5th Gen why do people hate gen 5 so much???

i'm probably pretty biased because black was the first pokemon game i ever played but gen 5 is and always will be my favourite. unova is a beautiful region, the story and background behind team plasma is one of the most interesting, the gyms and elite four were genuinely challenging (at least for my 12 year old self), all the starters were great and most of the pokemon designs are actually pretty great in my opinion and i don't understand why so many people shun them so passionately.

I know 5th Gen is my fave generation so I'm definitely aware of the hate it gets, and I think it's mostly blamed on two Pokemon - Garbodor and Vanilluxe. People seem to think their designs scream Game Freak "running out of ideas" whereas I think they were actually good concepts, being a reference to New York's trash issues (NY is what Unova is heavily based on) and a sentient icicle that takes a form of looking like ice cream. Vanilluxe is also nothing to laugh at in terms of stats, having a 530 BST that is on par with Lapras, making it one of the best BSTs among Ice-types.

As for the starters, people hated Emboar for being another Fire/Fighting starter as well as Serperior being "useless" without Contrary (which wasn't officially released until ORAS era) and Samurott being viewed as "weird" compared to its pre-evos. I actually like these starter designs, since they represent different cultures (Europe for Serperior, China for Emboar and Japan for Samurott) which reflects Unova's basis.

Hikamaru said:

I know 5th Gen is my fave generation so I'm definitely aware of the hate it gets, and I think it's mostly blamed on two Pokemon - Garbodor and Vanilluxe. People seem to think their designs scream Game Freak "running out of ideas" whereas I think they were actually good concepts, being a reference to New York's trash issues (NY is what Unova is heavily based on) and a sentient icicle that takes a form of looking like ice cream. Vanilluxe is also nothing to laugh at in terms of stats, having a 530 BST that is on par with Lapras, making it one of the best BSTs among Ice-types.

As for the starters, people hated Emboar for being another Fire/Fighting starter as well as Serperior being "useless" without Contrary (which wasn't officially released until ORAS era) and Samurott being viewed as "weird" compared to its pre-evos. I actually like these starter designs, since they represent different cultures (Europe for Serperior, China for Emboar and Japan for Samurott) which reflects Unova's basis.

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thank you for putting my jumbled up feelings into words so eloquently. i personally think trubbish and vanillite's whole evolutionary line are pretty cute (and miles better than grimer and muk any day), and i loved how they represented the region's inspiration (pidove is another example). as for the whole "running out of ideas" crap, i suppose that's just something people like to say regardless as a result of fear of change, i heard a lot of it when sun and moon were first announced (not to go off topic but i loved the sun and moon concept from the second i first heard the names, and there are only so many colours and minerals that they can name the games after before it gets boring anyway).

nimbasacity said:

thank you for putting my jumbled up feelings into words so eloquently. i personally think trubbish and vanillite's whole evolutionary line are pretty cute (and miles better than grimer and muk any day), and i loved how they represented the region's inspiration (pidove is another example). as for the whole "running out of ideas" crap, i suppose that's just something people like to say regardless as a result of fear of change, i heard a lot of it when sun and moon were first announced (not to go off topic but i loved the sun and moon concept from the second i first heard the names, and there are only so many colours and minerals that they can name the games after before it gets boring anyway).

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I can definitely understand your point about people having a fear of change to the Pokemon franchise. Take when Sun & Moon was announced to have Gyms being replaced by Island Trials (from what I heard, this new concept's introduction was to take advantage of Alola being a nature-rich region) and people feel that Pokemon's formula was ruined because they always believed the "defeat 8 Gyms, evil team and Elite Four" was always a set-in-stone formula and never believed it would be changed.

Heck, to keep this within 5th Gen there were people who didn't like the Unova Dex in B/W being limited to only new Pokemon, because most of these people liked their old faves and were upset they couldn't use them until postgame.

Hikamaru said:

I can definitely understand your point about people having a fear of change to the Pokemon franchise. Take when Sun & Moon was announced to have Gyms being replaced by Island Trials (from what I heard, this new concept's introduction was to take advantage of Alola being a nature-rich region) and people feel that Pokemon's formula was ruined because they always believed the "defeat 8 Gyms, evil team and Elite Four" was always a set-in-stone formula and never believed it would be changed.

Heck, to keep this within 5th Gen there were people who didn't like the Unova Dex in B/W being limited to only new Pokemon, because most of these people liked their old faves and were upset they couldn't use them until postgame.

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i personally really enjoyed only being able to catch native pokemon before the postgame, this was apparently meant to make it feel more like gen 1, because every pokemon you found would have been new and unfamiliar, and it was meant to allow people to familiarise themselves with the new ones rather than just ignoring them and sticking with the old ones they already know.

as for the island trials, i'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out and i think it'll be a refreshing change. these games have been around for 20 years now, they can't follow the same formula forever.

Hikamaru said:

Vanilluxe is also nothing to laugh at in terms of stats, having a 530 BST that is on par with Lapras, making it one of the best BSTs among Ice-types.

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The thing, though, is that Vanilluxe's movepool is nonexistent. Ice Beam, Flash Cannon... Signal Beam, I suppose (although I like my moves to be at least 80 power if their main purpose is to do damage)... Lapras has way more moves/better coverage.

Anyway, to chip in my 2 cents, besides the aforementioned designs (which I personally don't mind so much), my chief complaint is that the encounter rate is ridiculous in B/W (I think it's better in B2/W2). It's like, you take three steps, and you encounter a Pokemon.

The other thing I'm not fond of is, again, only a problem in B/W: the regional dex being so small. Unlike with other games that have ~150 Pokemon to choose from, the Gym Leaders/Elite Four stick to being monotype (for better or for worse), but team building is still meh at times.

There is one thing I really like about B/W, though, and that's how they save the climatic confrontation for the end of the game. It makes so much more sense to have the big showdown against the villainous team happen at the end of the game rather than before the 8th gym, since their plots are typically more "take over the world" things nowadays. Cuz "Hooray, you saved the world, now go get that 8th gym badge" results in a bit of a drop of... buildup, or whatever.

Also, if it means anything, B2/W2 are my personal favorites in the Pokemon series.

Because people can't get over that there's a Pokémon based off of an ice cream.

I know a person who admits that BW have the best story out of any Pokémon game, but still thinks they're the absolute worst games in the series simply because you can't catch Pokémon from older gens in it. I mean, is it really that bad that instead of Magnemite you had to pick from like Klink or something else instead? And it's not like there's a small number of Pokémon for you to choose from, since gen 5 has the largest number of Pokémon introduced.

People scoff at it because BW have two rivals and apparently anything more than one is too much, and yet the rivals of BW are the ones with the most character development out of any in the series (and were actually pretty challenging, too). And then B2W2 had only one rival (also challenging) but people ignored that because "I don't like him he's annoying." Are you trying to tell me that Blue wasn't annoying with his "I lost but I'm still better than you" and "Smell ya later" mentality?

I could talk for days on this topic because it really bothers me to no end. Even the people who are like "yeah but BW have no post-game" but then still think gen 5 as a whole is the absolute worst... Did you even play B2W2?

I just don't get it. I honestly don't think I'll ever get it. Sometimes it sounds like they played a completely different game than the ones I played when people like that describe gen 5.

honestly the only thing that really made me dislike BW was the exp mechanics. otherwise everything was pretty great~

Whilst I love Snivy and Oshawott, and also the Axew line, and loved how N is, I can't put across why I hated the region so much.

I had no motivation playing in Unova at all.

it's probably how the sprites move so weirdly that irks me pretty much.

Brief response - I like gen 5 overall. Had some flaws and I dislike BWs postgame. But its story is the best thus far (we'll see how SM stacks up) of the main series games imo. Rivals are fine, it's got some great music, I like some of the Pokemon designs. B2W2 dips in story and the like but has much more to do and has some of my favourite features from the games. It's so darn well polished.

Rivvon said:

People scoff at it because BW have two rivals and apparently anything more than one is too much, and yet the rivals of BW are the ones with the most character development out of any in the series (and were actually pretty challenging, too). And then B2W2 had only one rival (also challenging) but people ignored that because "I don't like him he's annoying." Are you trying to tell me that Blue wasn't annoying with his "I lost but I'm still better than you" and "Smell ya later" mentality?

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This is an interesting point here. I find both Blue and Hugh annoying - but I much prefer Blue. He was a guy I liked to hate, and the game used him well by giving you numerous opportunities to beat up his team. He was always there to try and show you up and boast.

Hugh I just found to be ridiculously whinge-y about his sister's Pokemon - and she didn't even seem that hung up about it. The foreshadowing about it (e.g. the ranch and the farm owners remarking about him) was just badly done imo, you rarely battled him from recollection (certainly far less than Blue), and I rather disliked his manner of rushing into things constantly. I never quite felt he developed, and while neither did Blue (at least within the original games), this just bugged me far more.

Aquacorde said:

honestly the only thing that really made me dislike BW was the exp mechanics. otherwise everything was pretty great~

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I quite liked them actually! Granted, in BW it was hard to get anything towards level 100, but B2W2 fixed that with Join Avenue for the final several levels after getting your lowly-levelled pokes - or even newly hatched Pokemon - up past 50 with a couple battles in White Hollow/Black Tower. Meanwhile it sorta helped with overlevelling and encouraged using more than one Pokemon - a rubber band effect of some sort. (Pretty sure gen 5 exp mechanics return in SM btw, so you may not be keen on that...)

A problem I had with Gen V was the look of the graphics. Game Freak was pushing the Nintendo DS's capabilities to its limit by that stage, and it showed. The battle sprites were animated, but at the major cost of resolution. The addition of Rotation Battles, Triple Battles and 3D perspective influenced this – keeping 6 monsters animated during one battle was a lot to ask from the hardware. It paled in comparison to the sleek graphics of Gen IV, even if they were more static.

Gen V did have much going for it otherwise, though. Fantastic music, a great region overall and the PWT. Loved seeing great trainers from previous games and being able to battle them (wish they'd do another version of that in the future).

I guess I liked the idea behind BW mechanics but not the implementation? I never wanted to get anything near 100 I just wanted to get the E4 over and done with and use Pokémon I liked that had not unreasonable stats. ut it took me like three years and picking up a gym leader challenge on that game to force me through it. I don't want my Pokémon game to be hard unless I make it hard I am just here for a good time ;; so far BW2 seems better in this respect to me but I'm at Driftveil and feel like I'm struggling so maybe not idk

I've tried to understand this mystery. Verlisify made a half-hour long video complaining about fans of generation five, while defending the moronic flaws in the first generation. He never touched the games plot, characters, or difficulty. He only complained about the sprites of six Pokemon. So all I can assume is that its because they're idiots. Don't bother asking Verlisify to clarify his stance; he'll just block you for daring to question him.

Here's the garbage video in question, if you have time to waste:


Just put on Adblocker to keep him from getting any money out of your views.

Personally, I loved Gen 5. Sure, there were some disappointments here and there, but overall, it was a great generation. It brought us a lot of cool new Pokemon, fully animated sprites, re-usable TM's, and the evil team was actually involved with the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four. And then Black 2 and White 2 came along and gave us Pokestar Studios, Hidden Grottos, Join Avenue, and the PWT.

bobandbill said:

This is an interesting point here. I find both Blue and Hugh annoying - but I much prefer Blue. He was a guy I liked to hate, and the game used him well by giving you numerous opportunities to beat up his team. He was always there to try and show you up and boast.

Hugh I just found to be ridiculously whinge-y about his sister's Pokemon - and she didn't even seem that hung up about it. The foreshadowing about it (e.g. the ranch and the farm owners remarking about him) was just badly done imo, you rarely battled him from recollection (certainly far less than Blue), and I rather disliked his manner of rushing into things constantly. I never quite felt he developed, and while neither did Blue (at least within the original games), this just bugged me far more.

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See, I'm the exact opposite. I find Hugh's energy endearing, similar to Barry in gen 4. And I love that in the post-game Hugh tries to help Old Team Plasma take care of lost, abandoned, and stolen Pokémon since he knows what that feels like due to his sister's Purrloin situation. But Blue just goes from an annoying jerk rival to an annoying jerk Gym Leader.

I think initially B/W brought too many changes all at once. The new experience system, the animated sprites, the Elite Four battling just to name a few. These weren't "bad", but I think bringing too many changes at the same time overwhelmed a lot of players (including me). I also think B/W not having any non-Gen V Pokémon before the E4 was also a big problem. Playing it, I constantly thought to myself "is this even Pokémon?" B2/W2 fixed the Pokémon problem by introducing old 'mons before the E4, but to me it still felt too different from the old games.

The main problem to me was that the games were so linear. You just go along a set path, and to me that's really boring.

5qwerty said:

I think initially B/W brought too many changes all at once. The new experience system, the animated sprites, the Elite Four battling just to name a few. These weren't "bad", but I think bringing too many changes at the same time overwhelmed a lot of players (including me). I also think B/W not having any non-Gen V Pokémon before the E4 was also a big problem. Playing it, I constantly thought to myself "is this even Pokémon?" B2/W2 fixed the Pokémon problem by introducing old 'mons before the E4, but to me it still felt too different from the old games.

The main problem to me was that the games were so linear. You just go along a set path, and to me that's really boring.

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But really the only "non-linear" Pokémon games were gens 1 and 2 because you could pick the order of a few Gyms you challenged. But even then they were still petty linear compared to most other RPGs. The only thing is BW was more honest about its linearity, with the region layout reflecting this, as opposed to trying to hide that it was a linear game with a complex region layout like in previous gens.

I don't even really know what to say about the "too much change" thing because everyone's loving SM for incorporating a lot of change but apparently when gen 5 does it it's a bad thing. I dunno, I loved having all-new Pokémon to catch and use. It's boring using the same ones over and over again. Animated sprites are an upgrade from before, I don't remember anyone saying XY were going too far by bringing the series into 3D. And being able to pick the order you challenge the Elite Four... Is that really a bad thing? It's just different.

Gen 5 tried too hard to refresh the series when like... nobody really wanted it lmao. I really think that if they had essentially only done BW2 and released using XY engine it would have been much better recieved? but idk. other thing is that it ended up being less of a refresh and more of a rehash, which was more frustrating because like... if its gonna be the same why can't we have the things we're used to having?

btw, gen3 had you run circles round the region and gen 4 let you choose which gyms to beat at the hearthome split. even if they were still more linear than other RPGs, they hid it well and had you exploring and revisiting places, making it seem more like an adventure. BW did not do that, and neither did XY really and that's a big problem I have with those games too. But I definitely support the "too linear" commentary.

Aquacorde said:

Gen 5 tried too hard to refresh the series when like... nobody really wanted it lmao. I really think that if they had essentially only done BW2 and released using XY engine it would have been much better recieved? but idk. other thing is that it ended up being less of a refresh and more of a rehash, which was more frustrating because like... if its gonna be the same why can't we have the things we're used to having?

btw, gen3 had you run circles round the region and gen 4 let you choose which gyms to beat at the hearthome split. even if they were still more linear than other RPGs, they hid it well and had you exploring and revisiting places, making it seem more like an adventure. BW did not do that, and neither did XY really and that's a big problem I have with those games too. But I definitely support the "too linear" commentary.

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But what really is so different about gen 5 that it feels like a "refresh gone wrong" to you? Picking the order you challenge the Elite Four is not something I expected anyone to take issue with. The only things I see that BW did differently than its predecessors was: one, a focus on and better execution of story (how could they!), and two, no older Pokémon available. And like, every time a new gen comes out I see almost everyone saying they want to use only new Pokémon on their team and they're so excited for the new Pokémon but then there's less than a hundred and then they're all disappointed. Gen 5 circumvented that "problem" by having only all-new Pokémon, which meant they had to have a large number of them so they could fill up the region. Honestly, whenever people complain about this kind of thing it reminds me a lot of picking and choosing when you want to think something is bad, people-are-never-happy kind of mentality.

And as for gens 3 and 4, linear backtracking is still linear. And in most cases with video games, people tend to view backtracking as padding. I honestly don't remember being able to choose the order of your Gyms in gen 4 (all I really remember is they bothered to change the Gym order in Platinum which tells me there's more of a focus on the order to begin with) but if that was an option available to the player, then hey, that's pretty neat. I'm not saying BW isn't linear, because it is, but being linear isn't inherently bad. And if linearity is enough to get someone disinterested in a Pokémon game then that person is probably not going to be pleased with Pokémon games for quite some time, as linearity helps make the direction to go clear and ultimately serves as an additional factor in making the games more accessible (something that has been becoming a huge focus in more recent games, even SM).

I just don't think anyone was really begging for a refresh at that point? And trying to refresh while still using sprites instead of 3D models- like, without an extremely different visual style- just made it feel like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn't? I'm not fightin about like, being able to choose E4 order or there not being any old mons around, like whatever- I would have preferred to have like 100-ish new mons and then a pick-and-choose from older generations to round out the regional (aka limited) 'dex, but I'm not sore abt it. I just don't think BW felt as new and exciting as they were trying to make it be. It's hard to pinpoint why exactly that is, but after comparing it to XY I think the limited success of its "refresh" had to do with it still being sprite-based.

As for linearity- yes, the storyline of every Pokémon game is linear. But I don't think reflecting that in the map is a great idea- when you end up revisiting places and furthering the storyline multiple times in those places, it creates a more cohesive and memorable experience in the region itself. It's not just a "press on and get through this route so I can advance", it's more like "okay now where am I going again? Oh, back this way. Is this the best way to get there?". It gives more of an exploratory feel. This could have been circumvented a little bit more by giving us more routes crisscrossing the middle, connecting cities to more than just the one on either side.

The other little gripes I had about linearity include Plasma mostly not allowing you to do anything besides progress the game as they saw fit- having no alternative routes or anything else to explore made it feel like the player was being pushed around a lot. And the fact that you could only really access half of the map before the E4 made things feel very small and didn't inspire me to explore the rest of the region. I'd rather have had the main quest take me through most of the places on the map for various purposes rather than having to find a reason to even go to the postgame places. Like yeah, postgame content is cool, but half the region being off-limits was just too much imo.