Now, do you mean 2nd gen, or the 4th gen Johto games? I happen to prefer 2nd gen, myself, and while I'll admit that a huge chunk of that is nostalgia, another huge chunk is them being incredible games. A close second is the 3rd gen remakes of 1st gen.
If we ignore remakes here for a sec, then 5th gen is probably my second-favorite gen, after 2nd. I love the entirely new batch of Pokemon. Haters gonna hate, and all that. Some look stupid, sure, but even the first 151 had some pretty stupid Pokemon. It's actually sorta hard to include remakes, because I like the remakes in each gen quite a bit more than the actual new games of those gens. I do feel like 5th is a step back from HGSS, particularly in terms of touch screen controls, but there's still a lot to like. The music is excellent, the new battle effects cool. Gameplay is, so far, the same as it's ever been.
Unfortunately, I can't comment on things like plot yet, seeing as how I can barely read Japanese. It seems, as always, even more of a driving factor in the game than the last ones. I have mixed feelings about this. I have always loved the first 2 gens because they didn't try to be much more than a child's journey. They had no delusions: the villains were Saturday morning cartoon villains, there was no attempt to be epic. Team Rocket wanted to steal Pokemon. Stealing is bad; therefore, they are bad. That works fine. It gives you an adversary without straining the player's suspension of disbelief. But when you have environmental terrorists and men with god delusions, trying to get the God Pokemon to become a god, it makes less and less sense that these guys would bend over and just stop because a ten year old's monsters beat their monsters in a battle fought one on one according to an arbitrary system of rules. The more serious the plots try to be, the more dissonant the games become with the core concept, and anyways I like my Pokemon uncomplicated. That said, the opening cutscene of B/W has me intrigued.
I'd say my only real disappointment in the game, touch screen controls aside, is the lack of changing up anything substantial. The HMs are all the same moves again (so far). The starters are all the same types (hell, Pokebuu's evolutions are, yet again, Fire-Fighting. For the third gen in a row). I don't want Pokemon to change up its core battle system much, but it seems the main focus of this one was...whatever the C-Gear does for online battles. And that just seems so incremental.
But yeah! Games are good. I will absolutely buy them (or one, anyways) again in English.
