4th Gen Certain Pokemon Cannot evolve

[Palamon]

In HG/SS, some Pokemon that could evolve in Sinnoh can't evolve in Johto. Eevee cannot evolve into Leafeon or Glaceon in these games, and likewise, Magneton cannot become Magnezone and Nosepass cannot become Probopass. There are also a lot of Pokemon evolutions that are still obtainable, but can't even be evolved until the postgame, such as Togetic into Togekiss, Murkrow into Honchkrow simply because the items to evolve them are not obtainable unless you trade them over early, or beat Lance.

Were you bothered by this? I definitely was, especially for Eevee into Leafeon and Glaceon. They could have easily fixed this problem by having Eevee evolve into Leafeon in a different method in these games, same with Glaceon. I also think Magneton into Magnezone and Nosepass into Probopass could also have been remedied by having them evolve differently in these games, but Game Freak just didn't bother.

I'm not too bothered by newer evolutions being mostly after the post game since they're not in the Johto Pokedex to begin with, though.

 

[starlightartist]

this, to me, is just an example of poor game design on game freak's part. it reminds me very much of something they did in the other gen iv games, diamond and pearl:

adding a huge swathe of new evolutions for old pokemon or lines that needed it (such as magmortar, magnezone, yanmega etc) and then making almost ALL of the pokemon or evolution methods inaccessible until the post game. i sort of get it, but it actually just comes across as those games shooting themselves in the foot by denying the player access to a huge chunk of the new mons. fortunately, they made a lot of changes to the dex in platinum which made a lot of this issue go away.

 

[Lysander]

Yeah, this was pretty annoying for me when I used a Magneton in one of my older Soul Silver playthroughs. Fortunately, I managed to gain access to an extra DS and temporarily traded Magneton to my Pearl file so I could evolve it at Mt Coronet before sending it back to Soul Silver as a Magnezone.

I'm glad that Mamoswine and Tangrowth are available and in the Johto Dex at least, its better than in Fire Red/Leaf Green where you apparently couldn't evolve a Golbat into a Crobat until you had beaten the game. Because Kanto.

 

[DragonKing48]

Kingdra has this problem in almost every single game-meaning it's not available until almost post-game.

 

[Roni]

This is what I love about romhacks. Sure the stories won't ever be as good/solid as main series games (not to mention plenty of bugs here and there), but in exchange for that I get to use a team of Pokemon I actually like thanks to lush availability all around.

 

[bravestbat]

They could've easily made some of the existing locations suitable for evolving those Pokemon. ex. Kanto Power Plant for Magnezone / Probopass, Ilex Forest could've had the Moss Rock, and Mt. Silver having the Ice Rock. Never made much sense.

Another interesting fact about Nosepass line: HGSS data suggests it can learn Head Smash by breeding, but nobody in its egg group could learn it at the time so it couldn't learn it and they removed it from its movepool since then.

 

[Ninetales]

I've never even realized that this was the case. I have a 3DS and a regular DS and therefore trade Pokémon back and forth like it's no one's business. It's kind of ridiculous though, you'd think they'd want to promote all of these new evolutions by allowing Pokémon to evolve.

 

[Amore]

Like the emphasis on trading meaning there are lots of trade evolutions, this is something that can really get to me. Its less of an issue the past 10 years or so as- I got a DSi because we thought my DSLite was broken (turns out it just the Diamond cartridge now glitches in the snow) and so now have two consoles - but when I first got Emerald for my GBA and Machoke didn't evolve even at lv. 100 it was infuriating to 11 year old me.
I guess we can't expect them to really think about longevity, their business is to constantly develop and sell newer games, after all - but it its frustrating when a series that used to build its entire identity around completing the Pokédex leaves you unable to do that. The GTS in Gen IV, in combination with my household finally getting Wi-Fi, made those games so much more enjoyable than their predecessors, so much so that unlike a majority of people I have more nostalgia for my 4th Pokémon game than my 1st. That they no longer support that, or the Dream World for Gen V, does just take a little something away from the games. Dream World sucked though, I don't actually miss the feature in that case, its really frustrating that it was the only way to obtain certain items and Pokémon.