Pokemon Black and White focused on exploration and player choice. Even though you can't do the gyms out of order, you can travel the Unova region whenever you want. TMs, HMs, and EXP are fixed as well. Black and White and its sequels have more content in them than basically any other Pokemon game, a fantastic soundtrack, and an amazing level of player choice that made it stand out.
0:00 Intro
0:39 Intro part 2
1:40 How Black and White does exploration so well
7:26 The awesome season system and music
9:05 The writing is so much better
12:07 EXP and play conditioning
19:11 How they fixed HMs and TMs
24:50 Doing the gyms out of order is overrated
27:30 What makes Black and White special
29:45 Outro
My absolute favourite small touch about Gen 5 is just that the traded Pokémon that you trade to the ingame trainers actually can later be battled in the post-game (including the one who gives you two different trades), where it's really nice to see that these Pokémon aren't just boxed and actually do things even if they're not with you.
That's such a cool detail! I didn't know thAt!!!
How can you battle them? That sounds soooo cool!
Weird small touch is how they touched base on the strange house from BW1, with the Dreamyard in BW2. There is a spoon found there, and a lab in the basement with a bunch of medicine & one of the guys have a Drowzee and Hypno......... They are fairly aggressive and strange acting before they battle you.
Finally someone that understands that open world pokémon doesn't mean entertainment.
Finally?
@@lumeronswift The thing is that I never came across a video on youtube that questions open world mechanics for Pokémon. It's not that it didn't happen, but I haven't watched one myself.
@@OOB080honestly I think Pokémon games should be open world even now, but they simply don’t understand how to make or develop them; the developers simply have zero experience in anything related to it. I’ve played (Minecraft) Pixelmon Adventure servers years ago when those were popular with extremely good fan made regions so it’s why I feel it’s simply a bad product over anything.
They scored well with open world aspect in PLA and wild area for SwSh. Scored 80 hrs just pushing what can be found and what cheese I can think of in launch month. Just SV has so little interactivity except dodging wild PKMN.
Honestly its ironic, Black and White (and to a lesser extent Sun and Moon but that's another discussion) are basically everything people today want from the Pokemon franchise, but people just went so berserk at the time GameFreak has played it hyper safe ever since.
Seriously. Now all we get is a bland post game and decent dlc. We took these games for granted 😢
It's disappointing since Gen V was my favourite generation of Pokemon, and Sun/Moon was me enjoying Pokemon again after the disappointment of X/Y and feeling a bit meh with OR/AS... only to be followed by Ultra Sun/Moon being a disappointment overall where it made me not want to get new Pokémon games, and Let's Go being the straw that broke the back despite getting it as a Christmas Present. and despite all that, they still seem better than some of the newer games. Like X/Y had some good qualities with the region itself despite REALLY needing that third version, due to it's bleh storyline and lack of challenge, OR/AS had some good new content that helped the game (I don't really know how to feel about it overall though), Ultra Sun/Moon despite ruining the story of Sun/Moon and being too similar that made it dull, is probably good for gameplay and had some really cool boss battles, and Let's Go had an artstyle that I WISH future Pokemon games would make the standard (despite it taking out so many core Pokemon mechanics so it could be a gateway for Go fans). Overall, I just hope for a good Pokemon game that they actually spend time polishing alongside some good region design. Like I can see the potential with Scarlet/Violet from an outsider but it feels dragged down with the lack of polish and the open world angle is making me a bit worried about the future of Pokemon.
I'm not sure that's very true, this was mostly a western phenomena and they arent and especially weren't very connected with western fans. Pokemon company realized that they can pump out hot garbage and fans will still pay 70$ + DLC so why would they bother adding dev time? Especially when they want to coordinate with the TCG, Merch, and anime
They went all out back than. Pretty sure if they had a decent amount of older pokemon to be part of the main game in B/W people wouldnt feel that way, cause almost everybody loved B/W2 (yeah the sales were much lower, so the audience was a more selective and probably pokemon-dedicated/friendly,but still).
Revisionist history cope from a zoomer who wasn't even around at the time.
The original BW's postgame is a bit underrated due to the massive postgame u get in the sequels, but it also deserves more credit.
ehhh it still kinda is meh
@@nascour5991 Story and spectacle-wise, I kinda agree (nothing like a battle frontier equivalent) but there were Elite 4 + the Champion rematches to substitute for that. And what BW provided in terms of post-endgame exploration and content is actually massive if you think about it. The northeast section of Unova exists simply to be explored and it's wonderful, if a bit modest.
@@kalejuice5701 I loved the side quest of going after the other Sages, feels really grown-up for a pokemon game, chasing down fugitives after defeating and disarming the main threat of the game
The pokemon cycle made this game it's main victim: new game is released, fans complain, a decade later they love it and say the new game is bad, repeat.
scarlet and violet giving you the option to do the gyms/titans/bases in any order is also pretty useless since there's no level scaling, so the harder ones are impossible early on and the easier ones are completely trivial if you save them for later
It’s not useless, you still have the option to roam around freely and to challenge any gym. You’d just get your butt kicked. Which is a good thing in my opinion. I got the badges out of order and when I found a weaker gym I adjusted with a different and lower level team. Not the best way to do it, but you have the option. The real issue to me is there is almost nothing guiding you towards the “correct” path. Yeah most people won’t challenge the montenevera gyms or the psychic one first but I wish they put more effort into it
They shouldn't have made a "correct path" in the first place and instead make different teams depending on how far you've gone@@56ty_
nah, I disagree. I found myself at a harder gym and was definitely vastly under leveled, but it was presented the options, grind until I level up enough, go find an easier more level appropriate gym, or dive deep into the battle mechanics available to me. After about 10 trial and error attempts to beat it I was victorious. It was honestly one of the best gym experiences I've ever had in Pokemon. Of course afterwards everything else was piss easy and I ended up getting bored with the game and not beating it.
I think a good way to handle it is to have level scaling only scale upwards Allow you to challenge yourself by doing stuff out of order while not making easier gyms pathetically easy
@@tylertrego1276Wow, it’s almost like you proved yourself wrong with that last bit 🤦♂️
I’m not gonna cap I’m glad we had these protagonists older than the ones we had during those 4 generations
and i HATE that the gen 9 protags look like they´re 8 years old
Then you must love XY gangs. All of them are 16-17 years old
@@AdaWongMistress I think they're at least 13 but the uniform makes them look like elementary schoolers 😭 lack of clothing customization hurt so bad
You go radio silent for over a month and then suddenly drop a half hour video? I love it
Yeah, it has been a while, hasn't it?
because he was working on it
Never considered that people who are way younger than me could be completely lost because they didn't spend their whole childhood getting "gotta catch em all" screamed at them. As a child I never would have for a single second thought that I shouldn't have 6 mons in my team.
Most people I know who played pokemon and didn't watch the anime only used their starter the first time through
@@thehayze259This was the firt time someone seemed to think that. i have NEVER met anyone playing the game like that XD. maybe where im from people like to equal their team out to give every team member some playtime? idk when i played my first game with my younger brother we didnt have enough slots to carry all the mons we wanted
@@tenjin5586 i was 10 when i played blue and just ran through everything with my blastoise
As someone who did grow up with that catch phrase the same problem still happens. While I may have spent sometime on raising my other Pokemon it was mainly my overleveled Starter pulling all the weight because grinding isn't fun and the games don't make it easy to level up new members. This also somewhat plays into the meme of everyone having the same Sinnoh team where there is like 10 Pokemon that everyone used on their team without question and most of them are early Route Pokemon. By Sinnoh we all have grown up enough and have enough experience to recognize that we should have a Team of 6 but raising Pokemon is still a pain so people just trained some of the first Pokemon they encountered especially since they weren't that bad
My first game was Silver and I caught a whole team. My starter just was over leveled compared to the rest of it. I think people caught other pokemon they just didn't use them the same amount. Hell you had to catch other pokemon for the HMs if nothing else.
I've replayed Pokémon White like half a dozen times and was confident I knew the game in and out pretty well, but the fact that Route 3 has a bonus fisherman you can fight is something that actually blows my mind; I've never been to that particular spot and that speaks to your point about how strong the route design is.
NOT ONLY ARE YOU HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD ABOUT WHAT MAKES THIS GAME PERFECT, YOU ALSO APPRECIATE SERPERIOR SUPERIORITY AJFHSKDGUSLGHLSK
The Superior Starter, finally someone gets it
My favorite starter as well, just too much swag (and Contrary Leaf storm goes brrr)
White version was my very first Pokemon game and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That lesson they teach you at the very beginning of the game is so important to the game experience and I’m glad it was one of the first things I learned
Honestly I'm always shocked to hear how many people just relied on overlevelling their starters because even when I was a little kid playing Gen 3 and 4 games I would always catch a bunch of pokemon, I think I was one of the few who actually picked up on the idea of getting a full team early on
I did this in gen 1, but only because I really like the starter . For yellow I made a good team
I’m glad I’m not alone. I understand only rly using ur starter but not catching more Pokémon? What do u mean u didn’t know? The slogan is “gotta catch em all” what do u think the Pokédex is for???? like, u didn’t encounter a single Pokémon out of 100+ that u just generally liked and wanted on your team? I think this person and ppl like them are a minority if I’m being honest
@@snakeswithhats1913 how does one know the best mons, without catching a bunch? A lot of the starters low key sucked too
i think part of it depends on what your exposure to pokemon was before playing the games. i watched the anime and got the "gotta catch them all" thing shoved into my face and the anime made an appeal to catching every new pokemon u run into. and since i couldnt play any official pokemon games since i didnt have a console (still dont) and didnt know how to download fangames i watched playthroughs and learned that teams need to be balanced. ppl that didnt have those experiences before playing would probably just rely on a handful of pkm at most
I still remember recently rediscovering the cave near Chargestone, even finding a TM I didn't collect until then, not to mention rediscoveriny the cave connected to the sewers, both in B2W2.
gen 5 is a work of art. no more no less.
I consider it a tie for the worst mainline pokemon game along with the gen 7 games. Both are excellent games, but i just think those are the worst.
A fun little factoid about that lack of Badge requirement for HM usage... For folks who still have the hardware and interest to try it, you can trade an pokemon you intend to use as a pre-loaded HM aide to a fresh save file and shortcut to what should've been a late-game content beat like getting the Larvesta almost immediately in the first game.
Too bad it still won't evolve until postgame (or if you overlevel for Ghetsis)
Watching videos like this makes me feel that Gamefreak have really just stuck out the middle finger with these last few installments. We had it SO GOOD with this generation; and literally everybody hated it when it came out. They made so many small and major improvements and then said, you know what? Let's make SEQUELS, and inarguably created the best pokemon experience in the franchise with B2/W2. If the Pokemon franchise were to ever have a last generation, this felt like it was it and people just hated that notion. All the slop that's come out since is sort of what the fans deserve after how we treated what is unquestionably Gamefreak's most beloved creation (the passion that went into developing this game oozes out in like every corner).
I also love some of the games' small touches like the hiker guy in BW that got a Boldore from trading with you comes back in BW2 with his Boldore now evolved into a Gigalith. It's not much but I think it really adds alot to the world.
I don’t want to do the whole “oh wow the quality of this editing is so underrated” so instead I’ll sound like a cocky rude bastard and say that I’ll see you when you have 50k subs
Thanks lol, I appreciate both
i honestly wish that pokemon would make another sequel game in a region we've been to before but in a different time period. seeing characters and locations change between bw and b2w2 was such an amazing experience. i love a good remake, but it'd be great if we could just revisit a region after time has passed too :) great video!
Yeah, I honestly didn’t get the complaints about B&W being aggressively linear back in the day. All the little nooks and crannies and side dungeons helped break up the monotony of going gym to gym and tackling the (frankly very interesting) main story. I’ve always had an appreciation for side content like Contests In Pokemon because it can offer a nice diversion from the linear progression of the games. The side dungeons in B&W do an amazing job of feeling well integrated with the core gameplay loop, while still being engaging for those who want to stray from the main path from time to time.
Dude, you couldn’t have said it any better! White was my first Pokémon game, the first I had ever played, it was like my red and blue back in the day, and now I have overwhelming nostalgia for it. BRO I LOVE SERPERIOR!! Snivy was my first starter pokemon! So seeing you beat the whole game with it is something I’m ecstatic for! Thank you for this video! Long live Unova!
You would probably enjoy hgss if you like gen 5 And also rom hacks like blazed glaze or XenoVerse or infinite fusion
From the music to the gameplay to the characters to the story to the mons themselves, they absolutely knocked Gen 5 out of the park. Truly some of my favorite games in the series period and because of that I'm terrified about what a potential remake would look like.. Another thing I think worth mentioning is the interactive music of the routes and cities. Hearing the soundtrack change after talking to the musicians was such a nice reward for my exploration efforts - it's such a small thing, but it makes each area so unique and makes the entire region feel alive. Like you said, the best part of Unova is that it feels like a place that can and will move on with or without the protagonist there - it's a huge world that, while linear at first glance, is full of so many secrets to discover that I still find new things with every playthrough. Great video!! So glad to see a half hour video full of Unova appreciation!
If I remember correctly The protagonists were supposed to be 16 at some point And honestly I prefer that Them being 16 is my personal headcanon because it means that the philosophical questions being asked of the main character can actually be... questioned If they're 16, then N isn't spouting nonsense at a child, he's waxing poetic at a teenager who's probably already asking themselves those kinds of questions
The thing about the region having characters exist outside of the players input is half right. Other regions had things like the chairman from Kanto's fan club vacationing in Hoenn, That one Hoenn psychic getting lost in Kanto, or Hordel steeling Togepie from Cipher. The thing that makes the difference is that Gen V didn't just have the characters stand there and talk about it. When you walk in on the breakup the guy is actively taking his stuff and dipping out of there. When you walk in on the argument at the Abundant Shrine the children are chasing each other and hiding behind you. Gen V put the effort in to create presentation around their events. Events in older games, as well as modern games, don't typically do this. The best and worst examples of presentation in a modern games side events come from that one hotel in Sword and Sheild. There's an event where a bunch of npc's are investigating stolen apples but they just stand around and head talk. Nobody moves around the room and and when stuff does happen it cuts to black. Most events are like this because for some reason they still treat the model's as though they're sprites and think a player's imagination will fill the gaps when that doesn't work in practice. The good example is the one room with the Bellossom that shoves the player out the door. The camera changes to your first-person perspective as the Pokemon charges at you to shove you out of the room. This one is way more impactful than the other despite being so much shorter because they presented it well like they did with side events in Gen 5 but also played to the strengths of the medium.
In b/w, the grasses are always the answer to the gym if you are getting walled. I do kinda miss playing this game since I never beat the elite 4 but maybe someday. I still am not into pokemon mood right now.
Yeah, I found the BW1 E4 to be the one that gave me the most trouble of any Pokémon game on my first playthrough since the way my team ended up, I had easy answers for the fighting and Dark ones and virtually none for the ghost and psychic ones without realizing it until I was actually AT the E4, so by the time I actually BEAT all of them I was super nervous about fighting the champion since I had to fill in the weaknesses in my team by replacing 3 of my Pokémon with Durants I caught on victory road that knew Crunch and was dreading the thought of having to potentially get walled by the Champ and potentially go back to the drawing board all over again, fortunately it all worked out in the end and that possibility didn't come to pass but the fact that it could have has left it as a memory I won't forget.
its funny how game freak made the best Pokemon game and ITS SEQUEL (Which is even better) yet decided to throw that away forever and never look back for the next generations
I'm glad they did because they are definitely making more money like this Pokémon isn't a franchise about high quality games and never has been Now they are more in tune with what most fans really want Easy cute games for children with escapism to turn your brain off
I actually haven’t played BW1 before (I recently acquired it but I haven’t gotten to it yet) but BW2 were the first games in the series I played, and I’ve sunk a ton of time into it. I always loved how, despite seemingly fairly linear, the game hides so many cool secrets within a lot of the routes (hidden grottos for one, a lot of the things you mentioned in this video). The whole game just radiates this sense that the world is actually alive. It’s part of what makes those games so memorable
This adds a whole new perspective in regards to the linear map design and the «ugly» pokemon the haters «argumented» with. I was 11-13 when I played the originals and later the sequels and I didn’t agree with the negative opinions. Gen 5 is probably the most vibrant pokemon games to date. I objectively believe, nostalgia aside, everything went downhill after gen 6 came out, gen 7 being a bit better but far from gen 5 quality.
I LOVED Gen 5 growing up, I never understood why it was so hated. I actually loved Gen 5 so much I recently bought Pokémon White and Pokémon White 2. (Kyurem White is my favorite legendary) I still LOVE playing it. There is so much post game content and I can legitimately fight competitively with the NPCs and do EV training and still have it be ridiculously hard, it's so awesome!
BW constantly incentivizes you to use more pokemon im your teams because there was always a pokemon that would be strong against the early gym leaders nearby (monkey for gym 1, sawk/throh for Lenora, Darumaka for Burgh, etc.) So im case your were that stubborn/stupid of a child and didn't get the lesson the first time, you had a fee more chances for it to really sink in.
I don’t know how watching one new video from Pikasprey has caused the KZhead algorithm to flood my recommended with Pokémon content but hey, it’s introduced me to multiple channels that I had no idea existed and have content I really enjoy. You got my sub, The Hayze
Great video! Black and White is my favorite generation as well, and I really like the way you make your point about Unova having more player freedom and exploration in practice, even if Kanto and Johto have a surface-level idea of player freedom. I also love your editing, it's snappy and fun. This made me want to replay B&W to see all the little places I missed when exploring the region, and check back up on my Serperior.
Thanks! And it's nice to meet a fellow Serperior appreciator.
This is probably the best video I’ve seen about Gen 5 Been my favorite gen since it came out !!
You are so right! My first pokemon was White, when I played other entries, like fire red, X, Sun, they felt... empty, a souless road. I don't know if it's the music, the details in that beautiful pixel art, like leaves falling or flowers moving, the events, but i can remember every single location. I can't do that in Sun and Moon, the memorable ones for sure, but every town in B/W has "something", story, lore, secrets, I mean it wasn't much but ti was a big step forward for pokemon. Once I realised that in fire red (I discovered it then because it is also pixel art and it was still so much uglier and uninteresting) I couldn't bring myself to finish it, hell I didn't know you could get a larvesta egg because I had a full team probably and when I encountered it in the desert ruins I thought it was a legendary PD: Unpopular opinion White Opelucid city theme is better than Driftveil's
another element of exploration i love in bw/b2w2 is the hidden grottos, finding my first one felt so magical and special
Man this vid takes me back. Pokémon White was my first game of the series and I played like 400 hours on my old DS. You nailed the exploration part. I would literally spend hours running around and keep finding hidden secrets, like the larvesta egg, which I didn't even know existed even after months after beating the elite 4. I remember being so excited whenever I found a new area, feeling rewarded especially when encountering the secret area where a legendary/mythical would be since I didn't follow any guides. I didn't play another Pokémon game until Ultra Sun came out, but dang, comparing my experiences with the two, I didn't realize how much of a gem the Gen 5 games were in comparison with the newer games that they have been releasing.
Bro, excellent video! I'm glad I watched the whole video because it seems that many in the comment section didn't lmao. Anyways, thanks for highlighting what the most underrated Pokémon generation did correctly! :D
fantastic video, you put everything i've ever thought about gen 5 + more, into one video. thank you, and keep up the great work
I love the Unova region's vibe.
Thank you for your video! I used this for notes on advancing my own JRPG game I’m making. Made about 2 pages of note and inspiration as to what makes a good jrpg. Thanks!
17:38 i was really enjoying that bass line...
Ngl when you put Ns Farewell at the end of the video I got a little emotional. Black and White 1 and 2 are truly the peak of Pokemon. It never got back to that level.
Great video, I really enjoyed watching the entire thing! From an artist pov there’s also the aspect of being able to create the most fun Nuzlocke comics because the story is just so amazing with yet enough space for interpretation and artistic freedom. Back in the DeviantArt times there were a ton of great Nuzlocke comics and the best imo were always BW&B2W2.
I also love that the Pokémon are so much more versatile in gen 5 and in bw2 you can use so many different lineups with Pokémon with different types of moves. I wish they would go back to making the battling and stories and maps like these but with a twist of the future graphics
Any-order gyms COULD be something made to have story implications and contribute more to the ending. Its still an idea with value!
Dude I love Pokemon Black and White! Also Great video glad you are popping off you deserve more subs and views!!!
I still play gen 5 a lot to this day. I’m totally addicted to bw 2 as well. I played gen 1 when I was young back in 2000 and raised a Charizard to lv 75 before the elite 4 and the rest of my team was garbage. Never played gens 7 or 8 but gen 5 is a masterpiece
The season system was lackluster. It made all the routes look samey so their assets could be swapped. As a result you get pretty much 4 routes skins, instead of each route being unique.
great video man! way over 2000 likes :) hope to see that run real soon
Yeah... it might be a while lol, it takes a long time to make these
I really enjoyed this video, and funnily enough Black and White are my favorite games AFTER Emerald. I appreciate the effort and points raised too, so you've definitely earned youself a like and subscription, and i'll share this with friends too. That being said, I feel like you don't give the older games enough credit. For example, I won't say I don't believe you about only using your overleveled starter, but I think that is an experience most people don't run into with emerald. Between your rival, Flannery, Winona (in the case of treecko ofc), team magma etc. there are definitely plenty of reasons way earlier to get more pokemon in your team, and honestly most people never needed a reason to use more pokemon other than 'I like this pokemon too and want to use it.' I also think blaming the game for you going through it 'the hard way' is kind of iffy. If somebody wanted to stick through BW with just overleveling their starter to go through the first gym (which is a lot easier than overleveling them later) they absolutely could, and then they'd have to 'learn that lesson' way later depending on their starter (AT LEAST gym 3, and probably later) which at that point is comparable to learning it later in older gens (although if you picked a torchic you would have to learn it gym 1 in emerald too). I do agree that the dynamic/scaling xp gains in BW make it a lot harder to grind and then sweep with overleveled pokemon and it is great that they do, but that's it. one other thing that bugged me was just that the 'lightyears doesn't measure time... its distance!' is a fucking phenomenal line and a horrible example of something 'weird'; the whole point is that you just started your journey and the trainer right before the intimidating first gym leader tells you 'you're lightyears away from beating brock, kid!' implying that youre weak and will never improve and progress enough to catch up, but then once you beat him reassures you that hey, it's DISTANCE we're talking about, it's all about how much of that distance you can cover rather than an insurmountable time limitation. I think it's one of the more iconic and memorable lines in pokemon games as a whole, so I really think you screwed it up with that one. I also think you don't give the other games credit in terms of exploration and the map/route structure. The nonlinear map structure in older games is very much worth acknowledging as something the older games do well that helps them compete with B&W in the exploration aspect. Being able to travel to all sorts of places out of order just because you went in this direction instead of that direction (as opposed to the map being linear), get a taste of future areas and then go back, or unique ways some areas are connected to eachother are all very fun things, and finding places like pacifidlog town are very memorable experiences, not to mention the regi cave or the flavor encountering Kyogre underwater adds (so what if I'm forced to use an HM? It makes sense and builds atmosphere). As for gyms; my last gen 1 run was like, idk how long ago so maybe there really wasn't a point, but I do remember doing at least one or two of the gyms out of order, and while I don't really remember why I think that does say something about 'freedom' or choice. The fact that going back for Surge or Erika makes them 'not fun anymore' is like arguing any way of completing the game that isn't streamlined/as intended 'wont be fun anymore.' if you can have fun clearing emerald with only your starter you can have fun steamrolling gym leaders you skipped and making that your story. Still, I agree that gyms not scaling better is a big issue for making doing the gyms out of order fun or interesting and agree that it's probably a bit overrated. At least, I'd much rather have interesting routes than this free order with that kind of execution. But a nonlinear map structure is separate from just the gyms. In Emerald for example, the gyms are spread across the map all over and while you are going to the GYMS in order, the locations they're in don't connect linearly at all and you're encouraged to explore the map and move around the region in a lot of different, interesting ways. In addition, while I really like the Unova routes in design, I like routes from the gen 3-4 games just as much. There's plenty of big routes that are fun to explore and aren't particularly linear or just feel more interesting and have a lot of personality even when contained to themselves, like Sinnoh 214 (three different ways to go through it between the grass, trainer ridge or maniac tunnel) or 219, the Kecleon blocking your path in Emerald or the amazing route 119 complete with so many different elements, locations and ways to traverse it (water, bike bridge, two different paths, you can mix and match these for shortcuts) not to mention secrets like the Feebas tiles or the buildup to the route and how it ties into the nearby areas. There is SO MUCH personality in a lot of memorable routes (and caves!) from the older games and pretending B&W simply 'did it better' is plain wrong imho. Routes that can lead to multiple completely different areas tie into the first point about nonlinear exploration/map structure and are great too and very common in those games. I do prefer having unlimited TMs, but I think it's worth mentioning that it does make the game easier, and ALSO that that 'fear of regret' and being freed from it is exactly an example of something that customizes your own adventure. Your decisions matter, and saving a TM or using it early is a significant one that shapes your adventure. I disagree with the argument that 'this gives the players choice back,' there is no choice because there's no consequence. The quality of life is nice and I prefer it overall, though an ideal middle ground would probably be having access to limited or just more additional copies of TMs later or for very high prices only a while after obtaining the first one. In conclusion: I love gen 5 for a lot of reasons, but I think trying to tear down older gens to praise it is misguided and a bit misleading. or at least that your criticism of older gens in comparison to it is kind of lacking. I agree with you about the conclusion though, the 'lived in feeling' of the world does exist in other games but I feel like gen 5 does it best. For me it just has a lot of colorful characters; I love Alder, I love Cheren and Bianca, I LOVE the gym leaders like Elesa and Clay, N is very endearing even if ultimately the themes of B&W were underexplored (because gamefreak/nintendo are cowards). I adore the soundtrack, I adore a lot of the pokemon and the areas you find them in and how you encounter them as well as how relevant they can all be and how colorful runs can feel because of it, and a lot of the random NPCs too (im a heartbreaker... my name... charles), not to mention the absolutely exceptional sound and visual design that both beautifully integrate the narrative's themes. Games are great. But so were Emerald, Platinum and HGSS. 3-5 is definitely the golden age of pokemon for me. and serperior is easily the best gen 5 starter
I agree with you so much with this. When I played gen 4 I never felt like I didn't have enough TMs when I could always buy more in Veilstone City. I also found the parts iffy where the KZheadr blamed the games for his stupidity for not catching and trining several pokemon early in the older games. While having pokemon to learn a bunch of HMs sucked in Sinnoh I also loved that you could explore parts of previously visited areas that you couldn't access before. Overall I didn't like him shitting on the earlier games.
One of my fave parts about this game was the seasonal exploration. I just happened to do my playthrough during a winter month, so I casually strolled through that twisting mine in seconds with the snow in the central area with little thought, and I went through the bogs as an ice puzzle Color me surprised when spring comes and the bogs have wild pokemon in the water and the mine became a dungeon now thst the snow is gone So cool
I don't know if Black 1 and White 1 have these features, but I love Black 2 and White 2 because you can call the professor to find out how to evolve your pokemon and your pokedex can tell you if you've seen or caught every pokemon in whatever area you happen to be in. I hate having to look that sh*t up. I wish gamefreak would bring back these quality of life features.
Oh my heart broke when you told the story of your Emerald playthrough. My first game was Pokémon Red on the Gameboy, and for months before I started playing it, I was watching the animé that taught me all that, and the animé aired for free on public airwaves. I had no idea how good I had it in 1998-99
Gen 5 does have a lot of exploration to a degree...but usually when you go through a lot of areas for the first time it is either linear like route 1 or may have some side off exploration in some routes but nothing when you backtrack later one, there is only a couple times where you will be rewarded for backtracking with new stuff later on and then there is routes like route 10 which is entirely very linear. I mean....that goofiness in the writing is still there in the original black and white. Also like....there is a power outage in XY, that seemed pretty obvious to me. Like I played BW1 But I don`t see what maturarity is present in how the characters are written compared to ALL the other games in the series. Like Gym leaders have always had personalities from Surge to Flannery, we see them chat with each other and reference each other in past gens too like how Wallace dated Winona or the battle area the Sinnoh gym leaders hang out at in Pokemon Platinum. The human roadblocks make sense but so do most of them tbh. Even the drunk old man one because yeah....humans can cause road blocks too believe it or not. Now you would be right that the protagonist of BW are the oldest....but BW2 exist too and then there is XY where they are AT LEAST as old as they were in BW1 if not even older and there was originally even plans for the male protagonist to have some facial hair as a option so they could have even been 17 or something I`m not sure. I will say it has great writing for sure but I dunno if it`s the best in the series, Gen 7 has a great story and I hear SV has a great one too. Also like yeah Cynthia on a vacation was pretty humanizting to see for one of the strongest champion but we did see that kinda stuff before like again in gen 4. Also speaking of game balance and exploration....I rememember playing Yellow and honestly one of the areas I really got stuck at was Koga`s gym where Koga himself had Pokemon that range from the upper 40s to a Venomoth that was a wopping level 50 which may I remind you in comparison Erika`s highest level Pokemon was in the lower 30s. Now I never played the original 3 so did you have to grind to beat Tate and Liza? I mean they would be tough but Koga level tough? Also don`t you need hms for victory road? Like multiple times like with strength for example? Like HMS weren`t all bad in the older games, in gen 2 you didn`t have to use many and you don`t have to put them on your main team either. Also I dunno, being able to use more HMs as you get more gym badges is a good way of doing progression.
Great video! The jiggling frames though were hard for my eyes
To those asking WHY B&W was so badly received. It's because it was the first generation that removed a lot of previous games content. Before that, GF would only remove things that extremely didn't worked. For all the rest, they would either enhance, or at least keep, the liked content and try to correct the content that didn't worked. Contests were gone. SearchVS that was there for 4 main games? Gone, back to farming the elite4 and limited by day fights. Safari zone, here since the very first game? Gone. Secret bases ? Gone. Minigame to find evolution stones and fossils ? Gone. Growing berries ? What for? just go farming pokemon that maybe hold them instead. B&W had the best story, one of the best OST, the idea to only have new gens pkm available for most of the game was genius and the rebalancing of the whole gameplay, from moves to abilities, made the fights incredibly fun to play. But outside of the basic loop of explore - fight - capture, the game was bare-boned with lack of content not seen since the very first game (which got a better map and the safari still).
"black and white don't have any stupid roadblocks" this is dancing-for-no-reason guys erasure
Idk man I love the confusingly weird dialogue of the old games. Oddly charming in a way lol
Hello fellow algorithm riders, let’s see how high we can pump this guy’s sub numbers and then sound like hipsters who were here before it was cool.
Bro this video made me want to boot up my old Black and White 2 saves just to see all the locations you mentioned.
I think this video really explains why nowadays BW/BW2 are the only pokemon games I can go back to and actually have fun with. I don't consider myself a pokemon fan anymore since I sort of fell out of love with the series, but I can always come back to gen 5 and have a great time.
Watching this video made me realize just how much of the content in Black 2 I missed all those years ago. I still loved the game, but I missed SOOO much
When I was a kid I played the hell out of Pokemon blue. I probably beat it 5 times. I played a bit of Pokemon silver but I didn't own a copy so I never got very far. I didn't play gen 3 or gen 4, just wasn't interested really, so my experience with Pokemon by the time gen 5 came out was basically gen 1, and the console spin offs. And I didn't even pick up gen 5 at first. I bought Pokemon Black 2 on the day the 3DS XL came out as my first 3DS game (and in my mind it is a 3DS game) I was absolutely blown away by how good it was. I was a bit confused because I didn't realize it was a sequel but I got over that and went out and bough Black 1. Pokemon Blue made me a lifelong RPG fan, and Pokemon Black and Black 2 made me a lifelong Pokemon fan (who will always criticize the games that came after)
this is a great video! also the snivy line is my favourite too lol
oh mate, i've just revived the fire of pokemon in my soul
My issue with BW is that I despised the regional dex. It cut out favorites and familiar faces and didnt really replace them satisfactorily for me. So no matter how cool the game itself was, I always felt like I was forced to speedrun through the game until I could trade in. I wish XY and BW had been combined. Great dex, great atmosphere, heart, great exploration, great story... instead XY had the dex and the atmosphere and heart and BW got the exploration and story.
Ive never thought about this but it's so true!! When people complain about the unova games being "too linear" I've never felt like it was an issue to me, and I guess thats because there really is so much to explore!
8:55 i love how early in their development they wanted to bring the orchestra to radio hall in nyc to play but it turned out to be too expensive so it never happened
This man's favourite Pokemon is Serperior? And he has extremely correct takes on B&W? _Based!_ Have you considered shifting your channel from "random stuff" to Poketubing wholesale? you seem like you'd be very good at it.
Nah, I like making other content too much. I'm a massive geography and environmental nerd, I love history, and I want to make more analysis of other pieces of media. But I do like talking about Pokemon, so I may do more of it at some point in the future.
The only two gyms I usually do in different order in Kanto are Koga and Sabrina unless I forget about Surge. The only time I did it differently was because I wanted to use Aerodactyl earlier than normal. It ended up going Brock > Misty > Koga > Surge > Sabrina > Erika > Blane > Geovanni, then I never bothered again.
Absolutely love BW and this video-essay does an excellent job of explaining the good points of the game to those who aren't particularly in the known. They singlehandedly changed my form of viewing the entire series ever since I played them, for the better. However, the post-game is something I'll never quite approve of. After repeated playthroughs I've come to understand that these games' main story is shorter than average on account on you only needing to visit locations necessary for progress, unlike previous and future games where everything is accessible during the main story. Because of that, about one third of the map is inaccessible just to give the post-game a feeling that it's larger than it actually is. Like, no shit, if I fenced up the upper half of Sinnoh plus and then unlocked it until I beat the league, of course I'd think that the post-game massive. That structure also has the side-effect of making your journey feel a bit like an on-rails adventure, as every single area you come across is related to the plot. There's barely any small town you visit completely on your own during the main story, unlike other main games. I'm not particularly a fan of this, and I'm glad it hasn't been done again in the series.
I'm reminded of my first pokemon game and starter, Bark, the Feraligatr from Crystal who was level 100 with scratch, cut, surf, and whirlpool.
7:49 actually all Route music changes in sound, but it's more subtle, adding different instruments in the back. It's most obvious during the opening seconds of the music :)
I hope someday we get a game with BW's route complexity, but with Emerald's nonlinear map layout. Hoenn almost feels like a metroidvania or Dark Souls 1 with its map complexity, but BW has amazing routes. Also, sometimes I miss single use TM's. I think reusable ones are better overall, but when doing challenge runs, I kind of enjoy the limitations the single use provides. Especially for nuzlockes. I really like the newer game's solution of having both kinds of TM's, despite all my problems with the new games.
Dont forget, theres also a hidden route south of sandgem town in sinnoh and a hidden route where you can find Giratina and the hidden surf route next to floaroma town and the haunted house in eternal forest. Tbh sinnoh has some too but not as many as unova.
16:11 that’s really funny man. My first game was yellow and as you know you get 4 starters essentially. So I leveled them equally. I think that led me to equally leveling my remaining 2 Pokémon and kinda just doing that anytime I played a Pokémon game
Dope vid, do more
Actually there was a competitive scene during gen 1 and gen 2. It just wasn’t Pokémon regionals and it wasn’t easy to find out
Thank you for taking me down nostalgia road. I lost my copy when I was in Highschool because I let (sold? gave away?) my copy to a classmat ewho jsut asked for it, before I realize how far the Pokemon Company jumped the shark.
Watched the whole thing. You explained your feelings for this game beautifully
b&w were my first pokémon game so i always thought they were the best, but serperior is my favorite starter/pokémon as well i remember soloing the game with him on my 5th time playing the game or so i would love to see that video!
This was so touching, God I love Unova!
I low key almost cried when you said that you were 7 when you got emerald . I was 13 , almost 14 .
This title is honestly very funny to me, because my brain immediately went to "Everything, just absolutely everything. It does everything better."
I love the All Star reference, rip Steve Harwell. That aside, great video! EDIT: You're at over 4k likes now, so...
Black and white teaches you about using your team and not just one pokemon... i belive kid me skipped that class... I think i just injured the pansear/sage (two playthroughs) a bit with the opposite monke and a lilipup or pigeon then killed it with my overlevelled starter anyway lol
I actually think the stupid npcs and silly roadblocks are charming and hilarious
So glad to have found a based Serpy lover out here in the YT wilderness, wonderful video btw! This entire essay is based and I can’t wait for that Serperior Solo video!
I'm so sorry it's taking so long lol, I'm making my way through
In gen 1, while the story path might be a little linear, the path you go through the cities is not. It makes it feel like a living world not just an IKEA route you have to pass through from start to finish
My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Pearl and I don't remember a single thing. Pokemon Black was my second and I played Pearl and Black when I was little, I remember Pokemon Black more! I always loved Gen 5 ever since I was little. ❤
in my experience doing solo runs of BW 90 times with unevolved pokemon, yeah no exploration got me overlevelled for pretty much anything before the League and I only needed more than that pokemon for the forced double battles. Your points for the exp formula might work when talking about your average casual player but if you know what you're doing its still easy as hell to waltz straight through most of the game, I've had to use cheats to turn off exp once I reach like Level 40 to make anything before gym 8 even remotely challenging if they aren't super effective
just to show how amazing these games are: I'd return to these games ONLY for the gym battle music. Holy shi if that was good!
Nice video. Thanks for making it. Didn't need the Allstar earworm tho.
Big respect for this video i agrre with like 90% of what you say
FINALLY SOMEBODY NOTICE IT, THANK YOU!!!
The DS Pokemon games were arguably the peak of Pokemon gaming as whole. Sure it started out very terribly with Diamond/Pearl, but then Platinum & HGSS rose the DS era to a legendary status. By the time the Gen V games came along, I could tell Game Freak mastered the DS hardware by then, and it especially shows with the details in B2W2.
I would include FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald in the range time of Pokémon's peak
B2 W2 shiny for dex completion and battle tower/tree was great
"mature" is such a good way to put it. people get scoffed at for saying pokemon should be more mature - "oh, you want blood, nudity, and swearing?" no, i just want something as good as Black and White again
This was the entry that made me consider leaving pokemon for good after gen 4 got me back in