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Pokemon games.
I think throughout my last 4 years of doing YouTube one of the most highly asked questions
I always get is what is my favorite pokemon game?
And to be honest it’s really surprising how long it took me to finally make this video.
I mean With all the videos I’ve made in these past few years about pokemon not one
of them has been about what I believe to be the greatest pokemon games.
So today I thought I’d finally throw my hat into this debate and answer a very important
question.
What is the best pokemon game?
For this list what i’ll be taking into account when forming my opinion is region design,
story, pokemon designs, game mechanics and of course my own lasting impression of the
game.
And since that point factors into this video let me state here that this isn’t an objective
video this is purely an opinion piece.
Also remakes like fire red and soul silver will not be taken into account because well
I can make a whole nother video on the remakes.
And finally since there are so many pokemon games that have been brought to us over the
past 20 years talking about each and every one of them would take hours to do.
So to save time I have narrowed down the possible winners to just 3 contestants.
If you guys enjoy the video be sure to leave a like subscribe and share this video with
a friend and with that being said let’s get started.
Well if you guys saw my last rant video on the pokemon community you probably would have
guessed that gen 4, or more specifically diamond and pearl were some of my least favorite games
in the series.
But actually that couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
I can recognize greatness when I see it and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were some very special
games.
The Sinnoh region, much like the first 3 games, was based on a part of Japan; more specifically
Hokkaido.
Compared to the other regions on the list, the design does feel less exciting, however
it does have nice real world comparisons.
Snowpoint City being the first place in a Pokemon game to feature snow, and have snow
exclusively, makes sense as it's very similar to Wakkanai in real world Japan, which has
a small population and is a port town.
Other nice areas of interest are the Survival, Fight, and Resort areas, as they stand out
much more compared to other parts of the region with their tropical theme.
(Then we have one of the most intense looking battlefields in any Pokemon Game, being Spear
Pillar.
Just one on at it and you know something serious is about to do down.)
And region design isn’t the only great thing about these games the amount of amazingly
awesome new pokemon introduced in gen 4 is actually mind boggling.
Garchomp, staraptor, luxray, drapion, lucario, rotom, croagunk, I can go on for days.
Not mention this generation brought about a bevy of evolutions to old pokemon that turned
them from awful or not as good design wise and competitively, to absolute beasts.
Im talking weavile, Electivire, Magnezone, Magmortar, and to a lesser extent rhyperior
and dusknoir.
And speaking of new things added, Gen 4 probably brought about some of the best mechanical
changes to the pokemon franchise.
Of course the most important among them has to be the physical special split which we
all know was the right thing to do and made the game just a whole lot better.
But there’s also some other great mechanics added in these games.
We got wi-fi battles, the poketch which was useful for a bevy of reasons, (Helps find
where roaming legendaries are, step counter for egg hatching, friendship checker, Dowsing
machine to help find hidden items) the GTS, they built upon the pokemon contest to make
it better, and of course Underground mining.
Now not all of them were complete bangers but some of them are vital now to the pokemon
franchise.
Now Story wise it’s kind of a tricky one, because while I do think Diamond and Pearl’s
story was pretty good there’s also been storylines from other games that have been
well better.
First of all barry is a great rival, I think he encapsulates what it means to be that very
word amazingly well.
He’s annoying, he’s strong, and he pushes you to become a better trainer.
He was a big step up from last generations May and Brendan and really reminded us of
what a good rival can be.
Not to mention cynthia is by far one of the toughest battles you’ll ever face in a pokemon
game.
Team Galactic while having some very interesting characters and tough adversaries was to me
not as great as I remembered.
Cyrus the leader of Galactic had a very dumb and childish end goal.
Basically he didn’t like the world he was living in because of the fact that we have
emotions.
so he wanted to wipeout the entire (universe) and rebuild it in his own image.
Honestly how can anybody want to cosine with that, it’s ludacris.
And admittedly I don’t think most of the people even knew what was actually going on
as saturn who is a commander in the organization admits that he has know idea what is going
on.
That’s just really really dumb.
But on the other side cyrus even with his child like ideologies and clear god complex
is still a very interesting character and brings up a solid point of whether or not
human emotions hold us back.
He’s just such a mysterious guy that I just wish we knew more about him.
I always wondered what drove him to have such extreme thoughts.
All in all if you add up all of the factors I honestly believe you have a very solid game
here, but is that enough for me to call it the best?
Alright so this next pokemon game that potentially can be labeled to me as the best pokemon game
I may get little flack for.
Pokemon Black and White at the time of its release in 2010 was for a lack of a better
word, completely hated on.
I think you guys get the gist of it, Pokemon were trash, we couldn’t catch pokemon from
other generations, and the region design was too linear.
And while I do hate me some unfezant and I will concede that the region can be a bit
linear I think this generation got a lot of unfair criticism.
I mean there’s people going around and saying that these games are the worst in the series.
Now to me that may seem just tad a bit unfair.
Let’s take a look at the pokemon.
Like I said before generation 5 did create some duds like unfezeant, klinklang, and garboder,
but duds come in every region.
(show duds from other regions) And to be fair we also got some amazing pokemon as well.
Hydreigon, Zekrom, Darmanitan, Scrafty, bisharp, braviary, Krookodile, Zoroark I mean need
I say more?
And when going through all of the gen 5 pokemon the only ones I can actually genuinely say
I dislike are unfezant, the elemental monkeys, and audino.
To me the pros far outweigh the cons.
And as for the linear region yes that is a problem, but I think gamefreak more than make
up for that fact with an actual amazing region design.
Pokemon Black and White take advantage of the DS hardware and created more dynamic environments
with voxels compared to the previous generation.
The best example of this is castelia city being based on Manhattan.
It really gives the player a good sense of scale with many tall buildings and people,
which may make you feel claustrophobic at first, but in the end will make you want to
explore everything it has to offer.
Other areas of interest would be liberty garden, being of course based on liberty island, Nimbasa
City giving the fun boardwalk feeling with all of the theme park attractions, and the
new B2W2 locations of Black City and White Forest.
Even the more unnatural desert area felt very fitting in this region.
In total I think the region design deserves a definite A+.
Now as for mechanics this to me is where black and white lacks the most.
While yes they did introduce some awesome features to the series like triple and rotation
battles, join avenue, and the challenge mode, among many other things (show other things)
none of these were that groundbreaking at least to the extent of a physical special
split.
But honestly that was to be expected becuase these games were coming off the back of diamond
and pearl which already brought about massive changes to the series.
But to me this all almost completely negated because of the fact that these games specifically
black and white had one of the most compelling stories in the entire franchise.
Team Plasma in my opinion is by far the best evil team in the franchise because out of
all of the teams to have come by their cause is actually something I believe people would
truly fight for.
Challenging the ideals of how the pokemon world works by questioning whether or not
its right to make pokemon battle is a truly compelling cause.
It brings up the topic of whether what we do is some form of slavery or if we’re just
partners.
Now sure it was all just smoke and mirrors but thats what made the evil team evil.
Because the cause itself isn’t evil at all the organization just wanted pokemon to be
treated equally.
Ghetsis using this cause to manipulate everyone into doing what he wants is something only
a truly evil person would do and that is perfect for this game.
And to add this already amazing evil team we also have in my opinion the best and most
well developed character in N. To me this guy was my rival not cheren or bianca.
He not only challenged me to become a better trainer but also challenged my ideals and
way of life.
Because he was at the forefront of this whole slavery movement.
And it was honestly beautiful to see such great storytelling and character development
when watching N grow as a person.
His heart was always in the right place, but he forgot to see that the trainer and pokemon
have a bond shared between them.
That is why they battle because their partners they trust each other and they’re willing
to do things for each other.
Pause.
And it was honestly great to see N finally realize his errors and truly develop as a
character.
Black and White honestly had the best story.
Lastly, we have the most recent entry into the Pokemon franchise being Sun and Moon as
well as Ultra Sun and Moon.
First, I need to mention that these games are very beautiful.
Game Freak really pushed the 3DS to the max when making these games.
In addition to just looking pretty, Alola took very excellent advantage of the unique
real world environments that places like Hawaii and the Galapagos have to offer.
One downside though, would have to be more linearity in terms of exploration compared
to some of the previous titles.
However that doesn't take too much away from the areas themselves.
Each island has many new Pokemon unique to them, which is very clever and tied directly
into Darwin's theory of evolution, which personally makes me feel more immersed in each area as
you begin to guess and see why the Pokemon look and evolve the way they have.
And the Ultra games improved on that idea by adding more fun areas like Pikachu Valley,
Surfing areas, Ultra Space/Megalopolis.
And there are so many other interesting places like the man made Aether Paradise, the Abandoned
Thrifty Megamart, Verdant Cave, the Team Skull infested Po town, which makes you wonder what
it was like before they took it over, among many other great areas.
I could go on forever about all of the unique and fun places in alola, but that would make
the video way too long.
But since we are on the topic of graphical advancements we also have to talk about the
mechanics brought about in this new generation.
To be honest there was a lot of new game changing mechanics brought about in these games.
Some I love and others not so much.
The good of course has to be things like the removal of hms, the ultra beasts themselves,
and of course the regional variants.
But these games also brought about some pretty ehh features.
Battle royale was a worse free for all, Shiny hunting methods decreased, and most importantly
there were NO gyms.
I welcome the idea of change but that was too far in my opinnon.
Now in terms of the Pokemon, Alola easily has the most unique assortment of any region
in my opinion.
With Alola being based on a region in the world that has some of the most unique animals,
game freak had to take up the task of creating equally crazy, yet amazing looking Pokemon.
We have Bruxish, Golissopod, Drampa, Toxapex, Palossand, Salazzle and even Dhelmise.
And those are just the regular Pokemon there.
We also have an amazing concept with alolan forms, breathing new life into old Pokemon,
with quite a few of them being better than the originals.
And of course I have to mention the ultra beasts.
I get that some people don't like them because “They're weird looking! or They don't look
like Pokemon!”
But that's kind of the point?
They're from different dimensions so naturally they would look different from what we know
to be Pokemon.
But even when you don't consider that, I just don't understand how people can dislike Guzzlord
or Blacephalon.
These are honestly top tier designs.
Moving on, we need to talk about the story.
Both the originals and the Ultra versions have one of the best, and surprisingly dark,
stories in the series to date.
We're led to believe through most of the game that the Aether foundation are the good guys
trying to protect Pokemon in the region, but in reality they're the ones causing turmoil
in Alola as they try to further Lusamine’s plan of opening a wormhole to another dimension
so that she can meet the Ultra Beast she is so grossly obsessed with.
But the absolute best part comes from Lusamine’s daughter, Lillie.
Lillie was a very timid girl who had been manipulated by her mother for so long but
was finally able to run away from her.
Eventually she would have the courage to not only stand up to her mother, but was also
willing to forgive and save her, even after she pushed her away.
This is just Grade A character development and storytelling, which is really only rivaled
by N in Black and White.
Now I have to say the originals definitely have the better story of the two, as a lot
of the character development was sacrificed in order to squeeze the Necrozma plot in.
But the trade off there was for an absolutely badass final boss fight, so if you don't care
about the story and characters too much, then that probably works out better for you.
All in all, the Gen 7 games, while not without flaws, are very amazing entries in the franchise
and absolutely deserve their contendership for best game.
But who will come out on top?
Let's find out.
Now before we go into the answer of which pokemon game is the best, let me say here
that all of these pokemon games I mentioned are very very good games.
All three have things that they shine best at, and at the same time have things they
also lack in.
And when adding everything up together it really comes down to what you value the most
in a video game.
Is it having the best graphics and visuals, bringing in the best pokemon and mechanics,
or is it having the best possible story?
And for me personally storytelling and character development has to be the most important thing
for a pokemon game.
And that is why I have to go with Pokemon Black and White being the best pokemon game.
I know they have some faults to them but to me with the amount of awesome pokemon, amazing
cities and areas, and of course a great story it has to be number 1 for me.
It honestly was a really close race between all three of these games but the cons of gen
4 and gen 6 were just too much to go unnoticed.
Diamond and Pearl are great games but the story just cant hold up.
Sun and Moon doesn’t have that problem but changes like removing gyms really hurt this
game in the long run for me.
And that’s it the best pokemon game of all time is Pokemon black and white.
Thank you guys so much for watching if you guys enjoyed the video be sure to leave a
like and let me know in the comment section below.
If you haven’t already subscribe to the channel to become an Eryibro today.
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And with that being said I will see you guys next time.