Ranking every core series Pokémon game by how good its postgame is

bdt2002

bdt2002

Guardian Signs super-fan
is a Pre-Contributor
Good afternoon, everyone. This is the first thread idea I've written up for OI in quite some time, so I apologize if I'm a bit rusty. I've been thinking about the older core series Pokémon games a lot lately- what counts as older is up to personal preference, of course- and something that's caught my attention is just how radically different each of these games' postgame content really is. Compared to most of the games' main story content, anyway, I feel like there's a lot more variability in what the player actually has access to and what they're going to be doing for most of their time after the end credits roll. Just think about it for a second- whereas most main story campaigns in core series Pokémon have followed a similar structure for... basically the entire lifespan of the franchise- collecting Gym Badges or some other story checkpoint collectible, finding the occasional Legendary Pokémon, battling an evil team, stuff like that- the amount of content after the end credits has ranged from just one extra Legendary Pokémon to find to being able to explore an entire other region again.

I find it unironically fitting that the original Kanto games and the original Johto games represent each of the extreme ends of this postgame spectrum with every other region after those falling somewhere in the middle. However, there is a bit of a problem with the idea that the amount of quantity in any given postgame means that the postgame is full of quality, because this simply isn't true. On average, you can get a pretty good glimpse at how much of a core series Pokémon region's effort went into the postgame by examining how much of its overworld map is locked behind the postgame. Using the Kanto and Johto example again, it's not exactly an unpopular opinion that the Johto games have a flawed main story, with its questionable accessibility of new Pokémon, poor level curves, and underwhelming performance from many of the new Johto Pokémon that are available, and as a result of this most fans remember Johto for the Kanto-centric postgame. Conversely, the Kanto games themselves did not have any major postgame areas of significance until the FireRed & LeafGreen remakes in the form of the Sevii Islands, but what Kanto's games do have over Johto's games is a more fleshed out main story.

These are just some of the points I've considered when I started asking myself an age-old question- which core series Pokémon games have the best (and by extension, the worst) overall postgame? If we are to consider all "third versions", remakes, sequels, and DLC expansions alongside their regions' base releases, how would that change things? I know what postgames I think are the best overall, but what I'm more interested in is collecting your guys' opinions on this subject. Maybe I'll post my ranking at a later time, I haven't really decided yet, but for the time being I appreciate your help and your discussions, and encourage you to keep a number of key questions in mind while you're posting about these different games:

  • What do you consider to count as "postgame content"?
  • How much do you value quality and quantity, both separately and as a combination?
  • What kinds of content are you looking for in your ideal postgame?
  • What difficulty level do you prefer for your ideal postgame experience?
Here's a tier list format you guys can use for your posts if you'd like to; happy posting, everyone, and I look forward to seeing what all of you have to say! https://tiermaker.com/create/pokmon-mainline-games-2022-and-gamecube-886669
 
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"Postgame" (i.e. entire game) is battle facilities (and PvP for other people), everything else in Pokémon is a waste of time. The more difficult, the better, usually, but I often prefer building my own teams over draft formats (I would always at least play Factory, though):

S-tier:
1. Subway
2. Tree (incl. EisenTree)

A-tier:
3. Gen3 Factory + Arena
4. Gen4 Factory (I also like the concept of Hall, but have barely played it)

B-tier:
5. Restricted Sparring (going off reports; I have never played gen8)

C-tier:
6. Maison (uniquely allows Triples, but I didn't find it as fun as I had hoped; gen6 barely stands on its own compared to gen7)

Gen9 has no battle facility => terrible, not the least interest in playing it

Games before Emerald have no battle facility (Crystal Tower, RS Tower, Trainer Tower are not "real" facilities), but gen1 / gen2 are worth playing because they're otherwise far better and more artful games than anything that came after. I guess it is an "unpopular opinion" that I consider the "story" of gen1 / gen2 superior to everything else, mostly because it is so subdued and "empty"; emptiness is good. Incidentally, Legend of the River King 2 is also a fantastic GBC game.

I think "postgame" is a muddled term... if there are still "quests" to do or areas to explore, it's not "postgame" just because it occurs after some arbitrary storyline cutoff (beating the "champion"). "Postgame" should be defined, if anything, as "content that never exhausts itself", which means randomly-generated open-ended challenges, i.e. mostly just battle facilities and PvP (everything else fails to qualify as a "challenge" as opposed to grind). By this definition neither RBY nor GS nor FRLG has a postgame, unless you count ACE or are addicted to slot machines.

edit: Gen1/2 Pokémon owes a lot to Mother 1. Johto being "all empty caves" resonated with me in childhood. USUM can be beautiful games, too, but there's nothing that quite captures the wonderful exploration of gen2 (the long road through Mt. Coronet and onward to Snowpoint in gen4, with the yuki-onna house, has similar energy). It's a different aesthetic to the shock-and-awe maximalism we have now.
 
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What do you consider to count as "postgame content"?
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For the most part, I consider the postgame to be after the final Champion fight/credits roll. So something like the Looker quests in XY might qualify, but definitely not Kanto in gen 2.
How much do you value quality and quantity, both separately and as a combination?
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A repeatable, high-quality postgame is something that I'll support an entire game on. After all, that's what I might be spending an order of magnitude more time on than the other parts.
What kinds of content are you looking for in your ideal postgame?
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As mentioned, solidly repeatable battles are the biggest selling point. Chances are I'll have stuck primarily to one team strategy throughout a playthrough (in part because of not having everything available), so I look to the postgame to provide a place to experiment with the entire set of mechanics. There likely ends up needing to be some level of randomization to keep things fresh after a while, but I'm not averse to more curated superbosses either: I think that the main game should be doable with most strategies, so the postgame is the reasonable place to put things that force different playstyles. Raids should not be the main draw because they invalidate so much, but I could see them as a side event to trainer battles. If we're talking commpletely ideal scenarios, I'd love it if Battle Facilities were set up for 6v6, I distinctly remembering bringing teams to Triples in gen 6 that really weren't designed for it just because any smaller selection felt incomplete.
What difficulty level do you prefer for your ideal postgame experience?
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I don't want to feel that I need to be fully optimized because that takes away from being able to experiment (this is also why I'm not convinced PvP is the right substitute), but it should definitely make me think about what's going on because that's the reason I'm there.


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Games with a Frontier are high because there are several different formats to work in and the Factory's nice for a zero-grind option. After that it's mostly in recency order due to amount of options. BDSP is abnormally low for a more recent game with a Tower because the combination of tougher AI, a larger item pool, and keeping the same BP income as gen 4 makes it a slog to get going, I haven't yet got to the post-post-game that division implies, a rough guess is in the gen 5-6 range (it's still limited by dexit, after all).
 
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Here's my ranking of all of these games and what I think of their postgame content. The games in each tier are unordered, although I can reasonably understand ordering them within their respective tiers at a later time if you're interested. I only noticed as I was typing this that I put Let's Go after the other Switch games, whoops So far a few of you have mentioned that you don't consider the Kanto portion of the Johto games as truly "after the main story", which is a perfectly valid argument. I mainly just wanted to clarify that on this draft of my rankings, I am considering Kanto as postgame content as it is unlocked after the first credits roll in the originals and the remakes. Emphasis on first credits roll- that will be important later. For now, I have some points I want to make about my rankings:

  • Pokémon Sword & Shield and Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's rankings in D Tier are assuming base game content only. I've seen the argument that the DLC expansions are functionally each of these games' "true" postgame, but I don't like this argument for two reasons. Between each of these games, we have four DLC "packs" in total, and out of those four, only The Indigo Disk actually requires you to have completed the main story to access its content. Something like The Crown Tundra treats this more like a recommendation than an actual prerequisite. The other reason is more notable, though- Game Freak has previously gone on record saying that the DLC release model was meant to be a sort of replacement to the "third version" installments of previous hardware generations, and if this is to be considered alongside the belief that these DLC expansions count as postgame content, then you would also have to consider, for example, Platinum as Diamond & Pearl's "true" postgame or Emerald as Ruby & Sapphire's with that same logic, neither of which would be a true statement.

  • The Gen 1 Kanto games rank in the bottom-most tier for me by default on account of one thing- literally, one thing. The one thing you can do in the Gen 1 Kanto games that is postgame exclusive content is go into Cerulean Cave and catch Mewtwo. Mewtwo specifically, I might add, since every other Pokémon that appears in this area has been obtainable before this in some capacity. I can't blame the developers of the original games too much for this, given the obvious hardware limitations of the time as well as the fact that at the time, being able to collect all of the remaining Pokémon and battle and trade with other players provided replayability after the main story. This tier placement is less of a situation where the original games were "bad", and more of a victim of not having anything that other, newer games didn't also offer. That is to say, this may have been a good "postgame" for 1996 Game Boy standards, but especially once the Kanto region's two sets of remakes (in 2004 and 2018 respectively) came along, there's only been less and less of a reason to come back to this one outside of personal nostalgia.

  • HeartGold & SoulSilver have the best overall postgame in the core series for me, assuming you still count Kanto as postgame content. If you don't count this, then I would say Black 2 & White 2's postgame is the best by a small margin, and even then these are a pretty clear-cut Top 2 choices, at least to me. Remember when I mentioned Johto's first credits roll earlier? If you don't count the first credits roll as the beginning of the postgame, that's completely fine, but any Johto worth their salt remembers there is a second credits roll after you beat Red on Mt. Silver, and this is what puts the remakes into S Tier in my opinion. In the Gen 2 installments, there was virtually nothing to do after beating Red, but this is absolutely different in the remakes. Provided most of these features are unlocked before you defeat Red anyway, you still have access to Gym Leader rematches, Elite Four rematches after you get 16 badges, the PokéAthlon, Platinum's iteration of the Battle Frontier, and, once you do beat Red, access to your choice of Kanto and Hoenn starters and the ability to find Hoenn's mascot Legendaries. That's not taking into account some of the changes made to Gen 2's version of Kanto in these remakes before the second credits roll either, such as Viridian Forest not just being a part of Route 2 this time or the extra in-game trades, Legendary encounters, or the unlocking the GB Sounds.
 
What do you consider to count as "postgame content"?
For me, the post-game begins after the credits roll for the first time. Some games arguably have a “part 2” which starts after the first credits roll and then ends at a later point, often with another credits roll. The most notable games that fall into this category are the Johto games, Legends: Arceus and ScaVio (only with DLC). But for this thread, and for my general opinion, I’ll consider anything that happens after the first credits roll to be “post-game”.

How much do you value quality and quantity, both separately and as a combination?
Separately, I value quality over quantity. All the content in the world means nothing if it isn’t fun to play through. This is why I rank games like X/Y higher than HG/SS, for instance. X/Y has less content than HG/SS, but what they have is far more enjoyable than anything HG/SS has to offer.

Obviously, a game which has both quality and quantity is preferrable. If there’s much to do, and it is fun to play through, then that’s the best possible thing.

What kinds of content are you looking for in your ideal postgame?
The most important things for me are the following:
- Good training spots
- Fun and challenging battle facilities and battle challenges
- Easy and quick ways to prepare Pokémon for these challenges
- New areas to explore
- New Pokémon to battle and catch
- Many legendaries to catch

Other things can be enjoyable too, but they are not downright necessary. For instance, a post-game story can be fun to play through if it is well-written, but it is not something I see as an absolute must.

In addition, there are other things that aren’t really restricted to the post-game, but that I usually do after beating the main game. Notable examples are completing the Pokédex and playing through minigames. If we take those into account, then I’d say that having a National Dex and fun minigames are two other things I want in my ideal post-game.

What difficulty level do you prefer for your ideal postgame experience?
Just like with the main game, and with video games in general, I prefer a fair and balanced difficulty over something that’s overly hard. The exception is Battle Facilities which I want to be a bit more difficult, just not too difficult (like the Battle Factory). That said, I don’t have any issues with a post-game that’s a bit tougher than average, as long as it is fair and the opponents don’t cheat. The Indigo Disk is a great example of this.

On the whole, I consider post-game and content to be a very important aspect of Pokémon. When I play the games, I generally spend 80-90% of my playtime in the post-game. I rarely replay the main game, I prefer to do things in the post-game instead.

Here’s how I rank the main series games in terms of post-game. Remember that this is just my personal opinion based on how much have I enjoyed the post-games of the games, not an objective analysis.

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I did not include Colosseum and XD, only going with the main series games here. The games are not placed in any specific order within each tier.

Some quick thoughts and explanations:

I think B2/W2 have the best post-game in the series. They have so much to do, and all of it is so much fun! Several battle facilities and challenges, large new areas to explore, a National Dex, new Pokémon to encounter, fun minigames, great training spots, various sidequests and miniquests, as well as a short post-game story. I had so much fun playing through their post-game, more than any other games in the series. And it is not over yet as I still have some unfinished things to do at the Battle Subway. The fun never ends! The only real issue is that Dream World is closed nowadays, and there’s no official Wi-Fi. But even so, I still think these games are at the very top.

Platinum also has a lot to do and a very solid post-game on the whole. A large new area to explore, with many new Pokémon to find. The Battle Frontier is pretty cool, but the only facility I really like is the Castle. The Tower and Hall are okay, but I’m not a fan of the Arcade and Factory. I am not a fan of the minigames though, Poffin making and Super Contests are my least favorite minigames in the series. On the whole, Platinum does not quite reach the same level as B2/W2, which is why I’m ranking it one step lower.

I think OR/AS has the best post-game of the Hoenn games. There are a lot of major and minor things to do, and it is really fun. One very notable thing is that they were the last games in the series to feature the National Dex. The also have epic training spots, training Pokémon to level 100 (or any other level) is both easy and fun which is a very big plus in my book. I honestly don’t miss the Battle Frontier, I prefer all the other great things OR/AS have to offer, and the Maison was enough for me.

US/UM were a well-needed improvement over S/M. They added a lot more to do, while keeping pretty much everything from S/M. I spent a lot of time in their post-game, doing pretty much everything there was to do. However, I think some things could have had a better execution, notably the Ultra Warp Ride and the Battle Agency. I also wish there had been even better training spots and a National Dex.

With the DLC included, I think both S/S and ScaVio have solid post-games. The DLC adds a lot more things to do, which is great. New areas to explore, new stories, many new Pokémon to be found and fun battle challenges. ScaVio doesn’t have any battle facilities though, which means they have a lot less lasting appeal than S/S and previous games. Without the DLC, I’d put these two game pairs in C-Tier.

Discounting all follow-up games and DLC, I think D/P and B/W are the first pairs with the best post-games. Both of them feature large new areas to explore, new Pokémon to find, fun and challenging battle facilities (the Subway especially) and new things to do. I consider these two to be the standard for what a first pair should be in terms of post-game and content.

X/Y and S/M are what I consider average. When compared to the other first pairs, they are a step down from D/P and B/W, but I think they are better than people give them credit for. They each have different issues (now new areas to explore in X/Y, no National Dex in S/M), both are fine on the whole. I am especially fond of the epic training spots in X/Y, training Pokémon in them is a lot of fun, just like in OR/AS.

I think Emerald is overrated, but still good. There’s the Battle Frontier… and not much else that’s particularly notable or worthwhile. I don’t think the Frontier alone is enough to carry Emerald’s post-game. As for the Frontier, I think it is good. The Pyramid, Dome and Pike are my favorites, while the Tower and Arena are okay. Not a fan of the Palace or Factory though. Unfortunately, raising Pokémon for the Frontier is a total pain. I never learned RNG abuse in Emerald (which I did for Gen 4 & 5), so I had to stick with traditional breeding. EV-training is also a slog. It can also be grindy to obtain the BP you need for everything. All in all, I spent a lot more time preparing Pokémon for the Frontier than actually battling at it, which isn’t a good thing.

R/S and FR/LG are below average. Neither is particularly great. R/S has things to do with the Battle Tower and Contests, but no new areas to explore. FR/LG has new areas to explore, but no Battle Facility and the minigames are multiplayer only.

Legends: Arceus has a lot to do in the second part of the game, but I just didn’t find it all that enjoyable due to all the problems this game has in terms of battles and exploration.

The Johto games are all bumped together because there’s not much of a difference between their post-games in terms of how much I enjoyed it. They have the kind of post-games that look really good at first glance, but isn’t that good when you actually play through it. You have an entire new region to explore! 8 new Gyms to take on! HG/SS also added things like the Pokéathlon, Shiny Leaves and they even blatantly copypasted the Platinum Battle Frontier! The problem is, most if this isn’t particularly fun to play through. Kanto is an utter slog, I recently replayed Crystal, and the Kanto part of the game was not fun. The games are also really grindy, they are in desperate need of better training spots to be really enjoyable.

R/B/Y are at the bottom simply because they barely have any post-game. Just one new dungeon to explore, and that’s it. I am willing to be a bit less critical towards them for this since they were the first games in the series and the concept of post-game in Pokémon games hadn’t been established at this point. However, they are still at the bottom here.

I haven’t played LGP/E or BD/SP, so no opinion on them. I don’t think I would enjoy the post-game of LGP/E that much due to how few Pokémon there are in the games, and the games seem pretty grindy (but they also seem to have decent training spots). BD/SP seems better, though. The original D/P had a solid post-game, and BD/SP seem to be even better, but still worse than Platinum (just like my overall impression of the games). However, that’s still not enough to convince me to get the games.
 
Postgames are interesting to me as a concept: I only recently got into Pomemon, and before that, I only played the occasional sports game where there was functionally infinite content.

Although this may change, the idea of a post game is very important to me. I prefer gens 2-5 in general, where my enjoyment in a play through is derived from grinding up my pokemon and watching as they get stronger moves, upgrading my team with more powerful and “cooler” mons as I find them.

The stronger moves and mons make playing the game rewarding because they make it easier and more fun. However, the thought of the game “ending” post-E4 is saddening because that means all my hard work has a glass ceiling, it stops mattering how strong my mons are if I have no motivation to progress.

What do you consider to count as "postgame content"?

Anything after the credits roll, as well as stuff that’s blocked off til the game’s almost all done. I’m always going to miss a route or floor in a cave.

What kinds of content are you looking for in your ideal postgame?

I think this is an interesting question. During a first play through, I enjoy exploration. Coming across a legendary unexpectedly, finding the strongest tms and new pokemon, exploring new routes. However, after playing the game once, these become less exciting, and even chores at times if the “reward” is not worth it. The first time I went through Sevii Islands was exciting, but now things like the Unown sidequest won’t be as exciting because I know my reward is the Unown.

And even if you put in a lot of new areas to explore, at some point it’s delaying the inevitable: there will always be a finite amount of new routes and new pokemon to include. Whether it’s the Sevii Islands or a new region, you’ll explore it all eventually and be in the same position either way.

I like the Battle Tower/Subway/PWT etc and completing the pokedex can both be fun tasks, but the more rewards you receive the better, my personal favorite being rare pokemon or good items. I like how in FRLG you get items for catching x number of Mons.

In terms of difficulty, I think for the battling, they should be challenging enough you have to use good pokemon and come up with good strategies, but not so good you *need* to breed perfect nature and breed. It also should be fairly easy to train up new pokemon for competitive, albeit some grinding is fun too. BW2 are great about all this overall.

As for the dex, I find Sc/Vi to be the most fun to complete due to catching pokemon in the overworld is easier (as opposed to going over patches of grass over and over)


How much do you value quality and quantity, both separately and as a combination?

Based on the parameters I gave in my last answer as to the “quality” I liked to see in my games, it definitely matters. If I don’t like the postgame, I’ll stop after the actual game. In Gen 3 I almost prefer to run the game back than anything, and atp most of my runs will be on emulators on my computer in the form of Nuzlockes or similar challenges.

I already answered for quantity too, I’d say, but ideally I really value both.

What difficulty level do you prefer for your ideal postgame experience?

I already talked about it in terms of Battle places, in terms of completing the dex, I’d like that as simple as possible. I want the challenge to come from length there, not some bizarre evolutionary methods, extreme rarity, or locked.

I think tera raids are actually difficult in a fun way, but after Gen 9 is done and people don’t play competitively, a lot of the motivation I have to grind them out will likely disappear.

I also don’t like the special occasion raids because I want time to think of a strategy on my own, and doing it for a specific 48 hour window is stressful.

That’s really my thoughts on postgames. I haven’t been playing long enough to have strong opinions on every gen, I need to spend more time with Gen 4’s. I have a feeling Gen 5 will come out on top, specifically BW2.

I will say for those, I was slightly disappointed in the post game dex. I was hoping for 2-3 more legendaries and about 50-60 more mons. This comes in part from misunderstanding Dexit.

I thought pre Gen 7, you could catch almost every single pokemon in each generation, not that you could play as every single pokemon in each generation.
 
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