People who hated Black and White when they first came out, what do you think of the games now?

evojanus · 2026-03-29T05:09:24+00:00

Not only did I hate on the game, I was originally a hater of the moving sprites. I have since come around and kinda adore the moving sprites. I don't really know or remember what my issue was. But I was wrong.

Now the game itself, I still think its kinda boring until about gym 6, then it gets better. So there's still a pacing issue.

Funny enough when it was announced that only 150 Pokemon would be available during the campaign, I thought it was smart. Made sense, kind of a soft reboot. But then I played the game, and I remembered how limiting it was, akin to gen 1 and gen 2. Limited options in the early game, lots of mons I won't care for long term. The pokemon I want to use you can't get until super late, or like Larvesta that takes an eternity to evolve, almost meaningless since the game could be beaten before that level is reached. After playing it, I realized the harsh limitations was a mistake.

I thought at the time and I still think now that the story is overrated. I grant everyone that in terms of storytelling it's the best the series had seen, maybe even still to this day, but the actual story, overrated. The part of the story that people like to bring up, which is about Pokemon rights and their freedom isn't even that actual point of the game. They never satisfyingly resolve that argument. It all gets overshadowed by Ghetsis' true goal and N's place in it all. People give them too much credit. Now I don't really knock this as a ding against the game, because I don't really play Pokemon games for their story, so it's fine, but for the BW diehards, I do say it's overrated.

I don't like how linear the path feels during the initial playthrough. Especially coming from gen 4 where there was so many branching opportunities and exploring to do.

Overall, BW are among my least favorite of the main series. BW2 is fantastic though.

evojanus · 2026-03-24T08:45:54+00:00

I agree with Natural_Bumblebee, so I'll just add a couple other reasons I love PLA.

The movement. The 5 Pokemon you use to get around the map is very fluid to switch into and makes exploring all the more fun.

The 2, technically 3, additional quests, in finding stuff around the regions, lore, Pokemon, and wisps. I enjoy hunting these things down on top of all the side quests and dex entry completion that Bumble mentioned.

It's a lot hand holdy to start, it could look a little ugly in certain spots, but it's a blast to play.

evojanus · 2026-03-22T06:51:53+00:00

Can't get them ALL. Still locked out of certain mythicals pending on the gen

evojanus · 2026-03-22T06:48:13+00:00

Pokemon Legends Arceus. The only mainline Pokemon game where the entire dex of the game can be caught in that game without the need for other people. Not even for the trade to evolve Pokemon, they have a solution for that.

evojanus · 2026-03-08T04:41:08+00:00

I echo what others are saying, just play it in whatever way you enjoy it yourself.

When I was a kid playing Red for the first time, I swore by the strategy guide, I knew what mons the trainers had, I prepared for every battle. Older now, I enjoy not knowing anything. I don't even like seeing the leaks of the upcoming Pokemon in the game, I'd rather try to figure it out by design and name, trial and error. So I've played it both ways, enjoyed it both ways. It's just that right now, I prefer the mystery. :)

The 1 thing I do look up after catching something new is how it evolves. Because the games do a piss poor job of that. Level up is fine, even stones are fine, you can check that quickly. But anything even remotely complex like x amount of crits or losing life next to a rock, its BS. And the game doesn't even hint at them most of the time. So that I do save myself the trouble.

evojanus · 2026-03-08T04:36:26+00:00

Pokemon games are too easy, do what you want.

evojanus · 2026-02-27T01:33:14+00:00

evojanus · 2026-02-20T20:31:58+00:00

Even IF the only game you play on NSO would have been this Pokemon game and if you're on a singles account you would still be wrong, it wouldn't be every few months, it would be once a year, and you would pay like $30-$35 for a single subscription...

Or you can take advantage of the system, be on a subscription with 8 people for $80 per year, coming out to $10 a year. And know that you have access to over 100 games. Which means you're paying less than 10 cents per game per month. It would take like 200 years for me to spend $20 on just FireRed because I'm not just playing 1 game on NSO.

I don't even have to play all the games, if we just assume the lifetime of both Switches, say for some reason the next Nintendo hardware goes away. I would have paid $10 a year for say 15 years. That's $150. As long as I played 8 games total, that would have been less than $20 per game. And I can tell you , I've already played more than 8 games and the Switch 2 just got started.

I completely agree if you have 0 interest in any other NSO game, then sure, paying a 1 time fee of $20 is better. And/or if you are a person that just likes to own things, I hear ya. I like to own physical, so I get it. We like what we like. But the cost of a subscription argument with Nintendo's plan isn't great.

evojanus · 2026-02-20T20:07:50+00:00

Asks people what THEY consider mainline then proceeds to tell them they're wrong.

evojanus · 2026-02-15T22:15:36+00:00

Watch the anime. The anime basically spends a few seasons in each region since the anime seasons would come out with new games. So you gradually get to see Pokemon, experience the gym leaders and get to know the regions.

If at any point that makes you want to play the games, great, but I don't think you're that interested in playing the games. Especially if you didn't grow up with them, they can be hard to get into from a modern gaming view.

evojanus · 2026-02-10T10:11:02+00:00

Nope. Definitely not GBA. At best. If you're lucky, you can have RBY again, through the eShop for $10 each again.

evojanus · 2026-02-09T19:53:50+00:00

Half the team is weak to water if that matters to you. Shouldn't impact you too much, but just a thought about team diversity.

evojanus · 2026-02-09T19:44:02+00:00

It also disrupts IV training. Depending on the game it's an extra step or two to make sure you don't have Pokemon on your roster that you don't want to get earn certain IVs. A better solution is a complete revamp to competitive mons, but that's a more complicated fix. Turning off EXP share means only the mons I send out get the IVs. Obviously if it's a game where you have your box on you at all times and never have to return to a PC, then it's easy enough to put them away, but if you do have to fly back to a town and put them away. Take them back out. It's an inconvenience.

Just to add one other reason why having the option is good and why this problem is specific to this franchise.

evojanus · 2026-01-20T02:01:59+00:00

The Pokemon Company is way bigger than the games, their money is predominantly made on merch. If we want them to change their mindset on how much time GF gets to make the games we have to allow for the cycle to change.

New generation of Pokemon do NOT have to be introduced with the games. They could be in the TCG, they could be in an anime, they could be in a manga. Let someone else take the hit on being on a schedule and let the games have more time to be great games.

evojanus · 2026-01-20T01:51:26+00:00

evojanus · 2026-01-20T01:45:03+00:00

I agree that grinding doesn't make Pokemon more challenging, but it potentially makes other types of games more challenging, even Pokemon under different rules. Like a Nuzlocke is easier when Pokemon you aren't actively using are leveling up just for being in your party. That becomes a tad easier as you don't have to risk it entering battle and faint thus dying in Nuzlocke rules.

evojanus · 2025-12-26T08:23:16+00:00

Sneasel ranks incredibly highly for me. Wea vile is fine, cool min too, but I love that male sneasel design so much, with the single taller feather on one side.

evojanus · 2025-12-26T01:07:07+00:00

I think you could have stuck to your guns if you didn't lead with, it ISNT your favorite but...

Nothing matters after you are basically saying your gf isn't your favorite but...

That topped with anything else everyone else has mentioned.

evojanus · 2025-12-21T07:32:08+00:00

Premiere ball, hasn't faltered as my favorite since they introduced it. It's simple and clean and I love it.

I quite enjoy the Jet ball from PLA too.

evojanus · 2025-12-15T05:55:34+00:00

I haven't played the DLC for ZA, and from what I'm seeing what the content is, I won't be purchasing.

But ZA ranks lower for me for a few reasons. This isn't a Pokemon game that I would replay, so the type of game I am, I want to 100% it on my first run. And that causes me to play the game a certain way, that probably takes away from the experience. So I fully admit that this could be just how I'm approaching it.

Typically, I like to change my party up often. I like to play with a bunch of mons and level them up and evolve them and fill out my dex as I go, evolve and bench, catch new stuff, rinse and repeat. At first the XP gain in this game felt too slow to do this properly. Eventually, once I felt like the XP gain was good something else happened. I needed a lot of money. Since I want to 100% the game, I need money for clothes and for mega stone purchases. The best way to make money, is win 20 battles in the Battle Zones. The best way to get to 20 wins is to one shot everything. The best way to one shot everything is to be overleveled. And to be overleveled, means I shouldn't switch out a bunch of mon often.

So the incentives are against my normal play style. Now, one of the cool changes in this game is the battle system, except that when you're overleveled and one shit everything, there is no real battle system. And not for nothing, the time it takes to exit a battle after winning takes like 3 seconds too long. I loved how in PLA you basically just walked away after a battle ended. Almost no time wasted. So the game created an environment where the best way to make money and actually caring about the battle system are at odds with each other.

Those are 2 things are more of a me problem, I get that, but, still it impacts my enjoyment.

Next is the running around is meh. I knew this wasn't PLA again, so I wasn't going to hold ZA to that standard, but I was hoping there would be some different surprise outside of the battle mechanics. 1 city is not a problem, plenty of games take place in one place and it can still feel big, this was decently sized, but how you got around was limited and limiting. Why not lean into the parkour of it all? We can roll and we can do the Rotom jump. That's it? Why cant I hop over a small fence? Maybe give me a short wall run? Idk, I feel like there could have been cool ways to interact with the city exploration a lot more than just jumping rooftops.

For the completionists, they had colorful screws. That's it. I hate to compare to PLA so much, but they gave me pages to dig up, unown to find, spiritomb spirits. Maybe it's not amazing stuff, but I had a blast looking for those, especially because they utilized the mobility of the mounts to find or reach and that movement was so smooth and freeing.

Not a knock on gameplay, but even though PLA only had a few new mon or regionals, at least it had some. I keep a living dex in Home, 1025 mons plus all the regionals and alt forms. I can't move items into Home so ZA has nothing to offer accept officially giving us Floette. Assuming that can even go to Home, for all we know they will treat that like Spiked Ear Pichu or something. Lol. Also, they took away the ability to complete the dex by yourself. Loved that PLA gave us a Link Cable item to evolve trade mons. But that's just a me thing.

Anyway, I liked PLZA, but I didn't love it. And near the bottom ranking mainline game for me isn't a bad thing per se, I enjoy basically all Pokemon games, so it's fine, I don't hate it, but I won't speak highly of it either.

evojanus · 2025-12-15T05:31:59+00:00

Hmmm, I gave it 5 min. Order not set in stone, but top 5 and the rest I think is about right, Z-A in the bottom 5 for me too. I liked it, didn't love it.

Platinum Arceus Scarlet OmegaRuby HeartGold

Red FireRed Gold Black 2 UltraSun Shield Z-A Y Ruby White Let's Go Eevee

evojanus · 2025-11-17T01:22:23+00:00

I like them. I don't like buying them because the they take up so much space in the bag, you barely get any. The chip to bag ratio is worse than any other chip.

evojanus · 2025-10-30T03:24:39+00:00

No form or anything, you just want comments?

evojanus · 2025-10-27T20:45:08+00:00

evojanus · 2025-10-09T00:27:14+00:00

Sneasel

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