Top 10 Worst Pokemon Games for Handhelds

The Top Ten
1 Pokemon Red

I'm not saying that people are wrong for thinking that Gen 1 is the best, but the only reason they love this game and hate all of the others is because they grew up with it. That's all! It's the only reason. Oh, Pokemon X and Pokemon Y? I didn't grow up with it, so it sucks. And that's pretty much how it is. But the only reason I think that Pokemon Red is worse than Pokemon Blue is because it has that stupid overrated Charizard on the cover. Come on guys, just because the game was made when you where a kid doesn't mean that it's the best. I bet that if you were born years later, you would have loved Pokemon X and Y. Pokemon Red is not the best, because EVERY SINGLE GAME AFTER had learnt from its mistakes and improved. Now it isn't full of stupid game-breaking glitches.

Anyone who looks at gen 1 without nostalgia glasses will see just how much a mess many parts of the game are. The game mechanics like how the moves work, type matchups, and the like are all very outdated. Many Pokemon have horrible, limited movesets and their designs aren't really clever at all. Examples are Rhydon having no moves of its own type and there many being a number of Pokemon who just have evolutions that are like weezing, magneton, etx that are kust more of the prevo added or glued on. Lastly, the game is FULL of glitches and is hard to play strategically because of mechanics problems.

Okay, so Red and Blue started the formula of Pokemon, and without them there would have been nothing that came after, blah blah. But if you think everything after them is bad, just shut up and keep that to yourselves, you genwunners. X and Y, Ruby and Sapphire, HeartGold and SoulSilver, Black and White, everything after them was so much better. Not that I'm hating on R/B, but seriously, you got to admit, it's really, really, REALLY sucky next to everything after. Sure, you genwunners may think that the later gens are the sucky ones, but to us, it's Red and Blue that really suck. So yeah.

While I admit Red and Gen1 invented the formula, it was improved by ALL the other generations. Anyone who says this game is good, and/or better than the others is blinded by nostalgia. Even the Pokemon in this gen aren't as good. While People brag these were the best Pokemon that is just because they were the first. If you looked at the rosters backwards, people would HATE gen1. But nostalgia and "originality" is always a factor.

2 Pokemon Go

I never saw the appeal of this. You just walk around & catch Pokemon. And I hate for Pokemon home I need Meltan & melmetal to complete my Pokédex (as well as marshadow) but the Pokemon company just keeps them obtainable in a boring app game.

Extremely laggy and limited. The pokeballs go through the Pokemon. Most of the Pokestops don't work to try to make you buy the Pokeballs. All can be found in this game. Evolution through candy. Levelling up using "stardust" what ever that is. No Pokemon sets because who cares about sitris berries, life orbs and focus sashes. Only gen 1 and 2 Pokemon because what is a Rowlet. If you're in America you won't get a Mr. Mime. If you're not you won't get a Touros. Plus there are no gyms or trials. I have been a Pokemon fan since I was 1. I know what I'm talking about. So take it from me. THIS GAME IS RUBBISH.

This should be #1 on this list. Even pokemon red is way better than this. This isn't even a real pokemon game. They just slapped the pokemon brand on it to look cool. Pokemon Red is full of glitches and the graphics are bad even for its time but it actually felt like a pokemon game... and Niantic... They are the worst. WE WANT GAMEFREAK. Not some random joe schmo who knows nothing about pokemon.

What an unpolished broken glitchy mess... I was so disappointed when it came out, why couldn't it be like the trailer? It actually made the game look better.

3 Pokemon Black

You can't get the fishing rod until you've beaten the game.

Almost half the Pokemon are common household items with anime eyes on them.

*SPOILERS*
The ending climaxes with catching the legendary Pokemon and battling the new Pokemon champion and the entire ending is over in about 15 minutes making you feel dirty and used.

Seriously why isn't this the worst main Pokemon game?

Dream World completely ruined this gen. It seemed great a while ago, but that was when Nintendo still supported it. Now that they cut off all ties with it, you can hardly do anything. My one regret is never growing enough berries.

Gen. 5 suffered from hideous Pokemon designs: Black/White Kyurem, Garbodor, Conkelldurr, the Forces of Nature Trio with their stupid moustaches, and the worst dragon in existence: Druddigon!

I will admit, this game was far from perfect, but it was so memorable, the story was good, the pokemon were good, and I wonder why this gen was the 2nd most hated gen.

4 Pokemon Diamond

I'd honestly be completely fine with them not remaking this lame, boring, uncreative game. The only thing D/P/PLAT did right, was properly split attack, special attack, defense, & special defense, and properly distributed moves to fit in those. Other than that, the plot is lame & cliche, berry is obnoxious & dumb, & this game is completely unmemorable. Plus none of the Pokemon in this gen really stand out to me & most are absolutely ugly as ugly can be. And this game is extremely easy. The only thing I can say here is cupcake face is adorable & underrated.

In the long run, D/P/Plat remakes uninterest me, & would be the only ones I would have no interest in buying at all. As now that we have had the split properly for ages now, there is no need to get this boring unmemorable game.

Diamond and pearl are the bane of my bad handheld experiences. Game freak thought it would be smart to slow down the game for new players. The battles ended up being incredibly slow and monotonous the entire game. Ruby/Sapphire ran great so why slow it down? And it's only Diamond/Pearl because they fixed the slow pace when they released Platinum. This is the only Pokemon game that I never replayed. Every version red/blue/gold/silver etc. I've played too many times to count including Black/white but Diamond/Pearl remain the games that were left untouched after the first play through. The story may be great and Pokemon unique but the flaw of gamespeed makes this by far the worst Pokemon ever

Let me tell you a story.

On Diamond version, due to some odd glitch, none of my Pokemon would level up besides my Empoleon. By the time I reached Mount Coronet, my Empoleon was level 51 and the rest level 20. This was two years ago. This was a ROM cartridge, keep in mind. And one year later, the cartridge stopped working. Just today, I fixed it, and I found that half of my party was gone and replaced with new Pokemon, sparing my Empoleon and Rapidash. I was seven when the game stopped working, and I remember, being the destructive child I was, I caught a glitch Pokemon and screwed up my game, So now, whenever I bother to turn it on, all I get is a bunch of coding. Instead of Diamond/Pearl, get HeartGold/SoulSilver or Black and White instead. Beside that, it has Pokemon that were completely forgotten about. Turderra, Derpoleon, and Idiotape. Yeah. I just said that. I bet Nintendo would agree that early Gen IV sucks. Just so you know, Nintendo is hiding secret hints that they're ...more

After RSE I had such high expectations and Diamond crushed them mercilessly. Very little improvement over the previous installments other than moves being divided into physical and special. The storyline was uninspired, the gameplay painfully slow (saving took hours and I hated the bogs and the snow), only few of the new pokes were good in a sea of ugly new evolutions for old ones. The only game of the franchise that felt like a waste of time.

5 Pokemon Yellow

Should be renamed to: Pokemon waste money version. Pikachu is a weak @$$ 81tch who refuses to evolve & will be the weakest on your team. At least let's go pikachu/eevee gave your weak starter that refuses to evolve some moves to make them a tad more useful.

Plus all the fun glitches from R/B/G are harder to do or taken out.

Pokemon Yellow makes Pikachu sound like a demon, ruins some NPCs, gives Pikachu a million times more praise than it deserves, and lastly, just takes out a lot of the fun that was to be had in Red, Green, and Blue.

Yawn... This game is so terrible and boring. I've played it, and overall, the worst. Pikachu even hated me and he always keeps on fainting, and refusing to evolve. Worthless!

Pikachu isn't an actual Starter, making this game inaccurate to the series and more-so based off of the anime, which again takes away from the game itself.

6 Pokemon Dash

Pokemon Dash. Where do I even start with this? In Pokemon Trash, you have only a limited amount of tracks, your hot air balloon only hurts you, and it completely ruins the Mario 64 face stretch part.

Pokemon dash was boring and had no point. I actually thought that Pokemon ranger was pretty good, but Pokemon dash was just terrible and sucked.

I bought this game using some of my birthday money a few years back. 30 bucks for it. Needless to say, I threw it away in under 5 minutes of gameplay.

This game is just awful. It's graphics look bad compared to other DS games, it's boring and... you can't even play as the speed god that is Blaziken.

7 Pokemon Ranger

Since I'm the one of the few people who actually remember most of the Pokemon Ranger series (I only played the sequels), maybe I'll break it down as to why the first Pokemon Ranger is inferior to its later installments. Since I haven't played the first Pokemon Ranger myself, I can't really say for myself that it's a bad game. In fact, it seems far from it. However, one REALLY frustrating thing about this game that most fans were glad was fixed in Shadows of Almia and Guardian Signs was the capture mechanic. That's right. In the first Pokemon Ranger, you had to keep drawing circles around a Pokemon consecutively WITHOUT stopping or lifting up your stylus or else you had to start all over again. Again, Pokemon Ranger is probably still a decent game, but when you compare its flawed capture mechanic that was much improved upon in later games, the first installment is arguably the weakest in the series. Thankfully, as I said earlier, later games fixed the capture mechanic up by ...more

This game destroyed my DS screen... NEVER AGAIN!

It also took out everything that made the Pokemon series so great to begin with. Collecting Pokemon? Nah lets just release them into the wild and use a spinny thing to catch Pokemon.

Plus it's linear as hell, you can't backtrack or you'll get told you're going the wrong way. Awful game, it makes ET on the Atari look like solid gold in comparison.

I actually LIKE this game (u mad bro? ). I mean, just because u release Pokemon in the wild after usage doesn't mean it's the worst game ever! I like the unique controls that were responsive. The story is at least similar to the other games! Hero goes on quest, discovers evil team, defeats evil team. And for pete's sake, people WANT Nintendo to prove that Pokemon aren't slaves! Releasing them makes sense along with the fact that they are EVERYWHERE! Doesn't anyone realize that there are the same Pokemon everywhere around every turn? They are very useful, in battles or missions, which have pretty complex puzzles for a regular Pokemon game's "push this rocky thingy" and "use surf" puzzles. In other words, this is just judging a book by its cover! Give it a CHANCE DARN IT! JEEZ!

Who put this here!?
Pokemon ranger is one of the most fun and memorable Pokemon games I played And the following version which was shadows of almia really caught my eye!
Plus I still enjoy it nowdays and I will forever

8 Pokemon Pearl

I hate this game. It was completely screwy when I put it in my DS, and it was brand-new! The minute I tried to walk out of my house, it would show me walking out the door 50+ times, and then it would turn black. Terrible game. I prefer Pokémon Diamond.

Has dull areas and colors, some of the least original Pokemon ideas, some of the most predictable trainers and gym leaders, a lot of the time to code for pokemon moves bug out and do crazy damage when it should be not ver effective, and final the story isn't as good as some people say

The frame rate is pretty bad and the graphics are pretty glitch at least it was improved in platinum.

It's the best Pokemon gen, platinum is the best game.

9 Pokemon White

It is really a good game according to me. For some reason it will take a long time stopping simply

Pokemon Black and White are on here?

10 Pokemon Black 2

Why isn't this higher, this is a terrible game. You have to play Black to understand even a tiny bit of it. And the geography changed THAT MUCH in 4 MEASLY YEARS? Wow. No.

This game looks broken, brings back the oldest Pokemon, and adds the final evolved Pokemon with lower levels, I don't know what to say.

It's a rip off of #1. I think black 1 is good but heartgold Is really good very good story

No! Who would put this on here?

The Contenders
11 Super Pokemon Rumble

Pokemon Rumble now has as many game iterations as Mystery Dungeon. Think about that disgusting fact for a second. Granted, Mystery Dungeon lost it with Gates to Infinity, but some games are respectable. Pokemon Rumble, on the other hand, is the most button-mashy zero-strategy game I have ever played. You don't get attached to any of your toys because they are unimprovable. Much like this entire spin off series.

Pokemon Rumble games are horrible in general. Constantly changing Pokemon, they die often. A pain to evolve them or really train anything. It's about as close to freemium mechanics without being free.

Do you mean Pokemon Rumble, Pokemon Rumble Blast, or Pokemon Rumble you ( the obvious worst out of the 3 )?

12 Pokemon HeartGold

HeartGold and SoulSilver literally have the most amount of content of any Pokemon game in this history of the franchise, and is the only main game which allows you to travel to more than 1 region. This game also introduces the Pokewalker, and for some people, isn't completely bad, as it adds another fun aspect to the game. This game shouldn't be getting heat for having the most content, but hey, it's the internet's decision, right?

Your an absolutely insane human, first of all if you think that Pokémon heart gold and soul silver are in the top ten worst games of Pokémon handheld history you must have an issue. Second heart gold and soul silver on all other websites (the sane ones) are in top 5 at least. If it's not in top five usually they rank black and white 2 as number one. So if you are trying to rank this game badly I give your reviewing skills at #1 on worst reviewers ever. I bid you ado.

... Heart gold is the exact same as Soul silver, the only difference is you get Kyogre in this one, and one other reason, but still soul silver should be right next to this.

It's so bad I never finished the game because it was so bad. It's so easy. But Pokemon black is pretty good. The Pokemon in heat gold look stupid and the graphics aren't venally good

13 Pokemon Y

Yea people. If you want bad graphics, look up 'mew green version' on google. Good luck not gagging when it pops up.

Pokemon x/y may have nice graphics & the best character customization (SM is pretty lacking in comparison...) it's so easy & the plot is mostly boring & cliche. The rival is unmemorable & so are the other 3 friends. Also hate mega evolution. If they just stuck to helping weaker pokemon I would have less of a problem, but legendary pokemon? Garchomp? Gangar? Garados? Tyranitar? No. I also find it just a stupid concept too. Who wants to temporarily make a Pokemon stronger, but always have it stay in its weaker form? Oh, how cool. 😒

If you want the easiest pokemon game play Y. It is the worst of them all. The characters were all annoying, the music was ear torment, the gyms were the best part of the game. But the worst thing this game did. Is. They made the champion a complete pushover. I had no fun in this game it is the worst main series Pokémon game

It froze after saving on lumiose city? Any answers? I was just about to get all my starting Pokemon to level X. PLEASE HELP!

If you want a taste of REAL bad Pokemon games, go play Pokemon Japanese Red or Green.

14 Pokemon White 2

My only problem was he Champion, Iris. Alder was a great character with an actual backstory and Pokemon not just in one type. Iris, on the pther hand, was some random girl with zero backstory and just dragon types ( my absolute least favorite type. )

I hate black and white they tried a new art style in diamond and pearl and it worked in my opinion black and white? Oh lets take ordinary objects and make them Pokemon

Got a level. 100 Pokemon in 2 days! No AR Needed! That's just sad. I prefer Pokemon Yellow!

Black and White 1 and 2 were straight up crap. End of story.

15 Pokemon Stadium 2

This game is great! Of course, the cups are no fun if you don't have a transfer pack with a Pokemon Gold save.

Nintendo 64, my favorite handheld!

16 Pokemon X

X and Y are by far the worst. The story was rushed, the pacing is off, the new Pokemon are okay for the most part- except there's hardly any. This game spent to much time trying to pander to genwunners that it left nothing interesting. There is no real character development for anyone- something that Gen 5, which is considered the worst one for many, was able to do. In fact, this game is the complete opposite of Gen 5- instead of Gamefreak doing what they want, they just did what the fans wanted. I really do hope that Pokemon Sun and Moon will give us a new, creative adventure and not another shambled- together trash heap like X and Y was.

Gen 6: flying wrestlers, hypnosis squids, and ghost trees.
Gen 1: Pterodactyls, psychic bearded creatures, scythe bugs, and poison ghosts.
Gen 6: cotton candy ( since when was it not delicious? ), pumpkins, and rabbits.
Gen 1: Decomposing poop, magnets, 6 eggs, and pig monkeys.
Every generation has their victories and their duds.

Red and Blue are so much better. They are original. Pokemon keeps getting worse over the years. Sure, RBY have bad graphics and glitches, but at least they were original instead of having a stupid garbage bag Pokemon.

Sure they didn't have garbage Pokemon in Gen 1. They had farts, magnets, and killer sludge to make up for it.

17 Pokemon Blue

You bash the graphics, you forget that this game is from the 90s.
The 90s was only a decade after the 80s which was really the beginning of video games. Yeah, I know the 70s had Pong, but more graphics started after.

Glitch party invitation!
Where: Pokemon Blue
When: October 15, 1996
Come and glitch up and have some glitchy fun!

18 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team

Such an addictive little game. It gets repetitive after a while, but all Pokemon games are like that.

This is my childhood! Get this off the list now!

Never heard of it

19 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Meh, it was okay I guess. But the fact that you couldn't befriend all the Pokemon up to that generation (like they've done in almost every past mystery dungeon games) was just disappointing. The story was kinda boring honestly, and the bittercold was extremely underwhelming. Not nearly as bad as the abominations that the Japanese wiiware mystery dungeon games are though. Those would fit right in on this list.

Meh, it was okay I guess. I was really disappointed when I found out that you couldn't befriend all Pokemon up to that generation (like you could do in almost every previous mystery dungeon game). The story was kinda boring, and the Bittercold was excruciatingly underwhelming. Not nearly as bad as the abominations that are the Japanese wiiware mystery dungeon games. Those would fit right in on this list.

When I was 8, I got my hopes up for a better PMD experience, and when I played it it was cute, but it started to feel like eating moldy artichoke while hearing nails on a chalkboard. Bad gameplay, horrible graphics, not a lot of pokemon, and a not very good soundtrack. If you were to buy a good spin-off pokemon game, get Explorers of sky. and this list is terrible reguarding people's tastes. (Diamond as number 1!? Seriously!? )

20 Pokemon LeafGreen

It's basically the gen 1 games all over again with very little new features (basically what gen 2 and 3 introduced). Sevii Islands is a pretty boring post-game part. Also, running shoes only obtainable after the first badge and the evolutions from gen 2 completely unavailable, seriously GameFreak?

I had a ROM of LeafGreen.
I deleted it because it almost sent a virus around the laptop I had it on.
Point here is, worst remake ever.

At least Fire Red was okay. This hunk of junk gives Venusaur, my favorite grass type starter, a bad name.

21 Pokemon Sun

When pokemon faint, they faint forever aka dead. what? Who the hell thought of this! It's sad, weird, and dumb! The 3 starters are all mediocre. Rowlet is useless in it's 3rd evolution. Litten has a rough start and the final evolution...ugh. And Popplio...is just...AWFUL! Also, there isn't much new pokemon. Really I saw a website page of the new pokemon and it was only 1 page. INCLUDING THE RE-CREATIONS. This doesn't even feel like a Pokemon game it feels like a Pokemon ripoff.

There are a lot of problems with this game.
1. Necrozma just ripped off black and white too and it was not nearly as good as gen 5 with the DNA splicers.

2. the games clearly ran out of ideas

3. TOO MUCH REFERRING TO GEN 1

4. Your character sprite is emotionless

5. Team skull is a joke. No for real, they try to be gangster but don't be gangster in a kids game, they have no goals, they are just losers on the streets

6. the pokemon designs SUCK don't @ me

7. Solgaleo looks a lot like pyroar andlunala looks like a dreamcatcher oragami

this is all my opinion by the way

Worshipped by rabid Alola lovers who will bully and harass you if you even THINK about something negative with Pokémon Sun/Moon.

Do you like Orofessor Rowan over Professor Kukui? Better be prepared to be bully and threatened by Gen 7 fanbrats.

Prefer Charizard or Goomy over Drampa? Prepare for Gen 7 fans coming for your head.

Love gym battles but hate island trials? Rabid Gen 7 fans will make sure you're in for a bad time.

Even sane Gen 7 fans will be attacked and bullied if they criticize Alola.

This game has poor pacing, poor 3-d animation, poor story, and will make you grind your teeth on the battles.

22 Pokemon Snap

You take pictures of Pokemon instead of capturing them. AND, you can't even move around the island outside the minecart! And the Pokemon professor is lazy! It's Porffessor Oak from the Anime!

Most boring Pokemon game I played. That was a waste of Wii shop points.

If I remember correctly, this is a N64 game. =3

Not a handheld, but still crap.

23 Pokemon Green

Ok who ever said "I was saying, Lavender town is horrible. Over 600 People died because of this (I think) and this is a warning, save yourself from this game. The director wanted to annoy people because they loved Red more than Green. That man is KILLER. And he did it on PURPOSE."

That was a myth no one ever suicided

I was saying, Lavender town is horrible. Over 600 People died because of this (I think) and this is a warning, save yourself from this game. The director wanted to annoy people because they loved Red more than Green. That man is KILLER. And he did it on PURPOSE.

It aged very poorly compared to the other games in the series. Green is just like R/B, but even glitchier. Oh, and don't pay attention to this other guy. The Lavender Town syndrome is just another bullcrap creepypasta.

Actually, nobody died from it. I'm taking this post down because it doesn't make any sense.

24 Pokemon Conquest

For years, Pokemon has been trying to convince us that Pokemon aren't used as weapons. We've got characters like Cynthia, Team Plasma and the Dragon's Den Master. Then what do they do? They give us a franchise mix up where they've literally replaced the weapons with Pokemon. I'm sure the game play is fun, but I can't get past the concept, definitely not the best Pokemon spin off.

Cynthia: :Pokemon are partners, not weapons.
Team Plasma: Pokemon are partners, not tools.
Every Professor: Pokemon are partners, not tools and weapons.
Pokemon conquest: a game where you defeat other nations, but all of the weapons and tools are Pokemon.

25 Pokemon Art Academy

Who put this on here? Pokemon Art Academy taught me loads of different techniques to draw Pokemon. Just because it isn't a game where you enslave creatures and make them fight to death doesn't mean that it's bad. It may be bad for you, but some calmer sensible people prefer to sit down and relax and draw. They can draw better than you can.

I love this game, to be honest. It may not be capturing Pokemon, but Art academy is amazing, even for the 3DS. It not only hslped me draw Pokemon, but other things as well!

It's too short, I'd love to art the Pokemon but please do more!

Yes it is a handheld.

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