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- Seen Jun 4, 2017
I've always considered the fight with Cynthia in Pearl to be the overall climax of the "classic" Pokemon series, and I would have to agree that Black, Black 2, and X felt very different from Red, Gold, Sapphire and Pearl.
It's a little hard to pinpoint, but the thing that always irked me about Gen 5 onward is that the whole idea of Pokemon training and going on big adventures became more of a thing that "kids do to help find who they are". In the original Red the quest was an incredibly simple and selfish goal of being the best, and when they started to put too much of a positive spin on that is when it all started to feel phony to me.
Pokemon always benefits from arrogant characters, and they're mostly missing in the recent games. No longer do Gym Leaders taunt you or sit around the gym all day doing nothing, now they're useful members of the community and super nice to everyone they meet. There isn't much drive to "be the best", so the games kind of become boring to play through. Pokemon X felt like I was playing an episode of six different anime combined into one, and hardly anything about it felt like I was playing a Pokemon game.
So to answer the question, Black/White really did feel like a reboot to me, and if there ever was a time to try and make Pokemon more family friendly, it was a great time to do it. Pearl ended with one of the best fights in the series, so it feels like a good dividing point between the two styles.
It's a little hard to pinpoint, but the thing that always irked me about Gen 5 onward is that the whole idea of Pokemon training and going on big adventures became more of a thing that "kids do to help find who they are". In the original Red the quest was an incredibly simple and selfish goal of being the best, and when they started to put too much of a positive spin on that is when it all started to feel phony to me.
Pokemon always benefits from arrogant characters, and they're mostly missing in the recent games. No longer do Gym Leaders taunt you or sit around the gym all day doing nothing, now they're useful members of the community and super nice to everyone they meet. There isn't much drive to "be the best", so the games kind of become boring to play through. Pokemon X felt like I was playing an episode of six different anime combined into one, and hardly anything about it felt like I was playing a Pokemon game.
So to answer the question, Black/White really did feel like a reboot to me, and if there ever was a time to try and make Pokemon more family friendly, it was a great time to do it. Pearl ended with one of the best fights in the series, so it feels like a good dividing point between the two styles.
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