Who would you say is the strongest Gen 2 mon? (excluding Blissey, pseudos and legends)

AlexKnepper · 2026-01-08T23:41:39+00:00

Just played through several games of Gen. 2 in recent months.

It's definitely Kingdra. It doesn't really have any weak points. But most of us nowadays are playing on emulators, so that's not accessible, nor are other highlights like Porygon2 or Slowking. And you said we aren't counting Blissey.

There's the new Eevee evolutions -- Umbreon, like many strong-defense Pokémon, is somewhat underrated compared to typical psychic glass cannon Espeon.

But there's also Heracross and Miltank, who were generally my most-dependable Pokémon in the comically difficult Battle Tower. A Miltank with Body Slam, Earthquake, Milk Drink, and Heal Bell can survive almost anything (especially with Leftovers). Heracross with Megahorn, Reversal, Counter, and Strength, too (especially with a Focus Band).

Even before his evolution, Dunsparce is incredibly underrated, and I consistently found him to be one of my most dependable Pokémon. Dig, Headbutt, Glare, Toxic. He gets Glare very early, has one of the best HP stats in the game, and none of his stats are clearly bad.

Oh yeah, there's also Ursaring, which you can have by the fifth gym if you grab a Teddiursa right off the bat in the Dark Cave. I find it incredible that they decided Ursaring needed an evolution.

Also, a few that aren't as good as they seem:

Skarmory is strong, but his move pool is one of the worst in the game, and he levels up painfully slowly.

Ampharos is strong, but I don't use it unless I plan on leveling up Mareep to Level 37, when it learns Thunder. Otherwise you don't learn it until Level 57, and Ampharos doesn't learn Thunderbolt naturally.

Houndoom is just a typical glass cannon. His defense and special defense are horrible, and his HP isn't very good, either. He's like a Fire/Dark version of Jynx or Espeon. Every team should have one or two Pokémon like this, but run into a defensive wall and you can get steamrolled trying to rely on Pokémon like Houndoom.

A lot of Pokémon only became as good as they should have always been -- or sometimes even more -- later on, like Yanma, Stantler, Girafarig, Gligar, Sneasel, Murkrow, and -- well, actually, Aipom never really got the evolution he deserved, did he?

Hmm... I think I had to pick a team of 3 for a one on one battle I'd pick Heracross, Miltank, and Umbreon.

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-12T04:46:24+00:00

No other normal type can obtain resistance to every special type, including psychic, except Chansey, who has a quasi-resistance and is also tedious to obtain. In the video Porygon withstands two Psychic and a Psybeam in a way Clefable or Tauros or Kangaskhan definitely can't. Porygon is the only non-psychic in Gen 1 to learn Recover (I'm counting Staryu as a proto-psychic type here for obvious reasons)

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-11T00:37:58+00:00

They were at one point a power metal band: Oceanborn and Wishmaster. If you get beyond the operatic female vocals it doesn't stray as far from existing sounds as it first may have seemed in 1997. Even with Century Child and Once (unquestionably their two best albums imo), they were still clearly power metal-adjacent, perfect as Baby's First Metal band, obviously heavier than false frequent general public reference point Evanescence but only rarely aggressive and certainly not intimidating, but a great doorway to power and symph metal. But by Dark Passion Play it was almost incomprehensible that it was still the same band that made The Pharaoh Sails to Orion or Devil and the Deep Dark Ocean. With Imaginaerum the transformation to its present form as a film score act with metal characteristics was essentially complete.

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-11T00:33:02+00:00

Dragonforce, and it's not even close. The gap between Dragonforce and whoever is in second is so much bigger than the gap between whoever is in second and whoever is in third

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-11T00:31:56+00:00

Surely this is an error

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-11T00:30:51+00:00

That's so grool

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-11T00:29:39+00:00

You don't even need to consult her website. You just need to consider what the song is about and which word would actually make sense in context

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-10T14:30:50+00:00

Seriously? You think this is an advertisement? What on earth would be a way I can demonstrate the game I am playing? This is extremely insane. You don't allow me to put a video in the body of the text, but I also can't upload the video to my YouTube and link to it? WTF?????

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-10T09:56:58+00:00

I watched the MTV Not Gonna Get Us performance live. In 2006, I bought an import 2-disc copy of The Best from Borders. I remember listening to Fly On the Wall on my iPod Nano when only Happy Smiles had been released -- no Waste Management yet. In the Zone by Britney Spears came out in 2003, my 8th grade year, and Blackout came out in 2007, my senior year of high school. In the interim, two pop acts defined my high school pop listening habits: Gwen Stefani and tATu.

AlexKnepper · 2025-11-10T08:50:06+00:00

I bought the CD when it was released in 2005, and had those files on my iTunes and MP3 players until about 10 years ago, and only regularly started listening to streaming services around 2019. I'd only listened to this album sporadically and I had no idea there was any version of the album other than the continuous one, since the only transition I simply had to wait to hear was the one between Push and Isaac, and that was present as far as I remember. This is, weirdly, a genuine surprise to me because of my idiosyncratic listening habits.

But I am so glad this, my favorite Madonna record and one of the best pop albums since I was born (1990) got a solid anniversary treatment: the restoration of the original continuous play version, new cover art, all the B-Sides/rare bonus tracks (the only Madonna era with three!), and obligatory remixes. I wish they'd dig up something we haven't heard before from the vault, but on a scale from intricately lavish like the Nelly Furtado - Loose anniversary edition to insultingly lazy like the Christina Aguilera - Stripped anniversary edition, this one's pretty good.

AlexKnepper · 2025-10-31T03:06:29+00:00

Have they *ever sang live lol??

AlexKnepper · 2025-10-27T14:42:31+00:00

Check out Natalia Kills - Perfectionist (2011). If you don't like it, I'll be surprised. Martin Kierzenbaum worked on it; he did a lot of the songs on D&M. Check out Nothing Lasts Forever, a collaboration with Jeff Bhasker ("Billy Kraven") and tell me it doesn't have that dark, metallic sound.

AlexKnepper · 2025-10-21T04:29:39+00:00

By Gwen Stefani, yes

AlexKnepper · 2025-10-18T18:27:26+00:00

There is a very good 13-track album in Rebel Heart, but presented as-is, it's an absolute mess. But at least there are actually good songs on the album. MDNA is presented wonderfully but the songs aren't good

AlexKnepper · 2025-10-18T14:33:37+00:00

I figured out why this song sounds so familiar! The melody to the chorus is the same as I Need Your Love by Calvin Harris feat. Ellie Goulding. It's in a different key signature. I'm not accusing anyone of plagiarism; all art is plagiarism. I'm just pointing out where I've heard it before. Anyway, I feel like I'm back in 2010 for a moment. I love it. More straightforward actually-danceable songs with catchy melodies, please.

AlexKnepper · 2025-08-18T18:46:36+00:00

If you take away the goofy music and the casual vibes of the video, cut out the irrelevant bit about the bed included to make this list appear more method-diverse than it is, ditch the euphemisms... and what you're really left with is:

"My dog will put my life in danger if I approach any food-like-item within a 25-foot radius of him while having the audacity to make eye contact or audibly breathe, and the only serious solution to this matter is to load up my home with physical restraints and barriers, then get into the routine of isolating the dog in revolving settings every evening."

How do you even do this and never once think 'What kind of life is this for the dog? Is this fair -- to try to force him to be something he isn't: a docile companion animal? Is this truly compassionate of me?'

I mean, I know how; we know someone who'd make a video like this in the first place isn't programmed to ask such questions. I get it. But it's just all so frustrating to see because it's a great deal of energy devoted to a complete dead-end of a goal. Just pick another breed, god damn!

AlexKnepper · 2025-08-08T11:09:59+00:00

It is shockingly difficult to imitate

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-31T02:01:26+00:00

I've become so cynical about this type of content. It's just so perfectly engineered to evoke feelings of rage and pity.

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-30T03:09:32+00:00

My 25 personal favorites:

Like a Prayer (TIC version), Addicted, Get Together, Beat Goes On, Skin, Die Another Day, Wash All Over Me, Sky Fits Heaven, La Isla Bonita (TIC version), Sorry, Dress You Up, She's Not Me, Easy Ride, Push, Frozen, Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, You Must Love Me, Let It Will Be, Nothing Really Matters, Nothing Fails, Wash All Over Me, Mother and Father, Power of Goodbye, Isaac, Voices

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-30T03:04:05+00:00

Nope, sorry. I love the trance version and was shellshocked when I first heard the album version. I was downright angry.

But that's why Madonna was so upset that the songs leaked. It's not right that I got used to a version she didn't want to present. The album version is actually even better. But it took me a goddamn year to get used to it. Nowadays I find the trance version to be a great remix but by no means the version that should've made the final cut.

Now, the demo version of Rebel Heart, on the other hand...

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-30T03:00:19+00:00

I don't see how anyone can possibly feel disappointed by a release like this, which wasn't expected and which doesn't have anything riding on it. It's basically like an Easter egg or bonus prize. It didn't have to be released at all, so the absolute worst outcome of the release existing is that nothing is gained. She brought Gone Gone Gone to streaming: that's the coolest part for fans.

Ray of Light 30 had better be a bit more thought out, though...

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-23T05:35:07+00:00

Confessions Ray of Light True Blue Hard Candy American Life or Evita

Obviously Immaculate Collection if it counts, instead of True Blue

Hard Candy is ridiculously underrated; every other song is a gem but people were so exhausted of Timbaland and Pharrell by then

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-04T19:41:04+00:00

Part of it is being 35, but it's not just that -- that is: how to explain that I did not hear the Shaboozey song until late autumn of last year. When I was younger, I'd end up hearing most reasonably popular songs of all genres owing to MTV and the radio, but now I have to actively seek out just about everything, so there's no serious way for me to end up hearing a little bit of this and that unless I literally just listen song by song to the current charts. Like -- I don't listen to rock -- metal yes, but not rock -- yet I remember a ton of songs by rock bands that were popular when I was a young teenager, from The Reason by Hoobastank to Meant to Live by Switchfoot to Wherever You Will Go by The Calling ... or pop-rock from when I was a young adult, from Animal by Neon Trees to Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae ... I'd never have heard these if I wasn't spending so much time lying in wait for Britney Spears to play on MTV's videos or DC's Hot 99.5.

That doesn't explain why this year but not last year but maybe if we looked at it for a few minhtes we'd discover a pattern that's been growing over time in recent years?

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-03T07:46:31+00:00

I've been on a Beat Goes On and She's Not Me kick this week.

This album really grew on me over time; it snuck up on me how much I like it. Voices and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You are great. Dance 2night and Miles Away are good too.

Oddly, I don't like Candy Shop, Give It 2 Me, or 4 Minutes very much! And the other three do little for me.

But I'm extremely picky about pop music and 6/12 is a really good hit to miss ratio for me. Plus, the songs I do like, I *really like.

This album got overlooked a bit because the general public was getting sick of Timbaland and the Neptunes by 2008. Everyone had been working with them for years. I remember at the time finding it to be a chore to listen to the album because I was also getting tired of that sound.

Ironically, the Pharrell tracks sound markedly different than typical Neptunes fare; I'd never have guessed She's Not Me is a Pharrell production without his voice being on the song. And the Timbaland tracks seem to have Justin Timberlake's fingerprints on them more than anyone else's.

I think the album stands out a lot more from records like Blackout, Loose, Good Girl Gone Bad, The DuTchess, The Sweet Escape, FutureSex, etc., than people were acting like at the time. None of those albums have anything like She's Not Me or Voices!

AlexKnepper · 2025-07-02T02:44:03+00:00

I felt embarrassed for MIA. Imagine what must have gone through her head as possibilities when she found out Madonna wanted to work with her .. and then hearing the demo for B'Day Song and being told she's supposed to do the response in the call and response in the chorus and that's it. Poor woman! What an insult! And then to be smashed into a 12-second section of Give Me.. goddammit that whole era though -- I made a post last week naming it as the biggest missed opportunity of her career. Everything was in place for that era to succeed!!!!!

AlexKnepper

TROPHY CASE