All right, wrapped up the main story and I think I'm done here. I wanna thank everyone in this thread who helped me with advice and questions, it's been so much more fun to figure stuff out or ask others than to consult GameFaqs. Great first Retrospective suggestion, Pokepal.
Final thoughts below (full spoilers, natch).
Context: Used to be a big fan of the first 2 Pokémon generations, as well as FireRed/LeafGreen, but I fell off the wagon pretty hard after Emerald and Platinum, both of which were very underwhelming to me. Black/White feels like a return to form in many ways, and although they're not perfect, they manage to pretty much hit all the beats I want out of Pokémon.
Positives:
- Really like that there's no previous generations during the entire main story. They've designed enough new ones to keep things surprising, even in the final fight with Ghetsis I saw 3 monsters I hadn't seen before (Zoroark, Eelektross, and a sort of sea turtle).
- The new designs are mostly inspired too. Sure there's duds like Patrat, and while I initially liked seeing Zebstrika, his design became an eyesore after a while. And a few just skew too much towards the Digimon realm of being overdesigned (both legendary dragons, the Golurk line and the legendary dogs I never met).
But there's loads I liked too. Trubbish is funny, I like Amoongus, the whole KlinKlang line, the Chandelure line, those crocodiles with sunglasses, and I even grew to like Scraggy and my MVP Throh even though I'm not huge on Pokémon wearing 'human' outfits.
- Semi-separating Black/White from the rest of the Pokémon games must have been a tough sell, but it's a great move I think. There's some very cursory mentions of other games, and of course a lot of mechanics are legacy stuff from previous games. But if this came out as the first Pokémon entry, you wouldn't be super lost I don't think. It also helps to project a feeling of confidence from the creators, in that they're adamant this game can stand on its own.
I'm sure the post-game brings in every single previous Pokémon, reference, etc., but the main story is spared those interruptions.
- The general feel of discovery. Travelling from place to place, finding new creatures, new gyms with weird gimmicks felt fresh again here. Might just be me, having not played Pokémon for a few years and going into this one mostly blind, but hey. I think this really demonstrated to me that Pokémon is a more-or-less perfect formula, and while some minor adjustments are always needed to keep things fresh, the foundation is rock solid.
Negatives:
- They go for a lot of visual flourishes in random places. Bridges lowering, ferris wheels spinning, castles rising up from the ground, dragons arriving. Every time these cutscenes just kinda clash with the souped up GBA aesthetic the rest of the game has. Not a fan.
- The game doesn't rrrreally force you to rotate your team a lot if you have a single fighting Pokémon. Fighting moves just steamroll over like half the gyms, everything Team Plasma ever brings to the table, and one of the Elite Four.
My final team had some very obvious flaws (no psychic, ice, rock, bug, flying moves at all, lots of uncovered weaknesses, and a massive reliance on Toxic), but this was almost never a problem save for maybe 3 areas. And if you don't play it Nuzlocke style you can be a lot more careless going into battles too.
- I feel like the inventory system has regressed a bit? Didn't FireRed/LeafGreen automatically sort everything into separate categories? Here they do so for key items, TMs, medicine and berries, but held items and regular items are chucked into one category together with all your various Pokéballs. If you're gonna give us 10 types of Pokéballs and mountains of 'rock gem/bug gem/etc gems', give us better sorting options than doing it manually one by one. Also, Rare Candy and stat-boosting stuff like Calcium shouldn't be in amongst medicines at all.
- The world map is pretty boring. It's just a circle! And you can almost never deviate from the path. The only instance where I did is when I cleared out the Desert before the story brings you there much later. In Blue/Red you can, with some creativity, almost completely decide the order of gyms 4-7 by yourself (although Koga must always occur before Blaine).
Now I didn't hate the linear progression here, since I have less time now then the 100 hours I sank into Blue back in the day, but it'd be nice to have options. Black/White give you the weakest excuses too, some guard literally says "there's something blocking the path ahead".
Maybe the field HMs become useful in the post-game, but I think I used Surf, Strength and Cut just once each. Just eliminate them entirely as field moves entirely then.
- The story is mostly just a nuisance disturbing any fun you were having. It's really annoying to constantly be on your toes in new areas in case you get blindsided by "N" or one of your stupid rivals demanding a battle. Then the entire Team Plasma storyline just goes nowhere, is utterly predictable from square one, and even the resolution isn't great.
The real bummer here is that everything starts out promising. Does GameFreak finally address one of the core complaints about the series? They seem aware that the 'this is cartoon hen fighting' criticism exists, but just have no clue how to address it. The Pokémon can't ever express their opinion except through the unreliable interpreter "N", and the human's arguments all revolve around selfish desires.
"Without Pokémon I'll be lonely!", "humans and Pokémon feel connected". Defending the status quo for no reason but emotionally charged arguments and "because things have always been this way I guess?" is a really poor choice here.
How I would do it: show that people are getting persuaded by Team Plasma. Make it so you occassionally bump into distraught trainers who released their 'mons. Team those up with your player character, encounter their released ones ('Ace Trainer's Ducklett appeared... it looks lost and lonely...'), you weaken them and the NPC re-catches their old Pokémon again.
Sure it'd be annoying and scripted, but I think if you do this 3 times max over various areas the point is clear enough. Of course the developers are never going to actually set free all the Pokémon from you Box like they allude to, but if you're not going to follow through on a 'threat', at least still try to make it tangible.
- About the story finale, it's this really weird Final Fantasy esque mess. Castle rises up from nowhere, suddenly stairs fly in from everywhere. In general from the Elite Four onwards they suddenly hit you with a lot of borderline supernatural stuff which I'm not sure fits so well the relatively grounded rest of the game. Ghetsis is a weird final boss too, I had most trouble with his Eelektross who took out two of my 'mons, but to end on a legendary(?) Hydreigon who goes down in one hit from Throh felt anti-climactic.
In conclusion:
While I've mostly complained here, I think that's more because there's a strong core game here with a lot of missed opportunities kinda weighing it down. Pokémon Black/White seem like great entry points for newcomers, and they're good for lapsed fans like me. Beyond working as very solid singular entries in the franchise, I also think they're subtly different enough from previous games to really stand out. Overall I'm very pleased to have played this, it's really shown me that Pokémon is still a good series - I just played a few bad instalments in a row. Maybe I'll try to borrow another DS cart from my friend.
Final rating: 4/5, this is one I'd recommend.
Stats
Pokémon seen: 136
Pokémon caught: 34
Pokémon lost: 9 (2 in the final battle).
Final team: Chandelure (lv 58), Throh (lv 54), Seismitoad (lv 53), Garbodor (lv 52), Amoongus (lv 51), KlinKlang (lv 50).