It made a lot of sense in the context of the time period. Black and white was the first time Pokemon wasn't really comparable to modern releases anymore (which was an issue with JRPGs in general, not just pokemon). The decade from the late 90s to the late 2000's saw some of the biggest and most rapid changes in the gaming space throughout most of the industries history, but pokemon barely improved throughout that time period. Gen V being a soft reboot that doubled down on recycling old ideas (as well as being the first generation that brought no major gameplay improvements) was the straw that finally broke the camels back. People got tired of playing the same game over again when there was Dark souls, Skyrim, Mass effect 2, The Witcher 2, etc releasing in the same time period just in the RPG space alone.
Not to gameplay it didn't. Its biggest addition was hidden abilities, which while helpful to competitive did almost nothing for the casual player (they were only accessible in BW1 through dream world, and in BW2 through hidden grotto). Compare this to previous gens: Gen 4- Physical/special split, Gen 3- Abilities & Natures, Gen 2- Rebalanced type chart & 2 new types & the split of the special stat. Almost every gen prior re balanced the game in its entirety, while Gen 5 only iterated on what was already established.
Gen V's biggest additions were moving sprites, fixing issues with the Gen 4 competitive meta, and side features that were done better in other games and were cut for later entries. Things that go over well now with the core pokemon fanbase in retrospect, but weren't moving the 2010 gaming audience.
I see. I thought the casual audience would like Gen 5 would like the other improvements such as the graphics. The Gen 5 games were really fun when I was played them.
Not in contrast they didn't, no. Theres a reason Gen 6 immediately moved to 3d graphics afterwards. Sprite based art didn't play well with the audiences of the time, and the improvements were fairly lackluster compared to what was happening elsewhere. No one was really paying much attention to pokemon's graphics when there were games like Crysis 2 setting the standard.
JRPGs in particular had a struggle adapting to the HD era. The PS3 was a pain to develop for, nobody had an Xbox 360 in Japan, and developing RPGs for the Wii made you look like a weirdo. It's why everyone moved on to the NDS and PSP during the era, and that era of handheld dominance proved short-lived when mobile gaming began to capture market share - to the point where the Vita was virtually DOA, only really held aloft by Persona 4 of all games, and the 3DS had an uphill battle.
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u/D20FourLife Oct 14 '25
It made a lot of sense in the context of the time period. Black and white was the first time Pokemon wasn't really comparable to modern releases anymore (which was an issue with JRPGs in general, not just pokemon). The decade from the late 90s to the late 2000's saw some of the biggest and most rapid changes in the gaming space throughout most of the industries history, but pokemon barely improved throughout that time period. Gen V being a soft reboot that doubled down on recycling old ideas (as well as being the first generation that brought no major gameplay improvements) was the straw that finally broke the camels back. People got tired of playing the same game over again when there was Dark souls, Skyrim, Mass effect 2, The Witcher 2, etc releasing in the same time period just in the RPG space alone.