Let's Go! Pikachu/Eevee:
Sword/Shield:
Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl:
- No EXP Share toggle, unlike the 3DS games (which had it in the form of a Key Item), despite its party-wide EXP mechanic applying, restricting the freedom players have in how they raise their Pokemon. If they want to only raise one Pokemon at a time, they have to put the rest in the Box system (a "solution" even suggested by a key staff member in an interview) - which means not being able to switch to these other Pokemon in the middle of a battle, and if the one Pokemon were to faint (due to end-of-turn damage like poison or hail, or due to an unlucky critical hit, or so on) the player would be immediately punted back to the last Pokemon Center they used...so it's not a "solution" at all.
- Needlessly dropped a bunch of moves that would give Pokemon a lot more versatility and variety - like Aerial Ace, Aqua Tail, Aura Sphere, Boomburst, Brave Bird, Close Combat, Cross Chop, Cross Poison, Dragon Claw, Dragon Dance, Dragon Rush, Drain Punch, Draining Kiss, Dual Chop, Earth Power, Energy Ball, Extreme Speed, Fire/Ice/Thunder Fang, Flame Charge, Focus Blast, Gunk Shot, Hidden Power, Hurricane, Hyper Voice, Icicle Spear, Icicle Crash, Iron Head, Mystical Fire, Night Slash, Power Gem, Power-Up Punch, Return, Rock Tomb, Seed Bomb, Shadow Claw, Shadow Sneak, Signal Beam, Stone Edge, and Wild Charge. This is especially obvious with the complete lack of Dragon-type and Steel-type moves, since both Iron Head and Dragon Claw can usually be taught to a lot of Pokemon.
- Motion-controlled wild Pokemon catching is utter bullshit. There's no way to know where you're actually aiming (leading to plenty of missed throws for no good-feeling reason), and Pokemon can run after enough time. This is based on GO's catching system, but that at least allows for curveballs and has tactile feedback, whereas LGPE doesn't have curveballs and JoyCons being separate motion devices means there's no tactile feedback. You'd think Nintendo would've learned after how awful the Wii was, but...
- The removal of held items and Abilities makes battles far less interesting.
- Restricting the roster to the original 151, and Alolan forms for whatever reason, means there's very little type variety - Trainers do not have Alolan forms outside of Gym Leader/Elite Four rematches, so there's ZERO Dark-types, the only Ghost-types are the Gastly line, the only Dragon-types being Dratini and co., and the only Steel-types being Magnemite and Magneton. This is also different from what FRLG did, since those games still had the other 235 Pokemon at the time (Johto and Hoenn Pokemon) in their code, so they could be traded in without any issues - and Golbat and Chansey could freely evolve into the Johto Crobat and Blissey after beating the Champion and getting the National Dex.
- No Sevii Islands. While this wasn't a substantial amount of new content, that FRLG had back on the GameBoy Advance, it was also Game Freak's first pair of remakes and it was at least something new to experience - so why leave it out?
- Completely ruined Green's design. In the Pokemon Adventures manga, she originally wore a cute, black dress, since she was based on Red/Green concept art of a female Trainer (which was an aerial shot, and she was facing away from the viewer, so really couldn't see many details). Here in LGPE, they gave her blue shorts underneath her black dress, thereby destroying her visual appeal. Same goes for the female PC, actually, since FRLG's one had a red skirt, but LGPE's has shorts instead; ugh, why?
- The four Rocket Brothers in RBY and FRLG have now become the four Rocket Sisters - again, why? Why replace guys with women? What's so wrong with keeping them as men? Ugh.
- Needing to catch a Grass- or Water-type to enter Brock's Gym, needing to have 50 Pokemon registered as "caught" to enter Koga's Gym, needing to have a Pokemon that is Lv. 45 or higher (one level above Sabrina's strongest Pokemon) to enter her Gym...these additional requirements were not in any previous game, nor are they in Sword/Shield or BDSP, so there's no point to them being in LGPE. So much for solo challenges, or Nuzlockes or monotypes or anything else...
- For the SECOND TIME, Kanto does not have a day/night cycle - does not follow the system's clock. This began with FRLG, after Ruby/Sapphire had a time system, and starting with Emerald every game in this series has had it - except for LGPE. Really ruins immersion, playing at night and it still being bright sunlight in-game...
Sword/Shield:
- Despite promises made after LGPE that the then-unknown "2019 games" would be catered towards long-time fans, who most likely grew up with the old "Gotta Catch 'em All!" slogan, over 400 Pokemon were initially completely unavailable for no justifiable reason (in an interview, it was claimed the "Dexit" was done in order to improve the visuals, aesthetics, and animations, but...um, no? Still has a lot of incredibly basic animations from the 3DS games, which was kinda justifiable on the much-weaker console, but definitely not anymore, and there's countless amounts of visual jank). Even with the DLC and updates, there's still 234 Pokemon still missing - including a lot of them previously Switch-ified for LGPE (Muk, Hypno, Golem, Primeape, etc.), and quite a few Starter trios (no Johto, Sinnoh, Unova, or Kalos Starters). Why?
- Still no EXP Share toggle, yet party-wide EXP is applied, again restricting player freedom in Pokemon raising - which is far from what long-time fans wanted.
- Max Raid NPC partners have poor movepools, very little intelligence, and are often far more of a hindrance than a help.
- Still has a lot of missing moves, like Comet Punch, Hidden Power, Return, Jump Kick, Karate Chop, Meditate, Psycho Boost, Pursuit, Refresh, Sharpen, Signal Beam, Spike Cannon, Tail Glow, and Twineedle. This sacrifices variety and makes a lot of Pokemon less viable.
- There's very few optional areas or branching paths in the base games, so it feels very claustrophobic and restrictive; almost every non-Wild Area location is essentially a glorified corridor, and while the Escape Rope was made infinite-use, there's very little reason for this since the player has to get through linear caves as part of the story.
- Dynamax and Gigantamax can only be used in certain areas, and when they can be used they're overpowered as hell, unlike either Mega Evolution or Z-Moves. They nullify the effects of a lot of moves (like Low Kick, flinching, Heavy Slam, Skill Swap, Entrainment, Roar, Disable, and others), they have powerful moves with amazing added effects (like raising stats or causing weather or inflicting status), double the Pokemon's HP, and unlike Mega Evolution they do not change the Pokemon's type or Ability and are temporary. So it's a step down from both Mega Evolution and Z-Moves...and Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Moon had both mechanics instead of replacing one for the new.
- Still keeps Pokemon models and animations from XY, which means a lot of Flying-type Pokemon are still shown constantly in flight (which looks really bad) despite Sky Battles not being a thing since 2013. Fuck you, Sky Battles, still having a negative impact on the series all these years later...Also has really bad model scaling, too, when LGPE did this so much better.
- Low-quality trees, Wild Area Pokemon animations, and NPCs have incredibly janky animations too (such as Zamazenta awkwardly turning around on the spot, or a woman "pacing" by moving forwards, turning 90 degrees twice, then moving again). Or not even having appropriate animations, such as a crowd supposedly "applauding" just having generic non-clapping animations, or Piers supposedly singing despite no vocals or backing track (when this was done a lot better in Black/White 2, with Roxie in the Virbank Gym).
- A lot of needless free heals throughout the game, even during the Pokemon League challenge - again going far away from what long-time fans wanted.
- Like in the Alola games, Trainers have very few Pokemon, and often do not have complete movesets for the Pokemon they do have - significantly reducing any concept of challenge.
- While significantly increasing the number of moves teachable through items was awesome, making half of them single-use TRs is incredibly annoying since the only way to get them is through spending thousands of "Watts" in the Wild Area for each individual TR. Sure, once a TR is used on one Pokemon, that move can be relearned at any time through a guy in every Pokemon Center, but that's only one Pokemon at a time, so convenience is very limited.
- For the first time ever, a Pokemon has had its base stats reduced, when the previous standard was buffing some by increasing one or two base stats by 10. Poor Aegislash...
- While Pokemon can again follow you in the DLC areas, they don't move at the same speed as the player, leading to them often being left behind, or running into the player then stopping then running again once the player's moved. Again, better done in LGPE, where this was rarely the case.
Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl:
- Unlike previous remakes, like HGSS/ORAS, this pair is far too faithful to the original DP in some very obvious ways - returning to single-use TMs instead of the 2011-onwards innovation of infinite-use TMs, which both ORAS and LGPE had despite their original games being made prior to that 2011 innovation, ruins any sense of accomplishment through finally obtaining all of them, and doesn't allow the player to teach a move to as many Pokemon as they want (since they now have to go buy more, often through random sellers in the Grand Underground, which is not convenient at all).
- Additionally, initial Gym Leader and Elite Four rosters use their flawed DP teams, which had Candice use a Medicham (not an Ice-type), Volkner use Octillery and Ambipom (not Electric-types), and Flint use Drifblim, Lopunny and Steelix (not Fire-types - and the last is weak to Fire!). Sure, that's rectified for rematches, but Platinum fixed this for their initial teams too - so having the flawed initial teams is a really bad look. Especially since, unlike DP, it's possible to obtain a lot of non-Sinnoh Pokemon in the revamped Grand Underground, so that's not even an acceptable reason either (not being obtainable, that is).
- Building and environment designs are almost identical to their original DP counterparts, instead of using their Platinum revamps or being reimagined completely. For example, Galactic Eterna Building looked just like a normal building in DP, but gained a more space-y aesthetic in Platinum (especially the top floor, with Jupiter), only to drop that here for BDSP. And previous remakes, like HGSS, ORAS and LGPE, completely reimagined Johto, Hoenn and Kanto, adding much-needed character and a unique atmosphere to the remakes and making them feel different from the start and throughout the adventure - something BDSP completely lacks.
- Platinum outfits are pre-order exclusives, instead of obtainable in-game like other outfits.
- A continuing disappointment from the first two Switch pairs - the lack of the EXP Share toggle in the Key Items pocket, yet party-wide EXP still applies.
- Until the Elite 4, opponent teams have not been rebalanced to account for the mandatory party-wide EXP system, in terms of levels.
- Another continuing disappointment - no Battle Frontier, just the now-tired Tower with regular battles. No extra gimmicks like going in with a single species and selecting which type you want to battle, or using special currency gained after battles (amount dependent on how well you did) to heal or get held items or look at the next foe's team or increase/decrease their levels, or playing on a game board to determine special effects for the next battle - which kept it INTERESTING.
- No Mega Evolution, still, despite that giving new life to plenty of older Pokemon like Beedrill, Pidgeot, Slowbro, Pinsir, Heracross, Medicham, Absol, Lucario, Sharpedo, Altaria, Glalie, Metagross, Salamence, and Gallade.
- No Alolan or Galarian forms, even for Pokemon within the first-493-species group - no Alolan or Galarian Meowth, no Alolan Raichu or Muk or Golem or Marowak, no Galarian Rapidash or Slowbro or Legendary Birds. This also means Galarian forms are locked to one miserable pair of games, which is truly unfortunate.
- Still do not bring back moves dropped from LGPE and Sword/Shield, or moves introduced in SS DLC - moves like Signal Beam, Dual Wingbeat, Heat Crash, Jump Kick, Karate Chop, Meteor Beam, Poltergeist, Pollen Puff, Psychic Fangs, Pursuit, Refresh, Return, Sacred Sword, Scale Shot, Scorching Sands, Sharpen, Solar Blade, Spike Cannon, Triple Axel, Twineedle, and Zing Zap. This again limits variety and usefulness of some Pokemon.
- Poffin-cooking is far more frustrating than in the original DP, due to having a time limit and the game not telling the player not to add multiple of the same kind of Berry.
- Pokemon models are severely scaled down, to ludicrous levels.
- The Poketch only has one button, when Platinum added a second to scroll backwards through obtained apps (instead of needing to scroll all the way through and loop back around). Why not keep this second button?
- The Battle Tower reverts to giving 3 BP per string of seven battles, when other recent Tower-clones (Maison and Tree) have been far more generous.
- Not every evolution item is available before beating the Elite Four - for example, the Razor Fang, needed to get a Gliscor. Again, Platinum rectified this on the DS.
- Unlike in HGSS and LGPE, following Pokemon do not move at a consistent pace, and often either lag behind massively or run too fast and have to wait for the player to advance before running again (causing awkward-looking pauses in the Pokemon's movement).
- The 3DS Affection mechanic is again tied to Happiness, but unlike in Sword/Shield there's no "not available unless having camped" restriction, so there's no way to avoid Affection's benefits without going out of your way to lower Happiness (such as using bitter herbs).
