The Kanto Pokedex is Overrated

AXE OF THE BLOOD GOD | Kat and Nadia talk Pokemon Let's Go, Fallout 76, and Moonlighter in the latest episode of our RPG podcast.

Article by Kat Bailey, 06/04/2018.

Axe of the Blood God is our weekly RPG podcast hosted by Kat Bailey and Nadia Oxford. You can find the previous episodes here.

Pokemon Let's Go is another example of the Kanto Pokedex getting all the love at the expense of the rest of Game Freak's menagerie. But is all the love for the original Kanto Dex just pure nostalgia talking? That's one of several topics Nadia and I hit in the latest episode of Axe of the Blood God [download link here]

Mostly I'm just tired of the assertions that the original 151 monsters are the only ones who matter. As Nadia and I point out, every game has its share of gems. Gold and Silver had Tyranitar and Umbreon; Ruby and Sapphire had Metagross and Blaziken; Diamond and Pearl had Heatran and Lucario... you see my point. Meanwhile, Red and Blue had Jynx. They can't all be winners, folks.

Anyway, Nadia and I also hit a lot of other topics in this episode. We talk about Fallout 76 and Moonlighter, and even touch a little bit on Battletech. It's a packed episode as usual, so sit back and enjoy the latest episode of our RPG podcast!

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Show Description

Kat and Nadia talk about Pokemon Let's Go, why the Kanto Pokedex is overrated, and what they would like out of Gen 8 on the Switch (hint: it's not another new region). Then they dive into Fallout 76 and Moonlighter, with asides into Stardew Valley and Battletech. Join them!

Music from Axe of the Blood God is courtesy of Lena Chappelle, who has also contributed the themes to Active Time Babble and Roleplayers' Realm. I also use music from the RPG Music Pack over at rpgmaker.net. Check it out!

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#1 Wellman2nd 5 months ago

I agree despite that being my first Pokémon game and many of them memorable, they are overrated.

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#2 TheWildCard 5 months ago

I played Blue but didn't really become a fan of the series until getting into the more mechanically robust gen 4 (and retroactively gen 3). Design-wise every gen has it's winners and clunkers. If anything the bland gen one designs are especially bland.

#3 Mooglepies 5 months ago

Personally I prefer my pokemon based on real world creatures with a twist, but there are peaks and troughs in every generation of pokemon. Gen 5 is where I'd say the series peaked overall, but it's all subjective anyway.

#4 UnskippableCutscene 5 months ago

I'll admit that later generations probably got better before they started diving downward with mega evolutions and whatnot. However I also understand why it has a First Among Equals status, because if you're going to try to sell a game to someone like me you have to since I played that first game and no others, so I don't really recognize many later Pokemon except Lucario and Greninja.

Any other long-running franchise, including the likes of Transformers and Power Rangers, has to give their Gen1 a higher status than the rest just due to the marketability of reaching out to older people who remember but haven't kept up with the changes. Even Disney still only builds 200ft castles at theme parks for princesses from the 1950s.

#5 MetManMas 5 months ago

We were talking about this over on Talking Time the other day. Nostalgia's definitely a big part of it, it can't be ignored that many Gen 1 evolutions were basically "big version of little thing (more or less)" and there were monsters that were literally "three of something" or "angry eyes/smirky face on a ball".

But with that said, the Gen 1 Pokémon have been around the longest and thus have had the most exposure, and simplicity isn't a bad thing. For a not so insignificant number of people, Gen 1 is the only one that matters simply because it's the only one they played. Not everybody jumped ship to Hoenn, or even to Johto.

Anyway, I think having co-op multiplayer with Pokémon Let's Go Something Whatever is a really smart move. Many of the kids who played Pokémon back in Gen 1 are parents now, and this could very likely be a game they enjoy playing together.

#6 riderkicker 5 months ago

I hated Jynx so much even with out the racist overtones. Once it shows up on the battlefield it sings for what seems to be an eternity, and takes just as long to get rid of (if you weren't using rare candies). And somehow it was a counterpart to Pinsir? Wut?

#7 sunotenko 5 months ago

As someone who finished his Kanto adventure first time this weekend, this episode couldn't come on a better time. When I was a child, my only contact with Pokémon was the anime, since I didn't had a Gameboy and even so I just watched the first three seasons, so I am among those only really familiar with the Gen I designs.
After becoming adult, I bought a GBA SP, but just now I decided to started playing Pokémon with Firered. After beating the E4 and getting the National Dex I saw how unfamiliar I was with the other generations of Pokémon. I think that people like me are the kind of audience they want to target. However, the Go mechanics made me skeptikal.

#8 MetManMas 5 months ago

@riderkicker Jynx is the counterpart to Electabuzz and Magmar. They're all next to each other in the Pokédex, they each have one of the elemental punches, and they all got baby forms in Gen 2.

Personal opinion, I don't despise Jynx, but her initial design was definitely unfortunate, to say the least. But it's important to remember that Japan got its impression of what African-Americans are like from all the racist caricatures they saw in our old cartoons. I'm sure there was no ill intent in Jynx's design, just a lack of context for why blackface is terrible.

There was way less of an excuse for this shit in 2006 (Mega Man Powered Up's Oil Man), though.Edited June 2018 by MetManMas

#9 SatelliteOfLove 5 months ago

Fallout 76'll be like Rust but with less ganking and exposed random naughty bits.

Recettear is...not like Atelier in tone. Too much talk about selling kidneys and eating grass out of vacant lots and RUTHLESS CAPITALISM HO.

That Etrian Odyssey/Mass Effect thing is to mock the entire "What is a JRPG?!?!" discussion. I'm kinda over it. A bit. Too often it's an invitation for Blind Men and the Elephant to run loose.Edited June 2018 by SatelliteOfLove

#10 Kuni-Nino 5 months ago

I feel like Kat is turning into gaming’s Skip Bayless with all of her Pokemon hot takes. Kat you gotta stop!

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#11 NiceGuyNeon 5 months ago

I think there was a slight oversight in the discussion about Pokemon Let's Go. There are so many late-20's-early 30's folk like myself who have not played a Pokemon game in almost 20 years. It's been a very long time and I was part of that generation that freaked out for Pokemon GO and right now having Pokemon Let's Go is probably as much aimed at bringing in those 20 somethings to play a full Pokemon game as it is to tie back into Pokemon GO and to give the team some experience developing for the Switch.

Of my friends I have now, none of us had a GBA, DS or 3DS, we missed out on everything after either Red/Blue or Gold/Silver, so having a chance to revisit that first game on a console that everyone either has or will soon have is a really powerful feeling and I'm pretty excited about playing the game.

#12 Jonnyboy407 5 months ago

Gen 4 fulfilled the promise of a big unified national Dex that they had been building toward in the Gen 3 games (Ruby/sapphire/fire/leaf)

That's why I really love gen 5. They had done everything they could with previous mons and started clean. I'd like to take a trip to an alternate universe where they never revisited any pokemon gens 1-4 and just kept building on 5 for a few generations.

I'm looking forward to playing Let's Go with my 5 year old (shell be almost 6 by then). She's autistic and playing games together is one of the few things we connect on.

#13 MetManMas 5 months ago

@NiceGuyNeon Oh yes. Like I was saying above, not everybody moved onto later Pokémon generations.

I definitely get what Pokémon Let's Go is doing, it's trying to appeal both to the kids coming in from Pokémon Go and the parents who may be lapsed fans that only played the series back in Gen 1 when it was the hot new fad. Maybe even get them to enjoy playing Pokémon together.

#14 NiceGuyNeon 5 months ago

@MetManMas Oh I hadn't read the comments when I posted mine, but I think you're totally right.

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