5th Gen Why do you think this generation introduced so many strong Pokémon?

[Pendraflare]

Before the fifth generation, there was a fair amount of Pokémon that had very strong Attack and/or Special Attack stats. In the days of Generation III when competitive started, we had the common stuff like Heracross, Salamence and Metagross on many teams. You'd be hard-pressed to look for a team that didn't have some strong attacker behind it. Generation IV was even worse, with the introduction of the Choice Specs, and Garchomp, the former of which allowed special attackers to get more oomph to them, and the latter of which dominated the generation and got banned due to team centralizing.

But then, when Black and White came, out of nowhere we had lots of Pokémon with very high (Special) Attack stats, such as Darmanitan, Conkeldurr, Haxorus, Hydreigon, Volcarona, Krookodile, Excadrill, and then some. The sequels gave us some new forms that hit super hard as well, with the Therian forms of the Kami trio, as well as Kyurem's fused forms, both of which, prior to Mega Evolution, were only behind Deoxys' Attack form. For that matter, Mewtwo had the highest base Special Attack of any non-event Pokémon until Black 2 and White 2 introduced White Kyurem, which tops it with 170 base Special Attack and arguably better attacking types.

So why do you think there were so many powerhouses this generation? Do you think it was part of intentionally making the game easier? Was it to change up the competitive field (even though those players have moved on to Gen VI for competitive now)? Any other reason you might think of? Discuss.

 

[Megan]

I suppose GF wanted to create a game that was somewhat of a throwback to the first generation. In gen 1 there were no Pokemon from previous gens, obviously. But in order to create a game that's both a throwback that features a rich and consistent experience independant of lore from other generations and something that would still fit into the competitive scene (Pokemon that could hold their ground against previous gens mons) it would require:
- a hugh amount of Pokemon, so the region doesn't feel empty/boring
- enough Pokemon with their own lore to create an interesting story experience (Swords of Justice, Djinns, Volcarona and the three dragons)/pseudo legendaries
- trade/stone evolutions
- enough Pokemon for each job you see in competitive play (Conkeldurr->Tank, Haxorus/Hydragon->phys/spec sweeper, Ferrothorn->wall, etc.) that feature good enough stats to be used

Powercreep is always a problem, especially with game series that feature compatibility with previous installments and unfortunately it's not avoidable. Aside from that I don't neccessarily think they were trying to make the games easier, I'd even say they tried to make them somewhat more challenging by including a difficulty feature and prolonging most of the gen 5 Pokemon's evolutions. It's one of the few complaints I have about the gen 5 mons, they take forever to evolve. xD

 

[Squidchan]

I always thought that was the point where GF started catering for competitive battling, and therefore made stronger Pokemon to make it more interesting. I would like to see them do it again, just because it's one of the only things keeping the game alive for a lot of people post-game.

In my eyes, competitive battling seems to be the most popular post-game activities, followed by challenge runs and shiny hunting/breeding (though a part of breeding is for comp battles), and GF has noticed this and made the competitive battling and breeding aspects easier.


All they need to do now is making challenge runs easier, maybe by including an additional save file that is only accessible after you finish the story, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Sorry for going off-topic there...

 

[Hiatus]

It's nice to see them shift their focus a little in this regard, but I wouldn't say I'm much of a huge fan.

Although it's nice to have more strong Pokémon around, surely, having too many of them kind of takes some value away from older ones, in a way, as it generally makes them seem more weak; if you ask me, this is a huge negative.

Due to this reason, a lot of Pokémon that have been introduced to us in previous generations seemed to have dwindled in terms of usage (competitively, that is); personally, I believe it's best to have all Pokémon we have balanced in terms of popularity, and the step they took in gen five went against that.

 

[esperance]

Apart from what's already been said, I think they made the new Pokemon so strong so that people would actually use the new ones, rather than seek out the few strong ones available from previous generations.

Of course, this did have the (hopefully) unintended effect of lowering the value of some of the mid-range Pokemon from previous generations.

 

[Pendraflare]

Despite some of the comments here, I doubt they would have included old Pokémon in Black 2 and White 2 if they wanted us to use the new ones. Then again, those are remakes (or sequels in this case), and even so, those games threw even more strong Pokémon into the picture, like Roserade, Espeon, Lucario, Absol, Heracross, etcetera. Now those Pokémon don't have quite as much raw power as the aforementioned Generation V Pokémon like Conkeldurr and Chandelure, but they're strong indeed. And while the metagame was on Generation V I think they did want to throw more powerhouses into the mix to try to make things more edgy. This was the start of Game Freak really catering to competitive players.

 

[Nah]

I don't think that making more powerful 'mons is really Game Freak catering to competitive players. It's really just powercreep imo.

 

[Hikamaru]

Interesting thoughts I'm seeing here, particularly from Pendra and Hopeless Masquerade. I think they are right in that the increased power compared to older Pokemon was to make them feel like they were worth using, plus this was a generation that started to see more catering to competitive players which 6th Gen improved even further so it's probably why there was so many strong Pokemon in this generation.

 

[Sun]

While I'm complete open arms to the introduction of the stronger Pokemon, I agree with Ashley's point on taking some value away from the older ones. Instead of pushing me away, that is actually one of the factors that draw me into Gen V, like the reboot from Gen III.

It provides a fresher and new experience, instead of repeating the good ol' tier list. Having said that, it's a bit saddening to see the likes of Swampert, Tauros, Electivire, etc. receiving demotions when they were at least once considered as terror from their own respective debut generations.