Top Ten Most Annoying Things About the Generation IV Pokemon Games

Much like the previous list, this covers the most annoying things in one particular generation of Pokemon, this one being Generation IV, the other generation I am most familiar with. This covers Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver.
The Top Ten
Getting Munchlax

Above all else, getting Munchlax in D/P/Pt is INSANE. You have to use the honey tree mechanic, and I'll outline it later in a different item. However, with Munchlax, you have to figure out exactly which of FOUR predetermined honey trees will have a Munchlax, slather honey, and hope you get the 1% encounter Munchlax if at all.

It's truly ridiculous the lengths you have to go to get one, so the easier method is to breed a Snorlax with a Full Incense.

The honey tree mechanic

As I said, the honey tree mechanic is definitely on here and will be second on my list. You first need honey, find a yellow tree, slather it with honey, and wait six real-world hours (no changing the DS clock). If you wait too long, you miss your chance at a specific Pokemon.

Many specific Pokemon are hard to get even with this mechanic. Notably, Heracross is the second rarest encounter, and then there's female Combee, which is also a pain due to its gender ratio. The most common Pokemon to get are in the Wurmple family, and you can get these elsewhere. Even so, the mechanic itself may just not attract any wild Pokemon at all!

The overall slow pacing

All of Generation IV's games are much slower in pace compared to the previous generations, especially Gen-3. The running and surfing speeds in this game are much slower than previously, and there's far more usage of HMs in some of these games.

In some games, there are swamp or snowy areas where you can fall into holes and have to wiggle out, which could lead to a wild encounter while you're struggling to leave. Even the battles are much slower-paced frame-wise. For Pokemon with high HP, the time for the HP to go down after an attack is just so long.

Surf now affects your ally in double battles

What a shame that a Water move most players use has a chance of hurting allies in double battles when it didn't do that previously in Gen 3. It makes using Surf risky if you care about your ally in double battles.

Though there are still alternatives. Muddy Water still only targets both foes, and Waterfall is now a physical attacking alternative that only targets one foe.

Trading a Medicham for a Haunter holding an Everstone

This one is infamous because many people expect the Haunter to evolve, but it's holding an Everstone. The trainer even tells you about it after it happens.

No wonder there's an entire Reddit dedicated to hating this one NPC.

Whitney's Miltank has a Lum Berry and Scrappy

Another infamous example: while Whitney's Miltank did debut in Gen 2, both the Lum Berry and Scrappy didn't exist yet.

Miltank is a lot harder and nastier due to these two additions. Having a Lum Berry means you must hit it with a status condition twice, and Scrappy allows it to bypass Ghost type's immunity to its Stomp.

The multi-battle partners

Deals with Cheryl, Mira, Riley, Buck, and Marley in D/P/Pt. Personality-wise, these characters are great and offer a crutch in that they heal you after every battle. However, they are annoying when you're trying to catch wild Pokemon because you first need to get rid of one of the wild Pokemon and then catch the one left over.

The problem with this is your battle partner just wants to KO what you want to catch sometimes. Those doing challenges like Nuzlocke know that this is a problem.

Finding Feebas

Who would have thought that finding Feebas was STILL A PAIN in Gen-4? It apparently is. Feebas can be found on Mt. Coronet, and once again, there are specific tiles to fish from. The maximum number of tiles to find Feebas went from six to just four.

The tiles actually change automatically each day too, so hunting for one can actually take a lot longer. I'm not putting its evolution method to Milotic here, by the way, since it's the same as before in Gen-3.

The Global Trade System

This one is interesting but had a ton of flaws when it was first introduced. First, you can only search for Pokémon you have seen. The search results are quite limited, and many trade offers are ridiculous.

Game Freak has taken steps to make things easier for players at least.

Filling out the Sinnoh Regional Pokedex to get the National Pokedex

A bit of a minor annoyance since most players will already end up doing this, but of course there are always some annoying straggler Pokemon that you end up missing, and they are usually quite rare. Luckily, every single non-legendary Pokemon in the game shows up at least once by at least one trainer.

But if you're actively skipping trainers, you can miss out on some of them (like Drifloon).

The Contenders
Unable to get the Azure Flute

This pertains to Nintendo Event stuff, which is no longer a thing. Back then, this item, used for Arceus in the Gen 4 games, was never actually distributed, unlike other event-exclusive items. Junichi Masuda said that players might be confused about its use, which is why it wasn't distributed.

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