(everything I haven't quoted here is something I either agree with or have nothing more to say about)
Was B&W the one with the story revolving around the ethics of Pokemon battling or something? People jack that one off a lot, but I found it kinda cringe tbh.
Yeah, it was. It's very good compared to every single other story in the series, but it sort of shoots itself in the foot
by making the PETA-equivalent unequivocally the bad guy by the end and kind of crushing the main conflict that kept my interest alive throughout the story (mainly the clash between both sides and which one is "right", if either). Even despite that I appreciate the fact that it actually attempted some character growth outside of "spaz stops being annoying after being abused" and "painfully flat edgelord learns to stop being an edgelord 99% of the way into the game".
Cheren's tunnel vision prompting him to change course after meeting his idol and having his life goal brought into question was interesting (and his promotion to Gym Leader in BW2 was a great end to the arc), whereas Bianca's acceptance that she has differing interests from those closest to her and that it'd be a better use of her time to simply pursue what she's better at and enjoys rather than give in to (unintentional) peer pressure and keep doing what they're doing actually stuck with me for quite a while and she's one of my favorite rivals as a result.
It's doubly impressive considering that all this shit needed to be translated from Japanese by a translation team that'd only done a single game prior (HGSS). You can kind of tell that it's not Nob due to how stilted some of the NPC dialogue is, but the actual story itself is pretty damn decent and I truly believe it's one of Black and White's strengths as opposed to the hindrance it is in most other games.
Idk, I don't remember a thing about the game, so must not be that distinct. It's probably just me being jaded though honestly. Most of the adult fanbase's criticisms are (not that they're not legitimate gripes, but kids won't notice or care about nost of the shit we complain about, or even the stuff we praise, it's just a colorful monster battling game and that's all they probably need it to be).
It is probably being jaded. I can absolutely see how someone who'd been playing the series since its NA release (or prior) would be feeling burnt out and insulted by what gen 5 did on its debut. Coming from someone who didn't have much of that past experience (outside of hearing snippets of it from my aunt), though, the game holds up very very well on its own and truly does feel like a passion project. The fact that you only see the new dex's mons, all of which have custom sprites- the unique mix of 3D and 2D for the visuals- that weird aesthetic where they made everything neon and black for some reason and it was kind of tryhard but also the exact type of shit I thought was super super cool as a kid- the distinct soundfont even in comparison to DPPt/HGSS... all of it fits together to make something really really cohesive that you can tell had a lot of passion behind it.
The game kind of starts falling apart when you delve into previous gens in the post game due to the aforementioned recycled sprites, as well as some weird one-offs like
Cynthia's Undella Town rematch or other various references to the franchise's history since they kind of remind you of the series' history instead of making the game its own thing like the rest of the campaign tries to, which is a big reason why I don't like BW2 nearly as much as the base pair even if I do consider them "objectively" better. That reliance on the series' past reminds you of the bloat that BW tried to be rid of and the much campier, less serious mood that it was known for, and due to how much BW stand out it feels like a total mismatch and kind of takes you out of things lol.
the shift in design might have started even as early as gen 3 for a similar reason--graphical improvements. The GBA was capable of 3D, it's technically a 32-bit system I think, it's closer to a 5th gen console in terms of graphical capabilities than the 3rd gen tech they were working with for 2 whole generations.
Once they were able to pack more colors, detail, and animation into the games...they did, and just went crazy over-designing things probably. Sometimes restrictions breed creativity, so the monsters had to be designed in ways to best be brought to life on a tiny, dim, blurry black & white screen. The design philosophy for that kind of process is definitely going to be different, and that difference has only grown, especially with the mainline series' jump to full 3D.
If I'm not mistaken, I think we have evidence of them doing sprites before 2D designs from as recently as gen 4 in the form of unfinished designs as sprites with off-model colors first and Sugimori artworks with their more well-known palettes second.
The GBA was also absolutely not capable of 3D- just Starfox-esque pseudo-3D that ran at like 10FPS. I'm not sure more than a small handful of games ever utilized it. I know Pokemon sure as fuck didn't lol. Definitely closer to a SNES than a NES though, you're right on that front.
I actually doubt they've ever left the "game image first model art second" way of doing things. I'm more than sure that the newer designs are 3D models before all else because they had to rush Gen 9's Sugimori artworks and decided to do so by blatantly tracing over the 3D models, and as I mentioned before they've been doing sprites first until at the VERY least Gen 4.
Pretty sure that's why designs had been getting increasingly more complex
up until gen 6ish, where they started slowly decreasing in excessive complexity as simple 3D modelling became the priority (and Creatures Inc are atrocious 3D modellers, so they have to make the designs comprehensible to someone stuck in the 90s when thinking about CGI).
At least they remastered one recently, I guess. The last Pokemon spinoff aside from New Snap that I can think of that was at least interesting was Pokken, before that was Conquest. They can still put out a few decent one, but gens 1 & 2 had the best by far. Gotta respect gen 3's two GC RPGs though, I liked those a lot.
"Remastered". I honestly don't know if DX counts as a remaster. Getting rid of features like typeless attacking and Friend Areas was a huge kick to the nuts and the fact that the graphics looked like shit and the gameplay still had that post-GTi sluggishness to it really didn't help matters. I've heard it's still fun, though, and I appreciate stuff like the portraits for every single mon and the scarves on your partners.
I'm also gonna politely disagree with that "gens 1-2 had the best spin-offs" comment. Those two gens were full to the brim of "[insert established franchise or gameplay method here] but Pokemon!" like Puzzle Attack, Pinball, Puzzle Challenge and GBTCG- which is fine, and I don't think a single generation since
hasn't had that type of gameplay- but it didn't have any good experimental titles to compensate (Stadium was just straightforward battling from mainline on a bigger screen, Hey You Pikachu was more frustrating than fun, and Snap- while great- was like an hour long) so it kind of felt weak in comparison to what comes after.
I'd actually argue that gens 3-4 were peak in terms of spin-offs: Gen 3 started up a bunch of actual spin-off franchises with much more substantial gameplay than the previous batch of spin-offs (Mystery Dungeon was more like Puzzle Attack in terms of originality but it added plenty of new things to the formula and spawned 3 sequels, Ranger was completely unique and also got 2 sequels, Trozei sucked ass and went on for way too long but also got plenty of sequels)
and Gen 4 improved on those immensely with the best entries in those series by far (Explorers of Sky, Shadows of Almia) as well as experimental titles that were still deeper than the older ones despite mostly sucking ass (Rumble and Pokepark come to mind),
until Gen 5 came in with nothing but trash (save for Conquest which is my favorite spin-off in general) and Gen 6 began the death spiral by shitting out mostly mobile games and super mediocre portable releases.
Oh, and another complaint about post-gen 2, they didn't add new types until way later with Fairy, just 1 new type this whole time since gen 2. I'd also appreciate new Eevee evolutions each generation, damn it.
Honestly that's a good thing. Imagine needing to take into account 20+ types on a chart and every single combination of those. The complexity of each individual mon makes calculations enough of a headache as-is; adding even one or two more typings would be sadistic at this point.
Agree on the eeveelutions though, that would've been fun- if overdone. I think they should've stuck to that weird "every even generation gets a new one" pattern they had going for a while- would've made the occasion still rare enough to be celebrated and not overdone but frequent enough to be beneficial and demonstrate shifts in design philosophy.
I see I'm the only one in here who doesn't find gen 1 designs anything special. The only gen 1 Pokemon I like are Ivysaur, Charmeleon, Raichu and Scyther, all others look like generic RPG enemies (which I guess they were supposed to be). I grew up with BW so I prefer the more complex designs of gens 4, 5 and 6. My favorite mons are mostly box art legendaries like Ho-Oh, White Kyurem, Zekrom, Yveltal, Lunala and Primal Groudon, and it's annoying how I can't use them in-game without destroying what little challenge is left.
Haha, don't worry, there are lots of people out there like you. We're just old farts who like yelling at the sky and wishing for days gone by, ignore us.
Cannot understand the appeal of a lot of the box legendaries though, most of them look really garish imo.
Meowth, Gengar, Snorlax, Mewtwo? You don't like them?
I'm not sure mentioning some of the most overexposed and tired designs in Kanto's entire roster is going to do much to change his mind.
