Please tell me that Pokemon B/W is better than freaking Diamond!

So after playing through most of pokemon diamond, I can honestly say that this series has really gone downhill. I used to love the old GBC games, but now I find that the series is just plain crappy. Here are a few of the problems that I have with it:

1) Some of the pokemon are just plain stupid. I mean really, pokemon like Bronzor? It has devolved into plain and simple lame designs imo.

2) Sometimes the difficulty will spike randomly (gym fights and boss encounters) in a way that just seems unfair. Like all turn based RPGs, Pokemon is a simple game of numbers. Sure there are tactics involved, but the numbers always decide the fight. So when all the of the trainers in an area are level 30, all the trainers in the gym arena are level 32 and then the boss is level 42, I get a little confused, and more than a little annoyed. It basically means I get to go level grind for 2 hours, which I do not find fun.

3) Some of the design decisions are really bad. One of those aforementioned boss fights is after a good 30-45 minute dungeon, but after losing to him there is no way to get back to him quickly. You get to lose, go train for a good long while, then climb through the endless random encounters that you just insta run from until you get back to him a good 15-20 minutes later only to hope that he doesn't kick you down again. Plus, there was an HM absolutely vital to me continuing, which I assumed would be in an obvious and easy to find area. However, when I did eventually find the said item, it was after looking it up online because it was BURIED IN THE SNOW IN A RANDOM SPOT IN THE CORNER OF A ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF FREAKING NOWHERE! I mean seriously, how the hell was I supposed to find that damn thing?

Basically, what used to be a game that was immersive, and made me feel like I was really in a new world has become a game of lame creature designs, bad design decisions and artificial game lengthening mechanics. If Pokemon Black is just more of this crap, I might not even bother picking it up.

1) Some of the pokemon are just plain stupid. I mean really, pokemon like Bronzor? It has devolved into plain and simple lame designs imo.

Essian

It's just such a shame that designs as awesome as these were never seen again in the series.

[QUOTE="Essian"]

1) Some of the pokemon are just plain stupid. I mean really, pokemon like Bronzor? It has devolved into plain and simple lame designs imo.

Pixel-Perfect

It's just such a shame that designs as awesome as these were never seen again in the series.

i know, the whole art direction has shifted.

Anyway, yes, i think black is better than diamond ( i played platinum).

However, the gyms have a bunch of gimick traps and stuff, so bewarned. BUt i dont think they are that bad.

THe elite 4 were surprisingly easy compared to the other pokemon games though. I dont remember if i got to the elite 4 of platinum (i just really couldnt get myself to enjoy platinum enough) but after farming the elite 4's first gym leader a couple times, i was able to blow by them and beat the final guy in my first try. I havent finished the game yet, but i've beaten the green haired guy, if he is the final boss.

Also, as a poster before said, the story is very linear. It is also a hit or miss i guess. I absolutely hated the story, though the fact that they tried a story is a good sign imo.

It's just such a shame that designs as awesome as these were never seen again in the series.

Pixel-Perfect

I agree. Gens 3, 4 and 5 doesn't compare to how awesome Gens 1 and 2 were. Every pokemon were unique and the story was incredible. Giovanni was a great villain and had a better backstory than N. GameFreak should remake the original Red and Blue with online play and limit the amount of pokemon to 251, disappointing every fan who grew up with the later generations. :P

Being serious now:
IMO, Black and White are much better games than D/P.
You may or may not be disappointed with the new pokemon designs, but that deals with your opinion and nostalgia.
Training is much easier in B/W because of the different EXP system and unlimited TMs.
Battles and surfing are much more faster.
The visuals and the online are improved, and there's actually a STORY! The story does make the game linear, but it's not much of a problem.
The game doesn't force you to carry every HM. In fact, HM Waterfall is completely optional. You will only need to worry about Surf, Fly and Strength (mostly for shortcuts and to make traveling easier).
After the main quest, trainers do become 10-15 levels above you, but it's not that hard to defeat them.

[QUOTE="Pixel-Perfect"]

It's just such a shame that designs as awesome as these were never seen again in the series.

ANIMEguy10034

I agree. Gens 3, 4 and 5 doesn't compare to how awesome Gens 1 and 2 were. Every pokemon were unique and the story was incredible. Giovanni was a great villain and had a better backstory than N. GameFreak should remake the original Red and Blue with online play and limit the amount of pokemon to 251, disappointing every fan who grew up with the later generations. :P

GameFreak needs to just stop making new pokemon and constantly update Red/Blue and Gold/Silver! Kids today and their Rhyperiors and their Magmortars and their Tangrowths. In my day we only had 151 and we liked it. We walked fifteen miles to school each day with our Pokemon, up hill both ways too. So those young punks can keep their Braviaries and their Garchomps and their Blazikens. I'll dust off my copy of blue and relive the glory days -- a time when psychic eggs seemed like a good idea and Syther couldn't evolve.

I thought Black/White were the best games in the Pokemon seires since the 2nd generation.

Actually I would say that gen 3 was the lowest point of the series so it has only gone uphilll otherwise; gen 4 is better than gen 3 and 5 is almost at the level of gen 2.

1) I thought gen 3 had the most boring Pokémons, don't remember 4 other than that it was better than 3, but I like the ones in 5 besides that 50% of them are Grass types -.-

2) They completely changed the experience system so that you don't need to care about levels, well at least the level grinding is minimal. What happens is that you'll gain a certain multiple more exp if you are some levels below the monsters you are fighting and vice versa if you're higher than what you're supposed to be you get much less exp to prevent you from becoming overpowered. So the number of EXP you recieve from battle depends on your level relative to the one you're fighting. This is really good, it allows you to carry 6 Pokémons without being under leveled and if you change your mind you can always go back and grab a low level Poké, as it will lvl up really fast.

3) They streamlined the main adventure in gen 5. For one, they placed several spots you can heal mid-route and another thing was that the HM's are completely optional besides this one time you have to cut I think, and you'd want Fly obviously, other than that HM's are used for optional exploration and to find optional items. This allows you to have 6 main Pokémons with you rather than having to worry about HM slaves.

Gen 5 also changed the perspective, it's still 2D tile gameplay but the camera is zoomed in like a 3D game. Yeah it's pixelated, but awesome at the same time. The entire area is actually New York City, that's why there are so many bridges in the game :P And you will never encounter a Zubat during the main adventure! because there are 150 entirely new Pokémon and you unlock the older ones post E4, so there are only new ones. They also made gym puzzles much more fun and interesting to solve. So much good stuff. Check out IGN's video review of Black/White, it's good, for a change.

Pokemon Black/White is the second best in my opinion. I think Ruby is the bet, but Black/White is a lot better than Diamond, though that one was fun too.

1) These Pokemon grew on me when I initially hated them all. Scraggly FTW! 2) Grinding comes with RPGs, though in this game it isn't very hard to level up. You should also realize they do not want you to just blaze through the game. 3) Level differences do not really matter too much early in the game imo. It's better to face higher level opponents because you earn more experience. The game also gives you the Dowsing Machine early so all those hidden items are less trouble to find. B/W is definitely more linear, but that was good for me because I hated Ruby/Sapphires "exploration." Remember having to read braille on a GBA screen? Whose idea was that seriously. :lol:ZumaJones07

1: True

2: True, but it's still too short, in my experience shorter than most other Pokemons, so they kind of failed at that....

3: True, but braille is cool, and exploration can be fun too. Dowsing machine is very usefull in most pokemon games, though in this game i rarely used it...

Additionally, you get into battle too much. Every 3 steps in the grass triggers another battle, imagine that in a forest lol....

It's a great game though, definately worth trying.

[QUOTE="ZumaJones07"]1) These Pokemon grew on me when I initially hated them all. Scraggly FTW! 2) Grinding comes with RPGs, though in this game it isn't very hard to level up. You should also realize they do not want you to just blaze through the game. 3) Level differences do not really matter too much early in the game imo. It's better to face higher level opponents because you earn more experience. The game also gives you the Dowsing Machine early so all those hidden items are less trouble to find. B/W is definitely more linear, but that was good for me because I hated Ruby/Sapphires "exploration." Remember having to read braille on a GBA screen? Whose idea was that seriously. :lol:DGonlag

1: True

2: True, but it's still too short, in my experience shorter than most other Pokemons, so they kind of failed at that....

3: True, but braille is cool, and exploration can be fun too. Dowsing machine is very usefull in most pokemon games, though in this game i rarely used it...

Additionally, you get into battle too much. Every 3 steps in the grass triggers another battle, imagine that in a forest lol....

It's a great game though, definately worth trying.

Pokemon B/W is MUCH better than freakin Diamond imo!

In terms of the Pokemon designs, you'll either like most of them or hate most of them. If you hate Bronzong, i'd hate to see what you'd think of Pokemon like Garbodor, Vanilluxe and Klinklang. As Pixel has stated above though, it's not like previous generations didn't have these "ridiculous" Pokemon designs. There are plenty of cool and awesome new Pokemon as well.

Like others have said, the game does have a story this time and is a bit more linear. The game runs MUCH quicker in battles and while surfing compared to Diamond. There is a new EXP system which makes training quicker and more efficient than in previous games. This actually encourages you to train a full balanced team rather than running through with just a single Pokemon. You also get a free Lucky Egg ingame to make training even faster.

HM's still exist but you don't actually need them to progress through the game. You need to use Cut once kind of as a tutorial but afterwards, HM's only lead you to optional and extra areas. Of course Fly and Surf are always useful to have but you don't need to carry an HM slave around anymore.

In terms of difficulty, the levels of the opponents are pretty balanced imo. I personally found some trainers to be a bit challenging (they weren't necessarily overleveled but were actually able to sweep some of my team) but the gyms and E4 aren't too overleveled and is easy if you use an effective Pokemon against them. In the post-game, the trainers skyrocket to lvl 65 while you're still in the 50s. BUT, some of these trainers only use pre-evolved forms and aren't that tough to beat. The wild Pokemon are also stronger but aren't that tough to grind on. Plus with the new EXP system, you catch up very quick because you're a bit underleveled at that point.

I know, but it's still too much. I don't think you should have too use a repel for every 5 steps of grass in which you have about 100% change triggering a battle.....

I know, but it's still too much. I don't think you should have too use a repel for every 5 steps of grass in which you have about 100% change triggering a battle.....

DGonlag

[QUOTE="DGonlag"]

I know, but it's still too much. I don't think you should have too use a repel for every 5 steps of grass in which you have about 100% change triggering a battle.....

soulreaper-4

Repel is one of the coolest things to come out of Pokemon. I think pretty much every RPG with random encounters needs an equivalent.

I loved this game, but heartgold is still better IMO.

No, it's worse than Diamond. Specially on the lame designs.Rod90

Says the biased guy who just hates the game based on the character designs. You haven't even PLAYED it yet! You have little say in the matter!

Anyway, Black and White, besides some of the lackluster looks of some of the Pokemon, is probably the greatest in the series. Even more so than Silver and Gold which is a very big achievement. I loved almost everything about the game. Plus, there are no HMs you need to use to progress through the main game and TMs are endless once you find or buy them. I gave White and Silver and Gold a 10 here but I think White outshines the previous ones by a bit. Black and White feel all new because all of the Pokemon in-game are new up until you beat the Elite 4 and then you see old faces. Trust me, overall you should enjoy it.

After playing Pearl up until like the fourth gym, I quit and swore I wouldn't play another game in the series until I became interested again. Never played Platinum. Almost on a whim, I got White just for the hell of it and it actually got me back into the series. So now after another generation comes out (after Gray makes its debut), I will have to get the following game too. :)

Good luck and don't be afraid. And to touch on what someone above said, yes the new gyms all have a gimmick but most of them are cool or at least tolerable.

[QUOTE="Rod90"]No, it's worse than Diamond. Specially on the lame designs.darksongbird

[QUOTE="Rod90"]No, it's worse than Diamond. Specially on the lame designs.darksongbird

I'm pretty sure he rented the game.

EDIT: Lol we posted at the same time. :lol:

[QUOTE="darksongbird"][QUOTE="Rod90"]No, it's worse than Diamond. Specially on the lame designs.Rod90