Pokémon Black and White Retrospective

I think the key demographic just wasn't ready at the time. I started playing gen 1 pokemon at 5 in the 90s. By the time these came out, I was graduating high school. But now at 30, it's clear that we took the DS era forgranted. The OGs want GameFreak to be ballsy again. Because S/V just felt childish and easy. I played it through and enjoyed it, not trying to be a hater, but I think we're ready now for something more mature.

I remember when people hated black and white back in the day and now people love em it’s ironic

The ads look really lazy this Gen

To me Gen 5 games felt more like fangames rather than official Pokémon games.
There is something about their design, not just the Pokémon, as a whole they feel uncanny.

"Team Plasma" definitely have a point. And by that I mean N. And by that I mean N would be very helpful if he would cooperate with the protagonist to make the world a safer place for Pokémon and humans alike.

I can’t describe how much those ads with the “cool older kid” telling me how cool the new Pokémon game was worked on me. Definitely a weird feeling of nostalgia seeing that

what a master class pokemon black and white was 👌

I feel like if my pokemon didn't like me they could just kill the player. I'm playing as a 10 year old walking around with 6 living nukes in my pocket. My player character wouldn't survive a single Thunderbolt or Flamethrower. And now in gen 9 when I can just send out my pokemon to walk on their own, they run off and battle without my input. Sometimes I want them to do that sure, but sometimes I just want them to walk with me and they still choose to fight when they see something so presumably they just enjoy battling.

When B2 and W2 released the 3DS had already been announced. There were runors around the release of black/white. 3DS release allowed me to get my copy of Black 2 for $20. So maybe not all the games fault, bad timing seems to be a lot of the problem

I remember REALLY wanting to like this game but I ended up hating it and it pushed me away from Pokemon until ORAS came out. I didn't like the designs on many of the pokemon in this Gen (so having it gen locked wasn't fun for me), practically spent the time picking which pokemon I hated the least to add to the party as well as found the pixels in this game to be the most unappealing and nauseating out of all Pokemon games. I understand they was aiming to give the pokemon more movement during battle but it really doesn't look good to me and should've waited until 3DS to make the pokemon more lively.

It's a shame because I REALLY wanted to like this game at the time and even now I just can't and completely missed Black and White 2 because of it.

Munna and Musharna are more analogues to Drowzee and Hypno, psychic-type tapirs that eat dreams

The story the new Pokémon the cities the caves and the best part: the music make this the best game in the franchise

Always liked imagining that reshiram was the legendary that made sense to the story. You are fighting for the truth and what so many people including believe you are fighting for the real truth while N with zekrom embodies ideals no matter how dark or selfish

lazy pokemon design, average towns. the nostalgia goggles are thick

The most ambitious game in the series at it's time, only outshown by PLA in the regard of changing the recipe, a game that hinged on actually telling a story, making the main "villain" (I use this word very lightly with N) someone that not only made you think differently... but someone you wanted to do well. It made all previois Gen Mons post game only, to force you to learn the new creatures, and through it all, it wanted to send a message, to make the player question themselves more than Lusamine could ever hope to...


And for 8 years, the fanbase treated Black and White like shit. And because of the stubborn nature of their backlash, they disparaged Game Freak from trying such a formula again... and ruined the franchise because of it.


As much as Game Freak is to blame, so are we. We didn't show them the love they deserved when they needed it most. For a moment, we were Ghetsis, and they were N. We had a hand in making Pokémon the shovelware cash cow that it is.

We can only hope, that someday, Game Freak will try again. And if they do, we can't make the same mistake as we did with Unova.

no pokemon game has ever gotten close to its potential besides B2W2

I really hate that sentiment, "people don't like change." Every time I criticize something new, "oh you just don't like change." get with the times. blah blah. I have no problem with change. I welcome it. Who wants the same thing forever? But change for the sake of change doesn't automatically make it good. You can change something good into something fucky real easily. maybe I should eat some batteries?

lol then i'll change into a dead guy

I unironically love Trubbish like I thought it was such a good pokemon design when it came out. I didn’t understand why people gave it so much hate like guys we had pokemon that was a pile of mud.

pokemon white 2 was my first pokémon game, shortly followed by white. i’m so grateful to have been introduced at this point!

While I think it still falls on the pokemon company to make better games fan reception shapes corporate decisions. Love and passion and attention to detail were put in black and white and it didn't do well. Meanwhile half finished games sell like hot cakes and break records. While it sucks fans showed Nintendo exactly what they cared about and what could be gotten away with.

Since this generation is based on North America... Maybe Team Plasma is based on dangerous religious cults that spread deranged lies for their own benefits?
Religious cults are a big problem in American society, like the stranglehold christianity has on American politics and how some Americans on the far right spectrum go as far as to demand the everyone has to believe in what they believe.
The way Team Plasma's believes don't align with reality either makes me see a lot of parallels here.

It's crazy this came out two years ago, and I'm watching it because I just watched the X and Y video that came out today, which you happened to mention would eventually come out here. And funny enough, you said you'd save a certain topic for that video, which two years later you ended up staying true to your word. 😅 Kudos and cheers for that.

Appreciate that your content focuses on the games and not trying to make it about yourself which a lot of people do for some reason. You’re a great narrator and i never played the gen 5 games but you painted a great picture. Thanks for your videos

we need a remake of bw(2) but they don’t bring in other gens just like they did with the og bw(2)

What’s the music at the very end during the list of names? It slaps

2023 here, and i can't say he didn't preack the future grate vid bro🎉 much love ❤ from a new sub here.

Munna Is based on Drowzee, not Gastly. I mean, psychic tapir who eats dreams, duh

Even Cyrus who was coldly calculated throughout our entire experience with him and who only wanted to unmake the world because it was too focused on emotionality truly connected with his Golbat enough to evolve it into a Crobat, if that says anything it's that if only in incremental ways even the worst people can't help but grow from their bonds with pokemon

This retrospective is amazing. Well done. Listening to your opinions reinforced the fact that gen 5 is really my favorite. I have always said gen 2 but that's just because of my favorite pokemon and 2 regions. Gen 5 is one of the best experiences I have had in pokemon and black and white 2 improve it.

I think Gen 3 was the best because I think it did the same thing as gen 5, made you use mainly new Pokémon. I like the gen 3 designs over gen 5 which is why I rank it higher

Pokemon black was my first pokemon game. I never got the salt geared towards ut. The victini event was a big deal to my friends and i in middle school. The story was pretty decent. I loved the city environment. I may like x more but gen 5 is good.

This may have been the games that cemented that I did not like what Pokemon had become, but it is interesting to hear what people enjoy about these games. I may not agree, but I certainly understand what people praise about these games, I just have different priorities when it comes to Pokemon.

I played White 2 on an emulator qutie a lot back in the day - gotta say the amount of content that game has is simply unrivaled, there's just so much to do, so many mons to get (not as easily as in the new games either), the amazing mall area where you can get rare items, close to unbeatable atmosphere - great game through and through.

I remember playing this entire game with bisharp, snivy, Throh and Seismitoad. Most of the Pokémon just didn’t appeal to me, I used cobalion and the leaf one to get past the E4

black and white were my first pokemon games, and going back to previous games it honestly bored me that there were overlap with pokemon being there from older generations, giving less variety through the older games, and i found the story to be incredible in black+white, and honestly a bit confusing in older games to where sometimes if i left the game for a few days and came back i didn't know where to go and had to look it up online

Something really small I love about BW's story is that both legendaries play a part in it. They don't just cease to exist because you liked the one on the other box better. They actually feel like a pair more than any other box art legend.

The way you explain all the deeper hidden elements that make the story and the game so great is truly a work of art. Thank you for making this video.

Pokémon Black and White was my first introduction into Pokémon, not including the anime. There are some things that a lot of people dislike about it but I’ve always loved it ever since I played it when it first came out when I was 8 yrs old

I will forever always miss this gen. It was so good looking, pixel art will always remain king, so many fun new Pokémon. It’s a shame it was rejected by “fans”.

Just bought a used copy of pokemon white... And it had so many old event mon and shiny pokemon and legendaries...i felt like i hit the jackpot but was also upset that i have to buy another copy cause im def not starting a new save file and im transfer those mon

what's the song at the end?

My first pokémon game since yellow and I loved the hell out of this version. Seriously wish they would have went and given us a gray but it is what it is. This gen holds a special place in my pokemon heart.

Gen 3 was the last new Pokémon I truly fell in love with. I remember growing up, I didn’t like sinnoh, and Unova I never even gave a fair shot. I also fell out of video games in general during this era. I’ve played every Pokémon game post unovah. Been wondering if I missed out lately.

biancas dad is an excreamly terrible non player charector being, he don't want his kid to go out and end peta but when a model says that bianca shout have basic human rights the 2nd only dad ever in a pokemon game (as far as i know) say ok you can go be a member of society

good luck getting a hydreigon before the ghetsis fight unless you use the if you can't beat them join them card and hack your deino to be a hydreigon at lvl. 50 like ghetsis did

the reason genwunners are a thing is becouse they are jealous of gen V not being part of their childhood

I HATED gen 5 when it 1st came out. So much so that it stayed in my ds in a box. A decade later now, i found that box and ds. Its now my ONLY childhood cartridge that i still have (re bought the rest). Ironic but now i get to experience it for the 1st time all the way through after having subjected myself to the switch pokemon games lol.

I think Munna and Musharna are actually parallels of *Drowzee and Hypno*, not Gengar. Specifically, they're both based on the baku - a tapir-like creature from Japanese mythology that eats nightmares.