An odd factoid that compares Pokemon Diamond and Pearl with the original first generation Pokemon Red and Blue games is going viral and makes the generation 4 games seem superior. The comparison between the games hit Reddit recently concerning an obscure, but important detail that could even potentially break the player's Pokemon Red and Blue playthrough.
The original generation 4 games, Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, have been out for more than a decade and a half now, and some players are still learning things about the titles that they never knew before. It will always be a hot debate among the Pokemon community over which generation is the best. Gamers go back and forth about which era had the best new Pokemon designs, strongest mechanics, and the greatest overall feel. Frankly, a lot of it seems to come down to which generation evokes the most nostalgia for the player in question. However, this new fact that's going viral on Reddit may objectively give a leg-up to the generation 4 Pokemon games.
As a commenter notes in the Reddit thread, if the player has more than one Pokemon for their Pokedex prior to obtaining it from Professor Oak, then the game will assume it has already been collected. Thus, Oak won't give the player a Pokedex and the old man who blocks the road to Viridian Forest will never leave, effectively trapping the player in the first two towns. This is a vastly different outcome than the marveled response Professor Rowan gives for completing the same achievement, something that works in the original Pokemon Diamond and Pearl as well as the remakes Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
The post containing the obscure fact has garnered 10s of thousands of upvotes on the Pokemon subreddit, and it's a good thing to keep in mind for anyone who plans on doing a playthrough of the original Pokemon Red and Blue games today, because it may just save someone from having to hard restart their whole save. In Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, the player gets a cool Easter egg reward for this, whereas, in Pokemon Red and Blue, it will completely break the playthrough.
It's not quite concrete proof that one generation is better than the other, obviously. Everyone will have their preferences based on a wide variety of other factors other than just an opening easter egg. It does serve to illustrate how the first-generation games can feel like the most glitchy at times, though. The games ran on the weakest technology and ultimately served to create the Pokemon formula rather than refine it as every core game since has attempted to do. It makes sense that certain details, such as players going taking the time to evolve their starter before getting the Pokedex, weren't considered during development.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available now on Nintendo Switch.