Pokemon Black Lacks Magic

[Sir-jackington]

probably just because its so old and played out now

 

[jjboat]

I personally thought the story was dry, and the cities are not very memorable either. I hated how you are not required to get the HMs, and what I hated most is that until you beat the Elite Four, you do not see a SINGLE 4th gen and under. That was the one thing that was nawing at the back of my mind during my play-through.
The cities were not memorable because they did not put any thing the players actually needed in any of them. It hurt bad to put the GTS in the pokemon centers. If they made it a building in one city that would give me great reason to keep traveling to that city. Plus I hate the Battle subways. I miss the battle frontier. And none of the 5th gen gyms never really left a mark on me. Mainly because the types were so repetitive. The 7th gym is ice and the 8th gym is dragon? How fucking original.

Though I did like the Elite four. Being able to fight them in any order won points in my book.
Another thing that was eating at me through the game was that pokemon Black and White were advertising Triple and Rotation battles. I played the entire story and only got ONE rotation battle. Like WTF. There are not enough of those battles!

But I never played Pokemon for the Story. I play because I like to collect and battle. Being able to train a team and building the perfect strategy was always fun and brought joy to my younger years and it is good to see that the idiots at GameFreak did not fuck that up.

Uhg i didnt even mention the gyms. They should be challenging in design, instead you just go in with a pokemon that is the right type and own everything. The first gym was actually really cool, the others were just poorly designed. Sure they were visually appealing but the puzzle element was far too easy. the next game should introduce difficulty levels.

 

[Erana]

Well, I feel very different than you, but that's OK. I just... can't understand where you're coming from. I feel like RSE was a horrendous nosedive from which I didn't think the franchaise would recover. Its just... Like if you shoehorned the anime into a Red Version cart.
If it weren't for the severe jolt of Nostalgia I got from the anime, I'd utterly despise it, too.

Now, I loved G/S/C too, and really liked it because its pretty dark for a pokemon-related thing. I mean, the experience was that I played sportsman using my skills in raising pokemon to stop gangsters from abusing animals.

Diamond and Pearl, for me, were them picking up the pieces after having crashed the series with R/S/E, and turning it into something new and cool. Rediculous, cartoony designs? Hell yeah, let's embrace that! Crazy, stereotypical anime bad guys with good ideals? Let's go with that too, then. Rival confusion? Um, have more likable characters and more tough battles?

From what I've seen, Black and White are building upon everything Diamond and Pearl did right, along with throwing in some of the things they forgot in G/S/C, and try to put it in a whole new setting. I'm waiting for a price drop or two, but I bet I'm gonna love it.

Oh, and one more thing that I like from Diamond/Pearl: a feeling of use for training pokemon outside of the metagame. I'm glad to see that they're really embracing the full level scale, rather than stopping at level 55 like in the original. I went back recently to my Blue version, doing a Poison-type run, and thought to myself: I just kicked Koga's butt ten levels under his weakest mon. Why should I bother putting any effort into training?

That's just one factor that's going to be there, simply because the game industry has grown up a bit.

I dont watch the anime, haven't for years, But i don't understand your stance against R/S/E. The Music was the best in the series, it introduces double battles and the Hoenn region had some very memorable locals. The Storyline was simply par for the course but not any worse than the later games. The pokemon where also very cool. My only complaint is the omission of the day and night and day of the week cycles, though they added the awesome weather effects. Also it has to be noted that it was the first game with the running shoes, and the incredibly deep berry system. Diamond and pearl really just showed the series' age. It introduced nothing revolutionary and many of the pokemon were sub par. Black and white is the best from a balance and streamlined gameplay perspective, but the journey never feels special.

Just personal prefrence- I LOVE 8-bit chiptune, but generally dislike 32-bit music, for one. The storyline was too... anime-ie for me. "We're an evil gang, but not really! We're just trying to help the world. The super-demigod pokemon is going to HURT the world? Our bad. Please go save the world now, thanks!"
I don't like saving the world, especially when I'm supposed to be just a kid participating in a sport about supernatural puppies and fire chickens. At least infiltrating Team Rocket was relatively feasible.
The locales were just... very unbelievable, and right out of the anime. People living in identical treehouses? Sure. People living on coral pokemon? GREAT!
Pulling that sort of stuff would have never worked out in RBY/GSC, and marks a dramatic change in the level of realism the pokemon world itself. Because pokemon is totally realistic.
I've defended the new designs of pokemon many times (The pointless stripes 'n spots, lack of defined physical features, and utterly pointless whirly-gigs) because Pokemon follows the style Japan in general produces mascot art with. It doesn't mean I like it.
Why couldn't they have left rayquaza green? WHY DOES THE SKY DRAGON NEED LIPSTICK?

I can't imagine NOT liking Black and White; I'll see for myself, but I'm going to be terribly biased by the terrier pokemon. I fucking love terriers.