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What did you think of Pokémon Black and White's plot? Was it good? Was it bad?

What do you think of Pokémon Black and White's plot?


  • Total voters
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@coolcatkim22 When it comes to explosions, there was also the start of Pokémon Colosseum where Wes/the protagonist blows up Team Snagem's base and steals the Snag Machine, does a creepy smile and goes off on his motorcycle with his Espeon and Umbreon, but that has nothing to do with the topic, so I'll stop talking about it.
@Mumzy Hmmmm, Grovyle might qualify as well, but then again, he didn't try to deny anything said about him being evil, in those cutscenes where you see him steal a Time Gear he acts pretty damn evil I guess, and he actually acted in a somewhat villainous way, unlike N, who was sort of...I'm not sure if clueless is the right word to use, but you get the point.
I guess the difference is Grovyle's motives were misunderstood by everyone else, N was just misguided in his actions.
...
Can someone tell me whether any of that I just said made sense?
 
@Shadow Victini True, I hadn't thought of that. Though, I was thinking of in the main games but that is a good point.

Also what you said about Grovyle and N made sense. In any case, I find N to be a pretty weak "Misguided Villain" and most Grunts seem to fall into that catergory. The only difference is that N is more powerful and smarter then Grunts.
 
@coolcatkim22 Derr derr I keep forgetting Colosseum is not a main-series game. XD
I think the main difference between Grovyle and N is that Grovyle knew how he was acting and what he was doing and how it was looked upon, while N didn't as much. So in short, Grovyle was misunderstood, N was more misguided. Of course, if Grovyle knew that the player character was his partner, it porbably would have been a different story there, but that's off-topic once again.
/I've made my point. XD
 
- How did he, and why did he, trick N? N is suppose to be a genius, why couldn't he see that he was being fooled? What was the point of tricking him in the first place? Couldn't they have accomplished their goals without him?

The way the dragons were supposed to represent pure ideals/truth, it makes sense that they might require a person with pure thoughts towards them. The only way to really ensure that would be to raise the person by hand to make sure they were of a pure heart and therefore able to awaken the dragon. At least, that's how I see it. It had the unfortunate side effect for Ghetsis of giving N a sense of honor that ended up getting him defeated though.

The only real mention of his genius is in the blog that revealed his name, and they basically say that he's emotional and good with math and a high IQ. None of those things imply that he's smart socially, and if he was raised from a young child to believe that this is the only way possible to be, then he wouldn't fight back. You're thinking of this from your own point of view of being steeped since birth in social norms, which he was not. I guess it comes down to if you believe thing such as teenage rebelliousness are inherent in your DNA, or if it's something that happens when you grow up in the social construct we live in. It's not unrealistic to argue the latter, which is what the game seems to believe, so just because you seem to believe the former doesn't mean that the plot has less thought because they don't subscribe to your idea of nature vs. nurture.

- I'm not even going to get into how I'm just going to ask why. Why did they need to build a castle under the Pokemon League? What purpose did that serve?

Agreed, that made a cool-looking cutscene but made no sense plot-wise, haha. How did they even build that without the Elite Four noticing?!

I wasn't saying you thought N was raised to think people are evil. I was more saying that from the evidence in the game, N seems to think all humans are evil (until he meets you of course). Then again, that's probably just my interpretation. It doesn't actually say he believes that out right so sorry about that.
I still have a hard time believing that he was being manipulated by Ghetsis. I can not see any way that Ghetsis could raise N to a point where he'd trust him like this. This is the guy who's constantly acting like bad guy. He can barely pull off looking like a good guy in front normal people; how's he suppose to have done that for all those years in front of N? And if he didn't visit often that makes even more reason to distrust him. Would you trust a guy you hardly ever saw? Besides that, it never seems like they have a close bond. N never calls him father and when he does mention him he talks as if he's a business associate not someone he cares about. The only way this would sort of make sense is if Ghetsis had tricked N into thinking that he came up with the plan himself and then later Ghetsis would volunteer to help him. But that's thrown out the window as it was stated that it was Ghetsis's plan not N's.

My guess is it went more like this:

1. Ghetsis arrives every once in a while, gives N a wounded Pokemon, says it was wounded from careless humans that don't care about Pokemon.
2. Concordia and Anthea take care of him otherwise.
3. When he reaches the age he's at now, after years and years of hearing how terrible people are to Pokemon, Ghetsis reveals the plan of liberating Pokemon from people. Since N has spent his entire life nursing Pokemon back to health, he's 100% on board with the idea so he can help even more innocent Pokemon.
4. Throughout the entire plot Ghetsis feeds N lies to make him continue to believe, although he gets shaken once he gets into the real world.

You don't understand human psychology, it seems from the "I just don't understand why N trusts him" arguments. Children trust parents that are much worse to them than just "not showing up often"; children often trust parents that beat them, even when they're in society where they know it's wrong. Children trust pretty much any adult for the most part, and N had no reason not to trust him or to even come up with the idea that Ghetsis was lying. Where would he have come up with the concept of a lie, if he spent his entire life in the castle and no one explained it to him? Why would they?

Yes, if they had taken N at 8-10 instead of from a baby, then they probably would have had more trouble. But if that's all he knows, then it's not farfetched to assume that he takes this as truth because he was never taught the idea of a lie, or the idea that you should only trust people that are around often, or what "sinister" is compared to friendly, except what he knows from the 3 people he knew. In other animals, a smile is a sign of aggression, but in humans it's a sign of kindness. This in itself shows that our very basic human emotions are shaped from our social constructs since birth. If you separate a baby from all society, then you have free rein to craft him to what you want.

Also, people keep saying how this is suppose to be the darkest of the main games but this seems very childish. If they did blew up the Pokemon League that would be dark, making a castle under it is just silly.

I don't think the darkness they refer to is in gore or actions of the characters, but in the depth of the story and the relative ambiguity of the villains up until the end, not knowing if they were good or bad because their arguments seem to make sense.

Out of curiosity, I know that you feel that B/W's plot is not up to par in general, but do you feel that it measures up to other main Pokemon games specifically?
 
Honestly, I thought the plot was very convoluted. The idea that Pokémon battles are merely cockfights had existed from the beginning of the franchise and GameFreak only addresses that issue now? We were doing this for years and now someone comes in randomly and says "this is abuse, free all the Pokémon"? Not to mention Team Plasma is even contradicting themselves when they're using 'mons to battle us. Seriously.

While the concept of N is pretty original, I honestly couldn't care much for him because as the villain, he didn't really do anything impressive. For one, he is pretty socially awkward and two, he keeps using weak 'mons in almost all of his battles prior to obtaining a dragon that you think how could this guy be the "king of Team Plasma" or supposedly the main villain for the game (of course he wasn't but you were led to believe that for pretty much the whole game).

And the worst part? Ghetsis's master plan! What a brilliant idea to make everyone liberate their 'mons so he would be the only one with Pokémon! 'Cause it's not like people can't just recapture them again... He was a good villain in the sense of manipulating N all his life and being a cold heartless, arrogant jerk and all but his master plan just honestly sucked.

Oh yeah, and woo random castle underground. -_-
 
The way the dragons were supposed to represent pure ideals/truth, it makes sense that they might require a person with pure thoughts towards them. The only way to really ensure that would be to raise the person by hand to make sure they were of a pure heart and therefore able to awaken the dragon. At least, that's how I see it. It had the unfortunate side effect for Ghetsis of giving N a sense of honor that ended up getting him defeated though.
Okay, how did Ghetsis know that would work though? I know this isn't the first time a villain has used a myth to accomplish their goals but for a series that started out with villains laughing in the face of the mystical Pokemon world or outright ignoring it, there seems to have been this huge shift towards insane, superstitious villains that just so happen to be right about their suspensions.

The only real mention of his genius is in the blog that revealed his name, and they basically say that he's emotional and good with math and a high IQ. None of those things imply that he's smart socially, and if he was raised from a young child to believe that this is the only way possible to be, then he wouldn't fight back. You're thinking of this from your own point of view of being steeped since birth in social norms, which he was not. I guess it comes down to if you believe thing such as teenage rebelliousness are inherent in your DNA, or if it's something that happens when you grow up in the social construct we live in. It's not unrealistic to argue the latter, which is what the game seems to believe, so just because you seem to believe the former doesn't mean that the plot has less thought because they don't subscribe to your idea of nature vs. nurture.
True, it was only stated in a blog that he was all those things but a lot people take that stuff seriously. In fact, I constantly find people using this kind of info as fact. So, I'm also going to consider this stuff as true until I see more people taking it with a grain of salt.
You know, I've heard research being done in the brain chemistry of a growing pre-adult. It seems that when reaching teen years the brain goes through a number of changes due the brain growing into that of an adults. This change can cause judgement for an individual to be greatly altered (and possibly temporarily impaired). Sure, there are cases of teenagers not rebelling but there are exceptions to every rule.
Now, if are to convince me that N isn't affected by this you'd have prove to me that he does not make rash judgements, that he can make well thought out plans and that he doesn't have reckless emotions.

Agreed, that made a cool-looking cutscene but made no sense plot-wise, haha. How did they even build that without the Elite Four noticing?!
Yeah, that's bug me from the beginning. The elite the four don't notice that at all? In any case, it's just their, as you said, to make a cool cut-scene.

My guess is it went more like this:

1. Ghetsis arrives every once in a while, gives N a wounded Pokemon, says it was wounded from careless humans that don't care about Pokemon.
2. Concordia and Anthea take care of him otherwise.
3. When he reaches the age he's at now, after years and years of hearing how terrible people are to Pokemon, Ghetsis reveals the plan of liberating Pokemon from people. Since N has spent his entire life nursing Pokemon back to health, he's 100% on board with the idea so he can help even more innocent Pokemon.
4. Throughout the entire plot Ghetsis feeds N lies to make him continue to believe, although he gets shaken once he gets into the real world.
What you're suggesting make me wonder. How did this "giving N mistreated Pokemon" plan work exactly? Where did Ghetsis get these Pokemon from? Did he take them from a Pokemon Rescue Center or something? Did he get people to abuse Pokemon for him? What happened to those Pokemon? Were they released into the wild once they were healed or were they forced to be confinde in the room with N? Of course, this all asks many more questions but I won't get into it
Who are Concordia and Anthea? Why are they helping Ghetsis? It would be okay if they were just henchman but they seem to truly care about N, yet they still trick him or are they unaware of the plan?
N didn't find it strange that a man who took him away from the only home he's ever known (i.e. the wild), only let him play with wounded Pokemon, wants him, a kid who's lived nearly his entire life in a bubble, to go out into the world and help him release a Pokemon that could only be released by a person who has the ideals he has which he only has because of said person... Honestly, doesn't any of this sound weird to you?

You don't understand human psychology, it seems from the "I just don't understand why N trusts him" arguments. Children trust parents that are much worse to them than just "not showing up often"; children often trust parents that beat them, even when they're in society where they know it's wrong. Children trust pretty much any adult for the most part, and N had no reason not to trust him or to even come up with the idea that Ghetsis was lying. Where would he have come up with the concept of a lie, if he spent his entire life in the castle and no one explained it to him? Why would they?

Yes, if they had taken N at 8-10 instead of from a baby, then they probably would have had more trouble. But if that's all he knows, then it's not farfetched to assume that he takes this as truth because he was never taught the idea of a lie, or the idea that you should only trust people that are around often, or what "sinister" is compared to friendly, except what he knows from the 3 people he knew. In other animals, a smile is a sign of aggression, but in humans it's a sign of kindness. This in itself shows that our very basic human emotions are shaped from our social constructs since birth. If you separate a baby from all society, then you have free rein to craft him to what you want.
N doesn't seem to care about Ghetsis. He shows absolutely no caring for him. The question is though: Does he trust Ghetsis? I don't know but he clearly doesn't trust humans and that's what bugs me. He doesn't trust humans, but yet he would trust Ghetsis? Not only would he need to trust Ghetsis he would also need to trust him so much that he doesn't even bother looking into what Team Plasma is doing. Did Ghetsis also convince him that he was so trust worthy that he should just leave everything that Team Plasma did up to him, even though N is the king and should be monitoring this stuff?
To quote an overly quoted line "It just raises too many questions."

I don't think the darkness they refer to is in gore or actions of the characters, but in the depth of the story and the relative ambiguity of the villains up until the end, not knowing if they were good or bad because their arguments seem to make sense.
I'm not saying they should have gore. They could evacuate the Pokemon League before destroying it. It's destruction would be dramatic enough on it's own.
The whole premise of this being dark is lost because it's not asking any real questions. It's like The Dark Knight, it's sounds like it's being dark but it's so unlike how people talk that it sounds fictitious and loses any, tension. If that makes any sense.

Out of curiosity, I know that you feel that B/W's plot is not up to par in general, but do you feel that it measures up to other main Pokemon games specifically?
That's an interesting question. I'd have to say, worst by far. Why? Because the people who wrote this don't understand the Pokemon world, the established history or, anything about Pokemon what so ever!
 
N learned that humans are evil. Ghetsis is a human. N trusts Ghetsis. I think there is a flaw somewhere there. Although, you could say there are exceptions to this rule with N, he could just think most people are evil, not all. However, his actions seem to say that he feels that no human deserves to be with Pokemon. Now, it wasn't ever stated that he was only book smart. Sure, he's good at math but he's suppose to also be smarter then most humans, he should have seen through it. And sure, Ghetsis raised him but are you telling me Nature Boy never rebelled against him, especially with his dislike of humans? Also, you totally ignored my question of why.
And what work did N do? Okay, he woke the dragon up ,that's great, but how did Ghetsis even know he could do that? What would G-C-sharp do if N couldn't wake the dragon? I guess he could always use Genesect. Oh wait, he can't, because the guy he's using to take over the world told the organization that he doesn't have any actual control over that they couldn't. I mean, I know Genesect is not as powerful as the dragons, and he could always start up the project again in secret but that still doesn't make any sense for him to stop the project. A ledgey is still a ledgey, he could have still used Genesect for his plans. And even with N's protest he could still continue it without his knowledge. But no, he didn't, for some reason he didn't.
The way N interacts with the player character, I felt, clearly showed that he believed there to be some good people in the world. Even Concordia/Anthea (whichever one did the N backstory thing) mentioned that.

You have to understand that brainwashing is simply that: Ghetsis brainwashed N into obeying him, even if he himself was teaching "hypocritical" values ("all humans are bad, but I'm good!").

As for Ghetsis knowing that N was "chosen," like I said in my previous post, Pokemon has always been more deep than it let on. The Mewtwo mystery, what really was in the GS Ball, pretty much all the sugar-coated nightmare fuel in gen 4...sure, some of these things are cleared up in the anime, but if you look at the games, they're handled in very different ways and are left, for the most part, a mystery. Just looking at Ghetsis, with his black right arm, scary cover over his right eye, and "hacked" Hydreigon, and his ninja slaves, it's safe to assume that he's got powers of some sort allowing him to find out what he needs to know. The Sages hinted at it post-game, too. Ghetsis has his ways, and just like Pokemon games before this, they're left secret for the player to think up themselves (or possibly be revealed in the future).
I'm going to try to type this but I'm going to laugh the entire time. So, he wanted to take out the Pokemon League so he thought the best way to that, the easiest way to do that, the least expensive, the smartest, and the fastest, was to make a giant castle underneath it. I ask you, were bombs out of the question. Was blowing up the league just seem like too silly of an idea? I think, blowing it up would have been a little been more effective at establishing his authority then building a castle underneath it.
There is no government system in Pokemon (main series at least). The idea that was stated in-game was that if N were to defeat the Champion and take his place, he would be (obviously) the best trainer in Unova, and be held in the highest regard. People who are held in higher regard are more likely to be listened to when they make a statement (like the "celebrity bandwagon" technique: if some random guy says "buy these shoes," it won't be as effective as when Shaquille O'Neal says "buy these shoes").

So why the castle?

Well, what do castles represent? Power. Authority. Besides the fact that Team Plasma needed a place to make their preparations (the castle), once N took over the Pokemon league, he could change it from just the league to his own castle. Nothing screams power better than "I beat you up, took your land, and made the biggest castle ever on it." It's a basic technique straight from the history books. Castles provide defense while also stating power. The more power, the more likely people are to listen to N when he makes his "release your Pokemon statement."

How did this "giving N mistreated Pokemon" plan work exactly? Where did Ghetsis get these Pokemon from? Did he take them from a Pokemon Rescue Center or something? Did he get people to abuse Pokemon for him? What happened to those Pokemon? Were they released into the wild once they were healed or were they forced to be confinde in the room with N? Of course, this all asks many more questions but I won't get into it
Who are Concordia and Anthea? Why are they helping Ghetsis? It would be okay if they were just henchman but they seem to truly care about N, yet they still trick him or are they unaware of the plan?
N didn't find it strange that a man who took him away from the only home he's ever known (i.e. the wild), only let him play with wounded Pokemon, wants him, a kid who's lived nearly his entire life in a bubble, to go out into the world and help him release a Pokemon that could only be released by a person who has the ideals he has which he only has because of said person... Honestly, doesn't any of this sound weird to you?
Again, it's brainwashing. We don't know where the Pokemon came from. Do we NEED to? Maybe he found those abused Pokemon. Maybe he himself abused them. He brainwashed N, he's a heartless monster, willing to go to any ends to reach his goals. Maybe keeping that part, where Ghetsis got the Pokemon from, a secret is there purposefully. Not every majorly successful piece of literature has everything laid out clear-as-day---ambiguity can work wonders, and I think in this case it does, too. Ghetsis could be even more sinister than we imagine based on what we think he's done.

Same with Concordia and Anthea. It's a mystery. Honestly, Black and White seems to me just setting up for another game that will solve these mysteries, but for the time being we can only add that to the list of unknown things about Team Plasma. Who knows what happened to Concordia and Anthea? Maybe they were kidnapped like N was. The ambiguity that Game Freak included in BW makes Team Plasma all the more sinister when you stop to think about it.

And why doesn't N find this strange? Well he does, in a way. He does question Ghetsis at the end. You have to understand that humans, as a species and as individuals, are so complex, and so many things can alter someone's "common sense." N was brainwashed, that much is certain. Have you read 1984? Brave New World? Those are perfect examples of what brainwashing can do to someone. N's reactions to Ghetsis and the world around him make much more sense when you consider the almost deadly result of real brainwashing.





This is another one of the things I love about Black and White: the plot can almost be likened to literature in a simplistic sense. I once did a heavy analysis on the version differences, and you wouldn't believe how many metaphors, parallelisms, and allegories I found...and once you get into the plot itself...well, it's really quite wonderful, once you look at it the right way.
 
I'll just say this: It wasn't a perfect plot.

But the lone fact they tried somewhat of an original idea with a certain amount of maturity we've never seen before in Pokémon games makes me hopeful about upcoming plots of future Pokémon games. It was good, in my opinion, not perfect but a step in right direction for sure. :]
 
Not gonna lie, prolly my favorite game in the series. The villain, N, was really engaging, and made you realize that he was just a really messed up, misguided kid. I think starting with gen III it has been sort of interesting to see that the villains are really just good people who got caught up in a bad idea. I think the current gen captured this the best though. Overall, N is probably one of the most interesting characters in a pokemon game to date. I also saw character development in both your rivals, similar to Silver's in gen II.

The game genuinely surprised me at the twists found toward the end of the game....it broke away from the usual formatt, which I liked. This game was the first one that felt like a "true" RPG in the main series to me, so good job. I hope for more in the future.
 
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Pokémon still has work to do plot-wise. The main problems I felt with the game is the characters. I felt N was a very shallow character and very boring to say the least. I really don't see why people are fascinated by him, I just feel he is a big crybaby. The fact that he was manipulated didn't really make it a lot more intriguing for my part, and I just felt that the goals, while rather different from before, wasn't exactly anything to base the story around, at least with the current pokémon-trainer interaction. I mean, it's pretty hard to get your pokémon to hate you, and even then, it doesn't change anything. If they really wanted to target the relation between pokémon and humans, they should have at least thought about that, but now it just feels .. forced. Also, to say it's a lot darker is something I disagree with, there's plenty of dark themes when it comes to Team Rocket for instance, but people downplay these, and the big focus on friendship with pokémon certainly overshadowed these quite a bit if you ask me. It's all friendship this and love that (not that there's too much wrong with that, but I'd like some more conflict)

The game is a bit too linear (moreso than pretty much every other games, at least in regard to gyms. The only thing comparable is RSE), and I really think you should have the option to do things differently. FireRed and LeafGreen were probably the best in this regard, and I wouldn't mind having more like that in the series (or more, but I'm not getting my hopes up either).

Also, the entire N's castle thing with pokémon league was seriously WTF and a big let-down. It's like running through the Collector base in ME2, and finding a human Reaper. Just ... why? I seriously can't fathom why they decided to take that route, but whatever. The game should also play more on Unova mythology, they could do more with the Muskedeers, or at least make them a bit more interesting, considering they could flesh out the plot with some background history to add some context. I certainly wouldn't mind that. The same could be said for pretty much every game that focuses on the legendaries (I wouldn't necessarily like a FrLG that focused too much on it, but they could do more about Mewtwo. The birds, however, is best as they are. I'm afraid the boat has sailed on Mewtwo though).

Also, the post-game was horrible. They should have made some sort of loose story, and the "track down the sages" was terrible.


I am perhaps being too hard against pokémon here, but I really don't think it's too much to ask for an actual good plot. It makes everything so much better. I think my main problem is with the characters, I can name several RPGs with great characters that really contribute to the story and game (KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age (Origins), The Witcher to name a few.).
However, it's not like BW's plot were worse than, say, RS' plot. Compared to other pokémon-games, it was okay. But that doesn't mean we should accept a worse story than what could have been just because it's pokémon.
 
*sigh* I don't know if I want to keep debating. I've already written more then a dozen paragraphs and I had to already write two responses to the same paragraph.
Also, I'm getting very concerned that the only reason people are defending this plot so much is because of Nature Boy and the notion that this is "mature" subject matter. Now, I knew this was possible seeing as N is the 'A' typical "fan girl bait" and a darker, less subtler story is... I guess I could describe as bait for people who want to be "mature".
It's perfectly possible that I'm wrong but, with the way people are describing N and the way people are describing the plot... It doesn't look very promising.
 
Pokémon still has work to do plot-wise. The main problems I felt with the game is the characters. I felt N was a very shallow character and very boring to say the least. I really don't see why people are fascinated by him, I just feel he is a big crybaby. The fact that he was manipulated didn't really make it a lot more intriguing for my part, and I just felt that the goals, while rather different from before, wasn't exactly anything to base the story around, at least with the current pokémon-trainer interaction. I mean, it's pretty hard to get your pokémon to hate you, and even then, it doesn't change anything. If they really wanted to target the relation between pokémon and humans, they should have at least thought about that, but now it just feels .. forced. Also, to say it's a lot darker is something I disagree with, there's plenty of dark themes when it comes to Team Rocket for instance, but people downplay these, and the big focus on friendship with pokémon certainly overshadowed these quite a bit if you ask me. It's all friendship this and love that (not that there's too much wrong with that, but I'd like some more conflict)

I see a bit of nostalgia filter on that Team Rocket part.

The game is a bit too linear (moreso than pretty much every other games, at least in regard to gyms. The only thing comparable is RSE), and I really think you should have the option to do things differently. FireRed and LeafGreen were probably the best in this regard, and I wouldn't mind having more like that in the series (or more, but I'm not getting my hopes up either).

It was linear because kids had trouble getting to Snowpoint City in the D/P/Pt, and I really can't blame them because I needed a strategy guide to get past that part of Mt. Coronet.

Also, the entire N's castle thing with pokémon league was seriously WTF and a big let-down. It's like running through the Collector base in ME2, and finding a human Reaper. Just ... why? I seriously can't fathom why they decided to take that route, but whatever. The game should also play more on Unova mythology, they could do more with the Muskedeers, or at least make them a bit more interesting, considering they could flesh out the plot with some background history to add some context. I certainly wouldn't mind that. The same could be said for pretty much every game that focuses on the legendaries (I wouldn't necessarily like a FrLG that focused too much on it, but they could do more about Mewtwo. The birds, however, is best as they are. I'm afraid the boat has sailed on Mewtwo though).

So you do miss the strict formula they had going in the past 4 generations.

Also, the post-game was horrible. They should have made some sort of loose story, and the "track down the sages" was terrible.

Gen 1 and Gen 2's post games were worse. At least there were some place worth visiting for battles.

I am perhaps being too hard against pokémon here, but I really don't think it's too much to ask for an actual good plot. It makes everything so much better. I think my main problem is with the characters, I can name several RPGs with great characters that really contribute to the story and game (KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age (Origins), The Witcher to name a few.).
However, it's not like BW's plot were worse than, say, RS' plot. Compared to other pokémon-games, it was okay. But that doesn't mean we should accept a worse story than what could have been just because it's pokémon.

You know, those are Western RPGs, and JRPGS are suppose to be a whole different medium. It's also a Nintendo game, which never have deep story telling to begin with.
 
It was quite good, it could possibly have been better, but it was by far the best plot of any Pokémon game.
 
I see a bit of nostalgia filter on that Team Rocket part.

It was just as dark. They had pretty clear goals, and were killing and stealing pokémon, remember? That plot wasn't really better, but BW's plot came across me as basically friendship and bunnies. To say it was "dark" is a joke. So Ghetsis manipulated the kid. I don't care about N, why does this matter to me? N is as boring as characters get, I get no real relation to him. If I don't care about him, why should I care about the plot?

It was linear because kids had trouble getting to Snowpoint City in the D/P/Pt, and I really can't blame them because I needed a strategy guide to get past that part of Mt. Coronet.

Now I have my views on difficulty in pokémon games, but I don't really think not being able to use a map you're given at the start of the game as an excuse. A game should take some exploring (even if that means ending up in a dead end sometimes), and Mt Coronet had actually a size that was understandable, and I liked it. A linear region is boring, because it makes the plot even more linear. Forcing you down one path hinders creativity and limits options. At least doing gyms in variable orders gave me the illusion of choice.

Gen 1 and Gen 2's post games were worse. At least there were some place worth visiting for battles.

Gen II had actually something to do. Some purpose. That's way more than BW had, and tracking down the sages in a region that you've almost fully explored is not exactly amazing. I'd take gen II's (and HGSS, possibly FrLg/Plat) end game. I dare say they can't really be compared, because you get an actual purpose, instead of just something vague. There were places to visit for battles, how about the Kanto gyms? While they were too low-leveled (then again, pretty much the entire game was that, so it's not really an issue with Kanto in general), compared to some routes and the domes? The subway (I think it's unfair to compare a feature in gen V to something that hadn't been introduced in gen II, at least in it's current state) is one thing, but I for one would give up that easily for something to do, but that's my take. Some people like it better. I don't see why we couldn't settle with both.

Gen I sucked (because there were none), I can agree on that, but they did somewhat fix that in FrLg with the Sevii.

You know, those are Western RPGs, and JRPGS are suppose to be a whole different medium. It's also a Nintendo game, which never have deep story telling to begin with.

So you're using that as an excuse to settle with a poor plot? Really?



But again, a castle out of the fucking ground. I mean, even Magma/Aqua's plans makes more sense than that. No amount of pokémon logic can make that credible. That ruined a lot. I'd be much happier of they just had a standard "base", while uncreative, at least credible. And I would take that over something that I say don't fit into the pokémon universe.
 
I found it very average. There were no moments that truly sent shivers down my spine in the way some other games have, but there were no horrible moments either. I guess I felt like the game held your hand throughout, and never really let you branch out and do what you wanted.
 
Ghetsis' plan had 0% chance of succeeding. Once N became the champion, did he seriously believe that people would obey and release their pokemon? Sure some of them might but I doubt even 10% of the population would have done so. Lets assume that every person in Unova was in awe of N catching the legendary and did release their pokemon. At that point, Ghetsis will take over. How long before the other regoions react to this. Even if the people from Unova released their pokemon, would trainers from other regios do so too? Absolutely not.

With the other teams their plots had reasonable chances of succeeding, even if the plots could be considered as stupid. Team Rocket's goal was taking over the world and they pretty much owned Kanto so they were already successful. Team Aqua and Magma could have expanded the land/sea even if they never realized the disastrous consequences. Cyrus almost had his goal too. These guys were only stopped because of the player. After playing BW and seeing what Ghetsis'plan was, all that I could think of was that I had wasted my time. The player could have spent the rest of their life in their home and TP's plans would have eventually fallen flat. This is not the case with the other teams. They would have succeeded and would remained in control without the player.

Game Freak have been hammering the 'Pokemon are our friends' message into us for 4 generations and suddenly, they make it the main plot. If the previous games had been about using Pokemon as tools and encouraging us to do so with and then BW came in and made us question are acyions in the previous games, it would have been very effective. But here, it just falls flat on its face since the previous games preached the same message,

In HGSS, Pokemon would follow you. Never before did I become this attached to my Pokemon. Those games perfectly represent the friendship aspect of pokemon. Coming off HGSS and going into BW where we are meant to question our actions, it fails miserably.

The plot itself isn't horrible for the most part byt when coupled with the previous games, it fails at doing what it was exoected to, that being making us ask ourselves, "Is catching Pokemon ethical? Do Pokemon like being with Humans?" As HGSS and others perfectly shows us, yes, they do enjoy being with humans making BW preaching attempt fail.
 
It was a good step, but there is something that really bugs me... that in the end they made the plot too black and white. I really, really wished that Team Plasma wouldn't be cartoonishly evil, that they genuinely thought that they were doing something good, and that they wouldn't end up being just another Team Rocket in evilness. And I had some hope from that opening meeting with them. And then we got to the Munna plot and that fell apart. I mean, honestly, would it kill to have a grey game where the only truly evil person in the end was Ghetsis? Make the grunts be like N- and after you beat them they should've said they were going to release their Pokémon or something since they realize that fighting for liberation doesn't work when you're a hypocrite. And the plot should've been extended across all of Unova too. Finally, for the "hunt the sages" subplot we should've had to fight them- and they should have as much power and intelligence in-battle as the E4 does, only with five or six mons instead of four. You know, more challenge.

So yeah, that's my main complaint. They did a good job but they ended up turning everyone from the Well-intentioned Extremist into Snidely Whiplash because we obviously need to be told that TP's evil.
 
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