The main series Pokémon games of Generation 1 through 4 each had a story told entirely in one game, and then a slightly different version told in a followup game. Not a sequel, but nearly the same exact adventure and plot with only minor differences: the addition of trailing Suicune, or perhaps opposing Team Magma and Team Aqua each, but still telling the same story. That is, until Generation 5 gave us direct sequels to the plot of the first pair of games: the story continues even though we all probably thought the region was saved forever. It was a different storytelling tactic, and it hasn't quite been replicated since, and the games have either been without a follow-up (Gen 6) or have gone back to telling a different progression of the same story (Gen 7). Did you like what was done with the plot of Black 2 and White 2? Was it a good artistic choice to make a direct sequel, or should they have stuck with the old formula of telling the same story a third time? Would you have preferred they told the entire story of the adventure through Unova all at once? Would it have been a good idea if we instead got Sun 2 and Moon 2 about Skull or Aether getting into more trouble?
I actually really like the idea of an actual sequel. Of course when I played it the first time I didn’t know it was one. I mean, the progression of the characters was well-done: Cheren becoming the gym leader and Bianca as Juniper’s assistant, etc. The region itself progressed too, for example the new starting town and Humilau City. But the most important progression? The story. Ghetsis is technically “replaced” by Colress as the leader of Team Plasma, but doesn’t become completely irrelevant. It’s a well-done sequel, and I’m hoping another game can pull this off too.
Would it have been better if we got SM2? Yeah probably since USUM is pretty much just the third game version made into two game. I wish they would do like they did with BW2 since I thought it was really nice to get sequels instead of a third game that's almost the same. I do hope they do that again at one point in the future since it was interesting to see where the characters from the first game ended up.
Black 2 and White 2 are my favorite games in the series due to how well they followed up on the originals. After Sun and Moon were released, I secretly hoped that they’d get sequels too. Maybe we could’ve seen what happened to Lille and Luisamine after their visit to Kanto.
Well in B2W2 they basically DID tell the whole story all over again, because nothing really changed other than the map design and the ages of the characters. It would have been better if they had decided to not rely on the Legendary as the plot device again...or actually built upon what they already had, rather than just rehashing it.Some actual progression would have been lovely. Instead we got a sequel in the loosest possible sense of the word. I don't think it would have made a difference if we'd gotten SM2 instead of USUM either. I mean, the concept would have had more potential, because they could have actually given Lillie at least a personality and made her far more interesting as a result, but...well...nobody at Gamefreak knows what a proper narrative looks like, let alone character development. They've been recycling Gen III's plot over and over, and whether or not it'll actually ever get any better is...not something I like to think about, because there is more than enough doom and gloom in the video game industry as it is.