The good, the bad, the ugly: Gen V

Exce[tionally good: The Team Plasma events
Bad: Ghetsis's Pokémon (WHY IS HE SO OP?)
Special: EVENTS

 

The Good: Lillipup was added, Lillipup is my favourite Pokémon
The Bad: No Pokémon Contests. Also the story was quite rigid at some points
The Ugly: The dark grass...

 

The good: the fact that it got sequels instead of re-releases
The bad: the story
The ugly: the Pokémon

 

The Good:

After the complete and total mess that was Sinnoh (in terms of level design, HM roadblocks, the constant back-and-forthing for story progression, etc), the linearity of Black and White was an enormous breath of fresh air, allowing for a very tight difficulty curve as well as a very interesting region in terms of design. Despite how linear the map looked, the routes themselves were a lot of fun to explore, and there were still little areas on the side to poke your head into later on to keep exploration up. It might not be a circuit in terms of story progression like, say, Kanto, but it still has all the advantages that Kanto had.

On top of that, the aesthetic and atmosphere changes were enormous improvements on Gen 4. Plain and simple, Gen 4 was going through the motions; very few of the towns had any real reason to exist beyond being "a town", and the only memorable one in terms of design was Sunyshore due to the whole solar-panel-roads-power-the-city thing. Unova is the complete opposite: there's an enormous amount of soul and thought put into the towns and why they exist, as well as their history; the first few towns are relatively simple as most starting towns are, but from Nacrene onward everything really fires on all cylinders. The places in the world have a purpose and a reason for being there; Nacrene was a storage town that was eventually converted into a place for artists and the like, Castelia is the bustling metropolis, Nimbasa is the entertainment capital, Driftveil (with its sweet, sweet music) is the port town with an inter-regional marketplace. Unlike most places in Sinnoh (and even compared to Kalos afterward), Unova clearly has a lot of reasons to have the places it does.

And as if that wasn't enough, the actual gameplay was smoothed out significantly. The way gaining experience worked was changed in order to make it harder to just cheese through the game with a single Pokémon, finally enforcing the whole "create a team" thing that they want you to do. Not only that, but the game itself was fast; no more of this ridiculously slow, clunky Sinnoh junk, Unova's battle animations, saving, loading, and world were quick and responsive. The dynamic camera and animated Pokémon in battle added to that sense of "a fresh start for Pokémon", showing that they were clearly trying to do more than just go through the motions again. Though perhaps the most telling thing about their thought process was only having one single HM roadblock in the entire main story (Cut, in the Dreamyard) and the rest was accessible without worry.

And then you have the Pokémon themselves, which are probably the strongest batch of Pokémon ever designed, at least from a visual standpoint. People can complain about "haah waaw trash Pokémon haah waaw ice cream", but the irony is that Unova's Pokémon actually feel like they were made to fit in that region. Not to mention that none of them feel like a completely pointless creation - Arceus knows you can't say that about Sinnoh Pokémon, many of which are completely forgettable. By forcing you to only find new Pokémon, it actually made the act of hunting for Pokémon and exploring the world a surprise again, and it's a shame that Gamefreak have never bothered to do this again considering how well it worked.

The story is also something that is good, because unlike every other Pokémon story until Sun and Moon, it actually had some focus. N makes for an interesting character and the whole idea of people challenging the notion of Pokémon training and trainers makes for both a fun sympathetic motive while also making it clear that Plasma itself isn't entirely good either. The best part about the story is how, by the time you're nearing the endgame, the whole notion of the Pokémon League has become more of a formality, while the real motivations are stopping N, Ghetsis, and Plasma. This is the reason why fighting Plasma instead of the champion the first time around is so impactful - not only does it shake up what was at the time a tradition, but it also makes perfect sense in terms of the story's pacing. This isn't Kalos, or Sinnoh, or Hoenn, where you fight a legendary Pokémon, save the world, stop a criminal organization, and then go ahead and finish up your Gym challenge. Cheren and Bianca made for fun rivals and their development through the story, while simple, was compelling and much more in line with RBY and GSC (Bianca and her father in particular was a highlight for me).

BW2 also had a number of additions that improved on the base BW1 set. The PWT was bar none the best Battle Whatever thing Gamefreak has ever made, Pokestar Studios was a very fun and interesting side-activity and puzzling out the way to get the good and strange endings was extremely good. The fact that they were sequels at all also showed that Gamefreak was willing to do something a little new instead of just retreading old ground (they were saving that for Gen 6).

The Bad:

Unfortunately, BW2 also dialed back or changed a number of things that arguably made Unova worse. The new towns were interesting and still had a lot of thought put into them (a ranch town, a town near a movie studio, etc), but the path that the story took you through was much more disjointed and less smooth, leading to a worse difficulty curve as well. The story was also less smooth; Hugh was less interesting as a rival, Plasma's plan and return were good but similarly disjointed, and the game doubled-back on the whole "end by fighting the criminal team, not the champion" thing despite the fact that it was actually a good idea. It also introduced a number of old Pokémon to catch in the main-game, which is okay, but diluted Unova's unique identity a little bit (thankfully it didn't suffer nearly as much as Kalos or Alola did). Perhaps most damning, though, was how it implemented the HM roadblocks back into the game, forcing HM slaves back into your party.

There were also a number of minor things that weren't really that interesting. Black City and White Forest were cool, but were pre-Streetpass, and the fact that their progress actually decayed over time if you didn't keep up with people was a terrible decision. Pokémon Musicals also weren't particularly engaging, though they did make for a cute timewaster.

And on a competitive Pokémon note, the unintentional emphasis on Pokémon with weather effects dominated the meta too hard. I love me some Drought Ninetales, but Gen 5 comp was a pain in the neck.

The Ugly:

The unfortunate fact about Gen 5 is that despite being an enormously high-quality game, it was significantly overshadowed by Gen 6 (an objectively worse experience in nearly every way) thanks to Gen 6's emphasis on nostalgia, as well as the jump to 3D graphics and the like overshadowing Gen 5's more charming 2.5D look. The way many news outlets and the like tore into the uglier or weirder Pokémon designs on offer (despite the fact that many of the designs they complained about were meant to be weird or ugly in the first place, not to mention they were, again, more interesting than seeing Magnemite or Meowth or Pikachu for the 25th time) also hurt how the games probably looked in the eyes of the fanbase, even though most people were still perfectly happy to sing the games' praises. I get the feeling that a lot of the people who got back into Pokémon through Gen 6 probably look at Gen 5 with disdain, purely because Gen 5 actually does its own thing, which is a shame.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that Gen 5 was a big turning point for the series, and produced what is probably the second-best entry in the mainline series even to this day, so there we go.

 

The Good:
Animated battle sprites. No, not just when the Pokémon was sent out, the whole battle the Pokémon are moving.
The Bad: Ghetsis's team. Honestly, tone it down a bit, eh?
The Ugly: Shaking grass. I wouldn't have a problem with it... except I would like to find a Pansage or the like in the grass instead of Audino every. Single. Time! Especially since late in the game the EXP gained isn't as high as going to one of the Nimbasa stadiums.

 

I agree with you wholeheartedly. This gen is one of my favorite ones and I think it had the best game in the series, BW. They put so much thought into this region and only because it dared to be unique with older protagonists, a more realistic feel to the story, a real moral dilemma to ponder over, and great overal Pokémon designs which were meant to be different, it got busted down. Something it did not deserve at all.

 

Haven't played it yet sadly but I love a lot of Gen 5's Pokémon

 

The Good:

Game Freak took a lot of risks with Unova. On one hand, they did a remarkable job trying to emulate the whole "big city" style of New York. The graphics at that time (alongside the impressive camera angles) really says volumes about the impressive visuals of Gen V. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely awed and blown away and completely immersed within my Unova experience literally because of the graphics alone.

In addition, the story is amazing. N has proven to be a very interesting character, and his relationship with Ghetsis has always fascinated me. Not only that, I like N as a character because he has his own identity and he has his own fleshed out purpose; what I mean by this is that he's not just a gimmick character for the sake of spouting stuff like "Pokémon don't belong in pokeballs, waahhh". There's actually more to N than you think as we get glimpses of his past and I think that's super cool!

Also, BW2 did a fantastic job with the Pokémon World Tournament. This, in conjunction with Join Avenue, essentially defined BW2's post-game and perhaps could be the reason why people have such high standards when it comes to post-games, because Game Freak really did hit all of the right notes here.

I also think the lack of Pokémon diversity is actually a good thing. It was criticized to the sky and above by so many people, but personally whenever I play a new generation I always try and stick with that region's particular Pokémon to actually learn more about them, so I'm okay with this.

The Bad:

Dream World is questionable. The concept is nice, the execution, not so much. I felt it was something that was interesting for the first... month, and then it became rather cumbersome. In retrospect, it became rather odd to me that I had to login to some service in order to catch certain Pokémon, and in Gen V the only way you could grow berries was through Dream World which was a very poor decision.

The Shadow Triad had zero point behind them, and I'm not sure exactly what purpose the Sages had to offer if they were never any real threats in the first place (iirc you only battled one of them, ever?). The main story could've progressed just fine if these characters were omitted altogether as, to me, they're generally just very forgettable.

The Ugly:

The Battle Subway almost made me hate fifth gen before BW2 restored my faith in it. It's a prime example of how not to design a post-game battle facility. It was super dull and boring, the lack of actual npcs to choose from your partners aside from the opposite gendered protagonist is massively questionable, alongside the fact that (i believe, at the time) you cannot partner with an online friend to challenge battle subway together all made the experience extremely dull and it would've been more productive if Game Freak just copypasted Battle Tower for the upteenth time.

 

we do not speak of gen 5, it was all bad.

 

no it wasn't

it has some of the best Pokémon designs ever

 

One thing I really didn't like, which I'm glad was fixed in the BW2, was that you couldn't encounter any Pokémon that weren't gen 5 until after you beat the Pokémon league. It felt more like a fan game than a legitimate Pokémon game, since none of the Pokémon were familiar yet. Introducing new Pokémon along side the old makes them feel like they fit in more. Having different sound effects/music styles and using sprites that were continuously animated for the first time along with the new Pokémon made it feel like it wasn't a legitimate Pokémon game.

It was great that they started adding more of a story aspect to the games though, and I think gens 6 and 7 only improved on that further.

 

the good:the plot and ideas are terrific,especially N's character and ghetsis's hypotheses of how Pokémon should be used and the hierarchy thing with the dark castles and zekrom/reshiram/kyurem concepts derived from yin and yang.Also loved the gameplay and innovative gyms/cities,dont know why people hated the Pokémon so much
the bad: ghetsis's underleveled hydreigon and the events were a bit bad
the ugly: nothing comes to mind immediately-those cinemas with battles were low key weird tho

 

Gen V is one of my favourite gens ever. It was the gen that got me back into the franchise, and also the gen that I think has introduced some of the best Pokémon designs this far.
The Good: The Pokémon, and the Unova region as a whole. I enjoyed the storyline as well in both BW and BW2.
The Bad: Nothing to do with the games, but I thought the BW anime was pretty garbage.
The Ugly: Er, nothing to be honest.

 

The good: Amazing storyline and memorable characters, and honestly some amazing Pokémon designs as well. Hydreigon, Haxorus, the dragon trio, Bisharp, Scolipede, I could a ton.

The bad: The anime. Maybe that's the reason so many people hate Gen 5. I'll admit, the anime was trash. "YER SUCH A KID ASH"

The ugly: All the haters. It's a damn shame BW gets so much hate. And the only justifications are ever see are the Vanillite and Klink line. Two lines should not define a generation. Although yes, Simisear does deserve every ounce of hate it gets.