The Biggest Missed Opportunities in Pokemon 

Which missed opportunity is the biggest to you?

The biggest missed opportunity in Gen 5 was not being able to challenge Hilbert/Hilda at the end of B2W2 postgame like Red in gen 2. You could have had the player climb up the old victory road and meet them at the summit. Also honourable mention goes to Alolamola not being a luvdisk evolution.

Mine are not that important, but: 1) not allowing any clothing customization in ORAS, after the amazing clothing options in XY. 2) not including cross-gen evolutions in LGPE. If they could include the regional variants and Meltan/Melmetal, they could have included Crobat, Scizor, Electivire, Sylveon, etc. 3) making USUM into alternate tellings of the SM story instead of sequels. The Alola story had soooo much potential for a direct sequel!

Lilly not being in Lets Go P/E despite LITERALLY saying she was going to Kanto at the end of the previous game was a TRAGEDY.

Custom clothes from XY should have been brought back in the later Pokémon games. Having a university-centered region where the characters are stuck into wearing only school uniforms makes the custom character option pointless and contradict the open world theme.

1. Inverse Battles in X and Y. A fantastic twist that doesn’t challenge the hardware in the way triple, rotation and horde battles did, but locked to one house on a late game route and only battle a day allowed. This could have been in an ORAS Battle Frontier as well 2. Difficulty settings. Black 2 and White 2 make a token effort, but even that is a charitable description since Easy or Hard depends on which game you play and it’s a post-game unlock at that. Difficulty modes would easily address the complaints about the games being too easy whilst keeping that easy mode for younger and new to the franchise players, and having them available from the start is standard for video games. 3. Multiple save slots on a single cartridge. Replayability is less appealing when it means wiping your already existing completed story and Pokédex save file. The Switch games have a workaround by being able to play multiple profiles off of one cartridge, but before then you had to sacrifice your team and progress if you wanted to go around again. Expanding on multiple save slots, incorporate a New Game +, moving around item locations, Pokemon locations or in some way change trainer battles. Unique lines of dialogue for event flags if you did them first time around. 4. Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee only using controlling Pikachu or Eevee directly for one sequence. This is an aspect that could have spiced up exploration and given the games something genuinely refreshing and interesting about the gameplay. Caves are perfect for this, a rockfall that Pikachu or Eevee need to get through to clear a way for the player character. 5. Not connecting Galar to Kalos. They’re based on the UK and France respectively, neighbouring countries and a Pokémon world version of the Channel Tunnel would be ideal for establishing characters going to and fro between the regions. Ditto for Kalos and Paldea as France and Spain, also neighbours geographically and no large body of water to separate them this time. The Scarlet and Violet DLCs are themed around student exchange programs, so travel to other parts of the world outside Paldea is a thing, it’s not just new areas within the region as Isle of Armour and Crown Tundra were. Having a Kalos exchange student would allow callbacks to X and Y, perhaps open up the character customisation beyond the school uniform, and spotlight more Kalos Pokemon.

In terms of missed opportunities, they really should've included the Distortion World in BDSP and Legends: Arceus. We got things similar to the Distortion World but just doesn't feel the same being there.

It always always bothered me that Lunatone and Solrock did not get some love in Sun and moon-like no fun evo or even just hey you get one as a mystery gift with some silly move it can’t normally learn. Felt like easy enough promo potential

I feel like Kyogre or Lugia or something should’ve been in the abyssal ruins.

The fact that we didn't get a Sinnoh Battle Frontier arc in the anime.

What you said about Galar not letting people explore some locations, I feel it applies to Scarlet and Violet as well. Buildings are now just facades, and you can only interact with shops. It is annoying.

For me I'd love two things, difficulty settings which Bw2 once sort of played about with, and multiple save files! I don't wanna have to restart my file for wanting to do a new run, multiple saves seems so simple

XD not getting a sequel when Ardos pretty much gets off scot free after advising mass murder (and implying Cipher is still active if you beat him in the postgame Colosseum). Like this is YEARS before we had the likes of Ghetsis and Lysandre running around. Also, us never getting Z or some followup to XY still makes me mad.

Krokorok and Krookodile not crossing their arms in their 3d model is truly a travesty

In regards to the Training Dojo teasing at a Champion showing up, I really would’ve thought if any champion would make an appearance it’d have been Alder since he himself has his own training school in Flocessy Town, so they could’ve used that as an excuse for him showing up and not the rest.

Another benefit added to combat which would have improved the Hoenn Battle Frontier is the physical/special split. With all the refinements made to battle systems and breeding it could have been the definitive Battle Frontier.

iirc in Sootopolis city in OR/AS they have one of the "eternal flowers" blooming at the tree in front of the cave of origin. If they won't give us the original Azett's Floette, they could've at least given us the opportunity to have a change forms event there in the post game, either by letting our Floette grab onto the flower, or having an NPC who succeeded in cultivating that particular flower, like the NPCs that will give you a Gracidea if you have Shaymin in your Team.

With how prevalent the theme of passing the torch to the next generation was is sword and shield, I actually thought that they may have been setting up for sequels. So the lack of a sword and shield 2 feels like a missed opportunity to me. Honestly, the choice to not do any sequel game after black and white 2 feels like a HUGE missed opportunity

That is true how odd it was that Red and Blue didn't get involved in the team rainbow rocket episode! One thing I think for legends arceus that was a missed opportunity was how we didn't really get much interaction with the people from johto or visiting the sinjoh ruins! Also, maybe spiky ear pichu could have appeared yet again in that game!

How about the missed opportunities of the anime. I can think of three big ones, the GS Ball, not being able to do the Black and White original Team Plasma Plot, and not letting Ash use older Pokemon in the Masters 8 or not letting all or more of his friends come back to watch the whole tournament live instead of just Dawn and Chloe for the finals.

I got one. In S&M, the Z-moves, if you use Darkrai and Giratina Giratina = Never Ending Nightmare Darkrai = Black Hole Eclipse Let that sink in and realize it should probably be switched.

I still believe the community was why volcanian and AZ floette we’re not distributed. XY was my first get back after a 2gen hiatus, and I remember when the code was discovered for them almost everyone I battled either had them in party or used them. I even remember the articles about account would be banned. I’ve always thought it’s like grade school your teacher took the class reward away because a few kids acted out

Upon replaying crystal, an arguably missed opportunity is the gym leaders pokemon. Only 4/8 of the johto gym leaders use Johto Pokémon (and all the ones that do only have a single johto ‘Mon). Falkner: doesn’t use Skarmory (understandable for early game), or Hoothoot (just why?) Bugsy: This generation has pineco/forretress, heracross, spinarak/ariados,and scizor. Instead he has 2/3 of his slots taken by kakuna and metapod. (Also his gym is not located near the bug catching contest for some reason). Morty: There is a single evolutionary line of ghost Pokémon in gen1. Gen 2 adds misdreavus. You would think with so few ghosts you would see it, yet neither he nor anyone in his gym uses it. Chuck: Had Tyrogue, Hitmontop, or even Heracross as options. Uses Primeape and Poliwrath instead. Literally the first Gen 2 Pokémon you see in a Johto Gym is Whitney’s Miltank and you won’t see another until Jasmine’s Steelix. Johto Pokémon just got done dirty.

I remember being a kid playing black and white, going into those underwater ruins and writing notes of all the "lore" I found, hoping to piece it all together and have it make sense

One of the biggest missed opportunities imo is not keeping the TM and TR set up in SW/SH. I mean, I much prefer infinite use TMs that we’ve had since Gen 5, but Scarlet and Violet’s TM system feels like an entire step back.

Things that I, personally, would love to see in an upcoming Pokemon game: 1. Complete Trainer customization. Think of the X and Y customization, then expand on it. Let trainers select an age at the start. Kids, young adults, Larry, old people... Imagine playing as an old Granny whose ace was a lechonk named LaChancla. If not that far, then at least let us pick between Child, teen, and college aged. Youngster Joey is not 10, neither are the Ace trainers. 2. QoL updates galore. Let us turn off the EXP share again, allow level scaling for challenging gyms out of order, give us boxes specifically for eggs (or more boxes, either/or), let us lock Pokemon to prevent accidental release and then bring back multiple release, bring back Chaining to let us work for hidden abilities in wild Pokemon, BRING BACK THE SHINY SPARKLE because not all of us have 20-20 vision. 3. Give us some kind of secret base like function again. Having your own little corner to decorate as you please was fun and a great draw for multi-player. I'd even be happy if it were locked in post game and was an actual house! Anything! 4. Remember when a common theme in the anime was people working toward "jobs" like Brock wanting to be a breeder? Even in the games it's happened a few times. Why is that not a mechanic? Imagine being a Pokemon Breeder and getting the oval charm and other such boosts based off of being taught, in-game, the breeding mechanics as a quest. Imagine being sent out to observe outbreaks as a Pokemon Researcher and then being able to use rare items in specific locations to actually trigger an outbreak instead of resetting. Imagine having hoenn-level Pokemon Contests make a return and getting cosmetic items for your Pokemon or Pokeballs as a reward for winning. 5. Speaking of contest rewards, that would be a great way to bring back Pokeball customization and give us access to Apriballs! What is the purpose of getting 1 apriball per playthrough? S&V at least gives you the option to farm them at the auction house but it is insanely expensive and entirely RNG based. We used to collect materials and make those a dime a dozen. Can there not be a happy medium? I'm fine with keeping them special, but BP rewards still feel rare and yet you CAN feasibly work toward the goal of getting them and do it. 6. Side quests. Whether related to "jobs" or not. Touching side quests can really make you fall in love with a game. Does anyone else remember giving the old man in X and Y a baby Pokemon to keep him company? He was so happy! But if you go back to Anistar after becoming the champ, you find your old Pokemon and a note that the old man died eternally grateful to have his little buddy... I won't ever forget that! 7. Can we PLEASE get mythical Pokemon events again? Getting them from a guy in the Pokemon center or mystery gift isn't very fun. We have had fewer and fewer in-game events and some mythicals haven't been seen in ages! Just my opinion and definitely wishful thinking, but I truly believe that a large-scale Pokemon game with ample development time has the ability to become the next timeless classic like Ocarina of Time was for the 30 somethings.

Gotta be honest, the internet has permanently corrupted my view of Dawn. Literally anytime I see her, I can’t help but hear “Oh no, you beat me in a Pokemon battle, but I don’t have any money…”. Not sure if anyone else has that experience, but I thought I’d mention it given the thumbnail.

for me, a missed opportunity was, that you cannot battle the 6 other Sages in Black/White. Only Ghetisis and only once.

If Battle Frontier wasn't enough, the Trainer Hill to go along with it and Custom clothes in ORAS are missed opportunity, as well as the content added by Emerald that doesn't revolve around the legendaries, the fact it's a remake doesn't justify their absence.

Red blue and yellow should have the trainer encounters reset each time you beat the elite four (talk to them to start a battle). That way you can replay it with new teams without resetting the cartridge.

Well, to be fair, the search for the stakes that are needed to unlock the Treasures of Ruin could be seen as a side quest in SV. But I agree, SV needed way more side quests to feel truly open-world.

When i was younger and playing black and white for the first time I actually thought I could find mewtwo somewhere in challengers cave

Alola was the biggest missed opportunity for me. Finally a tropical paradise but no free camera, no free roaming (npcs literally tell you where to go and stop you from exploring) and like half the game deals with going anywhere else but the beach (a ether foundation, ultra space, a run down town)

Below are what I think was missing from the Gen 4 remakes that could've made them well-made games: -Before the first trailer for BD/SP came out, I'm pretty sure most people expected the Gen 4 remakes to have the art style and look of Sw/Sh. -They added the Fairy typing to BD/SP, but not Sylveon. -No regional variants were present. We couldn't even transfer any into the games. -There weren't any Move Tutors, not even those from Platinum. -We didn't have the ability to teach moves found in Sw/Sh or Legends Arceus. -We didn't have the ability to catch or transfer Pokémon from Legends Arceus into BD/SP. -Still no Battle Frontier -No Distortion World -Sylveon should've become a stone evolution with either the Dawn Stone or Shiny Stone. The Prism Scale should've existed so we didn't need to evolve Feebas the original way. Espeon could've evolved with the Sun Stone, while Umbreon could've evolved with either the Moon Stone or Dusk Stone. -More character customization(hair styles, hair color, clothes not being limited to just sets, but rather we can mix and match like in X/Y and Sw/Sh, etc.) -Neither Mega Evolution nor Dynamax(in regards to Dynamax & Gigantamax forms, since Eternatus and Calyrex can cause the phenomenon, then one could argue that Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and Arceus are powerful enough to trigger it as well) -There were very few references in BD/SP to Legends Arceus. -No Eviolite or other items introduced during Gens 5-8(yes we had the Ability Capsule and Ability Patch, but we missed out on so many good items) -No GTS -We had a 30-minute timer for battles rather than a 60-minute timer for all battle formats. -We couldn't convert Star Pieces into Shards(Red Shard, Blue Shard, Yellow Shard, and Green Shard) at the Fuego Ironworks. -If I'm not mistaken, Pokémon transferred from Home into BD/SP could forget moves they learned from past games like Sword/Shield. The fact that this is still a thing for Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet is ridiculous. Whoever thought this was a good idea are imbeciles. In relation to other games, including Scarlet/Violet, it stinks that battle gimmicks like Mega Evolution are locked within certain games and are neither continued nor expanded upon. Yes, we had Megas in OR/AS, the Alola games, and the Let's Go games, but we never got new Megas or Primals since OR/AS. We have Megas in Pokken, Pokémon Go, and Pokémon Masters EX. Why can't they exist in the latest games? When they changed the Battle Bond ability in Gen 9 and didn't acknowledge the form change in the Journeys anime, I felt like Ash-Greninja was a waste of time. We were better off having the fully-evolved Kalos starters having a Mega Evolution, and giving Ash a Mega Greninja. Granted, I think some Kalos Pokémon should've had a Mega besides Diancie since the phenomenon and lore originally happened in Kalos before OR/AS was released, but still. I, too, miss the days of event mythical & legendary Pokémon having an in-game event. It's not as fun when we're just given them without anything special. B2/W2 had a difficulty setting where you could play on Easy Mode(for younger, first-time players), Normal Mode, and Challenge Mode(for older players and those who are really good at gaming). It would be great if we had that in games going forward, especially if we could access it at the start rather than having to play through the main story in order to unlock it. I could go on, but that's all I got right now. Plus, this comment is getting long, and who knows if anyone cared to read all of it.

the perfect story for AZ’s floette could have been that he is too old to take care of the floette and so he entrusts it to you because you saved the region and therefore proven yourself worthy

I loved Galar: the characters, the the buildings, the colors!...but as you said, not being able to ibteract more there felt like a tease, like "haha, you can look but can't touch".😢

I know this is a controversial take and many will disagree, but Black 2 White 2. Instead of taking the direction of resolving Unova's lore and mysteries, they decided to have Team Plasma come back as terrorists and have Kyurem's only use be a superweapon. We needed this game to be about Kyurem. We needed the Unova sequels to flesh out further on Unova lore and try its best to complete it all the way. In the end, in 2023, Zygarde got more fleshed out without ever having a game than Kyurem did with two games. Kyurem is also still one of the most misunderstood Pokemon to this very day. To put it this way, there's a reason why, despite Kyurem having two whole games, we're still asking for Kyurem to get a game. A game that fleshes out this Pokemon.

Kalos in general was a missed opportunity. I love the region, but it feels unfinished. That power plant? Locked! That train station? No trains go there! So many ways it could have been expanded on. Also, still slightly butthurt we didn’t get Gen IV Battle Frontier in anime.

Arven's Mabosschiff should have died in SV. After losing his parents, it would have continued his character development by showing him grow. I saw someone mention a while back how Arven would be informed, in Area Zero, that the sandwiches wouldn't heal Mabosschiff, but it will buy him time. When you meet him later on at the lighthouse for the battle, he would have a young little Maschiff instead. It would have been emotional, it would've shown younger players how to cope with loss, and it would've given an extra layer to Arven's character arc.

One thing I don’t like about the Union Circle, is that you can’t allow other players to walk with over wifi and “Let anyone join” like with raids, trades and battles. In Sword/Shield (Gen 8), if you turned on the Wi-Fi feature on your Y-com, you’d see other players camp sites from around the world, but in Scarlet/Violet (Gen 9), that level of interaction is gone, it would have been nice to wander around looking for other players picnics or allow random players to select “Let anyone join” like with EVERY OTHER multiplayer Wi-Fi feature in the game, like raids, trades and battles. But instead you the “Union” Circle only allows you to let other players join IF you give them the auto generated code, which you can’t do from the switch unless they’re right next to you or you text it to them or call them from a SEPARATE device (phone). I would’ve rather had them allow us to wander around to find random players picnics like with the camps/tents, instead of only allowing up to 4 people you directly know play IF they have the time or they have a compatible game, if your part of their demographic (kids), you probably have school, a bed time, etc and you’re lucky if you have 3 other that also play Pokémon that have time or whatever, if your an adult you’re lucky if you have free time at all, and when you do you have to decide on how you spend it, do you spend it on the switch, do you binge some show or a few movies, play and binge at the same time, take a nap. If you do play, do you have friends or someone you know ALSO have a Switch, do those people who have a switch ALSO play Pokémon? I’m 28, and I have about 12 people I know have a switch , 3 are semi consistently available on weekends, but only 1 plays Pokémon, but they are on video calls most of the day and don’t look at their phone until about 8-9 pm, and my only day off on weekends is Sunday so by 10 I’m in bed since I have to be at work by 9am every morning. So anyway going back to the main topic, the point is they could’ve just applied the same “let anyone join” feature to The “UNION” Circle and just had random players running around to interact with as well as random picnics like they did it the directly previous game on the EXACT SAME SYSTEM, but they decided “nah let’s just make this the ONE FEATURE you can’t interact with people on a GLOBAL scale, let’s just bring the “link cable system” while we’re at it”

Red and Blue were clearly on their honeymoon

You remember that questionnaire you had to do at the end of scarlet/violet before you challenge the elite four? I had initially chosen Norman as the hardest gym leader for me bc I was under levelled when I fought him and I didn't have a fighting type mon so I thought the game tricked me into making the elite four harder for myself when I got to the third member and Norman was waiting there. I was talking to friends about it and they said they chose a different gym leader for the questionnaire and that Norman was the default. To me, that's a missed opportunity, and kind of a big and obvious one at that, because it would have turned an otherwise pointless survey into something that integrated into the games story and make the elite four alot more tense by having us inadvertently pick a gym leader for our third elite four member that was thought was challenging

* No Pokémon Pink. * The non-Galarian Farfetch'd evolution being cut from the Johto dex. * Pokémon contests giving you no legitimate rewards. * Magmortar and the Eeveelutions not being in the Diamond & Pearl dex, forcing Flint to use mostly non-Fire types. * Basing Pokémon's American region on just the geography of New York City. * Kalos not giving Megas to its gym leaders. * Phoebe having nothing to do with Alola. * The Stoutland-line being excluded from the Galar dex. * The Isle of Armor rehashing the Japanese dojo theme already used multiple times in Pokémon instead of going for a medieval knight order theme suiting Galar's real-life inspiration. * Geeta.

I would honestly never want the crystal encounter table in hgss, because it commuted the greatest travesty in the entire game. It removed Mareep from being found at all !

The biggest missed opportunity was the Pokémon Company cutting develop time for a new generation from 4 to 3 years. Thanks to the Gen 5 haters the series has gone downhill ever since. Gen 6 could of been a Johto soft reboot or like past regions which added new or pre evolutions to older Pokémon and the series would of moved forward without cheesy gimmicks. It’s sad thinking about what the series could of been.

Well HGSS did kinda adressed Jhoto dex problem somewhat and you could obtain Murkrow, Hondour and Larvitar in the Safari Zone.

I can relate to all of the missed potential covered within this video. However, the amount of disappointment that culminates from the 3d era of mainline Pokémon games is what hurts me the most. I believe that X & Y could’ve been much more experimental for the series, if Game Freak had decided to create more features that would go hand in hand with the 3d graphics and be given more time.

Currently it's open world areas not having interesting sub locations to encounter pokemon in. Like the shipwreck in hoenn or sinnohs haunted house

"The Distortion World is under construction!" - JPR @ Giratina's Room in BDSP

Tbh, the biggest missed opportunity from Scarlet and Violet is that they introduce a move named Pounce, but not let at least the regional cat learn it.

The entirety of Gen 6 is basically a giant missed opportunity

I think the biggest missed opportunity with LGPE was making them into remakes of Yellow instead of having an original story. I mean, in-series, it's been ten years since Red took down Giovanni. How cool would it have been to see how the Kanto region has changed in that time? I want that story.

GF should make their own modern style Sinnoh remake, I say this as someone who actually loved bdsp despite it’s admittedly silly ommission if they did bdsp would be seen in a better light like Sinnoh fans got a remake that felt like the original, a modern style remake and a new type game

Just a thought, but maybe the mill on route 3(?) in Galar was meant to be part of an event for a mythical? They even have a path that you can’t access because of the rope, but it looks like you’d be able to walk on it.

Hoenn's Good Rod Fisherman being on the right shore of Route 118 and not the left.

I'm okay with the Abyssal Ruins. It's implied to have something to do with the war that caused Reshiram and Zekrom to revert to the Stones, hinting that the two brothers may have shared N's unique ability to speak to Pokémon. A lot of people want an exploration of what happened in ancient Unova, but I like the mystery.

For scarlet and violet a missed opportunity for me would be not being able to watch your friends take on the gym challenges like a spectator I wish there was more coop options because there’s not much to do together

See, the thing about not accessing the places in SwSh doesnt make any sense. The ferris wheel for SwSh wouldve turned into a heavily less impactful version of the one in BW, and the Hammerlocke castle would've just been another Parfum Palace, but optional. It doesnt make sense to want them to be accessible just for them to lack anything within them to justify making them a place to visit. And if they were, people would complain "The ferris wheel sucks, it isnt like the one in Unova" or "Oh the castle sucks, theres nothing to it. Just a mural room, and some empty rooms that has nothing important"

I always expected Kyogre or some other kind of legendary Pokemon to appear in the Abyssal ruins.

Awesome video, thanks! U got me with Red & Blue vacationing with Rainbow Rocket around

Honestly, all the games from XY onward have has similar missed opportunities: - little to no minigames - cool areas you are prohibited from exploring - storylines & features hinted at but dropped entirely or utilized badly.

One of the biggest missed opportunities is the central theme for X and Y. If the theme of the legendaries are life and death, then that should have been the plot of the main story campaign: life and death being a motivator to live for the day, similar to Persona 3. I remember how the main character in the 5th generation almost died by the main villain. Can you imagine if the trainer character died and then got resurrected by the box legendary to face off against Lysander? If there is a remake, I would totally love a scene like that

To this day I feel like X and Y was by far the biggest missed opportunities I feel the whole game is incomplete to the point they did have plans to make another sequel for the game but never pulled through

the biggest missed opportunity of gen 9 was only allowing you to enter the schools, gyms, HAIR SALONS AND SANDWICH SHOPS. so few buildings to explore in a game trying to be an open world game.

Gotta disagree with HGSS using the crystal encounter table cause then we’d miss out on the Mareep line and I love my electric sheep in Johto

One of the missed opportunities for SwSh for me was the inverse point on "why didnt we have the world championship" but why not include a "minor league" or any relation to the concept. Like we sort of feel it in the opposing versions with ghost/fighting gym, but it drove me nuts that the story could have expanded in that way. Like Bede was angsty cuz MC was chosen, yet so was he. If he had been angsty BECAUSE he worked his way up from the minor league championship onto this, sure. But then we also don't get a what-if and see other potential gym leader types. 😢

I would like to see gym leaders who have different teams/set ups when you face them. Sort of like how in Pokémon origins Giovanni had different pokemon he used on challengers, and how he used his toughest Pokémon in battle against red. It makes the challenge harder and fun.

Well 3 gen biggest missed opportunity actually is - never port Colosseum series on Switch or even give it a proper remake/continuation. Like, CMON Freaks still have some of Genius Sonority members under their wings. Adaptation of Colosseum series in the same way as they did with Legends is a really missed opportunity. Shadow pokemons concept is also a missed opportunity. They barely did anything interesting with them. I wish we could have some pet simulator like ways to purify them.

Kalos power plant

"Welcome to the Dream Park! Where dreams become reality and fossils become Pokemon! Someday this whole place is going to be filled to bursting with Pokemon from the ancient past. That's my dream for this: the Dream Park! To bring the ancient world back to life!" S/M teasing this and then US/UM not delivering was massively disappointing. Such a cool concept to have a little Jurassic Park area in a Pokemon game, and it didn't even need to be anything crazy. Weirdly they did eventually do something similar with the Crown Tundra, having a bunch of fossil mons in the wild there.

I also suspect that the Battle Frontier was cut because of how they changed how the battle facilities work, by that I mean you don't have to complete an entire session and instead and stop battling at any time (can stop at any point and get the rewards as opposed to having to win 7 battles in a row). While this would work fine for the Battle Tower, Battle Arena, Battle Factory or Battle Palace (why would people want this thing to come back?), the Battle Dome, Battle Pyramid and Battle Pike wouldn't work AT ALL with how they're a literal tournament in the case of the Battle Dome or for the other two are pretty much dungeon crawls so to speak (Battle Pyramid in particular). Also of the facilities you had two real duds in the Battle Palace and the Battle Pike, a place where luck was huge. The Battle Palace in particular was one of the dumbest things that they've ever come up with, taking the player's ability to control what their mons can do was garbage game design. The Battle Pyramid was a good idea, but the execution wasn't the best, particularly with some of the gimmicks in later runs, that one would require a serious rework.

All the missed opportunities In the 3D era of Pokémon happened because of all the leaks and hacks fans did to get information early. It’s been gamefreak’s mission to “surprise” us ever since, that’s why we never got those official releases of mythical’s and a Z version

I’m not sure if Game Freak ever figured out dynamic level scaling yet because we sure did. 😅

Apparently there were some merch hinting to pokemon z hell even the anime was called xyz For me another missed opportunity in oras is hoopa since legendaries could be found in the sky in what are hoopa's ring For the battle frontier there is a literally sign saying it was under construct just to taunt us In the ultra games another missed opportunity not knowing enough about the fate of the words where the villains won imagine seeing an hoen destroyed but team magma or hydro, unima conquered by getchis where pokemon are free

Thank you so much for all videos you made. You are one of my absolutely best youtubers ever. :) Jsi borec. Mám moc rád tvoji tvorbu.

And remember pss included VOICE CHAT!!! Literally the best online interface ever in game freak history

for me the biggest miss Opportunities is voice acting in the games, it feels more and more noticable now where they keep zooming into the persons face as they talk and show reactions but its still silant, as well as during the reveal trailers for scarlet and violet they had the charaters talk explaning them self. it wouldnt be too hard to get voice actors ever as they require them for the same charaters for the anime, it would also be a nice way to tie it into the anime

This is a very ME thing, but I always feel like making Legendairy Pokemon just Pokemon with just a bit higher stats that you can potentially just throw a Pokeball at to claim for our own just makes it impossible to take them serious. "Oh now! Groudon will cause rivers to dry out and volcanos to erupt!" "I got this!", says the 10 year old and throws a pokeball at it, capturing it/say the 10 year old and has their sunkern use grassnot, one shotting it immediately.

What of the original SM missed opportunities covered could be down to it coming outta the oven a little too early (but not as severely as with SwSh or SV)?

I spent HOURS looking for the power plant key.. this was before I had access to the internet and had no guide book, so I was just lost with everything

Honestly I think the biggest missed opportunity is a case of ludonarrative dissonance in ScarVi. Specifically including level scaling for the major battles in the gsme. The game encourages you to go off in any direction, and while I admit I am not the bigget fan of open world games (the lone exception being Elden Ring), the lack of level scaling really ruined my enjoyment of ScarVi. I ended up fighting Kusha (mid-50s) as my 4th gym, because I had no idea where to go or what to do. And so when I realized I had completely missed two early gym leaders I endex up fighting Katy last and just feeling bad because I was crushing mons who were barely level 12 with a team of 65+ end game nightmares. Level scaling and adding mons to teams after certain checkpoints would have made the game so so so much better.

The biggest missed opportunity in my opinion has to be not fixing the Johto leveling in hgss and barely doing anything with zinnia until post game in oras

Not giving Kofu a Dondozo for his ace. Not giving Leon a Dragapult as an Ace. Giving Penny nothing but Revelations. Not making Xurkitree part Grass. Abyssal Ruins. Sun and Moon's Golf Course. X and Y Desert's.

The level scaling and available Pokémon in Gen 2. If that game was scaled correctly, it would be one of the most fondly remembered generations in the franchise. I’ve played gen 2 with a difficulty spike and more area diversity and it’s so much better.

Gamefreak has tons of missed opportunities

Ik it's very unlikely, I wish they had canonized Sir Aaron from the lucario movie in legends arceus since he looks like Riley

Not being able to go on that golf field in sun and moon (and ultra). Heck they could add a gimmick pokemon there that has a golf type of evolution.

Definitely am in the Pokémon Z camp While it doesn't affect me I saw people mad that girl avatars in Scarlet/Violet. Just seems weird with the school theme

Not the biggest, but one definite missed opportunity is the clothing in SV.

I recently just finished getting all the gold prints in the BF in my Soulsilver cartridge and it really does bum me out that I have to play a game made back when the iphone 4 was cool if I actually want to play the battle frontier smh

Awesome video Agree with your points Would the classes in SV not count as side quests and the stake hunt to free the Ruin Pokémon Also, since talked about Pokémon Z and Eclipse, how about doing what happened to third enhanced version Pokémon games after Platinum?

The biggest missed opportunity for Sword Shield is being good games

when he said "The biggest missed opportunity in scarlet violet" maybe first thought was : Framerate?

I never interested in battle facilities because they feel like gym leaders but worse, really cool characters that you battle once or twice and never talk to again. There should be a rule that every character like that should either take part in the main story or have multiple optional side quests tied to them. Over all this video is covers a lot of areas Pokémon needs to improve on.

Scarlet and Violet not having voice acting when fricking Zelda does now is a pretty good one too, especially since there is an entire area of area zero where all the rivals talk to one another and it's just weird reading it going down the slope with the eerie music and just text of the conversation. it's even worse considering Iono did have voice acting in one of the trailers! So it was possible for gamefreak and pokemon co to do it but they got lazy as usual!

I stopped battling people after PSS and the IV punching bags were gone. They were so great I thought we were gonna keep them.

The stated reason they didn't include Battle Frontier is because kids are on their phones and no longer have time for hard games. Paraphrasing, but honestly not by much. They really just don't believe in it

God, i miss PSS so much. They threw so hard after Gen 7 online-wise.

I suppose it's really my own fault that I played this without finishing Legends Arceus, but it's frustrating and disappointing knowing what that hunt was all about without finding out through the game.

Missed opportunity alternating cave for Gen 3 games