Watch Da Birdie
I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Introduction to Generation II Pokemon
So I've finished writing up a summary for every Kanto Pokemon, including their Cross-Generation Baby Forms and Evolutions, for a total of 183 individual species! Not to mention the plentiful Kanto Mega Evolutions! From here on out, it'll be relatively smooth sailing.
Now it's on to Johto and Generation II. As Generation II had many Pokemon who I already covered due to being related to Generation I Pokemon, out of the 100 Generation II Pokemon I only have 81 left to cover, plus their Baby Forms and Evolutions introduced in Generation III and IV, but that number will still be small---I believe it'll put me at roughly 100 again. Before I start talking about the individual Johto Pokemon, I'd like to talk about them as a whole. I didn't do this with the Kanto Pokemon, because I feel they need no introduction, but for future Generations I'll give a summary about that Generation and what it brought and meant to the franchise as a whole.
Generation II was the first "new generation" most of us experienced, and it was absolutely wild due to the Internet being rather young and ripe for rumors. Japan was far ahead of us in terms of new Pokemon being revealed, and thus there were plenty of misunderstandings with otherwise regular Generation II Pokemon being mistaken as "PokeGods" and catchable in Generation I games through obscure cheats and glitches, and a ton of fakes flying around like that panda and hammerhead shark that were claimed to be the next Box Mascots. I remember getting Pojo and Beckett Magazine around the time Gold and Silver were released in Japan, and all those horrifically ugly pseudo-Sugimori Art they used since they couldn't use the real thing, and the Sandwich Islands importer's guide, showing the sprites and data of all the New Pokemon which blew my mind! To be fair, when I first saw the Johto Pokemon, I was taken aback, and thought "are these really Pokemon?". To be fair, I think that's natural upon seeing New Pokemon for the first time, and every Generation that has happened to me---some people never get over that mental hurdle, though, but for me personally that thought soon subsides by the time I actually play the games and I'm able to accept the new faces as official Pokemon without an issue.
To many fans, Gold and Silver are the peak of the Pokemon experience, possibly only beaten out by their Generation IV remakes Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The Johto Pokemon are thus held in high regard by many fans, often by proxy included among the "original 151", but I think this is mainly due to the fact that Johto Pokemon are wholly unoffensive. What do I mean by that? Well, in Gold and Silver, Kanto Pokemon, and their new evolutions, were still king, and got more focus than many of the actual new Pokemon who were pushed to rare areas, and barely used by major trainers---to note, the Johto Gym Leaders only use four Johto Pokemon in total, two of them an evolution of a Generation I Pokemon, and overall I feel like the Johto Pokemon seriously got the short end of the stick. Kanto Pokemon were easy to find, and players were somewhat encouraged to use them due to how common they were and could be seen as reliable party members due to the fond memories associated with them, and one could easily import old favorites into the game around the 3rd Gym. I just don't think Game Freak had a lot of trust in the Johto Pokemon to carry the game on their own, so they relied on the classic 151 once again, and in my opinion, perhaps a bit too much. Thus I think the main reason many people like the Johto Pokemon enough to consider them unofficial members of the classic 151 is that the Johto Pokemon simply do not appear enough to really stick in player's minds for better or worse, and they're seen as an addition rather than replacing the original 151, which is an issue fans have with later Pokemon especially Generation III and V.
Beyond that, a lot of Generation II Pokemon excluding a few exception are rather weird, gimmicky, and incomplete feeling. Generation IV fixed this by adding some much needed evolutions, but even now there are a lot of Pokemon who seem to just fizzle out, and while Generation I had plenty of 3-stage families, excluding the Starters Generation II has a paltry three, which makes it feel a bit underwhelming. Visually, I think in retrospect it's Generation II, not Generation III, where Pokemon experienced a shift in aesthetic design, and looking back I feel most Generation II Pokemon feel closer to Generation III than Generation I. It's here where Pokemon became a bit more weird, colorful (you'll notice a lot of pastel colors compared to Generation I's more drowned out colors), cuter, and arguably simpler and less realistic, which to me I see it as an overall positive, but many fans do not like many elements which I think had their start in Generation II and became more prevalent in later Generations. To be fair, Generation II Pokemon aren't bad, I have a decent amount of favorites within it, I just think overall a lot of them feel like they were leftover ideas Game Freak couldn't implement originally in Red and Green, and rather than letting them cook a bit more to give them their own identity, put them into the sequel to buff up the numbers without focusing on their overall cohesion. Generation IV also has this problem, and whenever I look at Generation II and IV beyond the new evolutions I get the feeling that there's no sense of "balance" when it comes to the Pokemon like Generation I has where you look at a group shot, and everything comes together with a specific role to fill.
I think the issues I'm talking about can be summed up simply by looking at the Johto Starters, who are next. To put it bluntly, they're probably my least favorite Starters overall, and I feel they're indicative of many issues that plague Generation II: in the shadows of the old Pokemon, a feeling of incompleteness where there's never a sense that they reach their full potential, some odd design choices that don't feel as instantly as memorable as the Kanto Starters, and being rather weak all things considered compared to those that came before and after them when all is said and done. But I don't hate them, I just think they're underwhelming. I think it's a bit indicative Game Freak dropped the Starters from the cover beginning with Generation II, because they don't feel like front-of-the-box material.
So I've finished writing up a summary for every Kanto Pokemon, including their Cross-Generation Baby Forms and Evolutions, for a total of 183 individual species! Not to mention the plentiful Kanto Mega Evolutions! From here on out, it'll be relatively smooth sailing.
Now it's on to Johto and Generation II. As Generation II had many Pokemon who I already covered due to being related to Generation I Pokemon, out of the 100 Generation II Pokemon I only have 81 left to cover, plus their Baby Forms and Evolutions introduced in Generation III and IV, but that number will still be small---I believe it'll put me at roughly 100 again. Before I start talking about the individual Johto Pokemon, I'd like to talk about them as a whole. I didn't do this with the Kanto Pokemon, because I feel they need no introduction, but for future Generations I'll give a summary about that Generation and what it brought and meant to the franchise as a whole.
Generation II was the first "new generation" most of us experienced, and it was absolutely wild due to the Internet being rather young and ripe for rumors. Japan was far ahead of us in terms of new Pokemon being revealed, and thus there were plenty of misunderstandings with otherwise regular Generation II Pokemon being mistaken as "PokeGods" and catchable in Generation I games through obscure cheats and glitches, and a ton of fakes flying around like that panda and hammerhead shark that were claimed to be the next Box Mascots. I remember getting Pojo and Beckett Magazine around the time Gold and Silver were released in Japan, and all those horrifically ugly pseudo-Sugimori Art they used since they couldn't use the real thing, and the Sandwich Islands importer's guide, showing the sprites and data of all the New Pokemon which blew my mind! To be fair, when I first saw the Johto Pokemon, I was taken aback, and thought "are these really Pokemon?". To be fair, I think that's natural upon seeing New Pokemon for the first time, and every Generation that has happened to me---some people never get over that mental hurdle, though, but for me personally that thought soon subsides by the time I actually play the games and I'm able to accept the new faces as official Pokemon without an issue.
To many fans, Gold and Silver are the peak of the Pokemon experience, possibly only beaten out by their Generation IV remakes Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The Johto Pokemon are thus held in high regard by many fans, often by proxy included among the "original 151", but I think this is mainly due to the fact that Johto Pokemon are wholly unoffensive. What do I mean by that? Well, in Gold and Silver, Kanto Pokemon, and their new evolutions, were still king, and got more focus than many of the actual new Pokemon who were pushed to rare areas, and barely used by major trainers---to note, the Johto Gym Leaders only use four Johto Pokemon in total, two of them an evolution of a Generation I Pokemon, and overall I feel like the Johto Pokemon seriously got the short end of the stick. Kanto Pokemon were easy to find, and players were somewhat encouraged to use them due to how common they were and could be seen as reliable party members due to the fond memories associated with them, and one could easily import old favorites into the game around the 3rd Gym. I just don't think Game Freak had a lot of trust in the Johto Pokemon to carry the game on their own, so they relied on the classic 151 once again, and in my opinion, perhaps a bit too much. Thus I think the main reason many people like the Johto Pokemon enough to consider them unofficial members of the classic 151 is that the Johto Pokemon simply do not appear enough to really stick in player's minds for better or worse, and they're seen as an addition rather than replacing the original 151, which is an issue fans have with later Pokemon especially Generation III and V.
Beyond that, a lot of Generation II Pokemon excluding a few exception are rather weird, gimmicky, and incomplete feeling. Generation IV fixed this by adding some much needed evolutions, but even now there are a lot of Pokemon who seem to just fizzle out, and while Generation I had plenty of 3-stage families, excluding the Starters Generation II has a paltry three, which makes it feel a bit underwhelming. Visually, I think in retrospect it's Generation II, not Generation III, where Pokemon experienced a shift in aesthetic design, and looking back I feel most Generation II Pokemon feel closer to Generation III than Generation I. It's here where Pokemon became a bit more weird, colorful (you'll notice a lot of pastel colors compared to Generation I's more drowned out colors), cuter, and arguably simpler and less realistic, which to me I see it as an overall positive, but many fans do not like many elements which I think had their start in Generation II and became more prevalent in later Generations. To be fair, Generation II Pokemon aren't bad, I have a decent amount of favorites within it, I just think overall a lot of them feel like they were leftover ideas Game Freak couldn't implement originally in Red and Green, and rather than letting them cook a bit more to give them their own identity, put them into the sequel to buff up the numbers without focusing on their overall cohesion. Generation IV also has this problem, and whenever I look at Generation II and IV beyond the new evolutions I get the feeling that there's no sense of "balance" when it comes to the Pokemon like Generation I has where you look at a group shot, and everything comes together with a specific role to fill.
I think the issues I'm talking about can be summed up simply by looking at the Johto Starters, who are next. To put it bluntly, they're probably my least favorite Starters overall, and I feel they're indicative of many issues that plague Generation II: in the shadows of the old Pokemon, a feeling of incompleteness where there's never a sense that they reach their full potential, some odd design choices that don't feel as instantly as memorable as the Kanto Starters, and being rather weak all things considered compared to those that came before and after them when all is said and done. But I don't hate them, I just think they're underwhelming. I think it's a bit indicative Game Freak dropped the Starters from the cover beginning with Generation II, because they don't feel like front-of-the-box material.
