Shinnoh vs Unova

[Boss1708]

Which one is better gamewise?

To decide it, first choose the best game from each region, for example Platinum from Shinnoh and W2 from Unova. Compare them in these cathegories:
- Best region design

- Best Pokemon selection

- Best Story and Villain team

- Best mythology (legendary pokes)

- and the most important one: best maingame- lenght and postgame lenght (replayability)

 

[Bolt Strike]

A lot of these categories are very story oriented, which isn't very fair because Unova has the better story by far but sucks in just about everything else (although BW2 did improve it in a few areas) which kind of skews the results. Overall I have to give it to Sinnoh for having the better region design, more content, and overall not insulting my intelligence.

 

[Lysson]

That's quite tough, I do prefer Platinum over BW/B2W2 but storywise Unova wins by far.

- Best region design
Sinnoh because it has some pretty places and the region is more diverse, geographically speaking.

- Best Pokemon selection
Unova.

- Best Story
Unova...

- Best Villain team
Plasma under N - Unova

- Best mythology (legendary pokes)
Sinnoh, though I do really like Zekrom and Reshiram but the legends in Sinnoh are far better and do have a better story and legend.

- Best game- length and postgame
Tied with Platinum and B2/W2.

- Best sound track
Unova, but Sinnoh's is good.

Overall Sinnoh wins.

 

[~ Blazing White Yang]

- Region
Giving this to Unova. Linearity never bothered me, and I really liked how they handled things in BW2. HMs were at a bare minimum, and they did a good job of expanding the map for more sidetracks and dungeons along the main road. Meanwhile, I tend to dread going through Sinnoh's main game because of the heavier HM requirements and those few but obnoxious snow and fog sections...I can't say dislike Sinnoh's map design entirely, because the sidetracks and caves are great, but I ultimately had more fun with [BW2] Unova.

- Pokedex
Tie. Great sense of variety in both.

- Story
Unova. By a landslide. Characters were much more involved and well thought out, and the plot has more effort put into it in general.

- Best Villain team
Plasma. Basically for the same reason as above.

- Mythology
I do love the Tao Dragons, but I'm giving this one to Sinnoh. Its practically the mythology hub of the Pokemon world, between the folk tales and multitude of Legendary Pokemon. The scale is also pretty cool, bringing us back to the origins of the universe with Arceus...Sort of like Unova with its plot, I felt like they really put a-lot of work into the myths in Sinnoh.

- Length & Postgame
Unova. PWT, Black Tower, Battle Sub, Join Avenue, Film-Making, Medal Collection, the Entralink mini-games, and the Online Battles & Tournaments offered a tone of replay value together. (Heck, PWT by itself was...What, 40-50 something potential character battles with remastered teams for all of them?) Online in particular even lengthened my time with BW1, personally. Playing against living, thinking people in randoms as opposed to the AI was refreshing and very long-lasting.

Unova overall.

 

[jayrachi]

- Best region design
Tough one, Unova's design ended up being a bit more dull towards the end due to the circular shape of the routes/cities, but this also served to eliminate the need for many HMs. Meanwhile, Sinnoh has a much more interesting path you can take (with even a split in the road at one point), but also requires more HM moves to navigate. I'm going to have to go with Sinnoh, though. Its region is a lot more fun to explore in my experience, and it's nice to see the towns and routes interconnecting at points.

- Best Pokemon selection
Not a lot of divergence in the selection of Pokémon in either region. Most of the games in general have had a nice variety of Pokémon. Where I feel Diamond/Pearl and Black/White has sufficient choice, I find that both Platinum and Black 2/White 2 also have a much larger variety. Personally, I have to vote for Unova on this one if we're taking the sequels into account.

- Best Story
Unova was really the first story in a Pokémon game that I even cared about. It was an interesting debate and an issue that I could both relate to while also feeling disjointed from it enough that I was still having fun playing Pokémon. The plot twist ending kinda ruined the story overall, but alas, it was great while it lasted. I think the best thing about it was that the story was about a staple mechanic in the Pokémon franchise, which really made it relevant to the game.

- Best Villain team
This kind of just goes along with the above point.

- Best mythology (legendary pokes)
Sinnoh produced a lot more mythos explaining the creation of the Pokémon world and universe in general than Unova ever did. So, have to go with Sinnoh there.

- and the most important one: best game- lenght and postgame.
This is almost unfair, considering Platinum had an exponentially long post-game. Definitely have to say it gave me the most content out of every Pokémon game I've played, at around 500 hours.

 

[Osprey]

Ohh, my two favorite regions of all time! Tough calls. (I won't be taking sequels/third versions into account here. Why? Because I don't want to.)
Edit: now in spoiler tags, because I ended up taking up a lot of space with my rambling.

Spoiler

- Best region design: Sinnoh. I'm one of the rare few that were not pissed off by Unova's linear design, and I appreciated the general ease of travel (ie not needing two HM slaves to travel between two towns). However, Sinnoh, despite being an older game, had a very diverse region, with many routes being drastically different from the others in design, atmosphere, layout and even climate. Whenever I start thinking of replaying a Sinnoh game, one of the things that gets me excited for it is the anticipation of traveling through those areas again.

- Best Pokemon selection: Unova. Yes, so it's got Pokemon that are literal bags of trash, I get it. That does NOT mean everything else is equally as horrible as you think. Unlike many other core series games, the original Unova (BW, no fixes added by third versions, sequels or remakes) was full of Pokemon that had potential to become very good fighters, even very early on in the game. Seriously, Stoutland can be a powerhouse, and you can find its base form ON THE FIRST ROUTE OF THE GAME. Unova had enough good Pokemon out in the wild that I was able to not only stop using my starter as a crutch, but actually replace it with better fighters. Sinnoh... well, take a look at the distribution of the original DP. It did introduce some pretty awesome Pokemon though... just not enough.

- Best story: ... You know the answer. Aside from breaking the mold in many different ways (box mascots didn't end up in their respective colors, evil team operates rather differently, you defeat evil team's overlord rather than the champion at the end, you don't obtain legend until THE climax of story), Unova's story intrigued me because of how it reflected its source material: the polarizing system of American politics, the pragmatists and realists versus the idealists and dreamers. Truth and ideals, personified into dragons in a duel to decide the fate of Unova. The final lesson at the end- how both are needed to create a good world, and how two people with opposing views can part on good terms- was some deeper stuff I wasn't expecting in a Pokemon game.

Granted, in retrospect, Sinnoh's story is pretty cool too, especially with anything that has to do with Cyrus and his philosophies... however, it just didn't strike a cord with me as much as Unova did, and it took longer for me to realize the deeper meaning and appreciate it.

- Best villain team: Plasmaaaa! ... It's not just because of N, I'll have you know. While it was refreshing for an evil team to be "led" by a rather nice (if misguided) guy, Plasma beats Galactic because the guys who were running the show in there actually KNEW their shit about being the bad guys. In Galactic, the only one who really knew what was going on was Cyrus; his grunts are probably the dumbest in the entire franchise, with several of the stating that they "have no idea what's going on" or "don't know what the big plan is anyways." While Plasma's motivating mantra is a lie, at least the grunts know what goal they're trying to work towards. Some grunts even mention why Team Rocket and Galactic were stopped, and in turn took measures to not be thwarted the same way. It almost worked, too...

- Best mythos: Sinnoh. While Unova's dragons were thought-provoking, they were a bit too ambiguous on just WHAT they were representing. While it's understandable that abstract concepts like ideals and truth are hard to represent or elementally implement in a design, basing Pokemon on clearer concepts, such as space and time, is simply easier to do well. Sinnoh's two main legendary trios also are directly related to eachother (as they keep the universe in balance, embodying both the corporeal and the spiritual aspects), while the Mythical Pokemon all had in-game events that gave them some lore and a little more of an introduction than randomly receiving it from a wifi event *glares at Gen V and VI*. Moreover, Sinnoh also boasts mythos not explicitly related to the legendaries themselves in the form of some books found in the Canalave Library. A little extra lore about the Pokemon world that has nothing to do with the box mascots is always welcome.

- Game length: If this means "pacing," Unova all the way. Sinnoh has this problem: the story leading up to the climax is pretty good. A lot is at stake, as the bad guys want to essentially destroy the universe, and it ends with a climatic duel on the summit of the region's tallest mountain, ending with the capture of the space/time entity that had been summoned there. After that... not much happens. Unova avoids this pacing problem by placing the "obtain box legend, beat bad guys, save world" at the END of the story, so far back that you have to defeat the Elite four to get to them!

- Postgame: Sinnoh, because it introduces a mini-region up in the northeast that's drastically different from the rest of the region and fun to explore. Unova opens up a few towns, two bridges, obligatory hidden dungeon with third legend in it, and a mini-quest to round up the former higher-ups from Team Plasma. Meh.

I wasn't a big fan of either the Battle Tower or Subway. Neither of them win in that case.

So, Unova wins, by a margin of 4 to 3.

You forgot one really important element, however: MUSIC! ... Well, for me, it's a bit irrelevant, because I wouldn't be able to decide between the two anyways.

 

[Sakuraa]

I vote Sinnoh for all of the questions It's my 2nd favorite region compared to Unova which is my least favorite, so Sinnoh easily wins for me.

 

[Jammy2A]

Story-wise I was pleasantly surprised with Unova, it was very well developed and implemented throughout the game (even more so in B2W2, which actually made me like Gen V... it only took 2 years of convincing and 4 games...).

But Sinnoh is my all-time favourite: I love the gym leaders, especially Volkner I think his background story is the best, and I loved the E4 and Champion from Sinnoh. The region itself had my favourite designs, and areas, also I liked that we didnt go through it in a giant circle like in Kanto or Johto, there was a lot of back and forth, which I did appreciate.
Some of my favourite pokémon are Gen IV too, and the legendaries (though a little too .... numerous) are my favourite of the entire universe (perhaps only rivaled by Gen III in that respect). But other than Zekrom, I didn't like the Gen V legendaries at all...

I may be biased because I had quit playing the game after Gen III, back in 2004 and only got back into it seriously in 2010 with Diamond. And concurrently I started rewatching the anime, which then ended up coinciding with the DP series and the almighty Sinnoh-Ash (except for Tobias nuking him in the semis). So I also think that I associate both experiences from anime and game together a lot. And going in that direction ... well we all know what BW did to Ash so let's just not talk about unhappy things

Verdict: Sinnoh for the win!

 

[Pandora]

- Best region design
Though i really dont like montanious and cavernous areas, i think Sinnoh has more diversity. Unova is just another metropolitan region, like Kanto.

- Best Pokemon selection
Unova, of course. Much more diversity.

- Best Story
Unova.

- Best Villain team
Unova, i dont really care about Cyrus. The Unova villains characters, praticaly all of them get a development.

- Best mythology (legendary pokes)
Sinnoh.

and the most important one: best game- lenght and postgame.
Unova, though Sinnoh post game are good too.

A lot of these categories are very story oriented, which isn't very fair because Unova has the better story by far but sucks in just about everything else (although BW2 did improve it in a few areas) which kind of skews the results. Overall I have to give it to Sinnoh for having the better region design, more content, and overall not insulting my intelligence.

Just out of curiosity, in what sense do you think Unova insulted your intelligence?

 

[Bolt Strike]

Just out of curiosity, in what sense do you think Unova insulted your intelligence?

Linear region design, dumbed down trainer rosters, and constant tutorials and handholding.

 

[herb]

Best Region Design:
Sinnoh, this one was pretty close but in the end I just like the diversity of Sinnoh more.

Best Pokemon Selection:
Sinnoh, it has lesser Pokemon introduced but I still like about the same amount from both so percentage wise Sinnoh takes this as well

Best Story:
Unova, the story seemed more like one you'd find in a Ranger or PMD game than a generic one we usually find in main games.

Best Villain Team:
Unova, Plasma is my second favorite team after Team Rocket. They were unique and actually a ridiculously big threat unlike most other teams.

Best Mythology:
Sinnoh, hands down the best mythology any Pokemon game produced. Lore played a very big part in this gen.

Best Main game:
Unova, as I said above the story is more entertaining and involving. The pacing is also a lot better and it's overall a better experience than Sinnoh.

Best Replayablity:
Sinnoh, I feel like replaying through Sinnoh gave more different options than Unova did. The Post-game in the Sinnoh games is also a lot better than Unova's.

Overall: Sinnoh 4 - 3 Unova
It's pretty close between these two regions but Sinnoh slightly edges it out.

 

[Camille]

Sinnoh easily. It is very large and explorable and the Gym Leaders aren't complete pushovers. Unova is just too linear and boring, and I never liked the fact it has too many bridges (Village and Skyarrow ones are cool, but the rest...meh. Just meh).

 

[Esserise]

Unova, lol. The only thing I think I prefer about Sinnoh is the amount of backtracking available, but Unova’s not exactly a slouch in that department either, especially in the sequels. And at least Unova’s backtrackable areas aren’t mostly all just identical caves. And there’s no HM spam. You pretty much only need Surf and Strength to get around in Unova, and those are the good HMs anyway.

Pokémon selection: Sinnoh is pitiful

Story: Unova actually has one worth thinking about

Villain team: Team Plasma vs Bowlcut Space Age Team Flare that I like even less than the real Team Flare... yeah I’m going to say Plasma wins this one, in both their incarnations. Frankly, though, the music alone would have sealed it.

Mythology: Sinnoh’s is trite, ludicrously overblown crap that could have been legitimately interesting, but failed to at almost every opportunity. Unova’s is a well-developed series of myths and historical events that observe the relationship between people and Pokémon from a number of different angles, playing very much into the themes of the games.

Game Length: Ehh they’re about the same for me here, though I like going through Unovan main game more. The functions of the game move faster even though the overall narrative length isn’t much different, and the region is a lot nicer to look at, especially with seasons. Oh and it isn’t a giant knot that’s always trying to pull me in four different directions.

Postgame: White 2 holy bazonkers. I’d say the amount of content is ridiculous, but there is actually so much that it evolves to the next level and becomes irridiculous.

 

[IncineROAR]

It's hard for me to make a solid determination between which of the two regions I prefer.

Storywise: BW has a more developed and rounded storyline, but I think I prefer the story in DPPt. BW may have a more developed story, but the gym leaders in Unova are incredibly annoying.

Content wise: I think BW/B2W2 probably have the best game content out of all of the games. The postgame of these games set the bar so high I do not think GF will ever meet it again unless they seriously tried harder.

Pokemon: the selection is pitiful in DPPt, but Gen 4 Pokemon are some of my all time favorites. I like how BW's Pokedex was literally only Gen 5 Pokemon, but some of the designs were meh (Watchog anyone?)

Game length: I think BW/B2W2 took more time to play.

I like BW so much that I don't ever want to see it in 3D, to me the design of the game and character models feels too classic.

 

[Spinjira]

- Best region design
Sinnoh. The amount of variety and it just feels big. I've always thought Sinnoh was the region that would best benefit from an HD make over.

- Best Pokemon selection
It's close but I have to give it too Unova. I really love the gamble they took and while there are some low lows when it comes to pokemon design in this gen but man do they hit it out of the park with a lot of the pokemon. A lot of the strongest pokemon from Gen 4 are evolutions of preexisting pokemon.

- Best Story and Villain team
Unova by a mile.

- Best mythology
Sinnoh. They Mythos behind the main 4 legendaries is just more interesting than anything Unova had to offer. I have difficulty remembering what any of the Unova box legends or trios had in relation to the story or what exactly their purpose was. Some of the legends in Sinnoh get lost in the shuffle but I remember so much more about them.


best maingame- lenght and postgame length
I've replayed Gen 4 several times. Not so much black and white.

3-2 Sinnoh.

 

[Matleo]

Both regions have equal points by me,

Best Pokemon selection makes it a little win for Shinnoh for all dual typed starters.
Unovas amount and diffrent kinds of pokemon are better and the use of old and new dual typings, but ability wise Sinnoh was a little more original in introducing new abilities.
Hydreigon was a bringer in 5 generation.
But Unova makes it good with new moves in some sort(could have had better effects; starter signature moves)

Story when comes to lenght and unpredictability goes to Unova.

 

[Envoy]

Sinnoh, easily and by far. Unova is, quite frankly, the worst Generation of Pokémon games I’ve ever played. And I’ve played them all.

Region design: Sinnoh, easily. Both are pretty diverse in terms of environments, but Sinnoh’s diversity doesn’t feel shoehorned in like Unova does. Unova’s linearity doesn’t help either.

Pokemon Selection: both are trash, tbh. Sinnoh and Unova are competing for the worst roster of new mons in series history in my eyes. I guess Sinnoh barely edges out a win because I like more of its Pokémon (Torterra, Empoleon, Roserade, Luxray, Staraptor, Abomasnow, Leafeon/Glaceon) than Unova (Serperior, Volcarona, Ferrothorn, Hydreigon and...that’s it.)

Story: I'm in the minority and I'm going to say Platinum. In fact, BW's story is the main thing that makes me despise the games so much. That story was utter garbage. I get it. It had good ideas, but they were perhaps too big for the writers' abilities. The execution was absolutely atrocious. And the localization? That dialogue had me in actual physical pain. Platinum's story is perhaps the best told story in the series.

Evil Team: They're both terrible, tbh. Honestly, I don't think we have had a single good evil team in the series since Cipher back in Colosseum. I guess the Aether Foundation comes close (funny how it seems to have taken some cues from Cipher) but even that isn't as good. Aqua/Magma in the remakes were at least bearable. I'll go with Plasma under Ghetsis for lack of a better answer.

Mythology: Again, both of them kinda really suck. To this day, no mythology has, in my opinion, come anywhere close to reaching the Johto lore, which is imo the zenith of the Pokemon world so far. Kalos is pretty good too, I guess. My issue with Pokemon games starting with RSE is that they shove the mythology down your throat, which make it feel less mythical. At any rate, Sinnoh and Unova in particular also had an annoying surplus of legendaries and mythicals, which was extra grating. I'll go with Unova here because at least the legendaries weren't quite as obnoxious. And in terms of design, Reshiram/Zekrom > Palkia/Dialga. Though Giratina > everyone.

Adventure: I enjoy all the Pokemon games' adventures, as they let me explore a cool region wholly different from the last. Idk. I'm not sure how to judge this category. I guess, in terms of pacing, BW(2) = Pt > DP, but the rest of the main game is just a collection of the points I've covered before. The story is far better in Pt, the region is less linear and more interesting in Pt, the Pokemon are slightly better in Pt, and the evil teams all suck (though BW2 was slightly better.) So...Idk, Platinum seems to be the clear winner here.

 

[Almonds]

- Best region design
Sinnoh(Pt) Sinnoh has a variety of landscapes. Unova is diverse, but not as diverse as Sinnoh.
- Best Pokemon selection
Sinnoh.(Pt) Gen4 brought a lot of my favorites
- Best Story and Villain team
Unova(BW) Everything about N was awesome
- Best mythology (legendary pokes)
Unova(BW). The mythology of Unova's legendary dragons heavily ties into the Team Plasma arc.
- and the most important one: best maingame- lenght and postgame lenght (replayability)
Unova(B2W2). I could go on and on about all the sidequests and postgame stuff in B2W2.

Overall Unova.

 

[Harryghost]

- Best region design
While like both the regions very much, I guess I'll give it to Sinnoh.

- Best Pokemon selection
Unova, for obvious reasons.

- Best Story and Villain team
Team Plasma. N's story is pretty engaging.

- Best mythology (legendary pokes)
Sinnoh, hands down. Its mythology beats none! Unova's is cool too, but I never found it as engaging.

- Best maingame- lenght and postgame lenght (replayability)
Unova, if we are talking BW2. I did not play BW, so I can't say much about that... .

So, yeah, Unova.

 

[Guzma]

Best region design
I'll give this to Unova, largely because it's set up to minimize the use of HMs. HMs suck.

Best Pokemon Selection
Sinnoh has a truckload of designs I find lacking or outright hideous, particularly among the new evolutons; while Yanmega, Weavile, Gliscor and Gallade were excellent, Lickilicky and Ambipom are downright terrible. Unova has a lot of designs I genuinely adore, and was really good to my favorite type. Unova wins this one.

Best story and villain team
Unova. No questions. Cyrus and Team Galactic were the first legitimately good villains in the series, but *hoo boy* did Team Plasma blow them out of the water by being the first great villains in the series.

Best mythology
Sinnoh wins this one, largely due to how even the event Pokemon had a role in the lore... Although I have issues with Sinnoh introducing more Legendaries than any other generation.

Best maingame and postgame
Unova, because of B2W2.