Phanpy, Teddiursa, Misdreavus and Murkrow should absolutely be available way earlier. I've heard the argument that certain johto pokemon were locked to the post game because of how good they are, but I just don't buy it.
Oh, I don't buy it either. I love Teddiursa and Phanpy, and generally prefer Crystal to GS for that reason. It just makes me kinda sad that Mareep wasn't available in Crystal. 😭
I think if the trade in Blacktborne was Dratini/Dragonaire for a Lavitare/Pupitar, it would be better than what we got in the game. Lavitar would still be a late game Pokemon, while still being the the main game
If we didn't have a 1% Kingdra in the fishing contest, then I would suggest having that trade be "Dragonair for Kingdra" - it's really Dragonair for Seadra, but the Seadra evolves as a result of the trade (because it's holding the item required to evolve). Your idea is cool too, though.
The one downside to removing HMs was that we lost most overworld puzzles. I really think this can be fixed in Gen X (or even a Gen IX Legends game) by looking to Pokémon Ranger for inspiration. Give each pokemon 2-3 Field Moves that can be used to help open up hidden areas and discover fun little secrets in the open worlds of these games. Let us use pokemon to cut things or light dark caves or get across obstacles, but also let them use weather-generating moves to give us say, a half-hour of rain/sun/snow so we can find specific pokemon. Let's use electric pokemon to power up certain devices, water types to put out fires, fire types for lighting torches, etc. I think it would really make Pokémon feel more integrated into the adventures we're having.
You've made some really great points here. I could definitely see these being implemented and making traversing Johto more enjoyable. Thanks for sharing your input! 😊
One fix for HMs I feel is much better than what the new games have is to make them available if the pokemon COULD learn the move, and not require actually learning it. So, for example, having a totodile allows you to surf and cross waterfalls and whirlpools, limiting the action behind having the needed badge only. That way, you get to connect with your pokemon as they help you, but you don't cripple them with subpar movesets
I agree 👍. The only thing I'd worry about is players not knowing which HMs their Pokemon can use, but they could probably just have symbols that correspond to the HMs on their summary page or something (bibarel's would be so full 😂).
@@neodica5967The HMs could have an Unlock option to have your Pokemon learn to use it outside of battle, which would both make it easier to see who has it, and ensuring that you need to actually get the HM before being able to use it, to help prevent softlocks.
I agree that this is a great idea. The only change I'd make is that if you don't have a Pokémon that can learn the HM you want to use, but you have the HM unlocked, a wild Pokémon will do it instead (like BDSP did).
Tbh the biggest issue with Johto is the level curve being so wack. It has impeccable vibes, but the raw gameplay suffers - further emphasized by poor team distribution for gym leaders and the lack of Johto Pokemon availability as noted.
I think, if you are going to replace Bruno, you replace him with Falkner's Father as a Flying type Specialist. It would kind of be a reverse Koga situation where we see the child as the leader first then the parent in the Elite 4.
That's a really cool idea. I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, having Faulkner's Dad as an E4 member could've been a really awesome concept. Thanks for sharing your input. 😊
The fishing contest idea made me super excited! And I agree Blackthorne needs something else to keep you coming back. GameFreak wouldn't do so many trade evos tho, they want people to trade
well, in gen 4 there's a reason to always come back to blackthorn... THE MOVE RELEARNER! haha I think Mahogany and cherrygrove (well, I did went to Mahogany often to get the apricorns on the near routes, but IN the city, there was nothing to do)
I like the idea of phanpy and teddiursa being able to be caught early as a sneak peak to the last route in johto and as a little story of you and an early Pokémon becoming strong enough to get back home as stronger versions of yourselves.
In terms of HMs, I've heard the idea somewhere of having HMs having separate slots from normal moves. So pokemon have battle moves, and field moves separately. So you still get the experience of using HMs without burning up move slots.
I think cliffs were supposed to be a further fall than the game let on. Like you’re literally falling 2 tiles, a further distance than the character is tall. I think the route below blackthorn is supposed to feel more like steadily climbing down a steep mountain cliff rather than hiking through a flat valley
For Gen 2, you can make the rain happen on maps at random, but actually getting the rain to show up in the overworld is another story. It's pretty easy for Gen 4.
I just got done replaying gen 2 pokeon silver and i gotta say, i love your ideas!! It definitely wud have made the game more fun and incentive me to go back to certain toens more often
I saw this in my recommendeds and I'm glad I watched. This hit the spot and I think you've got a ton of potential. Can't wait to see what else you make! Also, loving all the TCG art used!!
Hot take: having HMs on your main team of six builds bonds and deepens the role playing aspect. People complain that Johto is too easy haven’t tried a team where all team members have an HM
This is fair. I've done playthroughs before where I ended up using a Pokemon on my team just because it was HM compatible, and gained a newfound appreciation for that Pokemon. And that Pokemon would be Linoone. Though, I could see this happening in the Johto games as well.
@@saffroncitytvto be fair, i think streamlining HMs to be less of a pain point would be better while keeping the requirements. Like allowing to overwrite HMs with moves etc (although, maybe even opening up a "skarmory taxi" service in HM-softlockable pokecentres/locations).
The production, presentation, and pace of the video is fantastic. One if the best videos I've seen, I look forward to seeing more videos from you. One of the best random RUclips recommendations I've received.
I would've gone simple and given Bugsy an Ariados and a Ledian, but I like your suggestion way better. Maybe give him Heracross instead of Scyther though
I feel like Unova is gonna be such a fun project! It's the region I've spent the least amount of time in, so doing a deep dive is gonna be really interesting.
Loving the idea of Misty as an E4! My favorite Gym Leader getting promoted would be awesome. I’d also personally fix the level curve in Johto. It’s notoriously low, and by the time you’re training your team it’s hard to grind on level 35-45 Pokemon in Kanto…but that’s a game development thing that I have no skill set on XD
I think for the HM’s you could change it to where species Pokémon have basically a list of HM’s they can use without knowing them. So like basically every water type could let you surf if they’re in your party without actually knowing the move, or most fully evolved Pokémon would be able to break rocks or use strength without knowing the moves. Could also be a good solution for new games so you can still have a “connection” with your Pokémon by letting them help you traverse the overworld but you don’t need to waste move slots. Edit: it might make more sense then just knowing the HM too, cause pidgey for example could learn the move fly, but not be able to fast travel you until it evolves, where it can then fast travel even if it doesn’t know the move.
The fishing contest is a great idea - but I'd say Staryu should be included on the list. There's dialogue from one of the trainers near the whirl islands about how staryu and starmie's glow lights up the ocean floor at night there, but IIRC the star pokemon don't actually make an appearance (and neither the originals or the remakes showcase this supposed glow). So staryu being available in the fishing contest, and having some glowy spots in that sea route, would fit excellently with the pre-established world building
I think pretty much everything in this video is a massive improvement on the original, very tasteful changes I'm curious if you'd have an idea of how to fix/mitigate the level curve falling off a cliff in the midgame as well
Honestly, in my reviews, I try to stay away from things that don't specifically have to do with the region, but a few people have brought it up. I know that you gotta grind a lot in Johto, and I could see how that could negatively impact someone's opinion on the region. I would say that most wild Pokemon and trainer's Pokemon should always kind hover just a few levels under the next gym leader. The issue with Johto is that you get some autonomy to choose which gym leader you want to tackle next after Morty. But I think if the player sticks to the route that GF intended, they could just scale the leveling up based on that route. Not to mention that there are too many pre-evolved wild Pokemon in the mid to late game that really need some evolving. Like, at some point, we shouldn't be running into Rattata that are over level 20, y'know? Idk, these are just some quick fixes I could think of off the top of my head, but I would assume that could fix the issues.
This is awesome! Are you planning on doing other regions? If you’re taking suggestions I’d love to see your review on Sinnoh and give it the same treatment as Johto
I absolutely will be doing the other regions 😊 Hoenn is up next, and then it'll be Sinnoh! I'm very excited to cover Sinnoh, as I haven't spent as much time in it, so I think it'll be a really fun deep dive.
I agree with everything you’ve said but ya gotta admit that at the time it was crazy that game freak was able to fit both jhoto and kanto in one cartridge. And the stadium 1-2 with transfer pak and link cable that to this day is still super awesome being able to get trades with the link cable. Gotta love it❤
Ive wanted for a while to make more "Ecological" rom hacks... Add in future/past Pokemon based on biomes and culture (more yokai mon to the first 4 regions, add Mankey to Hoenn jungles etc) and your retileing idea is great
For the gym leaders and E4 I actually thought about teams for all of them while watching smithplays pokemon's crystal romhack videos. Falkner: hoothoot spearow pidgeotto (focus on birds of prey since he's a falconer; murkrow is nice but the extra power and coverage isn't that necessary this early in the game) Bugsy: lots of options for his first 2 pokemon but I think heracross fits better than scyther. It's slower but still powerful, doesn't overlap with yanma's weaknesses, matches bugsy's friendly design more, and always looked like a bug first and a fighter second anyway. It also has a different 4x weakness that encourages the player to use a flying type instead of onix/geodude again. Whitney: again, a lot of options but I don't have any specific recommendations Morty: haunter murkrow misdreavus gengar (murkrow has weirdly good defensive synergy with haunter/gengar as shown on karen's team, but its stats are better suited for this point in the game; more variation from the gastly line) Chuck: primeape hitmontop machoke/graveler poliwrath (my version of bugsy already has heracross so chuck will keep primeape. Since the last gym already had 4 pokemon it feels like the gyms after him should follow suit; machoke is the most reasonable addition for this point in the game, but I prefer graveler so it can punish flying and electric types for poliwrath and give chikorita users a win. It's not a fighting type but it matches the theme of toughness and functions similarly to bruno's onixes, plus the machop line is overused by fighting specialists) Jasmine: skarmory magneton scizor/forretress steelix (coincidentally all the steel types in this generation complement each other really well already. The only major hole I see is scizor/forettress's 4x weakness to fire in which case I might add/replace a member with a rock-type as a nod to her previous type specialty) Pryce: piloswine jynx sneasel dewgong/cloyster (I'm leaning more toward the mammalian dewgong to distinguish his team from lorelei's mostly aquatic team; jynx is here to deal with the faster fighting and grass types that threaten the rest of the team instead of delibird) Clair: gyarados dragonair dragonair/lapras kingdra (depending on how many pokemon you think she should have, I think clair could add/replace a member with lapras since it's another mythical reptile that's rare in-game; its only previous use was on an E4 member's team which would add to clair's prestige and it can wall ice types for dragonair. It was also on Iris's team) Will: girafarig xatu slowking exeggutor espeon (I agree with your changes but I'd also replace jynx with espeon since it's stronger, faster, and creates a neat parallel to karen's umbreon; jynx's ice STAB doesn't provide much useful coverage for the team anyway) Koga: venemoth forretress/scizor muk tentacruel crobat (I'd replace ariados with tentacruel just cuz he already has a poison/bug and tentacruel provides vital coverage against ground rock and fire) Bruno: hitmonlee hitmonchan golem heracross machamp (it'd probably be better if he were replaced by someone with more options, but for the sake of argument I'd go with this. Heracross counters psychics and was just inevitable overlap. And while steelix may be the obvious choice over golem, the latter keeps the fire weaknesses to a minimum and has its 4x grass weakness covered by heracross) Karen: hypno/mr. mime vileplume houndoom umbreon tyranitar (karen's team is already fine in terms of type synergy so this is just an alternative. Tyranitar is here as proof that karen is the strongest E4 member similar to drake from hoenn. Vileplume is surprisingly still necessary since it covers ground rock and water for tyranitar and houndoom. And hypno/mr. mime is here to destroy fighting types since murkrow is pretty frail and gengar would add another ground weaknesses. They're also both just creepy and vaguely nefarious) Lance: skarmory charizard gyarados dragonite 3x (the 3 dragonites are controversial but I think it's important that at least half his team is in fact dragon type for him to keep his dragon master title, plus it follows naturally from his gen 1 team. Charizard and gyarados both provide valuable coverage, but aerodactyl doesn't so I'd replace it with skarmory. In general steel just gels better with dragon and it makes half of his team neutral to ice instead of just 1/3 of it.
For the Town & City part, where you talk about Trade in Black Thorn City; you already have Rocky the Onix from TRADING back in Violet for a Bellsprout.
Yeah…I’m a hyper aggressive Gen2 defender, but Johto needs some fixes. Difficulty curve is one. It’s too easy. I really like the idea of the Cherrygrove flower shop apricorns and the Cianwoid fishing contest. A fishing contest feels like a missed opportunity by Game Freak.
Idea for HM replacement: All pokemon who can use said HMs can do them automatically without the use of HMs, but you need the appropriate gym badge to do so. For instance: You can fly with any flying type pokemon without the use of the HM, but you need the Cianwood gym badge in order to be able to.
A good alternative for the transportation section could be a Swiss Army knife or Johto army knife in this case. I picture it as less of a pocket knife and more of a special backpack. Just like in real life it’d be a device with many tools to fit your current task. You’d still need to gather HMs but you’d just add them to the Johto army knife once you get them. A little propeller for fly, a raft for surf ect.
Nice ideas. Lots of videos/Hacks get bogged down on fixing the level curve and gym teams because they're the most obvious flaws. It was nice to hear more diverse thoughts. Having a flower/berry shop in Cherrygrove is great for showing off berries at a point in the game when they're actually useful. Sword/Shield had a berry shop in the first town and I was surprised how fun it was playing around with them early on.
Well thank you 😊. I just didn't think I'd be bringing anything new to the table by talking about the level curve since it's been talked about by other creators a lot. Plus, I didn't feel that it pertained to the Johto region, itself. I'm glad you liked the flower shop idea, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. 😊
Johto has the cutest Pokémon designs in the whole series but gamefreak inexplicably keeps them hidden from the player. The biggest tragedy of Pokémon is the missed potential of Johto.
New subscriber here. Great video, Sabrina. Johto, while nostalgic, definitely needs more fine tuning in terms of Pokémon diversity, availability, level curves, and biome diversity. While HGSS had the PokéWalker to help alleviate availability, I still think the games themselves need better encounters that more prominently showcase the new Johto Pokémon.
LOVE the idea of a Teddiursa for Whitney. I also quite like Phanpy for her, even if it's not a Normal type. It could sort of pass for one. And it can also use the Roll-out strategy. But I totally understand if people would rather not have it on her team. Personally, I like Jasmine having an Ampharos for her team even if it's not thematically accurate with her speciality (not Steel). Also it's a Johto Pokemon, and technically it does have SOME sort of synergy with her Magneton, sharing the Electric typing I guess. I don't know, I just think it fits her vibe, and her narrative with the story, etc. I also just don't like these Gym Leaders having so little Pokemon... Ampharos, Magneton, Skarmory, Steelix - that sounds good to me. Claire is just one of the many "specialists" who specialize in a type that couldn't even fit a whole team if they wanted to in their respective Generation lol. But someone once said that Claire should be a Master of the Sea Dragons and Lance a Master of the Sky Dragons, and that concept REALLY stuck with me. That would essentially make Claire a sort of glorified Water Gym trainer in a way (and Lance a Flying Champion lol), but lowkey...I think it works better that way. With that in mind, Claire could have a Ferraligator on her team. It sooooooooooooort of looks like a Dragon.......iiiiiiiish. I also have Mantine in mind. Not really a dragon, but I don't know.... sooooorta....kinda....if you squint really hard and inhale some copium. It would also be a Johto Pokemon - so a plus. So it would give her a team of : Gyarados, Dragonair, Ferraligator, Mantine and Kingdra. Sort of a Water/Dragon specialist. Lots of Johto Pokemon. And a team of five for the last Gym. I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOVE the idea of Misty as a new E4. I've already said so in another one of your videos. It's just so good. Misty always looked up to Lorelai, so it would make sense she would aspire to be E4. And the Beautiful Sisters could take the Cerulean Gym back. And it's as you said : there are SO many Water Pokemon newly introduced in Johto, and she could make good use of a LOT of them. Politoed is literally canon-accurate. In the manga she has a Lanturn, which is such a nice addition to her team in general. Guagsire is perfect for her as well. If we're doing Abilities, an Azumarill with Huge Power could be a cute addition to her team too.
I really like your ideas here. If we decided to remove the type-theme of the Gym leaders, literally all of your ideas; Phanpy for Whitney, Ampharos for Jasmine, and Feraligatr for Clair would work pretty perfectly! This was super interesting to read! Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I really like the Gym Leader additions you talked about here.
Most if not all the things listed here can be implemented in gen 2 via rom hacking, there's a rom hack called crystal legacy that afaik fixed or tried to fix the gen 2 experience (not sure since I haven't tried it yet). Anyway, good video. Cheers
15:57 I've never actually had much of a problem with HMs, but one modification I could see is HMs giving the 'mon the permanent ability to fly, cut, flash, etc. in addition to the in-combat move. The move can be forgotten, but you always have the traversal ability so long as the pokemon who learned it remains in your party.
I really like this idea. I think having HMs make permanent changes to the Pokemon's ability to actually Surf, Fly, Rock Smash, etc. would be great, especially if you could then delete the actual move from the moveset afterwards. Great idea! Thanks for sharing your input. 😊
Regarding the HM problem I have always thought that pokemon should work similarly to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Basically to use a hm you would only need any pokemon of the corresponding type on your team, like fighting for rocksmash, water for surf, flying for fly, etc... so it would still require appropriate pokemon for the action but your options would expand immensely XD
My idea for Blackthorn City content would be to add a Dragon Trainer Tournament, where it's like its own mini Battle Facility, where you can only enter Dragon-types. Common participants could include Clair, Lance, Silver, Ethan/Lyra, maybe a cameo by someone like Zinnia, Iris, or Drayden, especially if this were to be postgame content for a remake, this would obviously have to come with an expansion of available Dragon-type Pokemon, so that every trainer isn't using Dragonites and Kingdras. If they include Alolan forms and Megas, you can also throw in things like Mega Ampharos and Charizard, or Alolan Exeggutor. As for the in-game trade, I'd make it so he's trading a Seadra holding a Dragon Scale for a Dragonair, that way if you want to get that Dex Entry you can do so in the city of dragons, where one of the Gym Leader's signature Pokemon is a Kingdra.
Loved the vid! I’m working on a similar video myself that involves rewriting the order of events in the Johto games, and it was interesting to see some different ideas here :)
I have a solution for the HM thing. In the post game, you can somehow receive key items that have the HM functionality built in. Such things as a hand saw, inflatable raft, and flying taxi pass.
I think if u make articuno, zapdos, and moltres roaming legends, u could attach weather effects to the routes they are on similar to RS&E (kyogre & groudon) and B&W (tornadus & thunderus). It could be hailing where articuno is, heavy rain with zapdos, and heavy sun with moltres. Just another way to add weather to the routes and more engaging exploration IMO.
About the HM problem: there was scrapped art concepts of the main character riding a skateboard instead of a bike (which was later included in the pokemon adventure manga) The skateboard could be a used as a faster bike, or could be used to jump over ledges or obstacles like the mach bike in gen 3
For the Gym Leader portion Faulkner : Same as MandJTV NICE! Bugsy: Good choices, I've seen more people go with Ledyba & Spinark and replace Sycther with Heracross, but its still a good team. Whittney: I like it. Morty, Chuck, Jasmine: Yeah. Pryce & Clair: Yeah.
In addition to johto mons, I would love to see some evolution stones included in the main story. that could also increase the diversity with pokemon like victreeble, poliwrath, arcanine and the kanto eeveelutions being easier to get without doing the pokeathlon. I even thought of suitable places - a fire stone in the burned tower (after getting strength, requires to move some boulders), a water stone south of goldenrod where there are already some swimmers with water pokemon, a leaf stone in azalea forest (could also require surf in order to reach it) and a thunder stone in olivine's lighthouse. each location seems like a fine place to locate an evolution stone, and its way more approachable than forcing the player to do mini games or wait for certain phone calls from NPCs
Here are my ideas to make Johto a better and well rounded region 1. Make Johto Separated from Kanto. But keep the Kanto referrnces. 2. Have the Johto gym leader use Johto Pokemon as main leads 3. Have a Pokegear building located in Cherrygrove City since you can get the pokegear in the beginning of the game. 4. Make.Route 45/46's mountsin road into Cycling Road 5. Have a Pokemon league/victory road on its own 6. Make a new and improved crime team organization
I loved, loved, loved this video and all the changes made here. Like, that would turn Johto from a "decent" region to a definitely awesome one 👏. But my favorite thing to do is to modify the gym leader's teams cause the Johto ones are so bad and easy to beat, and they need to be more challenging. While I agree on most of the team changes shown in this video, these are the ones I'd propose: 1- Falkner: Yeah, Hoot-Hoot and Murkrow are perfect here. I've seen some people suggest an underleveled Noctowl as his ace, and while that may sound as a good idea, I think it'd literally make it impossible for Chikorita to beat him. So Hoot-Hoot and Murkrow are good, with the dark type as his ace. 2- Bugsy: and here's where we differ cause I think Bugsy would benefit from having a Ledyba or even an underleveled Ledian. I think it can learn both light screen and reflect, in addition to the elemental punches, so it'd be better than Pineco. Yanma is good, tho. But I think it would be good to make things more interesting if his team varied between versions. Where perhaps in HG he has a Yanma and in SS he has a Spinarak instead. 3- Whitney: Yeah, Teddiursa is perfect for her. But again, to add more diversity, she could have Teddiursa in HG and Snubull in SS cause Snubull is another Pokemon that gets almost no representation. 4- Morty: Yeah, as the only new gosht type introduced in this gen, Misdreavous is a sure pick. But I think that perhaps, in the gen 2 games, he could use a non-gosht type to fill in the team instead of Gastly. Both Stantler and Girafarig are good contenders since they fit his whole "creepy" vibe very well. For the gen 4 HG/SS remakes, just add in Misdreavous (obviously) and Sableye cause it had no weaknesses. 5- Chuck: Now, this one's interesting cause it's hard to give him a team that doesn’t clash with Bruno's. So I say to give him Hitmontop and Heracross both in the gen 2 games and the remakes to fill his team. Poliwrath and Primape can stay. 6- Jasmine: Magneton and Skarmory are perfect for her. Give her Magneton a Shucca berry so that it won't die to a ground move. Skarmory can hold an Occa to lessen fire moves. 7- Pryce: Yeah, while Delibird is a new Pokemon, I don’t think it's a good addition to anyone's team, especially cause I want to try and make him less easy for Typhlosion users. So I say, in addition to giving his Dewgong a water move like water pulse or bubble beam at least, he should get a Lapras, the superior ice/water type to counter Typhlosion. Give both Dewgong and Lapras Wacan berries to weaken electric type damage cause Typhlosion can learn thunder punch after all. I think that in the gen 4 remakes, his Piloswine should be evolved into Mamoswine to make things even harder for Typhlosion. Give him a Pasho berry too, to reduce water type damage from any Feraligatr users, to not make it very easy for the water starter. 8- Claire: Yeah, this one's very hard cause there's nothing you can do for her, at least in Gen 2. I think she could still replace one of her Dragonairs for Gyarados in gen 2, but with the higher diversity provided by the remakes, and access to mon from other regions, I say give her either a Shelgon or a Gabite. Again, for diversity, she could have Shelgon in SS and Gabite in HG. Will: Just give him an Espeon, please, and thank you. Koga: replace his Ariados with a Qwillfish so that he'll have a Surf user against Typhlosion. In the gen 4 remakes, he could have a Nidoking with Earthquake for a real intimidating offensive presence on his team. Have it in place of Forretress. Bruno: And here's where the big changes happen. I think that in the gen 2 games, he can keep the Hitmons cause nothing can be done about that. But for more diversity, he could change the 2 Onyx for a Donphan and an Ursaring. I know they're not fighting types, but they still look like manly, tough, hard-hitting mon I think he'd train with. And they're definitely better than Onyx. In the HG/SS remakes, tho, that's where I'd change his team thanks to having more options. Change Hitmonchan and Lee for a Medicham and a Lucario. He obviously also keeps Ursaring and Donphan. That way, Chuck can use the Hitmons cause Bruno won't have them anymore. Karen: Evolve her Murkrow and give her a Tyranitar as suggested. Lance: his team is good in Gen 2. Just make them higher level. In HG/SS tho, I think he could have a Salamence, in place of one of his Dragonites. That reflects how he has the evolved forms of Claire's Pokemon. And that would be all. Though I think that something else that also needs to change is the team Rocket plotline by making them harder. Perhaps it could be changed by having a plot twist that Giovanni had actually never dissolved the team. He was always working with them and helping from the shadows. And, of course, give the executives better teams. And that would be all.
Love a lot of your thoughts, I love gen2 but i'm kinda frustrated about johto as a region, small and lack of dungeon diversity (almost nothing but caves, empty ones), and some easy points easy to fix like pokemon distribution. But I love the dex (my favorite designs are gen2 for the most), the atmosphere of this region, the link with Kanto, even if the more i think, the more i see Kanto as an handicap. I think there is a lot of potential, and your vidéo show some good ideas.
Another banger! These could be easily implemented for the most part but yeah most of the fixes are very reasonable and I agree with pretty much every point. Keep up the great videos. Your voice is such a treat to listen to. Could see you doing voice acting in so many different animes
Part of the issues with Johto is that it is a product of its time. Gen 2 was meant to be the conclusion of the series and the team admitted they had to cut a lot of content to make room on the limited hardware for all of Kanto. Gen 4 wanted to make a faithful recreation of the original games which is why they didn’t make a ton of changes. :/ I wish they did more though
Honestly one of the ways I would "fix Johto" is to throw in more bug types introduced in the generation into the bug catching contest. Why is it only Kanto Pokemon? Why is it in gen 4, all of the post dex Pokemon are bug types from Hoenn and Sinnoh? If Paras, Venonat, Butterfree, Beedrill, Scyther, and Pincer are just going to magically appear during this contest, why not others? Why not Yanma, Heracross, Pineco, Ledyba, and Spinarak? All of a sudden Bugsy has a reason to have them on his team.
An easy transport fix would be for them to add a few more ferries/swimmable areas that would make the map open up a LOT once the player has surf/boat pass for example goldenrod could easily have a water connection to another city that's locked until you get to goldenrod
This is a pretty good idea. And it could be implemented as fast-travel, too. And if not, we could have an S.S. Anne type of experience more frequently. 😊
One of my favorite iterations of HMs comes from Pokémon Reloaded. That game has many, MANY field moves, not just HMs, but the way they fixed the big number was by giving the Pokémon a "skill" system. Not only was this a good way to implement out of battle effects for abilities, but it also made it so a Pokémon would retain a skill even after forgetting a move. You could teach one Pokémon Surf, Waterfall, Dive and Whirlpool, forget all of those moves (HMs are easily forgetabble) and you would have a Pokémon dedicated to traversing water while not destroying it's moveset.
You and SmithPlays Pokémon NEED to get together to make Pokémon Heart and Soul, a Crystal Legacy style remaster of HGSS! Make one of the arguably best Pokémon games even better? SQUIRTINA!
I generally like HMs and I feel like removing them has affected route design and progression negatively. That said making it so that boulders/trees/rocks only need to be removed once instead of every time would help a lot.
Growing up, i always thought the most reasonable thing would be to have a different HM slot for moves. Then to some degree you have to build around it, in that you need a pokemon that can learn cut or flash, but don't need to give up a battle slot. That and/or HM move progressions. Like cut and slash can be used for a tree. Rock smash could have a stronger version. I just never liked that surf and strength were the only useful HMs
I agree with everything and to add my opinion the traveling around with HMs could be done the same as brilliant diamond and shining pearl where you request a wild pokemon to help making it so you don't need a hm slave anymore
Okay, discussion about HM's aside, Lard is AMAZING. It was ostricized when society went on an anti-fat crusade that ended with the acceptance of added sugar & hydrogenated oils in all our modern foods. Our food is the worse for losing it. Now, back to HM's. We can bring back HM's & just fix them. I loved your take on using HM's to fix the Hoenn games.
You know the most frustrating thing about rainy system on pokemon? On gen 3, not only you can enable anywhere, but they did the swarm system, that is implemented but rarely useful,, so we could get what you described in here.
My favorite Johto gym leader is Whitney and people hate her too much, and ignore the fact that Clair was way worse, because at least Whitney gave you the badge without having you do something stupid, she just had a small fit
I agree with you on the gym leader teams... If I could fix Clair's team...as the final gym leader, maybe she should use a team of five Pokemon, I mean that's what the Giovanni and the Hoenn final gym leader(s) did. But since there are so limited sea dragon-like Pokemon in the Johto regional dex...I'd probably use her HGSS team but replace one of the Dragonairs with Lapras and also give her a Vaporeon with Hidden Power Dragon at it's max base power. (Gen 4 is before Hidden Power became 60 base power. Also, hidden power does seem like a move that mythical-like pokemon like dragons would use imo) You could argue Lapras is somewhat dragon-like, it can learn some dragon moves (Dragon Breath, Dragon Rage via TM in Gen 1, and heck even Dragon Dance as an egg move), and in Gen 5 we did get a dragon specialist that uses Lapras. While Vaporeon...IMO, for some reason I think looks sea dragon-like which works well with Clair's theme and Hidden Power Dragon uses it's better attacking stat. I was also thinking while Clefairy fits Whitney, maybe it could also just be replaced with Furret...it evolves from Sentret at a mere level 16 anyways and it's cute in it's own right. So if we wanna got full Johto for her, then Teddiursa -> Furret -> Miltank. But to make her HGSS battle more fair, I'd replace Miltank's Lum Berry with just an Oran Berry. Forretress does make sense for Koga but I'd personally replace it with Qwilfish, another new Johto poison type and it can also use evasion strats with Minimize like Muk and can also set up Spikes (or in later gens Toxic Spikes) like Forretress. Also, for Lance's team of flying dragons...the only readjustment I can think of is replace one of his Dragonites with Skarmory and for some reason Bulbapedia seems to Skarmory's design also somewhat looks like a wyvern of all things. Maybe this is a bit of a stretch but it could theoretically work in terms of the theme and at least Charizard and Aerodactyl won't be the only counters to Ice Types...it's just that poor Skarmory's probably never going to have nor want to use any dragon moves, not even the likes of the pathetically weak Twister or Hidden Power Dragon cannot save this thing due to it's terrible special attack plus it doesn't even get Dragon Dance. Another change I would make for the Johto games is the level curve. Have the level curve been readjusted...maybe Pryce's pokemon would actually been higher levels than Jasmine's as he's suppose to be the seventh gym leader, plus Lance's Dragonites could've been at the appropriate levels, and maybe the Kanto Gym Leaders that's not Blue also would've been at the appropriate levels in Gen 2 in the post-game. Plus for Generation 2...to improve the difficulty curve, I'd make major trainer boss fights (starting from either 6th or 8th gym) to have their aces actually have held items plus their movesets need to be reworked. More on the topic of Gen 2...since the physical/special split was not a thing yet at the time, I would have Ghost be a special attacking type and Dark as a physical attacking type. It would make the ghost types and dark types at the time very happy and it won't hurt Houndoom that badly since it still has usable physical attack. It's not completely perfect since Lick (not that anyone would wanna use it) would not be physical and the elemental punches would be special moves but hey, this is a pre-physical/split generation we're talking about. Also, certain pokemon in GSC need appropriate and usable movesets...looking at you Gamefreak for making poor Gligar cry with no STAB damaging moves (okay there's Wing Attack...but only through breeding. But no ground moves despite being a ground type, do you know how many pokemon in the game can learn Mud-Slap in Gen 2?) and their other fellow Johto ground types like Piloswine and Donphan didn't even get Dig for some reason, the latter of which didn't even get to learn it in Gen 4!.
I'd give Bugsy a team consisting of Yanma, Heracross, and Scyther. In HGSS when you have the ability to rechallenge the Gym Leaders, I'd give him Yanmega, Heracross, Fortress, Ariados, and Scizor.
Maybe I think this because I’m old and I started playing during Gen 1 but I think getting rid of HMs was a bad move. Having to use a variety of HMs to traverse the land means that you’ll have to strategize your team both in and out of battle. It was also a really clever way of limiting where the player could go until they furthered the story. It also incentivized going back to certain routes because there would be areas only accessible by cut or surf.
Like you mentioned, you've GOT to play Pokémon Crystal: Legacy! Really good fine-tuning of Johto and the most fun I'd had playing a pokémon game in years!!! Great content though, loving these deep-dives especially with Johto as my all time fave
Quite a lot of great fixes I think would spice up the region. Always making some great content. Why do I feel like the ROM hack mentioned is Crystal Legacy?
It is one of the best ROM that I have tried, which does very friendly quality of life changes. They even just released a new patch for it and are promising a patch to fix the kanto part of the post-game. Really looking forward to see what they do.@@saffroncitytv
Not quite a repair but an enhancement of having specific areas and story beats where you change into another set of clothes to reflect the location and story development. Gen 4 did this by having you disguised as a Team a rocket grunt to infiltrate the basement, so things like traditional dress for battling the Eevee maidens in Ecruteak City, martial arts garb for the Cianwood Gym, a dragon tamer outfit for when you’re proving your worth to Clair after the battle etc would make the region’s practices more immersive. Player character outfits based on trainer classes that reflect the gyms that you wear when challenging each gym would do a lot for this.
I could agree with most of the changes. I could say that we could make a berry shop in Cherrygrove that opens after you battle Sudowoodo for the daily berry mechanic. We could also add a cave on Cianwood for the Suicune storyline that could have pokemon like Teddiursa and Larvitar, as well as some Johto water types. The incense shop at Mahogany also makes sense. Expanding the Dragon's Den to make it feel like a trial would be cool as well. A complete upgrade to Kanto to make it feel like a challenge mode would be great as well. I feel like so much was taken away from Kanto that could have come back in the HGSS. Yes, the perfect Johto is great, but it won't be as great unless Kanto actually brings something new
Phanpy, Teddiursa, Misdreavus and Murkrow should absolutely be available way earlier. I've heard the argument that certain johto pokemon were locked to the post game because of how good they are, but I just don't buy it.
Oh, I don't buy it either. I love Teddiursa and Phanpy, and generally prefer Crystal to GS for that reason. It just makes me kinda sad that Mareep wasn't available in Crystal. 😭
I can't imagine Gamefreak fearing the power of Magcargo so much that they had to lock it to the postgame, haha
phanphy and tediursa can be found earlier, the odds are just very low.
Magcargo is available before the first gym. @@Quartings
You don’t think Houndoom is that good
I think if the trade in Blacktborne was Dratini/Dragonaire for a Lavitare/Pupitar, it would be better than what we got in the game. Lavitar would still be a late game Pokemon, while still being the the main game
I think that would be a totally acceptable trade! That's a great idea as well.
If we didn't have a 1% Kingdra in the fishing contest, then I would suggest having that trade be "Dragonair for Kingdra" - it's really Dragonair for Seadra, but the Seadra evolves as a result of the trade (because it's holding the item required to evolve). Your idea is cool too, though.
The one downside to removing HMs was that we lost most overworld puzzles. I really think this can be fixed in Gen X (or even a Gen IX Legends game) by looking to Pokémon Ranger for inspiration. Give each pokemon 2-3 Field Moves that can be used to help open up hidden areas and discover fun little secrets in the open worlds of these games. Let us use pokemon to cut things or light dark caves or get across obstacles, but also let them use weather-generating moves to give us say, a half-hour of rain/sun/snow so we can find specific pokemon. Let's use electric pokemon to power up certain devices, water types to put out fires, fire types for lighting torches, etc. I think it would really make Pokémon feel more integrated into the adventures we're having.
You've made some really great points here. I could definitely see these being implemented and making traversing Johto more enjoyable. Thanks for sharing your input! 😊
One fix for HMs I feel is much better than what the new games have is to make them available if the pokemon COULD learn the move, and not require actually learning it.
So, for example, having a totodile allows you to surf and cross waterfalls and whirlpools, limiting the action behind having the needed badge only.
That way, you get to connect with your pokemon as they help you, but you don't cripple them with subpar movesets
I really like this idea, and I think it's the best one I've come across for fixing the HM issue. 😊
I agree 👍. The only thing I'd worry about is players not knowing which HMs their Pokemon can use, but they could probably just have symbols that correspond to the HMs on their summary page or something (bibarel's would be so full 😂).
@@neodica5967The HMs could have an Unlock option to have your Pokemon learn to use it outside of battle, which would both make it easier to see who has it, and ensuring that you need to actually get the HM before being able to use it, to help prevent softlocks.
I agree that this is a great idea. The only change I'd make is that if you don't have a Pokémon that can learn the HM you want to use, but you have the HM unlocked, a wild Pokémon will do it instead (like BDSP did).
Just use the call system from alola. But I think it should be your own pokemon and not others.
Tbh the biggest issue with Johto is the level curve being so wack. It has impeccable vibes, but the raw gameplay suffers - further emphasized by poor team distribution for gym leaders and the lack of Johto Pokemon availability as noted.
There is no level curve problem
@@pn2294
Yes because it flatlines
Yeah its absolutely absurd that neither issue was addressed at all in the remakes too
I think, if you are going to replace Bruno, you replace him with Falkner's Father as a Flying type Specialist. It would kind of be a reverse Koga situation where we see the child as the leader first then the parent in the Elite 4.
That's a really cool idea. I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, having Faulkner's Dad as an E4 member could've been a really awesome concept. Thanks for sharing your input. 😊
oi always assumed his dad was dead
@@saffroncitytv
Falner - Hoothoot + Noctowl
Dad - Xatu, Murkrow, Gligar, Crobat, Skarmory.
Unfortunately we already have a Flying type E4 leader...
@@theapexsurvivor9538 🔥🔥😂😂
Now this is the quality content we come to the internet to see
🤘 Thank you for the compliment!
Love the vídeo Pokémon Crystal was the first Pokémon Game I ever played as a kid and I still hold it very dear and in high regard
The fishing contest idea made me super excited! And I agree Blackthorne needs something else to keep you coming back. GameFreak wouldn't do so many trade evos tho, they want people to trade
well, in gen 4 there's a reason to always come back to blackthorn... THE MOVE RELEARNER! haha I think Mahogany and cherrygrove (well, I did went to Mahogany often to get the apricorns on the near routes, but IN the city, there was nothing to do)
I like the idea of phanpy and teddiursa being able to be caught early as a sneak peak to the last route in johto and as a little story of you and an early Pokémon becoming strong enough to get back home as stronger versions of yourselves.
In terms of HMs, I've heard the idea somewhere of having HMs having separate slots from normal moves. So pokemon have battle moves, and field moves separately. So you still get the experience of using HMs without burning up move slots.
I think cliffs were supposed to be a further fall than the game let on. Like you’re literally falling 2 tiles, a further distance than the character is tall. I think the route below blackthorn is supposed to feel more like steadily climbing down a steep mountain cliff rather than hiking through a flat valley
Love the deep dives into each region
I'm really looking forward to covering Hoenn, too. I'm hoping it doesn't need too much repair, but I won't know until I get that deep dive done. 🙃
I just got that same Dratini plush! Johto is my all time favorite region.
31:22 as a programmer, I can confidently say that your RNG rain idea is great AND would be super easy to implement~
Well thank you for the confirmation! 😊 I would've loved to see more rain in Johto.
For Gen 2, you can make the rain happen on maps at random, but actually getting the rain to show up in the overworld is another story. It's pretty easy for Gen 4.
This channel lowkey deserve more subs; the quality on this and other region vids is insane
Well thank you for the very high praise! I really appreciate that! 😊
I just got done replaying gen 2 pokeon silver and i gotta say, i love your ideas!! It definitely wud have made the game more fun and incentive me to go back to certain toens more often
I saw this in my recommendeds and I'm glad I watched. This hit the spot and I think you've got a ton of potential. Can't wait to see what else you make! Also, loving all the TCG art used!!
Well thank you so much for checking out the video! 😊 I also love the TCG artwork, and I feel like it's under appreciated outside of the TCG community.
Hot take: having HMs on your main team of six builds bonds and deepens the role playing aspect. People complain that Johto is too easy haven’t tried a team where all team members have an HM
This is fair. I've done playthroughs before where I ended up using a Pokemon on my team just because it was HM compatible, and gained a newfound appreciation for that Pokemon. And that Pokemon would be Linoone. Though, I could see this happening in the Johto games as well.
@@saffroncitytv Same but with Furret and Mantine wish they could’ve picked up rare candies along the way like Linoone
My current playthrough of Polished Crystal is almost that. (Provided the HMs are made more integrated and less "mostly normal and water")
THIS
@@saffroncitytvto be fair, i think streamlining HMs to be less of a pain point would be better while keeping the requirements. Like allowing to overwrite HMs with moves etc (although, maybe even opening up a "skarmory taxi" service in HM-softlockable pokecentres/locations).
Every new video reassures me that this is a severely underrated channel.
The production, presentation, and pace of the video is fantastic. One if the best videos I've seen, I look forward to seeing more videos from you. One of the best random RUclips recommendations I've received.
Awesome! Well thank you very much for the positive feedback, I really appreciate that. 😊
I would've gone simple and given Bugsy an Ariados and a Ledian, but I like your suggestion way better. Maybe give him Heracross instead of Scyther though
i know it’s ages away, but i can’t wait for your unova review!! it’s my fav region for so many reasons
I feel like Unova is gonna be such a fun project! It's the region I've spent the least amount of time in, so doing a deep dive is gonna be really interesting.
Loving the idea of Misty as an E4! My favorite Gym Leader getting promoted would be awesome.
I’d also personally fix the level curve in Johto. It’s notoriously low, and by the time you’re training your team it’s hard to grind on level 35-45 Pokemon in Kanto…but that’s a game development thing that I have no skill set on XD
Love that idea as well but who would you have replace her as the new cerulean city gym leader?
@@LanturnsPanniespull a page from the anime and have one of her sisters take over.
So happy that RUclips is recommending stuff like this to me ❤ Liked and subbed
I think for the HM’s you could change it to where species Pokémon have basically a list of HM’s they can use without knowing them. So like basically every water type could let you surf if they’re in your party without actually knowing the move, or most fully evolved Pokémon would be able to break rocks or use strength without knowing the moves. Could also be a good solution for new games so you can still have a “connection” with your Pokémon by letting them help you traverse the overworld but you don’t need to waste move slots.
Edit: it might make more sense then just knowing the HM too, cause pidgey for example could learn the move fly, but not be able to fast travel you until it evolves, where it can then fast travel even if it doesn’t know the move.
The fishing contest is a great idea - but I'd say Staryu should be included on the list. There's dialogue from one of the trainers near the whirl islands about how staryu and starmie's glow lights up the ocean floor at night there, but IIRC the star pokemon don't actually make an appearance (and neither the originals or the remakes showcase this supposed glow).
So staryu being available in the fishing contest, and having some glowy spots in that sea route, would fit excellently with the pre-established world building
I think pretty much everything in this video is a massive improvement on the original, very tasteful changes
I'm curious if you'd have an idea of how to fix/mitigate the level curve falling off a cliff in the midgame as well
Honestly, in my reviews, I try to stay away from things that don't specifically have to do with the region, but a few people have brought it up. I know that you gotta grind a lot in Johto, and I could see how that could negatively impact someone's opinion on the region. I would say that most wild Pokemon and trainer's Pokemon should always kind hover just a few levels under the next gym leader. The issue with Johto is that you get some autonomy to choose which gym leader you want to tackle next after Morty. But I think if the player sticks to the route that GF intended, they could just scale the leveling up based on that route. Not to mention that there are too many pre-evolved wild Pokemon in the mid to late game that really need some evolving. Like, at some point, we shouldn't be running into Rattata that are over level 20, y'know? Idk, these are just some quick fixes I could think of off the top of my head, but I would assume that could fix the issues.
This is awesome! Are you planning on doing other regions? If you’re taking suggestions I’d love to see your review on Sinnoh and give it the same treatment as Johto
I absolutely will be doing the other regions 😊 Hoenn is up next, and then it'll be Sinnoh! I'm very excited to cover Sinnoh, as I haven't spent as much time in it, so I think it'll be a really fun deep dive.
I always found it confusing that I needed to trade a Houndour to have it on my team before the post-game... Excellent points, loved your video. :)
I agree with everything you’ve said but ya gotta admit that at the time it was crazy that game freak was able to fit both jhoto and kanto in one cartridge. And the stadium 1-2 with transfer pak and link cable that to this day is still super awesome being able to get trades with the link cable. Gotta love it❤
Ive wanted for a while to make more "Ecological" rom hacks... Add in future/past Pokemon based on biomes and culture (more yokai mon to the first 4 regions, add Mankey to Hoenn jungles etc) and your retileing idea is great
I absolutely love this video idea. Johto needed a good fixing.
I agree! Johto is pretty great, but it could definitely use some fixing!
I'm so excited for this!!!!
For the gym leaders and E4 I actually thought about teams for all of them while watching smithplays pokemon's crystal romhack videos.
Falkner: hoothoot spearow pidgeotto (focus on birds of prey since he's a falconer; murkrow is nice but the extra power and coverage isn't that necessary this early in the game)
Bugsy: lots of options for his first 2 pokemon but I think heracross fits better than scyther. It's slower but still powerful, doesn't overlap with yanma's weaknesses, matches bugsy's friendly design more, and always looked like a bug first and a fighter second anyway. It also has a different 4x weakness that encourages the player to use a flying type instead of onix/geodude again.
Whitney: again, a lot of options but I don't have any specific recommendations
Morty: haunter murkrow misdreavus gengar (murkrow has weirdly good defensive synergy with haunter/gengar as shown on karen's team, but its stats are better suited for this point in the game; more variation from the gastly line)
Chuck: primeape hitmontop machoke/graveler poliwrath (my version of bugsy already has heracross so chuck will keep primeape. Since the last gym already had 4 pokemon it feels like the gyms after him should follow suit; machoke is the most reasonable addition for this point in the game, but I prefer graveler so it can punish flying and electric types for poliwrath and give chikorita users a win. It's not a fighting type but it matches the theme of toughness and functions similarly to bruno's onixes, plus the machop line is overused by fighting specialists)
Jasmine: skarmory magneton scizor/forretress steelix (coincidentally all the steel types in this generation complement each other really well already. The only major hole I see is scizor/forettress's 4x weakness to fire in which case I might add/replace a member with a rock-type as a nod to her previous type specialty)
Pryce: piloswine jynx sneasel dewgong/cloyster (I'm leaning more toward the mammalian dewgong to distinguish his team from lorelei's mostly aquatic team; jynx is here to deal with the faster fighting and grass types that threaten the rest of the team instead of delibird)
Clair: gyarados dragonair dragonair/lapras kingdra (depending on how many pokemon you think she should have, I think clair could add/replace a member with lapras since it's another mythical reptile that's rare in-game; its only previous use was on an E4 member's team which would add to clair's prestige and it can wall ice types for dragonair. It was also on Iris's team)
Will: girafarig xatu slowking exeggutor espeon (I agree with your changes but I'd also replace jynx with espeon since it's stronger, faster, and creates a neat parallel to karen's umbreon; jynx's ice STAB doesn't provide much useful coverage for the team anyway)
Koga: venemoth forretress/scizor muk tentacruel crobat (I'd replace ariados with tentacruel just cuz he already has a poison/bug and tentacruel provides vital coverage against ground rock and fire)
Bruno: hitmonlee hitmonchan golem heracross machamp (it'd probably be better if he were replaced by someone with more options, but for the sake of argument I'd go with this. Heracross counters psychics and was just inevitable overlap. And while steelix may be the obvious choice over golem, the latter keeps the fire weaknesses to a minimum and has its 4x grass weakness covered by heracross)
Karen: hypno/mr. mime vileplume houndoom umbreon tyranitar (karen's team is already fine in terms of type synergy so this is just an alternative. Tyranitar is here as proof that karen is the strongest E4 member similar to drake from hoenn. Vileplume is surprisingly still necessary since it covers ground rock and water for tyranitar and houndoom. And hypno/mr. mime is here to destroy fighting types since murkrow is pretty frail and gengar would add another ground weaknesses. They're also both just creepy and vaguely nefarious)
Lance: skarmory charizard gyarados dragonite 3x (the 3 dragonites are controversial but I think it's important that at least half his team is in fact dragon type for him to keep his dragon master title, plus it follows naturally from his gen 1 team. Charizard and gyarados both provide valuable coverage, but aerodactyl doesn't so I'd replace it with skarmory. In general steel just gels better with dragon and it makes half of his team neutral to ice instead of just 1/3 of it.
For the Town & City part, where you talk about Trade in Black Thorn City; you already have Rocky the Onix from TRADING back in Violet for a Bellsprout.
Yeah…I’m a hyper aggressive Gen2 defender, but Johto needs some fixes.
Difficulty curve is one. It’s too easy.
I really like the idea of the Cherrygrove flower shop apricorns and the Cianwoid fishing contest. A fishing contest feels like a missed opportunity by Game Freak.
Check out Crystal Legacy.. that rom hack is really good
I really would've liked to see a fishing tourney. It could've been done, too!
OH! That's the ROM I mentioned in the video! I really wanna play through that one.
yous a boomer, boomer
They absolutely could have included a rain system like that in HGSS. I believe the Wild Area actually uses the exact sort of system you're describing.
Idea for HM replacement: All pokemon who can use said HMs can do them automatically without the use of HMs, but you need the appropriate gym badge to do so.
For instance: You can fly with any flying type pokemon without the use of the HM, but you need the Cianwood gym badge in order to be able to.
I actually really enjoy your content and the way you approach topics. You're great, thanks for the video!
A good alternative for the transportation section could be a Swiss Army knife or Johto army knife in this case. I picture it as less of a pocket knife and more of a special backpack. Just like in real life it’d be a device with many tools to fit your current task. You’d still need to gather HMs but you’d just add them to the Johto army knife once you get them. A little propeller for fly, a raft for surf ect.
Hahaha 🤣 a tiny little Swiss army knife flying the player around the region would be hilarious.
Nice ideas. Lots of videos/Hacks get bogged down on fixing the level curve and gym teams because they're the most obvious flaws. It was nice to hear more diverse thoughts.
Having a flower/berry shop in Cherrygrove is great for showing off berries at a point in the game when they're actually useful. Sword/Shield had a berry shop in the first town and I was surprised how fun it was playing around with them early on.
Well thank you 😊. I just didn't think I'd be bringing anything new to the table by talking about the level curve since it's been talked about by other creators a lot. Plus, I didn't feel that it pertained to the Johto region, itself. I'm glad you liked the flower shop idea, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. 😊
I love how region repair is now even a series and playlist.
LOVE your outlook omg, would love to see you on the Hidden Power podcast, feel like you'd get on with the hosts aha
I loved this! Please do the rest of the pokemon world!
Johto has the cutest Pokémon designs in the whole series but gamefreak inexplicably keeps them hidden from the player. The biggest tragedy of Pokémon is the missed potential of Johto.
New subscriber here. Great video, Sabrina. Johto, while nostalgic, definitely needs more fine tuning in terms of Pokémon diversity, availability, level curves, and biome diversity. While HGSS had the PokéWalker to help alleviate availability, I still think the games themselves need better encounters that more prominently showcase the new Johto Pokémon.
Yeah, I agree. Johto really doesn't need that much to be perfect, but it certainly needs at least a little TLC 😊
A suggestion for transportation is to use the cut skateboard key item... but eventually allow for upgrades to attain a hoverboard
LOVE the idea of a Teddiursa for Whitney. I also quite like Phanpy for her, even if it's not a Normal type. It could sort of pass for one. And it can also use the Roll-out strategy. But I totally understand if people would rather not have it on her team.
Personally, I like Jasmine having an Ampharos for her team even if it's not thematically accurate with her speciality (not Steel). Also it's a Johto Pokemon, and technically it does have SOME sort of synergy with her Magneton, sharing the Electric typing I guess. I don't know, I just think it fits her vibe, and her narrative with the story, etc. I also just don't like these Gym Leaders having so little Pokemon... Ampharos, Magneton, Skarmory, Steelix - that sounds good to me.
Claire is just one of the many "specialists" who specialize in a type that couldn't even fit a whole team if they wanted to in their respective Generation lol. But someone once said that Claire should be a Master of the Sea Dragons and Lance a Master of the Sky Dragons, and that concept REALLY stuck with me. That would essentially make Claire a sort of glorified Water Gym trainer in a way (and Lance a Flying Champion lol), but lowkey...I think it works better that way. With that in mind, Claire could have a Ferraligator on her team. It sooooooooooooort of looks like a Dragon.......iiiiiiiish. I also have Mantine in mind. Not really a dragon, but I don't know.... sooooorta....kinda....if you squint really hard and inhale some copium. It would also be a Johto Pokemon - so a plus. So it would give her a team of : Gyarados, Dragonair, Ferraligator, Mantine and Kingdra. Sort of a Water/Dragon specialist. Lots of Johto Pokemon. And a team of five for the last Gym.
I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOVE the idea of Misty as a new E4. I've already said so in another one of your videos. It's just so good. Misty always looked up to Lorelai, so it would make sense she would aspire to be E4. And the Beautiful Sisters could take the Cerulean Gym back. And it's as you said : there are SO many Water Pokemon newly introduced in Johto, and she could make good use of a LOT of them. Politoed is literally canon-accurate. In the manga she has a Lanturn, which is such a nice addition to her team in general. Guagsire is perfect for her as well. If we're doing Abilities, an Azumarill with Huge Power could be a cute addition to her team too.
I really like your ideas here. If we decided to remove the type-theme of the Gym leaders, literally all of your ideas; Phanpy for Whitney, Ampharos for Jasmine, and Feraligatr for Clair would work pretty perfectly! This was super interesting to read! Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I really like the Gym Leader additions you talked about here.
Fun video, i am interested to see more in this category. Even if the topic usnt the region as a whole
Most if not all the things listed here can be implemented in gen 2 via rom hacking, there's a rom hack called crystal legacy that afaik fixed or tried to fix the gen 2 experience (not sure since I haven't tried it yet). Anyway, good video. Cheers
I definitely want to check it out. I believe that's the ROM that someone had recommended to me. I really need to play that one.
15:57 I've never actually had much of a problem with HMs, but one modification I could see is HMs giving the 'mon the permanent ability to fly, cut, flash, etc. in addition to the in-combat move. The move can be forgotten, but you always have the traversal ability so long as the pokemon who learned it remains in your party.
I really like this idea. I think having HMs make permanent changes to the Pokemon's ability to actually Surf, Fly, Rock Smash, etc. would be great, especially if you could then delete the actual move from the moveset afterwards. Great idea! Thanks for sharing your input. 😊
Regarding the HM problem I have always thought that pokemon should work similarly to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Basically to use a hm you would only need any pokemon of the corresponding type on your team, like fighting for rocksmash, water for surf, flying for fly, etc... so it would still require appropriate pokemon for the action but your options would expand immensely XD
My idea for Blackthorn City content would be to add a Dragon Trainer Tournament, where it's like its own mini Battle Facility, where you can only enter Dragon-types. Common participants could include Clair, Lance, Silver, Ethan/Lyra, maybe a cameo by someone like Zinnia, Iris, or Drayden, especially if this were to be postgame content for a remake, this would obviously have to come with an expansion of available Dragon-type Pokemon, so that every trainer isn't using Dragonites and Kingdras. If they include Alolan forms and Megas, you can also throw in things like Mega Ampharos and Charizard, or Alolan Exeggutor.
As for the in-game trade, I'd make it so he's trading a Seadra holding a Dragon Scale for a Dragonair, that way if you want to get that Dex Entry you can do so in the city of dragons, where one of the Gym Leader's signature Pokemon is a Kingdra.
I'm intrigued for a johto remake with these sort of changes and the inclusion of the fairy type.
Loved the vid! I’m working on a similar video myself that involves rewriting the order of events in the Johto games, and it was interesting to see some different ideas here :)
Oh cool! That's an interesting idea! 😊 Good luck on your video!
I have a solution for the HM thing. In the post game, you can somehow receive key items that have the HM functionality built in. Such things as a hand saw, inflatable raft, and flying taxi pass.
I think if u make articuno, zapdos, and moltres roaming legends, u could attach weather effects to the routes they are on similar to RS&E (kyogre & groudon) and B&W (tornadus & thunderus). It could be hailing where articuno is, heavy rain with zapdos, and heavy sun with moltres. Just another way to add weather to the routes and more engaging exploration IMO.
About the HM problem: there was scrapped art concepts of the main character riding a skateboard instead of a bike (which was later included in the pokemon adventure manga)
The skateboard could be a used as a faster bike, or could be used to jump over ledges or obstacles like the mach bike in gen 3
For the Gym Leader portion
Faulkner : Same as MandJTV NICE!
Bugsy: Good choices, I've seen more people go with Ledyba & Spinark and replace Sycther with Heracross, but its still a good team.
Whittney: I like it.
Morty, Chuck, Jasmine: Yeah.
Pryce & Clair: Yeah.
In addition to johto mons, I would love to see some evolution stones included in the main story. that could also increase the diversity with pokemon like victreeble, poliwrath, arcanine and the kanto eeveelutions being easier to get without doing the pokeathlon. I even thought of suitable places - a fire stone in the burned tower (after getting strength, requires to move some boulders), a water stone south of goldenrod where there are already some swimmers with water pokemon, a leaf stone in azalea forest (could also require surf in order to reach it) and a thunder stone in olivine's lighthouse. each location seems like a fine place to locate an evolution stone, and its way more approachable than forcing the player to do mini games or wait for certain phone calls from NPCs
Ooooh, that's a good point. There should definitely be more evolutionary stones around the region, even if they were well-hidden.
Here are my ideas to make Johto a better and well rounded region
1. Make Johto Separated from Kanto. But keep the Kanto referrnces.
2. Have the Johto gym leader use Johto Pokemon as main leads
3. Have a Pokegear building located in Cherrygrove City since you can get the pokegear in the beginning of the game.
4. Make.Route 45/46's mountsin road into Cycling Road
5. Have a Pokemon league/victory road on its own
6. Make a new and improved crime team organization
I loved, loved, loved this video and all the changes made here. Like, that would turn Johto from a "decent" region to a definitely awesome one 👏.
But my favorite thing to do is to modify the gym leader's teams cause the Johto ones are so bad and easy to beat, and they need to be more challenging. While I agree on most of the team changes shown in this video, these are the ones I'd propose:
1- Falkner: Yeah, Hoot-Hoot and Murkrow are perfect here. I've seen some people suggest an underleveled Noctowl as his ace, and while that may sound as a good idea, I think it'd literally make it impossible for Chikorita to beat him. So Hoot-Hoot and Murkrow are good, with the dark type as his ace.
2- Bugsy: and here's where we differ cause I think Bugsy would benefit from having a Ledyba or even an underleveled Ledian. I think it can learn both light screen and reflect, in addition to the elemental punches, so it'd be better than Pineco. Yanma is good, tho. But I think it would be good to make things more interesting if his team varied between versions. Where perhaps in HG he has a Yanma and in SS he has a Spinarak instead.
3- Whitney: Yeah, Teddiursa is perfect for her. But again, to add more diversity, she could have Teddiursa in HG and Snubull in SS cause Snubull is another Pokemon that gets almost no representation.
4- Morty: Yeah, as the only new gosht type introduced in this gen, Misdreavous is a sure pick. But I think that perhaps, in the gen 2 games, he could use a non-gosht type to fill in the team instead of Gastly. Both Stantler and Girafarig are good contenders since they fit his whole "creepy" vibe very well. For the gen 4 HG/SS remakes, just add in Misdreavous (obviously) and Sableye cause it had no weaknesses.
5- Chuck: Now, this one's interesting cause it's hard to give him a team that doesn’t clash with Bruno's. So I say to give him Hitmontop and Heracross both in the gen 2 games and the remakes to fill his team. Poliwrath and Primape can stay.
6- Jasmine: Magneton and Skarmory are perfect for her. Give her Magneton a Shucca berry so that it won't die to a ground move. Skarmory can hold an Occa to lessen fire moves.
7- Pryce: Yeah, while Delibird is a new Pokemon, I don’t think it's a good addition to anyone's team, especially cause I want to try and make him less easy for Typhlosion users. So I say, in addition to giving his Dewgong a water move like water pulse or bubble beam at least, he should get a Lapras, the superior ice/water type to counter Typhlosion. Give both Dewgong and Lapras Wacan berries to weaken electric type damage cause Typhlosion can learn thunder punch after all. I think that in the gen 4 remakes, his Piloswine should be evolved into Mamoswine to make things even harder for Typhlosion. Give him a Pasho berry too, to reduce water type damage from any Feraligatr users, to not make it very easy for the water starter.
8- Claire: Yeah, this one's very hard cause there's nothing you can do for her, at least in Gen 2. I think she could still replace one of her Dragonairs for Gyarados in gen 2, but with the higher diversity provided by the remakes, and access to mon from other regions, I say give her either a Shelgon or a Gabite. Again, for diversity, she could have Shelgon in SS and Gabite in HG.
Will: Just give him an Espeon, please, and thank you.
Koga: replace his Ariados with a Qwillfish so that he'll have a Surf user against Typhlosion. In the gen 4 remakes, he could have a Nidoking with Earthquake for a real intimidating offensive presence on his team. Have it in place of Forretress.
Bruno: And here's where the big changes happen. I think that in the gen 2 games, he can keep the Hitmons cause nothing can be done about that. But for more diversity, he could change the 2 Onyx for a Donphan and an Ursaring. I know they're not fighting types, but they still look like manly, tough, hard-hitting mon I think he'd train with. And they're definitely better than Onyx. In the HG/SS remakes, tho, that's where I'd change his team thanks to having more options. Change Hitmonchan and Lee for a Medicham and a Lucario. He obviously also keeps Ursaring and Donphan. That way, Chuck can use the Hitmons cause Bruno won't have them anymore.
Karen: Evolve her Murkrow and give her a Tyranitar as suggested.
Lance: his team is good in Gen 2. Just make them higher level. In HG/SS tho, I think he could have a Salamence, in place of one of his Dragonites. That reflects how he has the evolved forms of Claire's Pokemon. And that would be all.
Though I think that something else that also needs to change is the team Rocket plotline by making them harder. Perhaps it could be changed by having a plot twist that Giovanni had actually never dissolved the team. He was always working with them and helping from the shadows. And, of course, give the executives better teams.
And that would be all.
Love a lot of your thoughts, I love gen2 but i'm kinda frustrated about johto as a region, small and lack of dungeon diversity (almost nothing but caves, empty ones), and some easy points easy to fix like pokemon distribution.
But I love the dex (my favorite designs are gen2 for the most), the atmosphere of this region, the link with Kanto, even if the more i think, the more i see Kanto as an handicap. I think there is a lot of potential, and your vidéo show some good ideas.
Thanks for the great video, So interesting to watch
Thanks for checking it out! 😊 I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
Another banger! These could be easily implemented for the most part but yeah most of the fixes are very reasonable and I agree with pretty much every point.
Keep up the great videos. Your voice is such a treat to listen to. Could see you doing voice acting in so many different animes
Why thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. 😊
Awesome! Gonna pop this on while I finish up my Pokemon Scarlet living dex
Well thanks for checking it out! I hope you enjoyed the video. 😊
Good points. Never even considered adding weather but it would add so much to the immersion. 100% on needing more Johto pokemon too!
To clair: Replace 1 Dragonair with an Ampharos. It helps her covering water / ice types and it has a Dragon-Type Mega form.
Those changes would definitely make the region the best in the franchise
I think so, too! I hear the Crystal Legacy ROM hack addresses a lot of the issues too, and a lot of folks have recommended it to me.
Just got home. Time to chill and watch 😁
Part of the issues with Johto is that it is a product of its time. Gen 2 was meant to be the conclusion of the series and the team admitted they had to cut a lot of content to make room on the limited hardware for all of Kanto. Gen 4 wanted to make a faithful recreation of the original games which is why they didn’t make a ton of changes. :/ I wish they did more though
18:30 the gen 2 pokemon being in kanto instead of johto always bugged me tremendously, spot on
Honestly one of the ways I would "fix Johto" is to throw in more bug types introduced in the generation into the bug catching contest.
Why is it only Kanto Pokemon?
Why is it in gen 4, all of the post dex Pokemon are bug types from Hoenn and Sinnoh?
If Paras, Venonat, Butterfree, Beedrill, Scyther, and Pincer are just going to magically appear during this contest, why not others?
Why not Yanma, Heracross, Pineco, Ledyba, and Spinarak?
All of a sudden Bugsy has a reason to have them on his team.
Oooh that's a really solid point. There should absolutely be more Johto bugs in the Bug Catching Contest.
An easy transport fix would be for them to add a few more ferries/swimmable areas that would make the map open up a LOT once the player has surf/boat pass for example goldenrod could easily have a water connection to another city that's locked until you get to goldenrod
This is a pretty good idea. And it could be implemented as fast-travel, too. And if not, we could have an S.S. Anne type of experience more frequently. 😊
In terms of natural phenomenons on certain days on Mt. Silver there's diamond dust which is a special type of snow
One of my favorite iterations of HMs comes from Pokémon Reloaded. That game has many, MANY field moves, not just HMs, but the way they fixed the big number was by giving the Pokémon a "skill" system. Not only was this a good way to implement out of battle effects for abilities, but it also made it so a Pokémon would retain a skill even after forgetting a move.
You could teach one Pokémon Surf, Waterfall, Dive and Whirlpool, forget all of those moves (HMs are easily forgetabble) and you would have a Pokémon dedicated to traversing water while not destroying it's moveset.
You and SmithPlays Pokémon NEED to get together to make Pokémon Heart and Soul, a Crystal Legacy style remaster of HGSS! Make one of the arguably best Pokémon games even better? SQUIRTINA!
I love that idea
You have some absolutely brilliant ideas! You got a new subscriber!!!
I generally like HMs and I feel like removing them has affected route design and progression negatively.
That said making it so that boulders/trees/rocks only need to be removed once instead of every time would help a lot.
Growing up, i always thought the most reasonable thing would be to have a different HM slot for moves. Then to some degree you have to build around it, in that you need a pokemon that can learn cut or flash, but don't need to give up a battle slot.
That and/or HM move progressions. Like cut and slash can be used for a tree. Rock smash could have a stronger version. I just never liked that surf and strength were the only useful HMs
I agree with everything and to add my opinion the traveling around with HMs could be done the same as brilliant diamond and shining pearl where you request a wild pokemon to help making it so you don't need a hm slave anymore
Great video! Love Johto, and these are great ideas
Thank you so much! 😊
Okay, discussion about HM's aside, Lard is AMAZING. It was ostricized when society went on an anti-fat crusade that ended with the acceptance of added sugar & hydrogenated oils in all our modern foods. Our food is the worse for losing it.
Now, back to HM's. We can bring back HM's & just fix them. I loved your take on using HM's to fix the Hoenn games.
You know the most frustrating thing about rainy system on pokemon?
On gen 3, not only you can enable anywhere, but they did the swarm system, that is implemented but rarely useful,, so we could get what you described in here.
My favorite Johto gym leader is Whitney and people hate her too much, and ignore the fact that Clair was way worse, because at least Whitney gave you the badge without having you do something stupid, she just had a small fit
I love the solutions for trade evolutions! I never had anyone around to actually trade with :p
I agree with you on the gym leader teams...
If I could fix Clair's team...as the final gym leader, maybe she should use a team of five Pokemon, I mean that's what the Giovanni and the Hoenn final gym leader(s) did. But since there are so limited sea dragon-like Pokemon in the Johto regional dex...I'd probably use her HGSS team but replace one of the Dragonairs with Lapras and also give her a Vaporeon with Hidden Power Dragon at it's max base power. (Gen 4 is before Hidden Power became 60 base power. Also, hidden power does seem like a move that mythical-like pokemon like dragons would use imo)
You could argue Lapras is somewhat dragon-like, it can learn some dragon moves (Dragon Breath, Dragon Rage via TM in Gen 1, and heck even Dragon Dance as an egg move), and in Gen 5 we did get a dragon specialist that uses Lapras. While Vaporeon...IMO, for some reason I think looks sea dragon-like which works well with Clair's theme and Hidden Power Dragon uses it's better attacking stat.
I was also thinking while Clefairy fits Whitney, maybe it could also just be replaced with Furret...it evolves from Sentret at a mere level 16 anyways and it's cute in it's own right. So if we wanna got full Johto for her, then Teddiursa -> Furret -> Miltank. But to make her HGSS battle more fair, I'd replace Miltank's Lum Berry with just an Oran Berry.
Forretress does make sense for Koga but I'd personally replace it with Qwilfish, another new Johto poison type and it can also use evasion strats with Minimize like Muk and can also set up Spikes (or in later gens Toxic Spikes) like Forretress.
Also, for Lance's team of flying dragons...the only readjustment I can think of is replace one of his Dragonites with Skarmory and for some reason Bulbapedia seems to Skarmory's design also somewhat looks like a wyvern of all things. Maybe this is a bit of a stretch but it could theoretically work in terms of the theme and at least Charizard and Aerodactyl won't be the only counters to Ice Types...it's just that poor Skarmory's probably never going to have nor want to use any dragon moves, not even the likes of the pathetically weak Twister or Hidden Power Dragon cannot save this thing due to it's terrible special attack plus it doesn't even get Dragon Dance.
Another change I would make for the Johto games is the level curve. Have the level curve been readjusted...maybe Pryce's pokemon would actually been higher levels than Jasmine's as he's suppose to be the seventh gym leader, plus Lance's Dragonites could've been at the appropriate levels, and maybe the Kanto Gym Leaders that's not Blue also would've been at the appropriate levels in Gen 2 in the post-game.
Plus for Generation 2...to improve the difficulty curve, I'd make major trainer boss fights (starting from either 6th or 8th gym) to have their aces actually have held items plus their movesets need to be reworked.
More on the topic of Gen 2...since the physical/special split was not a thing yet at the time, I would have Ghost be a special attacking type and Dark as a physical attacking type. It would make the ghost types and dark types at the time very happy and it won't hurt Houndoom that badly since it still has usable physical attack. It's not completely perfect since Lick (not that anyone would wanna use it) would not be physical and the elemental punches would be special moves but hey, this is a pre-physical/split generation we're talking about.
Also, certain pokemon in GSC need appropriate and usable movesets...looking at you Gamefreak for making poor Gligar cry with no STAB damaging moves (okay there's Wing Attack...but only through breeding. But no ground moves despite being a ground type, do you know how many pokemon in the game can learn Mud-Slap in Gen 2?) and their other fellow Johto ground types like Piloswine and Donphan didn't even get Dig for some reason, the latter of which didn't even get to learn it in Gen 4!.
I'd give Bugsy a team consisting of Yanma, Heracross, and Scyther. In HGSS when you have the ability to rechallenge the Gym Leaders, I'd give him Yanmega, Heracross, Fortress, Ariados, and Scizor.
Maybe I think this because I’m old and I started playing during Gen 1 but I think getting rid of HMs was a bad move. Having to use a variety of HMs to traverse the land means that you’ll have to strategize your team both in and out of battle. It was also a really clever way of limiting where the player could go until they furthered the story. It also incentivized going back to certain routes because there would be areas only accessible by cut or surf.
Just found this channel and love the style and personality, I see potential and really looking forward to more in this series :>
Well thank you very much! I appreciate the kind words of support. 😊
I was today years old when i learned there was a fishing contest in Cianwood
Like you mentioned, you've GOT to play Pokémon Crystal: Legacy! Really good fine-tuning of Johto and the most fun I'd had playing a pokémon game in years!!! Great content though, loving these deep-dives especially with Johto as my all time fave
I really do want to check it out! A lot of people have recommended it to me, and I'm really looking forward to playing that one! 😊
I would love to see you analyse Temtem like that hehe
Im gonna watch this after work 😊
I hope ya enjoy it! 😊
@@saffroncitytv you know I will 😁
We could give Clair a Lapras to replace a dragonair maybe? It would fit her aesthetic and Lapras is pretty draconic in design.
Such great ideas! Love this video! ❤
Why thank ya thank ya!
Quite a lot of great fixes I think would spice up the region. Always making some great content. Why do I feel like the ROM hack mentioned is Crystal Legacy?
I think that is exactly the ROM that was recommended to me. And I really want to check it out and play it for myself, it sounds like an awesome hack!
It is one of the best ROM that I have tried, which does very friendly quality of life changes. They even just released a new patch for it and are promising a patch to fix the kanto part of the post-game. Really looking forward to see what they do.@@saffroncitytv
Not quite a repair but an enhancement of having specific areas and story beats where you change into another set of clothes to reflect the location and story development. Gen 4 did this by having you disguised as a Team a rocket grunt to infiltrate the basement, so things like traditional dress for battling the Eevee maidens in Ecruteak City, martial arts garb for the Cianwood Gym, a dragon tamer outfit for when you’re proving your worth to Clair after the battle etc would make the region’s practices more immersive. Player character outfits based on trainer classes that reflect the gyms that you wear when challenging each gym would do a lot for this.
I could agree with most of the changes. I could say that we could make a berry shop in Cherrygrove that opens after you battle Sudowoodo for the daily berry mechanic. We could also add a cave on Cianwood for the Suicune storyline that could have pokemon like Teddiursa and Larvitar, as well as some Johto water types. The incense shop at Mahogany also makes sense. Expanding the Dragon's Den to make it feel like a trial would be cool as well. A complete upgrade to Kanto to make it feel like a challenge mode would be great as well. I feel like so much was taken away from Kanto that could have come back in the HGSS. Yes, the perfect Johto is great, but it won't be as great unless Kanto actually brings something new