5th Gen Why people hate gen 5 so much?

Do Pokemon BW and B2W2 really deserve all this hate? I mean, yeah they have some crappy pokemon design but they have some cool Pokemon's too! I think gen 5 is awesome because of the story and musics.I mean who doesn't love an awesome story? Sometimes, I doubt if gen 5 haters actually played those games.

I'm going to really enjoy giving my two cents here, because I think gen 5 is pretty awesome too. I don't think people do hate these games actually.

What I have found by communicating with fans is that BW2 is often regarded as one of the best, if not the best game in the main series. Even those who may have reservations about the original Black White games felt the sequels corrected previous mistakes and offered an enjoyable experience. Since its release many people have wanted to see sequel games again and were disappointed that gen 7 did not follow in BW2's footsteps. BW2's post-game content is also often hailed as raising the bar to new levels like HGSS.

Now the original Black and White is interesting to discuss. People love or hate it. I think its the Vincent Van Gogh of the pokemon games, you could not sell it to everybody at the time, but the admirers it had were always devoted, and now with time public opinion is on its side, and it is remembered and loved with posterity.

I myself fell in love with Pokemon Black/ White at first sight, literally from the opening title scene with N's coronation I was hooked. It overnight became my favorite of the main series games at that time, and I even hold the less popular opinion that the original is even better than the sequel. I just loved what Black/White was doing with character through the anti-villain N, attempting a more epic story in scope with a score that was operatic to my ears and beautiful changes of seasons in the overworld

Yet, despite my own enthusiasm I can see why it was a controversial game. For one Unova was the first region not inspired by Japan. It changed the feel of the environment dramatically after the tradition maintained in the 4 previous games. The subsequent generations 6 and 7 made this choice as well, and have also fought for acceptance by fans. While I don't think it was solely due to this that there were fans who could not relate to gen 5, I would not underestimate this as a possible influence. Unova with its inspiration drawn from the United States, more specifically New York was a different face of the Pokemon series we know and love.The cities looked more modern, and less historic, and it looked very imposing, and may not have granted the same intimacy.

Where they fall on your list of favorites may be debated, but I have not really come across gens 1-4 spoken of with nearly the controversy of 5-7, and I think setting may be a factor, because we aren't always ready for change. Something can be great, but when it is just not what you are used to then you may not like it, even if you can't always put your finger on why.

Unova can also borderline on feeling surreal, its vast and dark. There are long stretches of space as we cross bridges, the graphics pushed the ds to the limits with cut scenes and towering buildings. Castelia could even become a confusing place to navigate with twists and turns down alleyways, npcs running toward toward the screen. Also the gyms of Unova are rarely in organic environments, nothing like Erika's simple garden. These gyms have roller coasters in them, restaurants and canons. The imagination of the gyms was one of my favorite parts, but cumulatively I think all of these things lead to Unova feeling really "out there " and potentially left some fans unable to relate with this world when compared with previous games.

BW also removed some features from previous games. Since generation 4 introduced the very popular mechanic of Pokemon following you, some fans, myself included, would have liked to have seen that implemented in future games, while no other generation has this, with gen 5 happened to be to break it to us that the party was over, since it came directly after gen 4. It als phased our Pokemon contests, and the battle frontier, and removed the game corner for good-- not even diluted Voltorb flip. Though the sequels compensated by adding many dazzling new features like the battle tree, the world tournament, pokestar studios, join avenue, the nature preserve, nobody had a crystal ball and knew at the time of Black and White that all of these innovations were coming. Outside of the main story game play was relatively limited with the choice being pretty much musicals or the battle subway. I think this contributed to people looking at Unova more critically initially, but favorably now that the 5th generation is complete and you can see the whole picture.

Though there has been some criticism of the Pokemon is gen 5 as having the bad designs, I think that is very unfair, and one of the weakest arguements that has been used against gen 5. It is fortunate when you have *this many* good Pokemon. It had Volcarona, Hydreigon, Victini, Haxorus, Excadrill, Braviary, all of the starters in the first stage of evolution are also cute, Krookodolie was a well-received pokemon too.

Every generation always has Pokemon that are not going to be fan favorites. Judge gen 1 by Mr. Mime, Electrode and Jynx? Judge Gen 4 by Probopass or Purugly?

Garbador gets held up as the example of why gen 5 sucks, but for every Garbador there was a striking-looking and powerful pokemon like Zekrom, for every generic elemental monkey there is a delightful creature like Sawsbuck, Whimsicott or Lilligant, and for every failed idea like Vanilluxe there was a successful one like Chandelure. Gen 5 not only made some good Pokemon, it made a *lot*of Pokemon, the amount of work that went into these games is really quite impressive, and it had dynamic new battle and sprite animations for the pokemon and even the trainer in addition to overhauling the Dex with quantity and diversity.

I really don't think it is that the Pokemon of Unova are bad at all, I think what frustrated fans about the pokemon was their unfamiliarity because there were no Pokemon from previous generations available until post game in Black/ White. It made the games feel alien to some, and was more of a challenge to play.
I don't think it would have mattered what Pokemon were in the Dex. It was just that they were all new Pokemon. I personally was fine with the restriction to use only new Pokemon in the first game and the opportunity to slowly explore and find out the best pokemon through trial and error, rather than rely on the crutch of my old favorites. I love a challenge.

I think ultimately the wild card with fans is the story of the original. Again, the ambitious story is precisely why I love it, but I have listened to a variety of opinions and some fans lost interest in the plot, calling it "talky" and moralizing.

I have said before in comments, that I see gen 6 in many ways as anti-Unova. It did almost everything opposite of 5. Unova is very serious in tone with darker characters and backstory, unusual, avant-garde Pokemon and a story so large and complex in scope that it spanned years and continued into a sequel. However, gen 6 is a short, simpler story with more light-hearted characters. It seeks to take us out of the dark and into light, and we go back to basics as far as the pokemon are concerned as well, introducing fewer pokemon to keep track of this time around while keeping a firm connection to previous regions by making Pokemon from older generations readily available from the get-go and updating old favorite Pokemon with mega evolutions. Whereas gen 5 was criticized for feeling isolated as a region and having 'ugly pokemon," gen 6 I feel really made a conscious effort to focus on making the game as beautiful and busy as possible, with warm, whimsical landscapes, the largest team of rivals yet so that you are almost never alone, and intimate close-ups and experiences with your Pokemon and fun mini games through poke amie. It felt very reactionary to gen 6 criticism.

However, though I like gen 6 too, it is also a game that divided fans, while I have heard some voices say initially gen 6 was the step in the right direction and see it as more fun experience with much better Pokemon than 5. More often I hear XY called superficial and easy, and even directly compared unfavorably with gen 5, citing gen 5 as having a better story and characters, more Pokemon to choose from, offering more challe ge and an elaborate post game. Many people missed gen 5. They continued to make negative comparisons with gen 7 as failing to live up to gen 5 despite its efforts to concentrate more on story like the Unova games.

Personally I think all core series games gen 1-7 have something good about them, and I don't want to make whether or not the criticism of the later games are correct the focus of this comment. The point I want to make is that many fans have come to love and appreciate gen. I think BW was ahead of its time. Though Black and White may have seemed like strange games at time, now that the dust has settled, and the newness of it is no longer here, many now praise the focus on story and its characters, the message, the strong villain with Ghetsis and tough final boss fight, the elaborate post-game content,ground breaking new items, moves, reuseable tms, the introduction of dreamworld abilities that gave some Pokemon a fresh start, and and overall originality and expect other games to be like it. It has risen from experiemcing alot of blaklash and become one of the most popular gens


To my surprise and delight when pokecommunity polled members on their favorite generation I believe it was in the lead, or came very close.

Though it had a rocky start, i think gen 5 will be rembered as great and revolutionary, and is already on its way.

I always find it really interesting to have these kinds of topics come up time and time again. I feel like this question would've been more valid if it were like... maybe half a decade ago and then some, back when people were really just finishing up their adventures in Unova. Much like Sun and Moon and USUM currently, BW/B2W2 were both mixed bags. Either you liked them, or you don't. Even more interestingly enough, people who liked BW mostly liked it better than B2W2, and people who were a fan of B2W2 liked what it brought to the table better than BW.

That said however, it'd be foolish to ignore fifth gen's flaws for the sake of nostalgia, as there were several. Chief among them being absolute abomination that was Dream World (at the time), and not only that, the questionable inclusion of characters like the Shadow Triad and Sages and their overall relevance to the plot at large. The Battle Subway was also a terrible addition by Game Freak coming of the highs of Sinnoh's Battle Frontier. However, this was made up for via the Pokemon World Tournament in B2W2, so not all hope was lost. Hugh could be considered a negative as a rival in B2W2 depending on your perspective; some like his fiery determination in getting his sister's cat, others would see it as kind of.... his overall theme and the only thing that really stuck out about him at all, which is interesting. The battle graphics are also something that you either like or don't -- although it's been such a long time since I've played B2W2 that I don't exactly remember what opinion I've had of it at the time. Pretty sure I didn't really mind it all that much.

Despite all of the debatable negatives, it's hard to say that Gen 5 would be hated in the present day. At the end of the day, it has its flaws like every other Pokemon game does. You play what you like, and if it's enjoyable to you, that's what really matters, right?

Funny thing is I never really heard that much bad stuff when it came to Gen 5. It was always Gen 4 that got all the bad rap as far as I know. Everyone seemed to always hate on D/P/Pl and how bad it was. I thought Gen 5 was really good and I liked both B/W and B2/W2. I on the other hand never played Gen 4.

colours said:

Chief among them being absolute abomination that was Dream World (at the time)

Click to expand...

You mean the fact that it was limited to one hour per day? Well, actually...imagine if that limit wasn't in place. I remember reading somewhere that back when the Dream World was just in Japan, everyone was spamming it, and the servers crashed from overload. The one hour limit was a prevention measure to prevent similar-scale catastrophes occurring, which could have much more easily spiralled out of control because much more people would be spamming it.

Anyway, as for the topic on hand, I actually fondly remember the bad rap that this generation got when we were in its time. Common criticisms were thrown about, such as the heavy focus on the plot and the fact that Unova was pretty much just a big circle (well, until B2W2) and as was stated before, bringing in a Battle Tower clone after the high point that was the Sinnoh Battle Frontier, although that was slightly fixed in B2W2 by letting players fight nearly all gym leaders from all generations up to this one in the Pokemon World Tournament. The biggest case of this though, was certain groups of people harping on the Pokemon designs.

In tying with this, it was the inanimate object designs like Garbodor, Klinklang and Vanilluxe that got a bad rap for being "uninspired" and citing it as Game Freak running out of ideas for Pokemon (which sadly seemed to be realised in the run-up to XY because Sugimori reportedly ran into artist's block when designing Xerneas and Yveltal), when in reality, they were drawing in a new age of designs (and with this, remember that the first gen had magnets and a pile of sludge for Pokemon...) for Pokemon. However, that's only the minority. The majority of Pokemon have been very well-received, with standouts such as Krookodile, Reshiram, Zekrom, Haxorus, Volcarona, Hydreigon and Accelgor, while a lot of Pokemon Unova brought to the table have also been favoured in competitive battling. This is a list that is not limited to the likes of Darmanitan, Whimsicott, Scolipede, Ferrothorn, Excadrill, Landorus-Therian and Kyurem-Black, among several others.

One thing that I remember the most from the gen though, was the heavy amount of expectation, and GF throwing a curveball and ruining them. The first thing that comes to mind was everyone expecting a Pokemon Gray, and then the shock from everyone when B2W2 got announced, and the aftershocks that followed when it was realised that they were sequels instead of mere retreads of the first pair of games. Something that started popping up around the lead-up to B2W2 was the possibility of Ruby/Sapphire remakes to be released after. This was further fuelled by the teasing of an announcement to come at the start of 2013, and hopes were raised that it would be the Hoenn remake everyone was hoping for. Alas, it turned out to be XY, and hopes were dashed again.

Although what's pretty funny now is that Gen 5 is now held up in high-regard and is pretty much considered a classic. If anything, it's this gen and the previous gen that's getting the brunt of the hate, but the Gen 7 hate is expected because it's the Zelda cycle but this time in the Pokemon fanbase - people like to trash on the latest gen while simultaneously praising the one two to three gens back.

Disclaimer: Gen 5 was the last generation I cared about.

I am an easy to please guy. I started playing with FireRed, and I liked every game that went out.
I don't really think FireRed or Emerald need explaining.
Platinum was really cool for having lots of people to help you in your journey (for example, even Rowan at one times scolds a galaxy grunt like a boss). Also, in Platinum the villain ACTUALLY SUCCEEDS in his plan, and creates a new world for himself. So go him?

And then gen 5 games were really cool and fun for me to play. I don't really care about Pok?mon design, I don't really have that much of aesthetic sense. Team Plasma has kind of a legit point for their cause (even if they are all manipulated by Ghetsis and don't realize his true plan). And the whole "league is being used as a part of the story" thing that they got going was really unique and surprising. Alder was also a cool champion, with interesting dialogues.
BW2 were more of the same. The old plasma vs new plasma was an interesting thing, weaponizing Kyurem and using ninjas to steal things was also reasonable nice idea. The climax in the cave might or might not have been that surprising, but it still was a cool scene.
And then the post game content was also quite fun.

TLDR: I'm an easy to please person so gen 5 pleased me.

I initially had an immense dislike for generation 5. This was primarily the result of the anime. I mean, the Best Wishes series was a complete and utter disaster, in my opinion, of course. Iris was a contributing factor. Her continuous and never ending whining was excruciating and unbearable, she was simply one of Ash's unlikable and purposeless lackeys. Ash himself also was a major problem, I mean, he completely reverted to his former juvenile, inexperienced self. He acted like an imbecile, seeming forgetting simple type match ups after travelling across 4 different regions consecutively? Please. To me, the series seemed to lack depth as it was incredibly shallow. It was disappointing as specially considering it was riding the coattails of the DP series, which many claim to be the peak of the anime.

The games, however, are a completely different story. They are full of substance and as VisionofMilotic stated, are dark to an extent. I think the fact that only newly introduced gen 5 pokemon were accessible was a problem for many people, in B&W at least. (Obviously in the sequels more pokemon were accessible.)

Another contributing factor is the lack of the post-game. For me, after the main story is completed, that's when I put the game to rest. The Battle Subway is bland, as it fails to live up to the fantastic Battle Frontier. Not to mention Musicals, I mean, really? They truly are a pathetic, detached version of pokemon contests. Gen 4 games had implemented more into their respective backstories and so I feel that fans, myself included, expected more. I feel as though the after story has been severely neglected in recent games, particularly gen 5 & 6. Gen 4 games had implemented more into their respective backstories

All in all, I do think that gen 5 was a solid generation. However, I have personally have found the games a tad dissatisfying. It's not even that they're monotonous or anything of that sort, I just feel as thought they are slightly inorganic and hard to get into if that makes sense.

Gen V had the best plot by far of any Pokemon game, followed by Gen I/II. I absolutely adored both BW and B2W2, especially after the disasters that were Gen III and Gen IV. I have yet to complete any Gen IV game as the character development and plot is so terrible that I cannot bring myself to pass the town with the airport. I finished Gen III only when it was remade, and it felt like a chore the entire journey. I will admit that Gen V had some bizarre Pokemon designs, but the new mechanics, the plot, the characters, etc. were all extremely appealing. I still have my BW Zorua, transported all the way up to bank :)

I actually really enjoyed it. It's probably in my top 5, if not 3, gens.

I think people don't enjoy it because of the designs, and the ease.

I particularly did not like the layout of the region, I liked it more in black 2 and white 2 since you started in a new area. It felt too linear. While many other games are pretty linear, their region isn't built into a literal circle with little variation on where you can go.

Great story but the graphics was a bit of a disappointment from gen 4.

Like many others, the only real reason I "hated" (though "irritated by" is a better term) Gen 5 was just the Pokemon sprites itself. Tbh, it's kinda silly I even say that now, considering my favorite starter & a good amount of my choice Pokemons are 5th Gen ones.

I thought the storyline for both BW & BW2 was incredible. I also like that orginal BW was done with 5th gen pokes only.

My only "thing" was, after playing original BW to death.. well over 20+ times... about the last thing I wanted to see next was a Unova all over again.. even if it got an updated story, map revamp, etc. Tbh, it wasn't until many many years later, when I could get myself to play BW2 to it's full extent... that's how long it took me to not touch original BW & tolerate playing a BW2 Unova. xD

In all honesty, I remember playing Black and White 2 (the two games 'Black' and 'White 2', not both Black and White 2 ????) and just not thinking much of them at the time. It felt like Sinnoh had a lot more to do in regards to post-game Legendaries, and as a kid that's all I really cared about. I didn't even realise Unova was as popular as it is until years later. It's not that I thought it was bad, per se, it just never really stood out to me despite being the first to have animated graphics and probably a half-decent storyline (although Pokemon isn't really something you play for the story imo so it never bothered me).

Thing is there's always a select group of people hating on a particular gen or game. I've seen it for gen 1 through to 7. Crappy game code, johto is too small, regression to no day/night cycle, battles take forever, pokemon designs suck, no postgame, too many cutscenes/story being a top-of-my-head example "argument" for each of them.

Granted I do feel there are some gens better than others, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally B2W2 are among my most favourite titles. Very polished, plenty to do in them, etc. BW were good too but suffered from some postgame failings (and the story could still be better, even if it is probably the best of the main series titles).

It's pretty popular rn. I don't really see people bash it these days, maybe in 2010 perhaps, when people couldn't find their beloved gen 1 pokemon in the main story of BW.

Gen V hate was more prominent when it first came out. Most people didn't like that they were forced to use the new Pokemon until the post game.

It honestly doesn't, but Gen V is always gonna have it's reserved set of haters.

I've only ever seen it being hated when it was first released. Overall it's my favorite gen behind gen 4.

The games were good from what I know of, but I think most of the hate is directed at the Television series, which is somewhat justified given the forgettable premises of some of the episodes and the fact that the movies during the era were terrible.

"Pokemons"
Anyways,i think you've seen verlis too much. I haven't seen any hate on these games since 2014.
But people think that the pokemon designs ruin the whole game.
And this is the pokemon fandom for you,they start hating on something and take a big 360 turn,gen 5 is no exception.