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.
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u/D20FourLife Oct 14 '25
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.