5th Gen Rant about fans of BW calling this copy/paste

[Pendraflare]

This is something i've wanted to do for a while, and i've thought about different ways to do it, I even briefly mentioned it in the unpopular opinions thread, but I think now it's time that I finally give it the full blow.

One thing I want to state before I get on with this is that I understand that there are people who tend to feel this way about third versions in general, like some don't care much for Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, etcetera. They might call those the same game as their respective first games, and that's understandable. The same can also be said about, say, FRLG and ORAS (but not HGSS) - some people thought those games were pretty copy/paste and had very little new to offer. This isn't directed at those people - if you didn't like those games (much) I could definitely get not caring for B2W2 at the same time. Same goes for people that hated BW, as well. So if you're among that group, this isn't aimed at you.

But when it comes to a more specific group of people - the people that love Black and White, and call them among the best games in the series, AND also like Emerald and/or Platinum - as well as most of the other main series games for that matter - but then call Black 2 and White 2 the worst because they're the same game as Black and White, or say that they have nothing new? They're a different story completely. Some people say these games were pointless to the series.

To those specific people: why?!?! Every time I see this being said, my heart sinks. The claim from fans of BW that Black 2 and White 2 are copy/paste, or the same region, is utterly refusing to make ANY sense to me. As I said in the "BW or B2W2" thread, sometimes this game's hatedom can turn me off from the originals.

I'm about to explain why I feel like people who make this claim are full of trash. And this IS going to be a rant, so i'm just warning you. But i'll give you a chance to prepare yourself before I get into it. *WARNING: Swearing in the spoiler* Ready? Then click on the spoiler below.

Spoiler:

First of all, the obvious fact that there were old Pokémon findable and usable in the games, which was not a thing in Black and White. While it's not THE biggest change, it does affect the gameplay, particularly to those that missed those Pokémon in BW. Having old Pokémon here is a thing, admittedly for better or for worse (depending on who you ask).

And let's look at the new locations that were present in B2W2 that we got for the Unova region here that were not in the first games. Aspertia City, Floccesy Town/Ranch, Virbank City/Complex, Pokéstar Studios, getting to ride a plane, Lentimas Town, Reversal Mountain, getting to go to Undella Town and the Giant Chasm before post-game, the Marine Tube, Humilau City, Routes 19-23, the newly designed Victory Road, and the post-game like the PWT and Black Tower/White Treehollow… Where were these locations in BW again? To add to that, you start off in a different opening town, and you don't go to the southeastern part of Unova (from Pinwheel Forest to Nuvema Town) during the main story.

How is that copy/paste? No, seriously, how can you look at all of those things that were ADDED to the region and say that it's the same region? In fact, you don't even need to look beyond the VERY FIRST CITY OF THE GAME - Aspertia City, which has a Gym and a Pokémon Center - to see that the region is not copy/paste. And if you say because a lot of the cities and towns were the same, like Castelia, Nimbasa, etcetera… It's not like this is the only game that's done that, Emerald and Platinum have too. I'll get back to that in a bit, but seriously, were people expecting a completely different region that had never been seen before?

Not to mention we had several other characters who were put in the game - Bianca becoming Professor Juniper's assistant when she was stupid in the first games, Hugh is the rival, Colress was in Team Plasma, a few of the sages actually do something other than be idle for the game, and so do the Shadow Triad. As for Gym Leaders, there was Cheren, the first in the game who wasn't such in BW, and he gets greater development here. And there was Roxie, who comes after him, and Marlon too who we get at the end. Neither of those two were in BW at all… How about the fact that every Gym had its own theme, a first for the main series? And let's not forget how the new Pokédex additions changed their teams up, too. Once again, I ask…does that sound like the same to you?

And really, do I even need to mention the post-game? I already briefly mentioned the PWT and Black Tower/White Treehollow (the two biggest things), but there are the new formes that you can get, hunting legendaries, and lots of other strong trainers, most notably Colress, and Nishino as well. I don't feel a need to go on about that.

Now we come to something that may be a bigger point than such: third versions like Emerald and Platinum. You people call the region here copy/paste, yet how can you say that in the face of these aforementioned games? Did the very first location of the game in those two start you off in a city with a Pokémon Center AND a Gym? Did those games begin with new routes and new towns that weren't present in RS and DP? ...Okay, i'll admit, Emerald had Juan, who actually played a part near the end of the story, but other than that the Gym Leaders were unchanged.

But I know what some of you are gonna say - you don't want me to talk about the gameplay, because that's boring and irrelevant. You want me to talk about the story. FINE! I'm not here to defend the story from people that call it the worst for simply being boring (which I can excuse), i'm here to say it's not the same. With a specific character that had a backstory about having a Pokémon of his taken from them, along with (as I mentioned) other characters that are more developed such as Cheren and Bianca, those were not things we had previously.

And admittedly, Team Plasma's goals were taking over the region, like most of the previous villainous teams except BW Team Plasma have let on, but here, at least it's proven that they don't have any moral objective anymore. And as for the Giant Chasm with the climax of the story, people get mad at the Kyurem fight because of how it fuses with N's legendary for one battle and then they separate and then you fight Ghetsis like in BW. I ask…what does that have to do with anything? That's like flacking Platinum (again) for the fact that you fight Cyrus after you go through the Distortion World, and then fight Giratina, when you battle Cyrus at the Spear Pillar in DP and then Dialga or Palkia.

Back in 2012, when these games first came out in Japan and Marriland got them for a blind Let's Play, he said he would never accept another Platinum or Emerald version after this game, because it goes way beyond a simple remake. He thought it was something original for a change. See? He knows what this game is all about. And if this game was 100% copy/paste, do you think he would have put so much time into a walkthrough that took many hours to write full of over 100 Pokémon Reviews? Not only that, but he said something about how he felt that Game Freak would have made RS remakes "if they were greedy", and sure enough those were what we got two years later. And some people have called ORAS copy/paste, too, but those games didn't have a ton of new areas other than like B2W2 did.

I should also state that a year ago, Marriland forums user HappyWaffles9000 said something about how he felt that part of what made these his favorite games (well, until ORAS) was that quite a few people he knew skipped them. And those people he knew said "it's simply BW with a 2". He called that perhaps the dumbest excuse possible. In fact, one video I saw of one person talking about his favorite Pokémon games, he had B2W2 at #1, and was very formal and descriptive of his reasoning behind it, even saying the region had plenty new and that the PWT was his favorite thing about the game. The video had an unusually high amount of dislikes (not drastically high, but more than your average YouTube video) and there were some comments that I swear to god I felt like I lost IQ points reading them. One comment in particular said that these games were the worst and that they "couldn't be more copy/paste if they took the boxes of BW and slapped a 2 in front of them".

I cannot even begin to put into words how infuriating it was reading that comment. And he said that the game insults your intelligence in trying to find out the differences between it and BW, which caused him to knock BW down a slot on his own favorite games list. I refuse to post the comments section of that video because I do not want to subject people to something that brain-dead. People like those just make me fucking sick. Because once again, I do not see how anybody can make a claim as UNTRUE as that in the face of insurmountable evidence. That video did have a few comments that thanked the OP for putting B2W2 at #1, but the general reaction to it was disheartening.

But if there's anything I will admit was extremely lazily carried over from the original BW, it would be the Battle Subway. That was completely recycled with no changes whatsoever, aside from Nate/Rosa instead of Hilbert/Hilda, to my recollection. They didn't even give the Unova Pokémon new tutor moves. Yeah, i'll give in and admit that is the same shit, at least. But at the same time, HGSS did the exact same thing with Platinum's Battle Frontier, except for the music. And so did ORAS with XY's Battle Maison. In fact, I have a feeling nowhere near as many people would be calling B2W2 copy/paste if it had a Battle Frontier.

And i'll be brutally honest saying the Elite Four were pretty recycled too, they could've easily gave them five Pokémon on Normal Mode - they had four in BW, but that's because of how small the Unova Pokédex was. Other than that, I think people's expectations got pretty unrealistic here. There was plenty new added to the Unova region in B2W2, and i'm sick of people calling it the same region. Because it is by name, but not aesthetics and places. The claim is not fucking true.

Now, I want to make something very clear: I get that people have opinions, and that's one thing on its own. My anger here has nothing to do with how my favorite game is some people's least favorite game (okay, that's not 100% true). That's not the thing here. No, I'm mad because I get the vibe that these people didn't play the game at all, or weren't paying ANY attention during it - they're making claims that I do not know how they can in the face of actually playing. This isn't a matter of opinion - it's a matter of the incapability of being able to look at new things and not call them recycled.

Also, people should not make these claims in the face of two other games (well, four if you count Yellow and Crystal, five if you count ORAS, and maybe even FRLG too) that are guilty of many of the things that people nitpick B2W2 for. Again, i'm not quite as angry as those who don't care for third versions - if you weren't a fan of Emerald and/or Platinum, then that's different. I'm primarily mad at the people that praise basically every fucking main series game except this one. You think the story is the worst in any game ever? FINE! But don't call it the same region just because it has the same name slapped onto it! And I know i'm being harsh here, but I said this was going to be a rant, not a simple belief that I have. I'm just sick of this game being ostracized for something that it's not the only fucking main series game guilty of.

But that brings me to another question to those same people: would those of you be as mad with B2W2 if they were marketed as third versions like Emerald and Platinum and not sequel games? In the sense, I get the feeling there were people particularly angry at that claim, so I wonder if that's true or not.

…Ah, okay. I don't know if i'm gonna feel better after all of that or not. We'll see if I do based on responses. Discuss.

 

[jessluvstolaugh]

I praise your harshness lol

 

[Hikamaru]

I can easily understand you there, bud. I know how most games before this had a rehashed third version with extra features but slightly edits the story, but with B2/W2 they took an entirely new path with the story, adding completely new areas and also adding more Pokemon to the regional Dex.

B2/W2 is definitely not a copy-and-paste, and that's why we have to praise B2/W2's brilliance.

 

[Winter]

I feel like anyone who is of the opinion that a game title within the same franchise would be an exact copy or a doppelgänger of another title is ignorant and deluded at best. I mean, why would Game Freak make the same thing twice, especially if in this case, BW didn't actually work out well. B2W2's popularity shows this; that it was the better of the two Gen V games.

 

[Sun]

B2W2 is amazing, it flatters the already-great BW a lot.
Those who are saying that the sequels are mere copy-paste, they must be not paying attention to the plot, changes and differences during their game play. {XD} B2W2 has provided challenge and introduced a lot of great stuff, like the Join Avenue, Hidden Grottoes, Fun Fest Missions, PWT, difficulty settings, wide diversity of Pokémon.

I really don't get the hate to the whole Gen V, it's nitpicking.

 

[Nah]

I've never actually heard anyone say before that B2W2 is just a copy-paste of BW.....though it's true that it's not a copy-paste.

I feel like anyone who is of the opinion that a game title within the same franchise would be an exact copy or a doppelgänger of another title is ignorant and deluded at best. I mean, why would Game Freak make the same thing twice,

Idk, Pokemon is pretty formulaic, but game companies do in fact make the same game twice on occasion. I mean,

is pretty much just

+

on the same disc with slightly better graphics and a couple of extra costumes.

 

[Hikamaru]

I really don't get the hate to the whole Gen V, it's nitpicking.

It's true, I feel like there has been tons of effort put into these games yet people somehow slam something negatively in one way or another. 5th Gen broke the mold by releasing actual sequels as opposed to a prettied-up third version which was a change I welcomed greatly.

 

[Sun]

It's true, I feel like there has been tons of effort put into these games yet people somehow slam something negatively in one way or another. 5th Gen broke the mold by releasing actual sequels as opposed to a prettied-up third version which was a change I welcomed greatly.

Yes, that is why Black 2 and White 2 didn't feel like I wasted my money on things that don't deserve a dime. That doesn't mean the third versions aren't great, in fact I love Emerald and Platinum than their respective initial pairs. But with third versions, the initial pairs felt almost-irrelevant anymore. It's even terrible with the first Sinnoh pairs' case, they felt like incomplete games.

On the other hand, B2W2 didn't completely steal BW's spotlight. In fact they made them as equally important and relevant. That's the smartest marketing strategy GF has ever done so far. #GetAllMyMomey

 

[Palkia]

B2/W2 are weaker entries in the series for me. While they did fix some of the issues with B/W (Not being restricted to shitty new pokémon, region being less linear, no post-game level gap, focusing less on the story), they've always had this 'fan-game' air to them, especially with some of the facilites they added and the pokémon avaliable being mainly picked over popularity rather than quality. Honestly, B2/W2 felt like cash-ins to hold the gap until X/Y would come out the year after, and the cover the part of the fanbase who still refused to upgrade to a 3DS (they were mainly the people who the 2DS was made for).

They weren't bad games (the prequels to them were the only pokémon games I disliked overall), but if they were made in Pokémon Essentials by a group of fans instead I probably wouldn't have noticed anything off.

As for people saying that they are identical to the past games, I can see how. They didn't bring any new pokémon and they looked identical to B/W. It was really more of a glorified expansion pack rather than a new game, except you had to replay the game in a different order with a few new locations and a much lighter (and better) story.

 

[Starry Windy]

Even though I must admit that the original Black and White did the story much better most of the time, but it should be noted that Black 2 and White 2 are intended as the continuation of the story instead of rehashing just like previous third version games (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald and Platinum), which is a nice move that broke the trend of third version being the revamped version of the previous main games.

The story is not the only one that Black 2 and White 2 broke the trends with, in fact, they also introduces us to the first starting city instead of starting towns we're usually starting at (I like Aspertia City), taking a different journey yet still progressing through the plot after what happened in Black and White (as part of continuation mentioned earlier), having 300 Pokémon in the Pokédex instead of having 200-250 species there (even though X and Y surpassed it a year later) and all, this makes Black 2 and White 2 have a fresh experience even though still taking place in Unova region, and it's a good thing. And I think that'd be good to play the original Black and White along with them so that you can enjoy the story thoroughly.

 

[Ammako]

B2W2 > BW, in my opinion.

The only thing that was the same is that it happens on the same region, except with many added areas that weren't in BW, along with also having Gen. 1-4 Pokémon. I didn't really like how BW only had Gen. 5 Pokémon available until post-game.

 

[Pendraflare]

As for people saying that they are identical to the past games, I can see how. They didn't bring any new pokémon and they looked identical to B/W. It was really more of a glorified expansion pack rather than a new game, except you had to replay the game in a different order with a few new locations and a much lighter (and better) story.

The thing is, yes, B2W2 didn't bring any new Pokémon to the Pokédex, but neither did Emerald and/or Platinum. And both Platinum and these had new forms (Origin Giratina, Black/White Kyurem, and the Therian forms). Not to mention (if i'm not mistaken) B2W2 were when we first got to get Keldeo and Meloetta (correct me if i'm wrong on that). It feels really jarring that people are able to say that about this and not the aforementioned third versions, unless (again) it's the fact that these weren't marketed as third versions that they were upset by.

And Ammako, that's something else I said, in how it's the same region by name but with new locations.

 

[Sopheria]

B2/W2 are weaker entries in the series for me. While they did fix some of the issues with B/W (Not being restricted to mukty new pokémon, region being less linear, no post-game level gap, focusing less on the story)

If I may say, those are some pretty major fixes, especially coming from BW. And not only did it fix all of those issues, it fixed them to the extreme--B2W2 is arguably one of, if not the least linear Pokemon game in the main series (imo). And the variety of Pokemon you can get is enormous (300, which I believe is the biggest regional Pokedex we've seen so far. Someone correct me if I'm wrong!)

Point being, those were all the biggest flaws with BW, and BW2 did such a good job at fixing them that it made me completely forget those flaws ever even existed in gen 5--which is what every sequel/remake should aim to do!

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

I had more fun with BW than White 2. White 2 was interesting at the beginning and middle due to the new areas but not much changed of the old cities design wise other than Clay's city. Also BW had a better story, B2W2's story was underwhelming compared to it's prequels.

 

[Hikamaru]

I had more fun with BW than White 2. White 2 was interesting at the beginning and middle due to the new areas but not much changed of the old cities design wise other than Clay's city. Also BW had a better story, B2W2's story was underwhelming compared to it's prequels.

I put both games on equal scale here, and while some claim B2/W2's story wasn't as good as the originals, I still did find it epic in a way. The fact we see some locations changing greatly definitely showed that 5th Gen did a good job of breaking the mold, because I remember when everyone was predicting a third version but I knew they'd throw something different and I have to praise Game Freak for doing something fresh.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

I put both games on equal scale here, and while some claim B2/W2's story wasn't as good as the originals, I still did find it epic in a way. The fact we see some locations changing greatly definitely showed that 5th Gen did a good job of breaking the mold, because I remember when everyone was predicting a third version but I knew they'd throw something different and I have to praise Game Freak for doing something fresh.

Actually it's rumored that it was Nintendo's idea to go another route, GF wanted to go with Grey...
Actually Nintendo intervening in the series tends to cause the most well received stuff...like Kanto being added to GS at the suggestion of Iwata (who helped add it).

 

[Hikamaru]

Actually it's rumored that it was Nintendo's idea to go another route, GF wanted to go with Grey...
Actually Nintendo intervening in the series tends to cause the most well received stuff...like Kanto being added to GS at the suggestion of Iwata (who helped add it).

It was quite the risky choice, but it definitely paid off. Hopefully we'll see more intervention like this in future Pokemon games so that they still bring stuff that's fresh to the table, and they can thank 5th Gen abandoning a typical third version and going with sequels instead for setting that.