Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 Retrospective
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
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Discussing the second half of Generation 5.
0:00 Intro
0:47 Unova! Oh, how you've changed!
14:16 Sights, Sounds, and Crowns.
24:54 Yet stand tall my friend, for our journey will never end!
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Pokémon Pokemon Black 2 White 2 Retrospective Review Critique KingK - Hry
40:32 technically this is Blaine's type expert team, not his regular one, hence why the image looks different.
Keep it up, man!
I'd love to collab with you and Fudj sometime
And dunkey
And idubbz
And Chris Ray gun
And Douglas Adam's
And Sam Harris
And shoe on head
And mango
And m2k
Etc...
You really made the name of the last chapter of this video the lyrics to Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I see you.
Yay glad too see this video, hope you're day has been well KingK!
Hey bro are you gonna make retrospective for the GameCube Pokémon games? Since they’re the only good ones
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 Pffft.
In retrospect, Gen V was taken for granted so hard. I wish we could continue getting games that pushed the consoles limits and told interesting and in some cases mature stories. Thanks for letting me vicariously replay these games through your videos, King 👑
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 True. Black and White 2 still look hella pretty though
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 Yeah Mario 64 DS still impresses me.
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 poor wording on my end, I was meaning more so that it pushed the art style to its limits. I don’t recall ever insulting other companies and I don’t think I’m shilling or being a fanboy for just enjoying the games. I was just showing some appreciation for a game I grew up with, it’s not any deeper than that, man.
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 there's no reason to be so hostile. You're acting like they personally attacked you by liking generation 5
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 I don't think anyone would seriously care if you said Sonic 06 was a masterpiece that would just be an opinion many people would disagree with but when it comes to any form of art nothing is factually good or bad you can use facts to form an opinion but at the end of the day it's still an opinion.
I love that there’s a faction of Team Plasma that genuinely thought Ghetsis was trying to liberate all Pokemon. And when they found out he was just using them as pawns, they split from him and dedicated themselves to doing what they actually believed in. Everyone in this gen feels like they have so much depth to them and that includes the nameless grunts.
A Realistic Political Split moment? Actually awesome wtf 2012 Gamefreak
My favorite thing about Black and White 2 was the anime trailer they put out. It really shows how special Generation 5 was and truly is a product of its time. Gamefreak will never put that much effort into Pokemon again.
that trailer is iconic. i remember reading from somewhere that it was that trailer that inspired some aspects of later animations like origins, generations and the xy anime
Sadly yeah
This felt like their final and definitive masterpiece before going full 3d, changing employees and becoming profit driven
Fr they even shown my fave fire starter boutta go HAM on Elesa with her Emolgas
I like that the story is really Hugh's story. He has a grudge to settle with Team Plasma and he's asking you, his best friend, for help. Your character's story is as simple as "win at Pokémon". He encourages you on your journey because he knows that the better you are, the more helpful you'll be in his mission.
That is normal for the series. Sun and Moon is also entirely Lillie's story, and it is a somewhat okay story with meaningful progression. However, the presentation for that story is constantly interrupted by pointless filler in a way BW2's is not. This is why Hugh's haters consider him an annoyance at best, yet Lillie's haters will denounce the entire game for it.
it is the same for the first game, it is really N's story, I always remember that instead of you getting the legendary pokemon of the version you are playing, N gets the legendary pokemon, that was a huge suprises to me when I was young
@@existenceispain2074 but the one u get is on the title screen….
@@ihatemiloyes but it’s the opposite color as the game version
Pokémon Generation 5 fills me with an uncontrollable joy. I can't express how much these games mean to me and how much I love this Gen. This whole Gen was MY Pokémon childhood generation and era - it's just absolutely perfect in every single way. My favourite part is the Generation is actually a SERIES with a chronological sequel - it's so satisfying to watch this world evolve alongside it's beautifully established characters. Unova and all that is entailed within it, means beyond words to me.
I feel the same way. I love how much detail is put into the world of unova. There was always another secret to find and another nook or cranny to search. Not to mention the variety of Pokemon. I loved it. I battled and traded with all my friends who had the game.
"absolutely perfect in every way" - now that's pushing it a bit lol
Pokemon pearl/diamond and platinum is the best
Yes, absolutly
I genuinely believe USUM would have been way more popular had it been a sequel to Sun and Moon
Honestly, it was the whole environment of the games that did it for me. The seasons change entire locations, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and everything just feels well thought out.
One of the reasons I love this game so damn much is it's genuinely a fully developed SEQUEL to the first games in its generation. It's the only time we got this, and I absolutely love it; I wish we got it more.
Fr, I hope that when the time comes, with the remakes we also get a sequel
@@manelneedsaname1773 imagine if GF had the balls to just make BW3. It would be so fitting to Gen 5’s legacy.
@@maximumbeans9310 it would, current trend tho would be a game similar or identical to BW and then the post game clarifying that it's a sequel actually
@@maximumbeans9310 They won’t they’ll remake the first game and we’re only 2 games away from it coming out
Gold and Silver were made as the direct sequel to gen 1.
They tried to make the best and last game, but luckily pokemon was too populair and now we have things like these gems :)
You didn’t even mention one of my absolute favorite things about these games, how you get such a unique experience with both versions. Besides the regular different legendary, and obvious things like Opelucid city and white forest and black tower being different in each game, there is other areas such as reversal mountain having a completely different theme and music in each game, route 4 being different in both games, victory road being mirrored the opposite way per version. So many little things like that make it feel like you really are playing a different version than the other, and finding out the differences, even if not absolutely revolutionary, it’s still extremely nice to see the dedication and effort they put into these games, especially since the differences also pertain to the theme of each game, White 2 being about the past and truth and black 2 about idealism and the future. Absolutely amazing gen.
I Love them so much, i Hope they never get a remake
It’s actually why buying both versions is justified because Regigigas was only allowed to be caught after getting all the keys which was all the incentive to get two games
The puzzles on the Plasma Frigate are also both different.
I didn’t even know about half these differences
Kind of puts into perspective something like the Gen 4 remakes literally being the same games but switching a flag that chances which Pokemon are available. Gen 5 really was a weird, experimental era that felt like it was pushing the conventions of the series to their limit. Even taking the time to make the version differences mean just a little something more speaks to a care that we really haven't seen in the main games since.
I always saw B2&W2 as a closing of an era. That's why Game Freak added all of the old gym leaders and champions. A big get together for a Farewell to Pokémon as we knew it; With Sprites and pixels.
Similar to usum with rainbow rocket and loads of references and callbacks - characters like colress and the battle tree with red and blue. Even regional variants to an extent; in the way b2w2 sent off the sprites, usum was the send off for handheld pokemon
@@spagheddie1673 they'll never understand
Yeah, felt like their final and definitive masterpiece where all their heart got poured into
I think many developers also quit after this last pixel game because of the drastic industrial "forced" change to full 3d
sadge
It's really a shame that gen 5 wasn't appreciated when it first came out. I feel that may have contributed to the way gamefreak cut back on innovation so much in these later generations. Though the way Arceus was received gives me hope.
It's probably a combination of the critics eventually moving on, leaving just the folks who enjoyed it, and seeing how later gens turned out. Gen 5 probably got a pretty big retrospective boost in appreciation when fans realized that was the best that the sprite-based games were ever going to get.
@@qactustick When they realized that was the best that the Pokemon mainline games were ever going to get*
10 years as of October this year and there hasn't even been a mainline Pokemon game half as good. It's a shame that I went from someone who bought every Pokemon game to not having bought a single one since Alpha Sapphire.
Pokemon fans are always gonna complain. Hopefully Pokemon Scarlet and Violent goes more ambitious like gen 5.
@@Skeloperch I would argue this wave of nostalgia also plays into the popular narrative of the older games being the "best" of Pokémon.
Fans were revved up for Gen 4 remakes but as a person whose played the originals Platinum is what fixes a lot of those issues and its story wasn't (until the pillar) all that great.
Gen 5 is were fighting Peta its faults get downsized and its good qualities over exaggerated. So now mythologize it while pretending the new games are awful.
It got a bad rap( funnily enough getting similar stupid "dex cut" controversy) but its focus on complexity also kind of makes it a barrier. It falls into the Digimon issue of mostly being favorable to hardcore fans.
Like the battle frontier has never been considered good post game IMO its the content meta players get enthralled into but the random nature of how it works makes it uninteresting so why is it harald by as good content.
Because while sales are factored by the casual. Discourse is usual the hardcore and those fans tend to be closed minded on why someone might enjoy SWSh
@@demonking-zm3rs I agree. I have been following Pokemon news for new generations since Black and White and remember vividly how fans buried it for Pokemon like Garbodor. Flash forward 11 years later and people miss Gen 5. The only recent gen that didn't get buried as hard was gen 6 but even then people were mad about Mega evolutions. Pokemon fans always want something to complain about. At first it was Pokemon being too complicated and now it's Pokemon playing it too safe. Pokemon Legends is the most love I seen from the Pokemon community in a long time, but tbh I enjoyed Bdsp a lot more (not to say legends is bad) but I thought bdsp respected the og fans by buffing up certain gym leaders and making Cynthia 10 times harder than she was in the originals.
Was HEAVILY looking forward to this video after the first BW Retrospective. Gen 5 is a duology, and BW2 really can't be fully discussed without the first. It builds so perfectly on top of the first duo, and gives so many cool callbacks as well as innovations to make it fresh. Unova remains my favorite generation of all time. Not to mention my favorite soundtrack out of all of the mainline games.
The talk about Smogon definitely hit home for me, as it was when I first was introduced to competitive mons, and played the most of it. Don't really play it much anymore, but I am quite nostalgic hearing about the weather wars, haha. (Rain teams, baby!)
Absolutely banger video, as always! Looking forward to whatever you put out next!
I still don't get why people hated black and white when they released
Undertale ost guy
Hey, you’re that guy who wants people to play Bug Fables!
@@megaman9393 good game btw
More like poo-ology LOL jk jk you’ve been a great crowd
I prefer the original black and white personally, but man do I love black and white 2 for one huge reason. They were true sequels. Emerald may be the best Hoenn game, platinum may be the definitive Sinnoh experience, but it'll never not annoy me that these games made their counterparts obselete. BW2 was different, and its upsetting that the negative reception this gen got at the time may mean we'll never see anything like it again.
All because people got mad at ice cream pokemon.
@@clickycal *licks a Vanilluxe*
Why do people hate these Pokemon? They're delicious.
Eh...it mostly didn't get a negative reception though, it was always mostly loved.
Could I ask why you prefer the first over the sequels?
@@JM-ef1vp For one I am all about the story mode in a pokemon game, I don't spend much time in post game battle facilities as they don't really entertain me, I find more fun in building new teams and trying new mons throughout playthroughs.
Since post game isnt as important I find BW1s story is just better (that being said I usually play BW1 + BW2 back to back as I see them as a complete package).
I think the region having only new pokemon should be how every game works personally (I know it won't happen far too late for that).
And I must concede that pokemon black was my first ever pokemon game (my first exposure to the franchise was the anime and trading cards, my dumbass only figured out pokemon games existed by the time bw2 were on their way I probably should have been part of the gen 4 generation of kids) so I'm sure the fond memories of playing it as a kid will have an effect on it.
I hope I make sense, I just woke up and first thing I did was check my phone and reply to this 😅
Speaking of the graphics, I would love to see a Pokémon game in the HD 2D style of something like Octopath or Triangle Strategy. That style seems like the natural evolution of the DS Pokémon games, and probably where it would have gone if Pokémon didn’t jump to 3D.
I always thought the 3D models, while cool, never had as much charm and character and life as the sprites. Partly because from what I've heard the 3D models got reused so much and hardly updated, that they soon felt stagnant. Getting a new sprite set with each game certainly was more use than reusing the 3D models. But it also was exciting. In modern games I kinda... don't care how my favorites look. I already know. Back then, I was excited and seeing the for the first time was often really impressive.
@@ruolbu Sure some Pokemon such as Donphan or Anorith's sprites didn't change much between gen 2 and 4 but Gamefreak has such talented Sprite artists its such a shame they lost this means of expression. Sure 3D Models are probably easier to port over and occasionally give new animations too, but the sprites really do have a charm to them.
Now that we have BDSP the next games that will be in for remake for Switch would be BW/B2W2 so when that time comes I hope as well they go down the 2DHD art style route as it would also help it stand out uniquely from Scarlet/Violet
I recommend Coromon then if you want a "Pokémon" like game in sprites. There is a demo on mobile and PC.
@@ruolbu yeah seeing all the new sprites was one of my favorite parts when the games would come out
After all that passion, I can only imagine how the devs at game freak felt back in the day when these games were lambasted. gen5 will always be the best, but I can't help but believe the state of the franchise right now was at least partially a result of the fan base's stupidity and entitlement back then.
if pokemon never reaches the heights of gen5 again, that's okay. because gen5 exists. ❤️
"back then"
pokemon is not the only franchise to suffer this problem something eeriely similar happened with paper mario
This is nonsense. This generation was praised when it was released. B2W2 less so because of the arguably deceptive marketing of it as a full-blown sequel, but still.
@@manbearpig74012 what an awful take lmao, people were so mad when BW came out because they couldn't transfer up their fucking Charizard and Pikachu till after beating the E4. And in what way are BW2 not a sequel? Do you understand what that word means
To be fair, they were probably expecting something like every other sequel (but USUM): not too many changes.
I find that BW1 and BW2 are together a complete package.
While good separate, they accentuate one another.
It's not really right in my eyes to say either are definitively better than the other.
It felt so good to FINALLY see someone go so in depth with the PWT.
I'm so happy.
Me too
Love the Xenoblade Reference with Empoleon "no blade can cut deep enough". Amazing
ironically a very good "deep cut" reference lmao
deffo lol, hella ff14 references everywhere too, the brainrot has really set in
Well that’s cringe
Imagine a Pokémon Legends Kyurem
The story is basically about the original Pokémon that was Zekrom, Reshiram, and Kyruem
That would be amazing!
i want to know the name of the original dragon though lol. The problem is with Legends Kyurem would be that the story would have a bittersweet ending since old unova was devastated in the war between zekrom and reshiram. Do you think gamefreak is brave enough to let you go to a war zone? That would be very interesting nonetheless.
How would they send the player character back in time though? None of the gen 5 legendaries have any power over time?
(To be clear, this is just a joke about how Legends Arceus turned out to involve time travel; they could easily just not involve time travel.)
@@angellisanguyen9426 They set Legends Arceus during the colonization of the Sinnoh region (I say "colonization" because there's literally an indigenous population in the form of the Diamond and Pearl clans, and their absence in Diamond & Pearl strongly implies that they got absorbed by the colonials); I think they might be brave enough to at least show the player bits and pieces of a war zone.
@@matthewmuir8884 simple, just make the protag the people from that time period, no time travel or whatsoever, lmao
Generation 5 is when we see new a lot more new designers come in like James Turner, Mana Ibe, Saya Tsuruta, Lee HyunJung, Reiko Tanoue, Tomohiro Kitakaze, and Keiko Moritsugu.
I do find it odd that people don't talk about the designers as they deserve the credit for designing the Pokemon and characters.
Gen 5 is almost bittersweet as after these games, which really are the peak of pokemon, the series has a pretty big shift in direction. I'm looking forward to see any future video you make on gen 6.
Why are Pokémon fans so melodramatic?
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 bruh
@@zerito2374 this is a cookie cutter copy paste mediocre franchise. It’s like throwing a temper tantrum because McDonald’s Big Mac’s don’t taste as good as they used to lol!
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 So like zelda and mario
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 yea, pokemon lately hasn't been the best towards the series, but y'know, in the past they used to do great games. In this video it doesnt even touch base with some of black2/white2 strengths, and you have also soulsilver and heartgold which are amazing entries in the mainline series. Why are pokemon fans reminiscing over older entries? Answer that ay 💅
Gen 5 is where I believe is peak Pokemon. The sprite work is where I love it the most. It stands as the most unique Pokémon game out there and is the first games to introduce constant moving during battling making the games and Pokémon just feel more alive than ever before and not just a jpg or gif that we are seeing, I wish there would be at least another mainline game with this type of art style, but I know we won’t and because of that reason and many others, this Gen will always steal my heart. ❤️
Gen 5, especially BW2 will forever have my favorite post game activities/content.
You have articulated literally everything I feel about this game perfectly.
My only gripe is that I know it was a distribution event but in the PWT if you had online connections you can download the ACTUAL World Champions IRL and battle against their teams in game. I still have them saved on my original copy its awesome
I never knew that.
That is amazing! :D
Maybe you could get in contact with game preservers to make a copy, so that in the future everyone can download these battles or something.
That's already a thing. After gf shout down the servers someone started running their own where you can download all the events from. You have to fiddle with the network settings to get it to work, but except for the dream world everything is preserved.
@@DERADI30 Amazing, is that by change the WIIMFFI system? (Don't know how to spel it)
@@cecillewolters1995 No problem, i don't know what that means either way :P
You just have to change the DNS server in the wifi options. When the game requests the official nintendo server the custom DNS will send it to the private server instead. Poke Classic Network even has a running GTS on the server.
"As much as the Black and White postgame was decent, especially to the nothing we get nowadays…"
This hit me harder than I expected. Bring back awesome postgames, GameFreak!
Nope. Battle Tower for life, says GameFreak...bleh.
ORAS Delta Episode and USUM Team RR are the best postgames in the 3d time
@@jakeriese4862?
I think it's more accurate to call Black Tower and White Tree Hollow a pseudo-Battle Pyramid. There are obvious differences but you're effectively thrown into a maze gauntlet.
I really loved seeing how characters like Cheren & Bianca changed. It's part of the reason i love B2&W2
Also 34:30 Yes sir! He has returned! 😁
The fact this video only has 400k views is a testament to how underrated gen 5 in its entirety truly is. So many people hate on it before giving it a fair chance. This was truly a masterpiece video and I can't wait for your next one about the train wreck that was XY
I LOVE that it’s a true sequel. I remember one of my favorite things playing the game for the first time was seeing how the region had developed and changed over two years.
Fun fact. Clay's based off the idea of a japanese businessman obsessed with American culture, so it's extremely fitting that the PWT his city hosts invites all the Gym Leaders from the four regions based on Japan.
This is why adore gen 5 so much more than any or the other gens, it truly tried to go above and beyond to hit a new high. After gen 5 didn’t do as great as they wanted they fell back to the previous style and the overall quality went down. This is also the reason I am so thankful for the fact Legends Arceus has such great gameplay instead of the same formula that has been here for the last few games.
It almost feels to me like Game Freak spent the last of their creative juices on this generation of games. Across the two entries we get incredible music, spritework and an almost absurd amount of content with stuff like the world tournament.
While I do like some aspects of the series' jump into 3D, it does feel to me like gen 5 was the last time we saw Game Freak truly put their all into a project. I hope they can one day recapture the magic they created in the DS era of Pokemon.
Love this series of retrospectives anyhow, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on gen 6 and beyond :)
I agree with a full heart, but who knows, maybe some inspired people will rekindle that light with something else ;)
Oof, did Legends Arceus not do that for you personally? I thought that game was amazing. The only consensus of a complaint that people have with it are that the graphics could’ve been a bit better, but the game is still super fun.
@@komarunaegi7460 well it’s technically not a main line game, it’s a good spin-off and a very well made one ofc when they actually pull their main team to make it and just hand BDSP to a side studio. But before PLA, gen 6 and 8 are massive let down (gen 7 is pretty good but no where near gen 5 level). As much of an disappointing remake BDSP is it still much better than gen 8 and its terrible story and gimmicks, dynamax/gigantamax are way worse follow-up of z moves/mega ( and most of the gigantamax designs are horrible)
100% agree, that’s my speculation too and has been for a while. What’s interesting is that I once heard about an interview with Masuda concerning the end of Gen 5 (I think it was on Did You Know Gaming’s channel) and apparently Masuda said that there was a general feeling in Gamefreak around the time of the jump to 3D that they didn’t know what they should be doing next for Pokémon. Makes you wonder when you see the differences from the end of the sprite era and everything that led up to it versus the entry to the 3D era.
gen 7 actually got a lot closer then most of the other generations and it feel like ultra sun and ultra moon tried to do what black 2 and white 2 did but came up short
Pokemon Gen 5 came out when I was financially strapped and I never got around to playing them. I am going to begin playing them this weekend and these videos are getting me so pumped! I can't wait to finally complete this series.
Incredible games. In my top 3 pokemon games with HG/SS and
Gale of Darkness
awe man gale of darkness what a throwback man]
@@barrydabwob5321 i love that game
@@SHAWNJX one of my most favorite games growing up for sure !!
Those are some top quality favorites
Update: I might place Legends Arceus over Gale of Darkness, but I'm not 100% sure.
Black 2 and White 2 are games I long considered just "really good" until I looked back in 2020 and realized they're right up there with GSC for my most replayed games. I remember actually disliking Unova at the start for its linearity (I really value the loops built into Johto and Hoenn, as well as the possible non-linearity of Kanto) but everything else is just great. B2W2 were the first Pokemon games to have an extremely diverse roster of wild pokemon as early as the first town. My first team had Azurill and Elekid on it! That was unheard of! It's one of the reasons I replay this one so much - it allows me to really change up my approach from the very beginning without having to randomize it. This variety also never lets up either - at every step of the journey, there were several mons that would entice me to change my team again.
And then, yeah, the PWT! I LOOOOOOOOVED this mode! I haven't played it in a long while because I sadly only have one B2W2 cartridge I replay on repeat, but when the games were current, I spent hours upon hours there. I was a huge fan of rotation battles, but the online ladder for them was dead even during the generation's time - the PWT allowed me to actually enjoy these in spades. For the Battle Frontier, I never saw certain frontier brains, because I just didn't play well enough or enough in general to reach them. But this? I beat all of it, unlocked all of it. I messed around with the weirdest stuff too - for example, I had a Bibarel team specifically for rotation battles, because Bibarel's stat boosts persist when getting rotated out. It took some setup, but it worked!
These games truly are some of the best Pokemon has produced. Nowadays, it feels like if I'm not playing competitive, I might as well not play at all because there's barely any postgame, the stories are kind of... fine at best and also not all that engaging because trainers have less mons now and you need to always press on and never fully engage lest you be overleveled in a heartbeat. B2W2 manage to have some of the most engaging singleplayer with some of the coolest route layouts and then also one of the best postgames.
"when i think pokemon, i think Unova"
you know what that just about sums it up for me too
The Land of the Free simply has a natural gravitational pull alright KKona 7
That's wild that they went from this outstanding post game to X and Y. I still love those games but I only have 300 hours in X because of shiny hunting and breeding.
Honestly, I let it slide for X&Y due to the huge amount of work involved in shifting to 3D. They modelled and animated every pokemon from scratch for what turned out to be the first and last time. No other games since have had that excuse. Having said that, I realise it's not necessarily the same people making the post game as the pokemon themselves, but it still comes under the total time and budget.
Also GF was already rotating its dev teams at the time, meaning that development of XY likely took part kind of at the same time than BW2--only 1 year or so behind--and by different people. Idk why this hit me as a possible explanation (=/= excuse) why GF seems to love getting rid of features from their previous games
I’m a little bummed you didn’t mention the DLC Tournaments. The World Champions cup pits you against real world Top 8 Competitive Players and the Legends Cup lifts all team restrictions, but it does the same for the opponents. Never thought I’d see the day where Falkner has Lugia or Fantina has Giratina!
there's so much obscure shit in this game, I had no idea these existed.
It feels nice to hear people properly appreciate Gen 5 nowadays. I remember loving the fuck outta them when they first came out and feeling so confused and discouraged when people hated on them. I remember being kinda sour on Gen 6 and I still don't know to what extent that was fair; I think after Gen 5, my expectations were just too high.
That said, I really enjoyed ORAS which apparently a lot of people hated? Maybe it's because I mostly just loved how they expanded/refreshed a lot of the Hoenn lore with those games and "No one plays Pokémon for the plot!!!1!1!"
I know that some people are now sounding off the "Gen 5 remakes!" alarm, but honestly, I would much rather a port of the Gen 5 games than a remake, especially if it's just gonna go the BDSP route.
It’s a nostalgia cycle
Honestly, I don't think the BDSP route for Gen 5 would be so bad. At least we know that reusable TMs are guaranteed, as well as the great stories from BW1 and 2.
ORAS is the last soundly designed Pokemon game. I think Legends Arceus is a better game than ORAS (apples to oranges comparison notwithstanding) but ORAS is more tightly designed and has better bones to build off of (never been as sanguine about Sinnoh as some people). I would hope that people can agree that by and large ORAS are good remakes that mostly do the originals justice, and their sin in ignoring Emerald is nowhere near as egregious in how much BDSP pretends Platinum simply doesn't exist. ORAS feels in some way like it has some of the same logic to it as B2/W2. and at the very least being able to play through Hoenn but with the Gen 4 change to physical/special is SO NICE given the amount of Gen 3 Pokemon that were much improved by that mechanical change. Exploud is an absolute Chad in ORAS.
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 So? We love riding those nostalgia bikes.
No one ever disliked BW2. The "hate" Gen 5 received back in the day was mostly directed at the Pokemon-Designs, the Anime and the spin-offs of that era. People forget that all the time when discussing those games in a vacuum.
The way I’ve always seen it is that with yellow, crystal, emerald, platinum and USUM, aside from difficulty changes, if youve played those you’ve played the games before it, but with BW2 there’s a reason to play those even if you’ve played BW
46:05 man, the chills I got in this outro. I got to agree that Gen 5 core games was really the peak of Pokemon franchise. They have given all of their best efforts to produce these wonderful games.
🤓 chilllllsssss
I screamed so freaking loud when I saw this in my feed.
Quick thing to add that you probably didn’t realize, you were able to download the LITERAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS from b/w1 and 2 after they happened. My w2 cart has them still downloaded and let me tell you. The amount of replayability that ALONE has that I was able to beat the REAL world champs with teams I crafted on Pokémon showdown that were my own creations was and still is my favorite moments
It's insane to think someone who made it to the real life 2012~ Pokémon World Championship got to have their team digitally preserved. The only way this gets better is distributing the Champion's winning Pokémon as a shiny event Pokémon at the next tournament.
I have to be honest
I missed the sequel ship when this came out and basically just jumped over into gen 6
This game remained kind off in my bucket list until 2020,where I basically had half a year off because school was basically going nowhere
Gotta say,having played white 1 as basically my childhood pokemon game my expectations were high
Surprisingly for me but unsurprisingly to anyone that has played this game,they delivered
It was everything i needed the game to be as a sequel although the story was a bit weaker but the gameplay was as good as ever and the adventure itself is so fun,so full of pokemon that somehow dont overshadow the core Unova pokemon
Instantly became one of my favourite games
I just pulled out my 3DS and Black 2 cartridge and was shocked: I never finished the game!!
All these years later, I only have one option on what to do: boot up a new save and finally finish it but as a hardcore Nuzlocke this time.
I‘m so looking forward to this. Thanks for the inspiration KingK!
33:25 DID YOU JUST DO THAT REFERENCE???? I LOVE YOU KING
These are absolutely my favourite games in the series and your video has done an excellent job at explaining why. Thank you.
BW and BW2 were beautiful in the regard that it did what it was meant to do, divide and polarize and create controversy. While it might sound like a bad thing, it prevented complacency, which is what opens up adventure and ignites/rekindles true passion.
There is something a little hollowing about this, in that after Gen 5 they did go into complacency in an era where it seemed that new generations became marketing catalogues for all the new merch you can buy first and new installments of a franchise second (And I'm a massive G6 apologist! I fuckin love XY and ORAS even though that's an incredibly unpopular opinion!)
Gen 5 tried to remix and reinterpret Gen 1, whole new dex of similar amount of mons with many filling similar niches to Gen 1 Pokemon while having their own unique spin (like the Woobat line compared to Zubat line) and basically up until recently they were HATED upon launch, with so many gripes about trash bags, ice creams and a linear region with way too many cutscenes
Come Gen 6 they... just ended up replaying G1's biggest hits. You miss Viridian Forest? Here's Santalune forest which has literally the exact same layout as Viridian Forest but in 3D. Here! Have a Kanto starter, they all get funky new MEGA forms! Charizard even gets two of them, because everyone loves Charizard! He's the flippin best! And they also love Mewtwo so let's put Mewtwo in the game and give Mewtwo two Megas as well!
It feels like Gamefreak kinda chickened out on doing such experimental things in their mainline titles and fell back to complacency, and unfortunately the numbers seem to show as while they still sold oodles of noodles, G5 was the most underperforming generation sales wise for debut titles
It took until Legends Arceus for that sort of experimentation came back into the franchise, and Scarlet and Violet potentially looks to be building on PLA's best elements - so maybe there's hope for the franchise yet
@@magnafoxodyssey2127 Yo ORAS is my favorite of the main series, even if I think B2W2 is a better game overall. I just wish gen 6 had this kind of postgame content
@@owenmurphy924 if you read interviews from masuda and ohmori from this time, they actually explain why postgame content has been so greatly reduced from Gen 5 onwards
And its mobile phones
Like no, really, Masuda straight up said in an interview in 2014 regarding ORAS's lack of a Battle Frontier that kids these days don't like challenge and when a game's main story is over or the challenge gets too hard, they immediately stop playing the game and play mobile games instead
It was a very... cynical take all things considered
@@magnafoxodyssey2127 As long as the next Pokemon games don't design the AI with competitive in mind, I'll be content with them...assuming they aren't rush-jobs.
@@magnafoxodyssey2127 Does...does he realize that not every Pokemon fan is a kid, and that those older fans WANT to get their asses kicked?
I've genuinely been waiting for this video for years. I am so damn glad it's finally here. And my God, does it feel amazing that Mr. KingK loves these masterpieces. God bless you, man - you fill me with utmost joy.
If a main series Pokémon game is a masterpiece, then that word has no meaning.
Next thing you know a Big Mac and fries is a five star meal
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 There is a lot of passion and soul put into the DS Pokémon games and they were all great value. Some other games like TWEWY, Radiant Historia, or Hotel Dusk probably "deserve" the title more for being more original, but the Pokémon games certainly are some of the best games on the console. I don't think referring to the gen 5 games as masterpieces devalues anything some of the other DS titles were able to achieve.
@@ZodiacEntertainment2 the DS has a really weak library, probably among the worst of any Nintendo console barring the Wii U and definitely the worst of the handhelds lol. So Pokémon games look better by comparison.
On GBA and 3DS there’s a lot more so except for people who played the Pokémon games on those platforms not many really care since so many better games were available. Same goes for Switch.
Passion and soul put into a project? You don’t have any way of knowing that. Just because you like the games doesn’t mean that’s the case. You’d probably nonsensically claim that the 3D games had no soul, passion, or effort because you didn’t like them. Even though 2D or 3D the games are cookie cutter cashgrab reskins of Pokémon Red and Blue.
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 Pretty bad takes all around here. The DS has a great library with a ton of amazing JRPGs especially. You're entitled to your opinion, but I think the devil is in the details here. BW2 and not an "evolution" of the formula, but a highly polished version of it and in that sense I think it earns its right to exist.
The 3D Pokemon games have a clear vision and passion behind them, as shown by the strong character designs and attempts at new ideas, they are just stifled by the release calendar and lack of content.
@@ThomastheDankEngine8900 So, what you're saying is that all the games YOU like are soulless and without passion?
As someone who has been playing Pokemon since Red and Blue days, gen 5 are still my fave games in the series.
Same here
I love these games. The sprite art alone makes me so happy.
"Pokémon fans carry parts of the franchise on their backs"
Words more true have never been spoken
The gen 5 controversy is probably the worst thing the fandom did.
I had played every gen prior, and I felt so alone at the time when the Fandom seemed to dislike gen 5 so much. I loved it.
Watching through your series had opened my eyes to these games and the content they hold. I personally don't have strong feelings towards these games because they came out in a time when I was just old enough to not care about pokemon anymore and seeing how awesome and inspiring these games are to people years down the line really makes me want to go out and check these games out properly. Thank you so much for putting out these videos and helping me refind my love of older pokemon generations
What a lovely comment, i hope you will find joy playing these gems!
my friends dad works at nintendo and can download it onto your laptop so you dont even have to use a ds
27:12 been looking for this fight for years because I always thought it would happen at his castle where you fought him originally. Gives me yet another reason to go back to these amazing games. These games almost singlehandedly made gen 5 my second favorite game, greatly improving on both the region design and post game. Sure, its story isn't quite as groundbreaking and its honestly a bit easier than the original without challenge mode, but the fact that so many hard to obtain Pokemon appear in this game makes it one of the best for replayability. This is especially apparent in Nuzlockes because BW2 have the most non-legendary, static encounters of any game in the series due to Hidden grottos and other Hidden ability Pokemon. This means you will almost never have a shortage of choices even if you only catch the first Pokemon in every area. the Black Tower and White Tree Hollow are probably my favorite part of the Post game because its an open level battle gauntlet, something that we wouldn't see again until the end of SS's DLC.
liked this video 14 minutes in when he said "gen 5 is the best mainline pokemon has ever looked."
following pokemon would have made this generation completely perfect, otherwise the visuals far surpass even the 3d games and feel like they just have a much better sense of style, size and personality.
While others had said it before, we really didn't appreciate what Gen V did and look where that got us with most of Gen 8 aside from Legends Arceus. I do wonder what would've happened if Gen 5 were one of the best selling entries in the franchise and were well received.
To be honest, if GameFreak ever did the whole no old Pokemon until Post-Game idea they did with Black and White, I think a downplayed version where they had old Pokemon appear as long as they had a pre-evolution, regional variant, evolution, or both of the latter two could work.
Honestly, I think I should get to playing Black 2 since I bought it a while back.
N’s teams weren’t random, he always had wild Pokemon around the area you battle him in which I guess was him proving his bond with all Pokemon
The only thing black 2 white 2 fucked up was that they didn't give you the rematch with the character of the original black and white that we all wanted
"No sword will cut deep enough"
Love the xeno reference for Egil.
thumbnail be like “OH YOURE APPROACHING ME??”
Hugh’s dialogue is so in your face, but it all makes sense when you watch the English trailer for the game and he’s voiced by Goku. Just keep that in mind as you read his dialogue. It doesn’t make it better written, but it makes it so much more entertaining
Unova stands as my favorite Pokemon games. I've played since the release of yellow and crystal will always be one of my nostalgia games, but B/W felt so unique compared to the rest of series. Something stood out even though it's the same recipe. Followed up by B2/W2 it cemented how much I loved the generation. I adored the follow up with N is the sequel too
Omggg, this is so amazing! Love your retrospectives, especially with how you covered the first Black and White games 😄
PWT is, in a way, the final encore of classic Pokemon.
I remember fighting the champions cup with my actual team back when I was a kid, before I understood competitive Pokémon. It took me like 10 attempts, but the team I beat it with was my leavanny (who dodged a fire blast and won the league with a leaf blade), Haxorous, and Zoroark. I will always remember that because they beat the odds to somehow win that whole thing, and the only reason we won was through our experiences and I knew how to use them to their fullest potential.
Your endorsement of Pokemon Showdown and reasoning that fan communities and efforts are the absolute backbone of why the franchise can be what it is today, is just so refreshing, and it's something that I wish more people would come to terms with. Game Freak and The Pokemon Company might be the reasons the games exist, but if everything were left entirely up to them, the series would sink FAST. So much faster than I think people even realize. Seriously great take.
Also, great series! Keep up the good work!
As someone whose first Pokémon games were X and Y when I was 14, I replayed the entire series only at age 19 and even I have to admit that Black2White2 truly were the end of the golden age, with X and Y kickstarting the series' decline.
legends arceus is probably the best pokemon game ever and x and y started the 'decline'? have you even played any of the new ones? SWSH was a miss and BDSP but legends is by far better than even Black and white was, lmao. its funny hearing this from people who probably dont understand the series a whole lot
@@toonlink1372 my man you dont know the first thing about me and you just start saying stuff. I played every single game in the 3DS generation, I am still very much a fan of the series and as a fan you must acknowledge that the level of polish in these games has decreased sensibly. Level Design is way more bland and streamlined, there are less meaningful gameplay side-activities, a massive decrease in challenge and more contained postgame content (the last proper postgame dungeon was the Zygarde cave in XY, which was also stupidly linear). There have been interesting additions like Regional forms, Pokemon refresh and free roam areas. I agree that Legends Arceus is likely the best pokemon game ever, but it doesnt change the fact that it released after Pokémon's worst era.
This man really looked at Pokéstar Studios' 40 movies 120+ endings (good, bad and strange, plus you can get different bad endings in some movies) unique music unique sprites unique stories and atmospheres literally Pokémon movies in the games unique new mechanics different really cool gifts from fans and called it not huge.
I mean, that's the thing though. There isn't really much I can say other than "this is a cool bit of optional content if you want that"
@@KingKlonoa Yes but it felt reductive the way you went over it barely mentioning it when that thing is really big and had a lot of thought and work put into it, it could easily be an entire separate side game, surprised you barely gave it recognition.
A truly wonderful Retrospective, Black 2 and White 2 had SO much content, style, and wonder that I will never stop hyping it up as the BEST of the mainline Pokemon games and my personal favorite. so glad to see it still talked about to this day!
The _ONLY_ thing missing from the world tournament was past Elite Four characters.
Every time you put one of these out, not only does my day get better, but i also watch them twice back to back. Theres so much to take in, and they’re so well put together. Thank you for giving us some content that dives deeply into our childhoods. Youre slept on.
This was the second pokemon game I played after yellow version I love this game so much.
Jesus that's a hell of a gap
@@thoughtstream534 that’s what she said
@@Freebiekiller i guess if she's a lesbian she would
Btw correcting something, in the other tournaments you can't play in mix or rental mons, only on the rental tournament you can have rental mons and same for the mix one and their master versions. In the leaders tournaments and all those, you can only enter with your own mons. I was confused when you mentioned this and then you mentioned it again, had to check bulbapedia because maybe I was wrong but yeah, it's what I said. And you don't need to win the world leader one 10 times in a row to unlock the champion one, just 10 times, you can lose between the wins.
Been waiting for this since the first video dropped, amazing content as always! Gen 5 will forever be, as you said, the absolute peak of the franchise.
Hands down my favorite games
I just finished your BW retrospective!! I'm so happy to see a video about my favorite game come out right when I was looking forward to it :)
Man i have to say you have become my favourite gaming video essayist so quickly. Such quality content
Yet again another masterpiece sir, thank you so much for the nostalgia trip! These games made me come back and fall in love with pokémon again. These game was everything i had hoped for! They are still my favourite pokémon games, and Unova is my favourite generation to this day! Legend Arceus gave me hope for future generations, but none of the games from gen 6 and onward comes even close to these ones!
These pokemon retrospective videos are probably my favorite videos on the entirety of youtube. Thank you for making them.
banger video!
love seeing gen 5 get the love it deserves
Describing the Neo Plasma themes as “Holy shit there’s a pirate ship shooting at the city!” is so amazingly descriptive
seeing your sparky boi and walrein back to back hit me with so much nostalgia! They were my duo in XD and the 2nd/2rd pokemon respectively that i ever got to level 100!
For me, reexploring Unova in B2W2 was a lot like going back to Kanto in Gold and Silver. You were going back to a place you've been before, but time has passed and things, and especially people, have clearly changed.
I’ve been waiting for this one. I was so giddy when I saw it in my recommended. Great stuff as always, Mr. K
Triple World Tournament battles were where I spent hours with my in-game team. Loved it, and that team of Serperior, Aggron, Flygon, Starmie, Arcanine and Galvantula are so memorable to me.
I was absolutely GIDDY that you could catch a riolu so early on. I wound up catching a riolu and named him Lucas. I raised him all the way from a level 5 riolu to the level 81 lucario he is now.
Lucas kicks so much tail that it’s absolutely terrifying and I love him for it. He’s been such a keystone team member that I can’t imagine anyone else in his position
My friend after Black and White released: I'll wait till Gray.
Some say he's still waiting.
its definitely the small details for me that make it the best generation of all time, the drums playing when you are walking on some routes then stop playing when you stop, the change of gym leaders teams and the designs and not to forget the gym theme music changing for every gym in black and white 2. I played these games the moment they came out and i can tell you how under appreciated they are, from the sprite artwork to the stunning visual graphics for a nintendo ds was truly mindblowing to me when i first played the games i mean just look at skyarrow bridge with the camera zooming in and out then the overlooks where you see into the vast distance really adding to the overall effect of the game, then just finally i would like to appreciate the amazing town music that was created for the gen 5 and how in accumula and village bridge you can talk to certain NPC's to add new instruments to the music which is absolutely beautiful, (side note: accumula town is probably my favourite music from any town in pokemon) . Its sad to me that it took this long for people to appreciate BW2 and to realise that this was this was the peak of the franchise even after all these nintendo switch pokemon games like sword and shield, pokemon lets go and brilliant diamond and shining pearl, no matter how hard they have tried they have never managed to reach the same level as they did with gen 5 and it being the last 2D pokemon game i think game freak gave that era of pokemon a really amazing sendoff.
Both of your gen 5 videos are very on point these games are the summit of game freaks joy and creativity with the series , even with how they handled the ads for the game the cgi and movements of the Pokémon are thought out and stunning before it became “here is a new mechanic “trying to imitate the DNA splicers and the new dragon forms even though that isn’t what made the sequel special, coming from someone who was young when these games released returningto the region 2 years later was what brought me in and the fact the first game was such a statement
Hey King K just wanna say this video is awesome taking me back to my childhood I love black and white I fell out of bw2 but I got it last year and it’s so fun 🤘🏻
if im not mistaken this is the last game in which you have to level all pokemon individiually, which is something i think they desperately need to go back to. The new EXP share has completely ruined the grind. I'm all for having no more HMs or having your PC with you 24/7 or even getting XP from just catching pokemon but the new EXP share has me just spamming A the whole game basically and it feels like something special is missing. This was the last game that was a REAL grind, the game is awesome.
You still can grind level manually in gen6/7, just that u need to turn off the exp first
@@rokurojapan1978 Really? cause ngl i love sun and moon i actually never knew that
@@thebandboy yeah, the optimal way to play gen 6/7 is by turning off exp share
12:27 not to mention the Fan Art and Fan Fiction, regardless of quality, meaning or whenever it is a "Pron" (Gnoggin's idea) it's the Fans that keep Pokémon alive even after introduction of pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.
i took a break from watching this video at around the world tournament part to finish endwalker and then when i came back to continue you dropped the zenos reference, perfect timing
I tried so hard to get into the series with Gen 5. But in the end, it broke me.
First played Pokemon in Gen 1 with Red, but wasn't super thrilled with it; nobody around my played games, so there was no community like what people describe, and I had nobody to link Blue with. So I never even beat it.
Years later, my then-gf wanted me to play Pokemon with her. I was intrigued by the idea of it having a story beyond just "gotta catch 'em all", so I got Black and she got White, with the intent to play a linked game together.
And I tried really hard to get into it, beat the first few gyms...but after that, I just felt exhausted from playing.
It was then that I realized I'll never be into Pokemon like others are; if the series' best couldn't hook me - with someone dedicated to playing the linked games with, no less - then nothing about Pokemon ever would. So I had to give up on it.
Gen 5 Pokemon, sadly, were the first to ever show me that I have limits and boundaries on what kinds of games I'm interested in. Before then, the sky was the limit, and I'd play anything that was set in front of me. After that, I discovered that I had "preferences" and that I'd have to say no to some games without beating them.
So Gen 5 always has a bitter feeling whenever it's brought up, as it represents an end of an era of my life.
For whatever reason I've never played this gen but watching this video has absolutely convinced me that its my next game to play.
HGSS & all Gen 5 games are basically tied for me as the best pokemon games of all time. Amazing video - thank you for giving Gen 5 the love it deserves! 😊
I was going to ask if the post-game chapter title was supposed to be an FFXIV reference, but your Absol explanation told me everything I wanted to know.
I just saw this in my notifications and I'm now building my whole afternoon around watching it. Thank you so much for all the work you put into these, it's truly the best part of my day.
Was gen 5 lambasted at launch? I remember being in college at the time and gen 5 managed to bring back a bunch of old fans who stopped playing. Seriously a group of 20 people all just picked up Black or White or both and that group was super into it. Heck I got caught up in it, becoming a breeder and making trades and stuff in that group. I just remember the reception being pretty positive.
Online in the pokemom community it was. People who played every gen.
I love your retrospectives! I love that we’re the same age! I love that we played the same games growing up! I love that you have the same, if not better memories playing Pokémon!
All I’ve ever wished is to find ONE friend irl like you. Someone I can gush too about our favorite games and what memories we made with them. Now that I think on it, pokemon still is bringing us oldies together. We STILL talk of Pokémon as if it’s the old days on the playground!
I've literally been refreshing every hour I've been awake since yesterday, when I watched your 2022 plans video and saw you say this was coming by the end of february. I'm so excited for this :)
I'm in a constant state of eagerly awaiting the next one of these.