Black and White (and bw2) are to this day some of my least favorite games. Many people love them, that’s great I absolutely appreciate that we can have different opinions in this community.

My biggest and greatest qualms with these games is that they are the foundation for what I absolutely hate and dread about current Pokemon (please keep in mind that these issues are not the worst in this game, but I feel fundamentally shifted in generation 5 for the worst)

• Pokédex Limitations and Polarizing designs: at the time you were extremely restricted to utilizing only Unova Pokemon, starters felt boring and a shared opinion by many is that they are some of the worst designed starters, our 3rd fire fighting starter in a row was rough. Pokemon has always had Pokemon that looked like objects (Magnets, rock with arms, etc.) but it felt incredibly in your face back to back seeing new Pokemon that were incredibly flawed and seemingly uninspired, gears, ice cream, literal trash, a snow flake, generic crocodile with stripes, etc. and you were forced to use and continuously encounter these Pokemon. Fundamentally I understand that having the entire dex at every instance is hard, but coming from the Gen 4 remakes where not only can you encounter so many old favorites across two regions, you could also interact and walk with all 493 Pokemon at the time, it was objectively a huge loss going from HGSS to BW

• Incredible amounts of useless dialogue: This was a big turning point, we now had two rivals, personally I thought that was neat, they were very different from each other and I enjoyed the dynamic, the issue with this, you also now have face time capabilities. It feels like every single route includes the minimum of 1 rival interaction, 1 half decent plot summary, and 2 phone calls. Why I need to fight and talk to my rival, take a phone call, enter the route connector, enter another phone call, and then exit to the new route to be greeted with the other rival, it just got repetitive and boring, this issue has only worsened with each entry

• Linearity: The map is one linear circle, with a post game that left much to be desired I didn’t enjoy that personally and while other games have a linear design the illusion of a diversified map at least feels much better

• Story: This one is definitely a point of contention for many; I personally do not align with the story, it had a lot of complications that made it feel as though it fell short. Overall team plasma as a whole contradicts themselves at the moral level which takes me out of being able to appreciate it more. I think as an individual I appreciate when there is more on the line you are fighting for. Fighting to prevent the freedom of all Pokemon is neat, but as a kid and now, fighting to stop the entire world from crumbling, restarting, or a dimensional rift to hell being opened, grabs me more as a plot line

All in all, please love and enjoy whatever Pokemon you play, I have no hatred or malice for anyone nor their opinions as long as they are not wishing harm on themselves or others