History ScrappyMechanic / Pokemon

->''"You know something is dreadfully wrong with this mechanic when it takes this long ''JUST TO CATCH'' '''''ONE''''' ''OF THEM!''"''

->"You know something is dreadfully wrong with this mechanic when it takes this long ''JUST TO CATCH'' '''''ONE''''' ''OF THEM!''"

* The freeze status. In the first generation, a frozen Pokémon is effectively eliminated, unless the opponent happens to carry a Fire-type move or Haze (wich most players avoid using precisely for this reason). Being relegated to a 10% chance on offensive moves (or 30% in the Japanese version of Blizzard) makes it disproportionately more RNG-reliant compared to the other status effects. Further generations add a small chance to thraw yourself each turn you attack, and some ways to cure or prevent it from happening, but it's still considered just as unfair for the receiving end as OHKO moves. While ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'' got rid of the status entirely, replacing it with frostbite, which causes DamageOverTime and reduces special attack, it was unfortunately brought back in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet''.

-->-- '''LetsPlay/{{Chuggaaconroy}}''' [[https://youtu.be/wn49ewUU-YQ?t=32m48s on Roaming Pokémon]]

* Sandwich preparation is subject to a physics system that will cause ingredients to move when colliding with each other. When making sandwiches with very few ingredients, it's tolerable, but as you involve more ingredients, the system starts working against you more and more. The frustration is elevated by the fact that, if an ingredient falls onto anything that isn't the sandwich bread or another ingredient, it disappears and is unusable -- yes, including if it falls onto the clean plate you're building the 'wich on -- and lost ingredients can cause the final sandwich to have entirely different Meal Powers to what you were expecting it to have.

* Serene Grace Flinch makes many competitive battlers' blood boil. There are three mons (Jirachi, Togekiss, and Shaymin-S) with access to a move that has a 30% chance of causing the opponent to "flinch", a.k.a. miss their action for that turn, and the ability Serene Grace, which doubles the chance of any added effects taking place - to 60% in this case. Togekiss frequently combines this with paralysis, which adds an additional 25% chance of skipping a turn. Jirachi frequently combines this with a Choice Scarf, making outspeeding it nigh-impossible outside of mons with normally overkill Speed such as Speed Forme Deoxys. And Shaymin-S has access to the move Seed Flare, which has a whopping 80% chance with Serene Grace factored in to double the damage of its flinching move. Any of these mons can easily flinch an opponent over and over and over until even should-be counters are dead. When Shaymin-S was nominated for banning by Website/{{Smogon}}... well, let's just quote the overseeing moderator on the results:

* [[spoiler:Once you beat the main campaign, you unlock the ability to use your rideable Koraidon/Miraidon in battle. There are two problems with this. In order to change Koraidon/Miraidon to battle form, you must have an open party slot or make room for it, which is meant to adhere to the "6 Pokémon at a time" rule but means you need to always keep an open space for it if you intend to use it. The more annoying aspect is that if you board Koraidon/Miraidon at all, it will automatically shift back to ride form and remove itself from your party, and will not automatically shift back if you dismount, meaning you must repetitively go back into your party menu and tell Koraidon/Miraidon to change back into battle form prior to any fight. Using the second catchable Koraidon/Miraidon does let you get a version that behaves like a normal Pokémon, thankfully, so you aren't strictly required to use your personal one.]]

** While there are only two Pokémon that evolve this way, it stings for Lycanroc, given how the ''Moon''-exclusive Midnight Form [[TierInducedScrappy is worse than its Midday counterpart in just about every way]]. But at least you can catch both forms at Vast Poni Canyon based on the time of day.[[note]]Though must one wonder why they don't evolve into either form based on the time of day regardless of version, which would be more thematically appropriate.[[/note]] The same can't be said for [[spoiler:Cosmoem, which evolves into the mascots]], so getting the other evolution is a real pain if you want to keep it and not trade it for someone else's.

* Starting in the ''Let's Go'' games, online battles are limited to 20 minutes, down from 60 minutes in the previous games, with no way to increase it or turn it off. The time limit doesn't pause for animations, including the 40-second Dynamax animation, which rarely leaves enough time to complete a 6-vs-6 battle.

* Several moves had their effects changed, mostly to accomodate moving from a turn-based battle system to a dungeon crawler. Some changes, however, serve to be frustrating. Two examples are Spite removing all of a move's PP as opposed to only four, and Knock Off potentially rendering a held item permanently unusable. Probably the worst of all is Teeter Dance, which confuses all enemy Pokémon in a room (and it uses to hit the entire floor, ''including user''). This wasn't much of an issue in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam Rescue Team]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers Explorers]]'' since the only Pokémon that could learn the move before Generation V was Spinda, an uncommon species. However, in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity Gates to Infinity]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSuperMysteryDungeon Super Mystery Dungeon]]'', the much more common Lilligant can learn the move as well. And they ''will'' spam it. Repeatedly.

* After you obtain the National Dex in ''Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl'', you gain the option to rematch all gym leaders once per day by talking to them in their respective gyms. For Roark and Gardenia, this is not an issue as they can be reached by simply walking straight from the entrance, but for the rest of them, you have to ''redo their gym puzzles from scratch'', an endeavor which ranges from slightly annoying (Fantine) to an unholy amount of going-back-and-forth that wastes too much time (Crasher Wake, Candice), ''every time you want to challenge them''. Compare this to ''Platinum'' where you can challenge only some gym leaders every day, but they are all clumped together in a single post-game area.

* With "Challenge Gyms in any order you please" being a big selling point, a lot of players assumed levels would scale based on progress, increasing the more story beats you hit, and anything goes regarding what order to hit those story beats in. Nope, every Gym Leader, Titan, Team Star Boss still has a fixed level, and there is a certain order you're expected to challenge them in if you don't want to be over- or under-leveled. Wild Pokémon reflect this too; if you go to an area you're not supposed to be strong enough to enter yet, not only are the high-level wild Pokémon harder to catch, but they'll also have obedience issues until you get the proper Gym Badge. (The fact that Pokémon you caught yourself can disobey you, a mechanic previously exclusive to traded Pokémon, is arguably a Scrappy Mechanic in and of itself.) For being shilled as the first mainline WideOpenSandbox, the fact that there's still some implicit railroading is disappointing.

* Only 8 raids are displayed at a time (9 if you include the Random option), and the option to refresh the list manually only becomes available when enough time has passed for the list to refresh on its own. This can get incredibly frustrating when trying to find certain Pokémon, especially since Tera Raids are the only way to obtain Pokémon that are normally [[VersionExclusiveContent exclusive to one version]] without trading or visiting the world of a friend with the opposite version via the Union Circle.

* The higher spawn rate of Pokémon combined with items that increase shiny encounter rate make Scarlet and Violet one of the easiest games to find a specific shiny you're looking for in. However, the one thing everyone hold against shiny hunting in this game is that, unlike ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'', shiny Pokemon on the field ''don't'' have a glow or anything else besides the alternate color to denote them as shiny. This can make shiny hunting specific Pokemon[[note]]most infamously, the Garchomp line, whose shiny barely has a difference to its normal colors[[/note]] incredibly hard to spot until it's too late and has already despawned.

* The Let's Go function of the game is a cute feature on its own, but when you have to level up specific Pokémon with it, it becomes a serious chore. The player must walk a thousand steps for several Pokémon to evolve ''while'' that Pokémon is following you with this feature. Most of the time, the Pokémon following you will be too slow for you to run, and certainly too slow to ride Miraidon/Koraidon. If you get too far away, the Pokémon retreats back to its ball to catch up. This means you have to slowly walk everywhere with the Pokémon, and if you don't want to battle every Pokémon with gumption, you don't want to do this in wild areas. Even if you do run about with the Pokémon for ten minutes, there's no in-game pedometer, and this makes it impossible to tell if you've hit the necessary number of steps to evolve it. It's not even clear if the game expects you to do so after the steps, or if it's running a collective total, and you end up having to guess. Run about in a town for ten minutes in circles, go level the Pokémon, find out it apparently hasn't made the necessary steps yet, go back and do it again. This also functions as a serious GuideDangIt because without an NPC or an online forum explicitly telling you to do this, you'd only find out on pure accident after dragging your Pokémon halfway across the world. Even then, if you wanted two, you aren't made explicitly aware that you did so by making a thousand steps since it evolves after you hit a thousand steps ''and then level it'', making it easy to assume you just had to hit a level requirement. That being said, there are ways to bypass this if you're just looking for Pokédex completion[[note]]You can acquire Rabsca from 4-star Raids after you get 6 Gym Badges, and the other two (Pawmot and Brambleghast) from 5-star Raids after you beat the final storyline. Additionally, Brambleghast can be found in the wild, albeit very rarely[[/note]], but it doesn't change the fact that the evolution method is more cumbersome than it's worth.

* As mentioned above, the clock in Tera Raids does not stop. This includes battle cinematics, like, for example, Terastalizing your Pokemon, which is basically a requirement when the Tera Pokemon creates a shield. Not to mention having to watch it do a special animation before doing a type-matching attack in this state. You also lose time in things like watching your Pokemon having circling birdies every turn its confused. These are all minor time consumers, but when time is of the essence they WILL add up.

** Meet [[http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2528665&postcount=2228 Quick Claw Horn Drill]], the champion sent by the RandomNumberGod to smite those who had the unholy thought of setting some sort of world record at the Battle Frontier.[[labelnote:Explanation]]Quick Claw makes the Pokémon holding it move first in its bracket regardless of Speed 20% of the time (ignoring Trick Room if it's set up). Horn Drill (and similar moves in other types, HD being the most (in)famous) is a OneHitKill whose accuracy depends on the level of Pokémon (30 + [user's level - target's level]), automatically failing against Pokémon of a higher level (though they worked differently in Generation I). The game is known to skew hit rates as the streak goes larger. Put two and two together.[[/labelnote]]

* Mirage Island. It is the only way to obtain the Liechi Berry, but getting to it is frustrating. You have to go to an old man in Pacifidlog Town and hope he sees it on a given day. For him to see it, the ID of one of your party Pokémon has to match a randomly generated number. The chance of getting there is quite small. Fortunately, the Liechi Berry was also held by a Shiny Zigzagoon... in ''giveaways''. What makes this a little better than normal giveaways is that the Zigzagoon with the Liechi Berry is a prize given when you get the Berry Program repaired, one of the ways being directly from EB Games or GameStop at a roughly 3-year campaign (from 2004 to 2007) or from a couple of specific versions of GameCube Interactive Multi-Game Demo Discs. You can see the problems here: on top of the same problems that physical events that distribute Mythical Pokémon have, you also needed to make sure that the version of the Demo Disc (which rotated) is the one that has the Zigzagoon.

*** This would soon fall into the same predicament that the regular GTS fell into (as seen in one of the aforementioned notes): Sooner or later, you will find one of those kids who want that Lv. 9 or under Zekrom. If you try to propose something reasonable, such as starter-for-starter or fossil-for-fossil, they will immediately start spamming the D: option, then RageQuit after a few seconds. These kids turned GTS Negotiations into a NonIndicativeName due to their absolute refusal to make any negotiations. There's a reason GTS Negotiations was not retained in Generation VI.

* [[spoiler:Once you beat the main campaign, you unlock the ability to use your rideable Koraidon/Miraidon in battle. There are two problems with this, however. In order to change Koraidon/Miraidon to battle form, you must have an open party slot or make room for it, which is meant to adhere to the "6 Pokémon at a time" rule but means you need to always keep an open space for it if you intend to use it. The more annoying aspect, however, is that if you board Koraidon/Miraidon at all, it will automatically shift back to ride form and remove itself from your party and will not automatically shift back if you dismount, meaning you must repetitively go back into your party menu and tell Koraidon/Miraidon to change back into battle form prior to any fight. Using the second catchable Koraidon/Miraidon does let you get a version that behaves like a normal Pokémon, thankfully, so you aren't strictly required to use your personal one.]]

* The moves Roar, Whirlwind, and Teleport all have the effect of instantly ending the battle when used in a Wild Encounter (they do other things, but those aren't particularly relevant for why they qualify for this trope). Problem is, they also end the batttle when used by the wild Pokemon themselves. Nothing is more frustrating than finding a Pokemon with a low encounter rate or worse a ''shiny'' only for it to use one of these moves and end the battle instantly before you can catch it. Particularly an issue with the Gen I Pokemon Abra, which can ONLY learn Teleport, essentially forcing you to chuck a Pokeball at it when it's got full HP and hope for the best. This was fixed in the more recent entries, with the moves failing when used by a wild Pokemon.

** The advent of Nintendo's handhelds being able to connect to the Internet and the Global Trade System, fortunately, has largely alleviated these problems. Someone who wants to trade now only needs an Internet connection and they can search the entire planet for people offering the Pokémon they want.

** The Water-type move [[JumpingFish Waterfall]], which was the Goldeen line's SignatureMove in Gen I, became a HM in Gen II. In those two generations, it was effectively a PoorMansSubstitute for Surf[[note]]80 Base Power vs Surf's 95; both had 100% accuracy[[/note]], making it completely redundant as an attack, much like Strength made Cut redundant.[[note]]80 @ 100% vs 50 @ 95%.[[/note]] Gen III made the situation worse when Surf was allowed to hit both opponents. Gen IV and later gave Waterfall some secondary characteristics that differentiated it from Surf, as well as making it a physical attack instead of special so it would be more appropriate for Water-type Pokémon with higher attack stats (like Gyarados).

* The moves Roar, Whirlwind, and Teleport all have the effect of instantly ending the battle when used in a Wild Encounter (they do other things, but those aren't particularly relevant for why they qualify for this trope). Problem is, they also end the batttle when used by the wild Pokemon themselves. Nothing is more frustrating than finding a Pokemon with a low encounter rate or worse a ''shiny'' only for it to use one of these moves and end the battle instantly before you can catch it. Particularly an issue with the Gen I Pokemon Abra, which can ONLY learn Teleport, essentially forcing you to chuck a Pokeball at it when it's got full HP and hope for the best.