedDragonForce2]

@ 6:57 Honestly, if I was in charge of Sinnoh, I’d have the first Gym be in Sandgem Town that you return to after getting the Pokewatch, with the Gym Leader having a Level 14 Kricketune as their Ace. That would show Kricketune at its best since it’s downhill after that. Kricketune has good speed and attack for that part of the game and having knowledge of Bug types would allow for a nice counter. Chimchar/Monferno, Starly/Staravia, Geodude, etc. would be easy counters, but still show Kricketune at its best before it falls off. Thoughts?

[@shepskydad]

I like the thought! Bug is always a nice first option for a gym because it allows those early game bug types the chance to shine, especially our dee-lee-lee-lee-lee-woooooop boi

[@Monsuco]

For Spiritomb the easiest way of getting one is often to just find one on GTS. It IS still possible to use a community server for GTS if you tinker with your DS's DNS settings.

[@Linkaro2]

About combee that I found out during my LP of Platinum so im not sure if this affects DP... but if you do find a combee in the tree, you can soft reset until the combee is female so you dont need to spend a lot time looking for female combee

[@murarmight]

Your videos are so good. I just found your chanel and I must say, I feel like you’re very gifted on creating cool to watch videos and with a good narration. Congratulations! Looking forward for the next ones!

[@isenokami7810]

“If you’re emulating the game like I was…” For anyone going this route, I would HIGHLY suggest going for the Refined Platinum rom hack; also Refined Gold for those wanting to play HGSS instead. It’s still Platinum, but with added spawns to make any Pokémon locked behind trading or other games available to a solo player, including event Legendaries/Mythicals. Furthermore, Refined Platinum in particular even adds spawns for Pokémon that were available but aggravating to get, like every honey tree Pokémon (or in Spiritomb’s case, the 32 interactions in the underground requirement is just gone). There are a few more bells and whistles, mostly in the postgame, but the bottom line is that they’re hacks specifically designed to make completing the Pokédex possible for a solo player, especially an emulating player.

[@tabbender1232]

Rom hacks that have an official game title in their name are consistently worse than the original

[@charanth182]

Pikachu clones seems to always make the list

[@andreapareti324]

I'm rewatching this series after the latest (at time of writing) episode on Gen 6 came out: they're just such nice videos about trivia on weaker and/or more obscure Pokémon! It's not stuff that was unknown to me, but it's just nice to hear someone lay out these facts and opinions in nicely edited videos; iirc, I subbed to you thanks to these and I definitely haven't regretted it! Looking forward to the next one(s)!

[@oof5992]

Platinum also fixes Chatot by adding him to Route 213 and 218 If you dont want to use a in-game trade.

[@jenshast1488]

Another way to get a spiritomb is with the poke walker. But you need to walk about 750 miles to get enough watts to unlock the route it is found in. Also you can only get it for heartgold and soulsilver if you can’t trade to diamond, pearl or platinum. 😅 I almost forgot, you can also get Munchlax and Feebas in the same place in the pokewalker.

[@Udfuidshuish]

IMO, Vespiquen doesn't deserve to be on this list. Aside from the fact that it is insanely cool and kills things with BEES, it is also really easy to get a female Combee if you have a male Cleffa with Cute Charm (from Mt Coronet) at the front of your party when you find one. It will give you a 66.7% of getting a female.

[@chesiregirl]

To be fair with the female Combee, the gender of the Pokemon that spawns isn't locked when you slather the tree like the species is. When I caught one I just saved right in front of the tree before starting the encounter and kept resetting until the combee was female. It took a bit more effort than a standard tall grass encounter, but there are a LOT more difficult Pokemon to catch.

[@JimnyThePython]

My villain origin story was caused by Lumineon. I really wanted to unlock the National Dex, but couldn't for the longest time, because somehow I had never registered a Lumineon. This was before Bulbapedia or at least before I knew about it, so I just wandered around aimlessly, knowing I needed this last pokemon but I couldn't find it for sooooo long.

[@g-ratstickler3107]

getting Chatot to scream the F word is funny too

[@isenokami7810]

An honorable mention specific to your “only initial versions” rule. The hidden basement of Wayward Cave, the only place to catch a Gible, is blocked by a bunch of Strength boulders in Diamond and Pearl. So even if you know the cave’s there, you need six badges to go in and catch something still starting at level 20. In Platinum the boulders are removed and Gible’s easier to add to your team.

[@laterferaligatr2947]

Vespiquen is actually pretty bulky. Ive used it recently in some ScarVio wifi battles and it refused to die

[@goatgeek5018]

I have no idea how but during my platinum nuzlocke I encountered a munchlax as my first honey tree encounter of the run, it absolutely destroyed fantina and is currently carrying me

[@foamingstuffye3951]

And then they thought "this was a brilliant system, let's do it again in Arceus, but make it even more tilting"

[@Turai12]

Lumineon is one of my favourite water types design wise...which makes it even more frustrating how USELESS it is. Seriously, just let us catch it early game with an old rod. That way there's at least a little use to be had in a play through.

[@weisstofall2615]

I never used the trees ro catch pokemon, and I'm honestly glad this didnt come back. If I didn't remember to headbutt trees, I wouldn't backtrackto some random tree just to find a normal encounter pokemon

[@tonythetony8438]

I played thru Pearl a couple months back and I used a Pachurisu on my team and honestly Batman (that's what I named him) put in some reason work, all the way till the E4

[@shepskydad]

The name gave him strength 🦇

[@ryandennison8754]

To be fair, Flying isn’t the worst type to use against Candice, considering 3/4’s of her team is weak to it, and one of them is at a clear disadvantage to it.

[@ben501st]

I remember being so frustrated with the honey mechanic trying to get an aipom to evolve and finish the national dex. Thankfully I talked to a trainer in a pokemon center I hadn't battled yet. He had an ambipom and it unlocked the rest of the Pokedex.

[@lll1312-l4e]

I do get the point of this video, but Chatot is so cute that I don't care how good it stats are

[@DracoMeteor91]

bug/flying is an atrocious type comb, probably the worst

[@Grimlak1990]

I stumbled upon and caught a Munchlax when I was a kid while my first pearl playthrough. I didn’t know how rare it was and still can’t believe it happened

[@Barakon]

Spiritomb is the only Pokémon you can cheat for, but only in the distortion world/other weird place.

[@Iinneus]

LET'S GO SOLO LUMINEON PLAYTHROUGH IS A GO

[@allhailme8457]

The best munchlax to get from gen 4 is the self destruct munchlax from the pokewalker.

[@soulkibble1466]

ironically, Lumineon was the one godforsaken pokemon I still needed to find to unlock the National dex and I had to grind a Finneon to get it.

[@glitchybits2]

Although not the criteria being judged here, as this is purely in-game experience, a couple otherwise bad Pokemon have good support options that make them have a role in VGC formats. You alluded to the infamous Pachirisu, but did you know Cherrim actually had a niche for a little bit too? The reason is that while Flower Gift is terrible for using with just Cherrim, it also gives the same boost to your partner in a double battle. Because of this, it actually saw play with Groudon of all things, being able to automatically set up the sun. The challenge then becomes keeping Cherrim alive as long as you can with Protect and Substitute while it passively gives Groudon a massive 50% boost to Attack and Special Defense, making it wicked strong and extra tanky.