History UnderusedGameMechanic / Pokemon

* This generation introduced Abilities for Pokémon, and their in-game battle effects are generally well known and explained. What many players never realize, however, is that some Abilities can have useful effects outside of battle, too: Illuminate vastly increases the encounter rate of wild Pokémon; Flame Body halves the steps it takes for Eggs to hatch, Compoundeyes makes it more likely for wild Pokémon to be holding items, and so forth. Although a few more Abilities with field effects were added in future games, they capped out at 34 (out of more than 300 Abilities total), they were never explained in-game, and ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' would finally remove most of these field effects altogether.

* The newly introduced convergent form gimmick as a replacement for regional forms also ended up being quite underutilized as it was done with just the Wiglett and Toedscool-lines. Two Pokémon families that are based on the Diglett and Tentacool-lines. Even when combined with regional forms, that's only four Pokémon families that received new Paldean variants. Three of which were, once again, from Gen I. Eventually, the ''Teal Mask'' DLC introduces the Poltchageist-line as a convergent family to the Sinistea-line, which gets rid of convergent forms being limited to just Gen I. However, that's still overall just five new variants.

* ''Gold and Silver'''s postgame allows the player to journey to Kanto and see how it's changed since Red's adventure, which is still considered by many fans to be one of the best approaches done for a Pokémon endgame. However, the idea of traveling to a past region has yet to be revisited outside of these games' remakes.

* One mechanic that can go greatly unnoticed is the ability to use the Cut HM to remove patches of the tall grass where Pokémon appear. Overall, the time and effort a player puts in to remove the grass to safely move along the route was quite pointless as just normally going through the route would either result in the same amount of time, or still ended up being a shorter journey due to lucking out on getting few or no encounters at all. Not to mention, the usage of Repels made the Cut mechanic completely obsolete. The potential was there to do some unique things with this, like having items or rare Pokémon only appear when the grass is cut away. However, Gens II and III didn't evolve this mechanic in any way outside of the Hyper Cutter ability in ''Emerald'' doubling the distance that the tall grass is removed (something that isn't even mentioned in the Ability's game discription). Thus, it became clear that the developers didn't know what to do with the mechanic, and was removed completely following Gen III.
* The Generation I games played around with the idea of being allowed to journey in multiple directions about halfway through the region, allowing the player to get the next few badges in whatever order they wish. For a long time, the Gen II games, and the remakes for both these generations, were the only time this type of plot progression is present, until Gen IX [[WideOpenSandbox brought it back in full force]].

* The post-game content of ''Gold and Silver'', where the player heads off to Kanto to see that region's timeline updated several years after Red's adventure, is still considered by many fans to be one of the best approaches done for a Pokémon endgame. Yet apart from the ''[=HeartGold=] and [=SoulSilver=]'' remakes, this was the only generation that allowed travel to a past region.
* Having the player character's mother save some of your money after every trainer battle was a neat idea and gave a sense of security if you happen to lose a battle (which resulted in you losing money). Other than saving up for a rainy day and having your mother buy random items and dolls for you, you could play the entire game without sending money to your mother without it affecting your gameplay. This mechanic wasn't brought back until the remakes.

* The Vs. Seeker that was introduced in ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'' was a great and simple item to use that allowed players to re-battle any trainer they've already come across, and possibly battle against new high-level teams. It made leveling up the player team's Pokémon much easier, and feel like less of a chore. Yet after ''Diamond, Pearl, Platinum'', this Key Item is dropped completely.

* Starting in the fourth-generation games, many Pokémon species were given minor sprite differences for each gender, such as female Pikachu having heart-shaped tails while males kept the flat-gopped tails. This was the only time gender differences were applied on a mass scale, as future games typically only have one or two Pokémon with notable dimorphism between genders (such as Unfezant, Meowstic, and Indeedee). Later games still maintain gender differences, and ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' even retconned Eevee to be one of the Pokémon with one, but it's almost an [[TheArtifact artifact]] since very few species introduced past the first four generations have differences. In fact, gender differences aren't even as expansive as they were initially planned- leaked prerelease builds of ''Diamond and Pearl'' show that way more Pokémon were planned to have them, such as female Charizard only having one horn.
* ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'', in order to make up for the lack of the Pokétch, fills the bottom screen with shortcuts to menu options and an interact button. There's one button that toggles your [[SprintShoes Running Shoes]] so that you can run without holding down the B button. Since there's few times when running is a bad thing, this is very useful. However, as later games lessened the use of the touch screen, this toggling feature never returned. However, ''Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee'' and later games don't require it anyway, thanks to the Switch's analog stick.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' introduced two new types of battles, Triple Battles and Rotation Battles. Triple Battles, as the name suggests, were a step up from Double Battles, where each side had three Pokémon active at once; unlike Double Battles, positioning mattered, since Pokémon on one end generally couldn't do anything to the Pokémon on the other end, although you could switch a Pokémon on the end with the one in the middle, adding an extra layer of strategy. Rotation Battles were similar in that each side had three Pokémon out, but only one was active at any given time; in addition to attacking or using items, each side could rotate their active Pokémon out as a free action, making Rotation Battles a major mind game. Neither battle variant ever had all that many [=NPCs=] that participated in them, and they never caught on competitively outside Japan. Another factor was frame rate which has been an issue with both types of battles. This resulted in both battle types being dropped by Gen VII.

* Alolan variants are well-regarded for allowing fresh takes on classic Pokémon and potentially breathing new life into their designs and/or battle prowess...but there are only ten families that have Alolan variants, and all of them are Generation I Pokémon. Many players (particularly those sick of [[PanderingToTheBase the perceived bias towards "Genwunners"]]) had hoped that there would be more Alolan variants for Pokémon from other generations.

* The EscapeRope is now an unlimited-use Key Item instead of a consumable. This would have been amazingly convenient in a region with a lot of caves, like Johto, but Galar only has two or three "dungeon" areas it's usable in, and none of them are large enough that you're likely to need it. Non of the cave areas in the DLC had the EscapeRope work.

* The EscapeRope is now an unlimited-use Key Item instead of a consumable. This would have been amazingly convenient in a region with a lot of caves, like Johto, but Galar only has two or three "dungeon" areas it's usable in, and none of them are large enough that you're likely to need it.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' introduced two new types of battles, Triple Battles and Rotation Battles. Triple Battles, as the name suggests, were a step up from Double Battles, where each side had three Pokémon active at once; unlike Double Battles, positioning mattered, since Pokémon on one end generally couldn't do anything to the Pokémon on the other end, although you could switch a Pokémon on the end with the one in the middle, adding an extra layer of strategy. Rotation Battles were similar in that each side had three Pokémon out, but only one was active at any given time; in addition to attacking or using items, each side could rotate their active Pokémon out as a free action, making Rotation Battles a major mind game. Neither battle variant ever had all that many [=NPCs=] that participated in them, and they never caught on competitively outside Japan, so both battle types were dropped by Gen VII.

* Starting in the fourth-generation games, many Pokémon species were given minor sprite differences for each gender, such as female Pikachu having heart-shaped tails while males kept the flat-gopped tails. This was the only time gender differences were applied on a mass scale, as future games typically only have one or two Pokémon with notable dimorphism between genders (such as Unfezant, Meowstic, and Indeedee). Later games still maintain gender differences, and ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' even retconned Eevee to be one of the Pokémon with one, but it's almost an [[TheArtifact artifact]] since very few species introduced past the first four generations have differences. In fact, gender differences aren't even as expansive as they were initially planned-leaked prerelease builds of ''Diamond and Pearl'' show that way more Pokémon were planned to have them, such as female Charizard only having one horn.

* The newly introduced convergent form gimmick as a replacement for regional forms also ended up being quite underutilized as it was done with just the Wiglett and Toedscool-lines. Two Pokémon families that are based on the Diglett and Tentacool-lines. Even then, that's only four Pokémon families that received new Paldean variants when combined with the regional forms. Three of which were, once again, from Gen I. Eventually, the ''Teal Mask'' DLC introduces the Poltchageist-line as a convergent family to the Sinistea-line, which gets rid of convergent forms being limited to just Gen I. However, that's still overall just five new variants.

* Those who were excited to see new Paldean regional forms of older Pokémon ended up feeling a bit let down that only Tauros and the Wooper-line ended up getting new variants. There's also the newly introduced convergent form gimmick with the Wiglett and Toedscool-lines, which clearly being based on the Diglett and Tentacool-lines, but even then, that's only four Pokémon families that received new Paldean variants. Three of which were, once again, from Gen I. The ''Teal Mask'' DLC introduces the Poltchageist-line as a convergent family to the Sinistea-line, which even though it increases the total of Paldean variants to five, it's still quite low.

* Those who were excited to see new Paldean regional forms of older Pokémon ended up feeling a bit let down that only Tauros and the Wooper-line ended up getting new variants. There's also the newly introduced convergent form gimmick with the Wiglett and Toedscool-lines, which clearly being based on the Diglett and Tentacool-lines, but even then, that's only four Pokémon families that received new Paldean variants. Three of which were, once again, from Gen I. The ''Teal Mask'' DLC introduces the Poltchageist-line as a convergent family to the Sinistea-line, which increases the total to five, but is still quite low.

* Those who were excited to see new Paldean regional forms of older Pokémon ended up feeling a bit let down that only Tauros and the Wooper-line ended up getting new variants. There's also the newly introduced convergent form gimmick, such as the Wiglett and Toedscool-lines clearly being based on the Diglett and Tentacool-lines, but even then, that's only four Pokémon families that received new Paldean variants. Three of which were, once again, from Gen I.

* ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire]]'' have Horde Trainer Battles. These were hyped up a fair amount in the trailers, and it felt [[TheCombatPragmatist very in-character]] for villainous team grunts to gang up on the player. Unfortunately, there are a grand total of ''two'' Horde Trainer Battles in the entire game: one in the Team Magma/Aqua Hideout during the main story, and one in the postgame Delta Episode. There aren't any repeatable battles that use this mechanic, and ([[RunningGag say it with me]]) it isn't available for [=PvP=].

* Starting in the fourth-generation games, many Pokémon species were given minor sprite differences for each gender, such as female Pikachu having heart-shaped tails while males kept the flat-gopped tails. This was the only time gender differences were applied on a mass scale, as future games typically only have one or two Pokémon with notable dimorphism between genders (such as Unfezant, Meowstic, and Indeedee). Later games still maintain gender differences, and ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' even retconned Eevee to be one of the Pokémon with one, but it's almost an [[TheArtifact artifact]] since very few species introduced past the first four generations have differences. In fact, gender differences aren't even as expansive as they were initially planned-leaked beta builds of ''Diamond and Pearl'' show that way more Pokémon were planned to have them, such as female Charizard only having one horn.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' tends to have a lot of this. For instance, Generation VI had Pokémon with Ancient Traits such as doubling how much health a Pokémon had restored, allowing you to attack two energy cards regularly and so on and ''Steam Siege'' had Dual-Type cards that hit an opponent for two types of damage such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Azumarill_(Steam_Siege_77) Azumarill]] who is a Water/Fairy-type card and its Bubble Drain and Play Rough attacks hit the opponent for Water and Fairy-type damage.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/PokemonRanger: Shadows of Almia''. While the "Swimming on a Pokémon" mechanic is indeed used many times in the game, they mostly advertised the part where you do it on an Empoleon's back... something that happens only ''once'' in the whole game (Three times if you're going for OneHundredPercentCompletion, two if you already knew about a certain subquest before and take a short deviation when you go there for the first time), while for most of the time you surf on a Floatzel's back.
* ''TabletopGame/Pokemon'' tends to have a lot of this. For instance, Generation VI had Pokémon with Ancient Traits such as doubling how much health a Pokémon had restored, allowing you to attack two energy cards regularly and so on and ''Steam Siege'' had Dual-Type cards that hit an opponent for two types of damage such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Azumarill_(Steam_Siege_77) Azumarill]] who is a Water/Fairy-type card and its Bubble Drain and Play Rough attacks hit the opponent for Water and Fairy-type damage.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/PokemonRanger: Shadows of Almia''. While the "Swimming on a Pokémon" mechanic is indeed used many times in the game, they mostly advertised the part where you do it on an Empoleon's back... something that happens only ''once'' in the whole game (Three times if you're going for OneHundredPercentCompletion, two if you already knew about a certain subquest before and take a short deviation when you go there for the first time), while for most of the time you surf on a Floatzel's back.

* Amity Square lets players walk around with a cute Pokémon following them...by which they mean "Pokémon that had overworld sprites drawn for this game". ''Platinum'' expanded the list to include the starters and their evolutions regardless of whether or not they're meant to be cute, and then ''[=HeartGold=] and [=SoulSilver=]'' not only had overworld sprites for every single Pokémon, but also had the first one in your party follow you everywhere. This feature would not be seen again until ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' to the disappointment of many, and then leave again until ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' had a similar feature exclusive to the DLC areas.

* Amity Square lets players walk around with a cute Pokémon following them...by which they mean "Pokémon that had overworld sprites drawn for this game". ''Platinum'' expanded the list to include the starters and their evolutions regardless of whether or not they're meant to be cute, and then ''[=HeartGold=] and [=SoulSilver=]'' not only had overworld sprites for every single Pokémon, but also had the first one in your party follow you everywhere. This feature would not be seen again until ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' to the disappointment of many, and then leave again until ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' introduced the similar "Let's Go!" feature.

* Starting in the fourth-generation games, many Pokémon species were given minor sprite differences for each gender, such as female Pikachu having heart-shaped tails while males kept the flat-gopped tails. This was the only time gender differences were applied on a mass scale, as future games typically only have one or two Pokémon with notable dimorphism between genders (such as Unfezant, Meowstic, and Indeedee). Later games still maintain gender differences, and ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' even retconned Eevee to be one of the Pokémon with one, but it's almost an [[TheArtifact artifact]] since very few species introduced past the first four generations have differences.

* Starting in the fourth-generation games, many Pokémon species were given minor sprite differences for each gender, such as female Pikachu having heart-shaped tails while males kept the flat-gopped tails. This was the only time gender differences were applied on a mass scale, as future games typically only have one or two Pokémon with notable dimorphism between genders (such as Unfezant, Meowstic, and Indeedee). Later games still maintain gender differences, but it's almost an [[TheArtifact artifact]] since very few species introduced past the first four generations have differences.

* The Generation I games played around with the idea of being allowed to journey in multiple directions about halfway through the region, allowing the player to get the next few badges in whatever order they wish. The Gen II games, and the remakes for both these generations, are the only time this type of plot progression is present.