Spin-off Tier List

Layell

Layell

Alas poor Yorick!
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It's time to end the debate, we are going to put into tiers all the games that don't bother with EV's IV's and our general turn based four move strategy and put the rest of the games in order of best to worst. To guide these are the parameters for qualifications and making a title ideal

-Does not have a turn based combat system as in the main games No Stadium/Colo/XD/PBR
-Has Poke/Pokemon or the name of a Pokemon in the title
-Uses a variety of the available Pokemon well and in interesting ways
-Has an element of strategy/enjoyment comparable to the main games
-Was released on a Nintendo platform
-Title does not have to have an international release (Pokemon TCG2)
-Supporting connectivity/social interactions between players is ideal
-Can be replayed with the same enjoyment

Full list of games
-Pokemon Trading Card Game
-Pokemon Card GB2
-Pokemon Pinball
-Pokemon Pinball: RS
-Pokemon Puzzle League
-Pokemon Puzzle Challenge
-Hey You, Pikachu
-Pokemon Channel
-PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure
-PokePark 2: Wonders Beyond
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red/Blue Rescue Team
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Keep Going Blazing/Stormy/Light Adventure Squad
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
-Pokemon Ranger
-Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
-Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs
-Pokemon Rumble
-Pokemon Rumble Blast
-Pokemon Rumble U
-Pokemon Snap
-Pokemon Dash
-Pokemon Trozei
-Learn With Pokemon: Typing Adventure
-Pokemon Conquest
-Pokemon Dream Radar
-My Pokemon Ranch

Current List

S[nap] Tier:
-Pokemon Snap
-Pokemon Trading Card Game
-Pokemon Card GB2

A Tier:
-Pokemon Conquest
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red/Blue Rescue Team
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Keep Going Blazing/Stormy/Light Adventure Squad
-Pokemon Puzzle Challenge

B[etter] Tier:
-Pokemon Dream Radar

B[adder] Tier:
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

C Tier:
-PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure
-PokePark 2: Wonders Beyond

D[ash] Tier:
-Pokemon Dash
-Pokemon Channel
-My Pokemon Ranch
-Hey You Pikachu

Here are my first nominations which I think set the bar for the tier list

Pokemon Snap for S tier, it is a short game but is incredibly replayable for getting those perfect picture shots or just messing around throwing apples at Charmander to make him angry. You could print out photos in the N64 days and the Wii version allows you to save to the SD card for more sharing. It's fun to try the different combinations of tools and to do a level run and get a high score overall.

Pokemon Dash for D tier: A weak DS entry at the launch window which could easily wreck your screen, you can only play as Pikachu in single player. It isn't very difficult and has a token effort to have the fourth gen Munchlax appear. If you want you can import your team from the games and have their sprites as race tracks but it isn't that compelling of a reason to continue playing. Good luck trying to even find five other people with this game for local play.
 
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Massively agree with Snap in S Tier. It should only really be joined by the first TCG game. Snap was such crazy for its time and I can't believe Nintendo have not revisited the concept with the Wii, 3DS or WiiU. Each of those consoles would have various unique ways if playing the game. I mean the WiiU and 3DS you might as well be HOLDING the Camera for crying out loud lol. I think I echo the sentiments of many here when I say WHY NO SNAP 2?!?!?!

TCG was so mind blowing when I first played it. The fact I could have all the cards I had in digital form and could make up new decks easily was so much fun. AND you could get all the cool super rare cards like Zapdos etc which are/were virtually impossible to get in proper card form.

Conquest is probably A tier tbh... It was a solid spin off. I didn't overly enjoy it, but I know a lot of people did (I got bored of the repetitive grind section near the middle of the game and the stupid evo/recruit mechanics). It takes time, and has a very unique setting for a Pokemon game leading to all sorts of crazy links to the main series games.

I'd put MPR down in D tier. It's not really a game. It IS incredibly useful for storing Pokemon (I have over 800 mons on there) which all in all would not fit on a cartridge if I needed them too... I also have probably 200 or so mons "trapped" in the Ranch because I've deposited stuff from games I have now deleted so there is no way to get those mons off. It's useful for Phione/Mew though which are relatively hard to get anywhere else.
 
PMD: Explorer of Sky (and also Darkness/Time I guess but I didn't play them) is at least A material just because of the plot, which is amazing for a pokemon game. Also, the post-game content is enjoyable and challenging -especially Zero Islands- and you can try to 'catch' them all if you like it.
 
I think that pokemon mystery dungeon red and pokemon mystery dungeon blue should be in A tier as they were the origanal MD and back then that style of game was massively different. Instead of ordering pokemon around, you were the pokemon and that made it pretty special. Also the great story that comes along with all mystery dungeon games. I mean at the end of the game when your main character starts floating away as a ball of light I was freaking out and was so frickin sad I thought it was game over but then all of the legendarie fights later gave me reason to continue playing it long after the main story. This is why I nominate Pokemon Mystery dungeon Red/Blue rescue team for A-Class


Side Note: Did you get this from pokemon connoisseur Cilan?
 
The original TCG game was hella solid.

Puzzle leagues should be in different tiers. The handheld version was much better.

Conquest for A. Conquest is nowhere near Snap, but then again nothing is close to it except for original TCG.
 
Unlike other people I'm not going to nominate my favourite game for S rank, but Hey you, Pikachu for C rank. It is a fairly fun game but it is incredibly simplistic. It is basically a home-console version of tamagotchi (I know that is wrong but you should be able to figure it out...) except with a lot less stuff to do in the fact that it is about keeping an animal as a pet. For now it would sound like a D rank game, right? Well it is absolutely full of easter-eggs and if you decide not to find out about them all then you could be in for hours of fun. Once you find a few easter-eggs you can spend lots of time saying thigns that you think might cause easter-eggs to Pikachu and giggle at the adorable reactions, so it is a solid enough game for C rank IMO.

(also corrupt it TheMantyke)
 
This thread is an excellent idea.

I'd like to nominate Pokemon Puzzle Challenge for A-Rank. The game was very simple in concept, yet very fun, similar to the kind of game that people might play on their phones nowadays. There are several different modes to play which will keep you coming back for more. There are the simple "survive and get a high score" modes and the main "story" mode. The story has good replay value in its several difficulty levels, which add on the Elite Four and Lance as you play again on a higher difficulty. This sets it apart from other puzzle games in that there is a goal to reach, rather than just "play until you lose". Finally, unlockables such as the several different Pokemon to use gives you an incentive to keep playing the game until you...well, catch 'em all. For being a game that is such a simple concept but makes you want to play it over and over, I think PPC should be in A-Rank. :)
 
Really, if you think any PMD game is less than A-rank (except maybe GoI) you need to rethink your life. There is literally nothing bad about those games, and their effect on the player never wears off no matter how many times it's played.
 
Ok I'm adding a few more that I feel strongly about


-TCG and TCG2 for S tier: Both are simply fantastic games. The first has all the cards we loved and was a great open ended experience and with all the decks and leaders you really want to try different decks and fight trainers again and again. Some may be biased against TCG2 because of the natural difficulty it is to play the game when the original game is Japanese, but this game adds some of the bonus packs and the dark TR set, it's not much more from that point of view but there are about double the amount of trainers and a whole other island. The final boss is actually a pain in the butt. They have bonus challenge trainers based on the top tier decks of the time. You can choose to be a guy or a girl. This sequel deserves the same spot.


-Pokemon Conquest for S tier: This can stand up with the big ones, even with story mode was the only thing you played that is a rather complete experience. I read on a guide you could easily spend 300 hours and I believe it here. Some may complain it can be difficult or grindy but what main game isn't grindy when you've done the Elite 4 for the 67th time to level something up? I still can't believe a game like this was made and brought to the west.


-Pokemon Dream Radar for B tier: It's a clone of a game you got on default but it has the ability to get you some really good pokemon for BW2 and at level 40 once you get all the badges. Plus it's $3 so you can't get much lower than that.


-My Pokemon Ranch for D tier: yeah I put this one in and not Pokemon Box because one actually pretends to be a game. You can really only harass your unwanted boxed mons for so long


-Pokemon Channel for D tier: Not much of a game, uses a dumb time system to hide how little content there is. Not even the EU feature of having the Jirachi download could salvage this to a higher tier.


So I would also say B tier games are still overall decent games that would be fun to play, heck even C tier games were the ones we played when we were waiting for the next generation to come out. That being said I might consider splitting B tier into B[etter] and B[adder] tiers to accommodate the congestion we might face there. EDIT: IT IS DONE


For people who played MD games: I am hearing a consensus that all except GoI should be A, are any of them remarkably better or is one just leagues better than the others? Let me know I've never played them all.
 
explorers of sky should definitely be S. it's not much better than the rest, but it's a nice improvement. the rest can be A (Gates of Infinity should be B), but i wouldnt mind any of them being S besides gates of infinity because they were such amazing games (you should really play them layell... you're missing out). there's no pokemon game i've played more than them -- not even conquest -- which while it has a shitload of gameplay, i found some of it a bit repetitive at times tbh. the story of the mystery dungeon games was impecciable, and is really the only pokemon spinoff game that offers a very good story. i think conquest should be A, because the opinions i've seen regarding the game have been pretty mixed. s rank games should be ones pretty much everyone who has played it really enjoys, like the TCG and pokemon snap, and that's just not the case for pokemon conquest. that said it was a pretty awesome game.

rumble should probably be B, maybe A. it's a fun game but it's very repetitive and there's not much too it.
 
I think B-tier sounds a bit too high for Gates to Infinity. Gates to Infinity to C-tier, in my opinion. It's got the same overall good gameplay the Mystery Dungeon series has, but I have two major qualms with it:

-It's too easy.

Gates to Infinity just goes about "simple" in the completely wrong way. For one, all of the boss battles are too god damn easy, including the ones against Kyurem and the Bittercold (really? I expected those to be at least a little difficult) All of the post-story jobs are too easy, including the ones with 8+ star difficulties. Overall, just how incredibly easy the game is makes it incredibly boring. Past PMD games just didn't have that "too damn easy" feeling to them.

-The story is too short.

How many boss battles were there again? Like, six? Add this on to the fact that very little takes place in between these boss battles (which, I'll say again, are unbelievably easy) and you'll be done with the game so fast it won't even be funny. Oh, and not only that, but there's almost nothing to do after the story except... Build up Paradise? Discover Magnagates and do even more boring-ass, easy-ass missions? Boring.

These two factors combined mean I haven't touched Gates to Infinity in almost two months, and I easily regret ever purchasing the game. And even when I do play it, I find it so boring that I stop playing after maybe 20 minutes, if I even last that long. However, all other Mystery Dungeon games should be A, possibly Explorers of Sky in S.
 
gates of infinity wasn't easy (maybe i didnt grind enough) ... but it was challenging in the wrong way. the boss battles weren't hard, but pretty much every time there's weather in a dungeon floor, that dungeon floor is fucking brutal, especially when you consider how long the dungeon floors were. pretty much all of the times i've had trouble in the new pmd is because i eventually get starved out of oran berries and lose all of my health from constant pokemon everywhere and no hp between the battles. the lack of regeneration when there is weather is really, really dumb and is one of my major qualms about the new pmd.

the story was definitely too short, and i agree that really sucked. i liked building up paradise a lot, but it doesn't make up for the lack of postgame.
 
Gates of Infinity is far from C rank, oh my god. It is far better than decent and while it was quite easy that's a good thing for me, as I am bullcrap at the other games in the series. Just because it's not some hard-core experience the story-line was still quite good. Yes, maybe it was short, but to me it was a good length; I often have to play two Pokemon games at a time or give myself a horrifically challenging team to actually finish one of the games, my attention span isn't that great. For me GoI was the perfect game, despite it being a different game of the series. You need to think outside of the box for tiering games like this and even though this game was different to the others in the series it is still solidly A rank.
 
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I fail to see Gates to Infinity as being A-rank, no matter what way you look at it. A-rank is what I see as being the "Good but not quite S-rank good" games like pre-Gates Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, Pokemon Ranger, Pokemon Conquest, etc. Gates to Infinity is nowhere near on the same level as these games. While I did expect my C-rank proposal to be a bit controversial, Gates to Infinity in no way deserves A-rank. Okay, maybe you consider the easy difficulty a good thing, and that's okay. But I'm sure most of us will consider that a bad thing.

Also, please, Hey You, Pikachu in anything but D-rank is a joke. That game is legitimately godawful.

Anyway... Pokemon Trozei needs to be in S-rank. It's an absolutely incredible puzzle game, one of the best I've played (though I love puzzle games so... yeah)
 
I have put conquest in A, as well as the good MD games, GoI can go in badder tier. Hey You Pikachu is also getting the D tier treatment, my experience from the game is short and largely second hand but there isn't much to the game and the voice commands don't even work all the time. I've been playing through Puzzle Challenge and plan to hit the other puzzle games. It is certainly good, and has some fun music. My big thing is that so far it's a Pokemon game in name only. From what I can tell choosing type advantage does help but once that is out of the way it's a standard puzzler.
 
Pokemon Rumble in A.

Pokemon Rumble is an incredible game; I have both My Pokemon Ranch and Pokemon Rumble on my Wii and I bet you can guess that I go on My Pokemon Ranch Pokemon Rumble waaay more! It is actually the only game both my Dad and I like but I can see the flaws in it (limited movepools, limited Pokemon) which keep it in A rank.

Pokemon Rumble Blast for S Rank.

Best game on the 3DS right now, magnificent replay value AND it fixed all of the flaws that Pokemon Rumble (one) had. Lots more moves, lots more Pokemon AND a story-line make this a game to be remembered. It even has spotpass, we all know what a great feature that is, right?

Also I think Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 should go to A rank, simply for the reason that it is Japanese-only. I'm sorry, but that flaw should keep any game from S rank.
 
Arcticblast said:
Really, if you think any PMD game is less than A-rank (except maybe GoI) you need to rethink your life. There is literally nothing bad about those games, and their effect on the player never wears off no matter how many times it's played.
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I guess I've got brain problems, because I actually think the mystery dungeon games should be tiered differently as a series and some of them not as A's!

I think Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue team deserve the A tier slot. Being the first game where you could actually play as the Pokemon is a pretty awesome thing in of itself. Mix that with some nice environments for a GBA game and some great music including probably the most iconic piece of music from any Pokemon spin off and you have a really solid game. The only thing that holds them back is that the dungeon crawling and leveling up can get repetitive fairly often

I think Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness deserve B tier, honestly. They are enjoyable games, but I could never escape the feeling that they felt cheaply made. It felt very much like a rehashed of Red & Blue rescue team with a new story and Pokemon updated for the 4th generation. I was pretty disappointed they didn't take advantage of the leap in power from the GBA to the DS. Blue mystery dungeon got a get out of jail free card for being a reasonably early DS game and basically being a port of a GBA game, but these two definitely don't get the same excuse.

If I could make an analogy for how I feel about this game, it'd be like if they released Kirby's Dreamland 2 in 2003 for the Gameboy Advanced. Sure, it'd be a fun game, but it'd be hard to not wish for some more polished 16 bit graphics and music.

I haven't played any of the other mystery dungeon games so I'll just move on to my opinion on other spin offs!

The Pokemon TCG game for Gameboy deserves A tier at least. It's a simple and easy way to play and enjoy the tcg without having to spend huge wads of cash on booster packs. The only complaints I have about the game is that it's pretty easy the whole way through, it's tutorials are absolutely terrible, and it's fairly short

However, the sequel, Pokemon TCG 2 is definately rightfully deserving of S Tier. It feels over twice as long as the first one, includes a japan exclusive expansion, and the Dark Pokemon lines. It even presents more of a challenge forcing you to build all kinds of alternative decks to clear the game. After all that, you even have some solid post game content with the sealed decks that allow you to battle actually competent deck archetypes from the early tcg days. It's a really fantastic game with some solid replay value.
 
I have put the Pokepark games in C tier based on videos and some impressions I have read, I have no intention of buying this game but they both seem to have more quality to them than channel or hey you.

I am interested in what we all think of the Ranger games. The first was a decently fun and the second had the good wisdom of allowing the line to break, I haven't played the third at all but their review scores seem all along the same line. Can any argue that one ought to be ranked higher than the others, right now I'm thinking of splitting them into the B tiers.
 
I played snap and honestly didnt think it was that great it was nowhere near as engaging as pmd sky and nowhere near as unique as ranger or conquest which all these three games deserve s tier alot more and also mystery dungeon infinity should be lowest tier possible it ruined a great series

EDIT:and how is tcg put that high up just buy a damn pack of cards
 
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megayokim said:
I played snap and honestly didnt think it was that great
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megayokim said:
and how is tcg put that high up just buy a damn pack of cards
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What you also have to understand how much these games are part of a product of their time, Snap is a game that hadn't been done or has been done as a see Pokemon in their habitat. regarding the TCG game sometimes you just too good for all the kids in the schoolyard and we didn't have the online versions we do now. Plus I could never get that Base set Charizard normally.
 
Layell said:
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What you also have to understand how much these games are part of a product of their time, Snap is a game that hadn't been done or has been done as a see Pokemon in their habitat. regarding the TCG game sometimes you just too good for all the kids in the schoolyard and we didn't have the online versions we do now. Plus I could never get that Base set Charizard normally.
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ok when i said it was not that great i meant compared to other games but i would be lying if i said i didnt like it and on the tcg thing i think that something that could be played in real life shouldnt really be rated that high as a game since compared to the real thing its kinda shitty and yeah i never got the charizard either but i didnt even like him so as a kid it never bothered me
 
Why is Hey You, Pikachu tiered. It doesn't have Pokemon or Poke in the name, so, according to the OP, it doesn't qualify to be tiered.

Layell edit cause I am not even bothering to respond:
"or the name of a Pokemon in the title"
 
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