5th Gen My analysis: Why B/W1 were the worst entries in the main series IMO.

[LetsPlayALoveGame]

Lookin' good, everyone. Today, I've finally decided to start my first real thread, and I thought no subject would be better than one I've been wanting to talk about and get other peoples' thoughts on.

First off, I'm not meaning to offend anyone who happens to really like these games or say you're wrong for doing so. If anything, I'd like to hear what you like about these games and what your favorite aspects were.

As the title might suggest, it is my opinion that the original Black/White games were overall the weakest entries into the main Pokemon series. I was rather hyped for these games when they were announced, and did everything I could to avoid spoilers and new Pokemon designs. I picked up White on the day it released, and what I got was, at the very least, somewhat disappointing. In the next few paragraphs, I will break down each reason I have for disliking these games with as much detail as I can.

1).The Pokemon design choice:
Now, before you scroll down to post about me being a genwunner or something along those lines, know that this is the most minor gripe I have toward this game. Some of the Pokemon introduced in Gen 5 have gone on to become all-time favorites. Sigilyph, for example, is by far my favorite flying-type. It wasn't that I outright disliked this generation's Pokemon so much as it was that I was overall indifferent to most of their designs. There were a few ugly ones, but the majority of them just felt "meh" to me. There's only about 15 of them I actually like enough to use on a team. I can't really use the "Gamefreak is running out of ideas" excuse that a lot of people use here because I honestly enjoyed most of Kalos's new guys.

2). The OST:
One of the things I always find myself analyzing in games is the background music. Great OSTs were what made even games like Sonic '06 somewhat enjoyable. This is a point where I found B/W to be lacking majorly. I did enjoy the more advanced instrumentation here, but that didn't count for a whole lot when almost every overworld track looped after about 45 seconds. It felt very repetitive and legitimately got on my nerves after a while. One of the exceptions was the Village Bridge, which I found really cool since you could add different instruments to it. The battle themes weren't as bad, but they were also pretty forgettable. You could play one for me at random and I probably wouldn't be able to guess which one it was. I never understood why the music direction went the way it did in this game.

3). The characters/story:
These games initially got insane amounts of praise for the character of N. While a bit overrated, I too enjoyed him. The problem was, most of the other major characters were pretty lackluster in comparison. I fondly recall the days when R/S was new and I would constantly go on about how bad of a rival May was. Doesn't even fully evolve her starter or assemble a team of 6. I was somehow even more disappointed in this game's rivals, Bianca and Cheren. I don't know what it was, but I felt as though they contributed next to nothing to the story. Their personalities were noticeably bland, and in the end, they were just there to battle you at every other turn. I vaguely recall the story trying to do something with Bianca's dad being worried about her traveling, but it didn't do much for me. I'll never understand why people hate Hugh so much more.

4). The online and other small gameplay changes:
For some, especially those like myself who'd been avid online competitive players in Gen IV, the transition to V was an awkward one. One of the first things I noticed was the removal of the option to set my team to level 100 for Wifi battles. This was mildly annoying in and of itself, but it wouldn't have been as bad if B/W wasn't one of the worst games in terms of grinding. Unless you wanted to repeatedly sit through the E4 or grind bit by bit on wild Pokemon, the only decent option you had was to either break down and use a Rare Candy cheat, or fight the same boring trainers in the Nimbasa stadiums once a day (in the city with the most annoying and repetitive music, mind you). This alone heavily discouraged me from playing online, and was a large factor in why I eventually fell out of competitive play altogether for the entirety of 5th gen. I also noticed that they had apparently been cracking down on hackers a bit more, as having a hacked Pokemon in your party prevented you from connecting. This was pretty nice, but some of my own Pokemon were barred from entering even though I haven't owned any sort of cheating device in years. On the other hand, while using the random matchmaking (which was admittedly really cool and something I never understood 4th gen's exclusion of) I ran into several teams which I swear were hacked one way or another. Overall, I felt like the metagame was tailored more towards the newer fans than towards older ones like myself.

5). Too much reliance on owning a second DS system:
I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty low-income, so I never had the luxury of a second system. While convenient to trade between your games, it was never near-mandatory until this game's release. Many of the game's features more or less banked on you having two DS's. Most notable is the PokeTransfer system. Like anyone else, I wanted to migrate my old Pokemon from 4th gen into these newer games. The problem presented here was that you had to download-play your game from one system to the other, making it impossible with just a single system. Not everyone has that kind of cash, y'know. Couldn't they have implemented some sort of hot-swap system similar to the planned "Stop N Swop" idea for Banjo-Kazooie? It's a stretch, but it'd be better than what they had. Another feature rendered inaccessible to me was the Entralink. For whatever reason you couldn't do this via Wifi, and because I know literally no-one IRL with a DS and Pokemon, I was pretty SOL. Thankfully, I've been told it's nothing special.

Concluding thoughts and BW2 stuff:
All in all, coming to White from Pt/HG, two of my favorite entries in Pokemon, felt rather jarring. I don't know, maybe I set my hopes too high for it. Don't get me wrong, there were things I really liked about this game, too. Both the atmosphere and music of places like Castelia City were very welcoming. As I mentioned before, some of the new Pokemon were awesome, as was the long-needed matchmaking system. I think what it was is that out of all the generations, this one felt as though it brought the least amount of new things to the table, and the end result played like it was "just another Pokemon game". It also might be due in part to my own personal bias. This game released during one of the more depressing times in my life. (To make a long story short, one of my best friends and I were after the same girl, and it seemed obvious by that point that he'd 'won' (spoilers: neither of us got her in the end lol)) Associating that game with that time in my life didn't help matters too much.

When BW2 was announced, I was naturally a bit on the fence about picking it up. I ultimately ended up wanting it so much that I sold my Wii and all its games to get a barely-functioning used DS Lite and a copy of the game. What I got this time around was an overall far superior experience. Bianca and Cheren's roles were a lot more active here and made much more sense. The newly-introduced towns had great music, and although most people will disagree, Hugh was a much more suitable rival. I could go further on about this, but the main idea is that I felt BW2 fixed everything that was wrong with the first set of games.

Lastly, thanks for reading this overly long post if you actually managed to make it through the whole thing. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this. Did any of you have the same complaints I did? What did or didn't you like about B/W and BW2? Discuss.

 

[Puddle]

I've never played BW all the way through to fully embrace the games itself, but I've noticed things like Bianca and Cheren are incredibly annoying in my eyes. A lot of the Pokemon were meh. Honestly, Oshawott was pretty cool, but Emboar was ugly in my opinion and Snivy seemed to only go downhill.

I understand a lot of your points and I'm sure you'll get a lot of positive feedback on them.

 

[Flushed]

1. I've always defended design choice, but with no concrete arguments, I've just felt like it was never a problem. To make an excuse, 5th gen introduced the largest number of Pokemon for any single generation. To introduce this multitude of Pokemon you're going to have a large variety of designs. Some hit, some miss. I think from what I've seen, it's the select few like Trubbish and Vaniliite that upset most people, which is unfair because each generation has it's misses, it's just the fact that they manifest as "actual trash" and an ice cream cone is what unnecessarily exacerbates the rage.

2. I really like the OST. I find that I like the music in every game tbh though. There are going to be tracks that you dislike, i.e. BWE4 eww, but for the most part I appreciate the sound track.

3. For characters, I think you can make this case in most games. Barry was very annoying as a rival. And although you had to face Cheren and Bianca on every route, I enjoyed the Exp., the music, and it felt like you actually had some traveling companions.

Didn't play too much online, so I can't really comment there. I do have one complaint regarding the trade system and how it was so slow in selecting a Pokemon to trade. And yeah the 2nd DS is disappointing, but with both 4 and 5 being on the same platform, it becomes difficult to transfer, and to be honest, they've always found ways to "reward" or "buy" your way into more features. I feel like since gen I, the link trade has sort of done this.

You have valid points, I just find it hard to find an objective reason as to why 5th gen is hated so much, beyond the Pokemon designs. Each generation has its flaws, especially looking back now, so it's hard to make a case for one generation in particular.

 

[Cerberus87]

1. I think Kalos roster is worse. It's smaller and includes things like Barbaracle.

2. BW and especially B2W2 have some of the best music in the series. Great gym leader music, great E4 music, and generally they tried some new ideas with music in this game.

3. BW has the best story in the series, because it was the first time they tried to do something new, even if the end result was still world domination. N made all the difference compared to other games. And Cheren and Bianca have bigger roles compared to the other helpers in the series.

4. BW the worst to grind? With Audinos rampant? GSC was the worst to grind, by far.

5. You needed a second DS but they also removed the stupid Pal Park restriction of only transferring 6 Pokémon at a time. So not everything was worse. These games were intended to be played on a DSi and, if you had a DSi alongside an old DS, you could transfer.

You may have gripes with the games but they're hardly the "worst" in the series. I personally can't play 3rd gen or below anymore, because these games have primitive mechanics, the Pokémon don't learn good moves by leveling up, and they require too many HMs to progress. People complain "oh they didn't include any old Pokémon" but really, I thought you were supposed to use new Pokémon in a new Pokémon game. Most of the Pokémon introduced in Unova are very usable in BW, and this is what made the game very fun for me. I didn't find the designs any worse than previous generations, and Vanillite hate is stupid.

 

[bobandbill]

First off aaaa very hard to read your post on this skin. =(Stick to default colour rather than deep purple for my eye's sake. =p

Tbh, a lot of this is, well, subjective. Pokémon designs and opinions on the music does come down to what one's tastes are for quite a large part. For instance, why route music wasn't that great I really liked a lot of the battle and especially town themes in X&Y.

I will agree that I preferred B2W2 (more to do, simply!), but I didn't mind Cheren/Bianca, and really didn't like Hugh. He was somewhat one dimensional and the execution of his plot felt poor to me (foreshadowing especially about why he hates plasma). He was always angry/impatient, and it wore on me quite a bit.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

I am not going to get into to this very much, one reason, I hate reading a lot of stuff. Lol.

But I get the basis of your thread. TBH BW were my 2nd favorite games along with BW2.I loved all the designs and a lot of my favorite pokemon came from these games. I also liked how they restarted it where there was no old pokemon in the 1st 5th gen games until the end. It actually felt like a new Generation. In all the games, I have always enjoyed doing my first run through with only new pokemon. So BW instantly became a favorite of mine. It still did no beat Hoenn games though and was a little better than Kalos games.

I loved how it was more story oriented and I loved that you have two rivals and had to face them on just about every route and they helped you. The gym leaders played a bigger role and the evil team and plot twist was actually pretty good. I have nothing to say for the music because I never listen to the music.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I actually feel that Cheren and Bianca do have some form of personality in B/W.

Cheren is the one who uses his knowledge of Pokemon to pursue his goal of becoming a great trainer. In keeping with the theme of truth and ideals, Cheren represents the latter because of this. However, when Cheren was asked by Alder on why he wanted to pursue his goal, Cheren wasn't even sure why. Alder told him to think about how to grow stronger and what it exactly means to be strong.

Bianca, on the other hand, represents the theme of truth. This is noted by N; she knows that she isn't as strong as the player and Cheren; Bianca also has thought about what to do with her life. In the end, she decided to do Pokemon research alongside Prof. Juniper. I also like her ditzy personality, as well as how she set her mind on going on a Pokemon journey, even though her father disapproved of it.

 

[LetsPlayALoveGame]

1. I think Kalos roster is worse. It's smaller and includes things like Barbaracle.

2. BW and especially B2W2 have some of the best music in the series. Great gym leader music, great E4 music, and generally they tried some new ideas with music in this game.

3. BW has the best story in the series, because it was the first time they tried to do something new, even if the end result was still world domination. N made all the difference compared to other games. And Cheren and Bianca have bigger roles compared to the other helpers in the series.

4. BW the worst to grind? With Audinos rampant? GSC was the worst to grind, by far.

5. You needed a second DS but they also removed the stupid Pal Park restriction of only transferring 6 Pokémon at a time. So not everything was worse. These games were intended to be played on a DSi and, if you had a DSi alongside an old DS, you could transfer.

You may have gripes with the games but they're hardly the "worst" in the series. I personally can't play 3rd gen or below anymore, because these games have primitive mechanics, the Pokémon don't learn good moves by leveling up, and they require too many HMs to progress. People complain "oh they didn't include any old Pokémon" but really, I thought you were supposed to use new Pokémon in a new Pokémon game. Most of the Pokémon introduced in Unova are very usable in BW, and this is what made the game very fun for me. I didn't find the designs any worse than previous generations, and Vanillite hate is stupid.

1. I felt like VI went for more of a "quality over quantity" approach. Both gens had some I disliked. Ironically I have no issue with the more overhated mons like Vanilluxe (Klingklang was kinda dumb but I'm still indifferent). It was designs like Lillipup and Darumaka I generally disliked.

2. Like everyone else said, it's subjective. The battle music wasn't bad in any right, it just came off as forgettable to me. It was the overworld music I had a beef with since so many of the themes looped/were shorter than standard Pokemon music fare.

3. GS/Pt still had more enjoyable stories in my eyes. I did like the points that BW brought up and, as I mentioned, I too liked N as a character but I felt he was the only saving grace. I tried to make myself like Cheren and Bianca, but the way I saw it, they were just "there". Their roles weren't small, so much as they were boring. Again, it's subjective.

4. I was waiting for someone to bring up Audinos, surprised you were the only one. While they were a viable source, it still felt like a very grueling process to wait for them to appear and defeat them one-by-one. I didn't grind a whole lot in 4th gen because you could set your mons to lvl 100 for Wifi battling, but even when I did, just running through the E4 repeatedly and skipping the credits felt faster. I dunno, maybe I just spoiled myself on the ease of mindlessly mashing A through the Kalos restaurants and now anything feels slow by comparison. Lol. And you're right - GSC wasn't too good for grinding because of the phone # limit and how the E4 never upgraded their teams to my knowledge.

5. True, but I still don't think everyone could afford both, especially since, when the DSi came out, there was this heavily advertised promotion on a major discount for trading in your old DS for a DSi. I personally stuck with the Lite until the 3DS came out.

Maybe BW aren't the worst games in the series, but I'd still replay anything - even Yellow - before I started another new game on my copy of White. I have a lot of friends who say the same thing as you about older gens, and that's perfectly understandable. I've played through RSE at least 10 times over the years and never had any real problem simply beating the game. The lack of the physical/special split is a huge inconvenience, but I guess I'm used to it by now. I didn't have a problem with the exclusion of old Pokemon, I actually liked that as a design choice. I simply disliked a marginally larger ratio of Gen V guys than the other gens. I don't get the hate for Vanilluxe either, I think he has a great design.

Also, completely unrelated, but I agree with your sig. Pidgeot is one of the most disappointing 3rd stage evolutions. He needs a major buff!