Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 Retrospective

this video is sponsored by squarespace stay tuned to save 10 or more on your purchase and learn more about building your website when i said that generation 5 is the peak of the franchise i meant it in earnest black 2 and white 2 are sequels just as deserving of the moniker there's a lot of discussion surrounding which game is better which is understandable our culture is built on relativity and ranking i technically have my preference but having that discussion here might be missing the forest for the trees the fact that black 2 and white 2 stand on their own enough to warrant such a debate is impressive in and of itself and i choose to simply see it as the generation's second half consider this a part 2 of 2. let's jump back into unova [Music] in pokemon black 2 and pokemon white 2 there are new powers to unleash and new challenges to overcome [Music] the new pokemon black version 2 and pokemon white version 2 you can discover the new in2 playable on nintendo ds and 3ds systems rated e for everyone two years is a long time inevitably things change you visit many of the same cities fight many of the same gym leaders and catch many of the same pokemon however you start in a new set of cities and routes on the opposite side of the region it's a second adventure a distinct one you have a new rival hugh set to take the journey with you ushered into the journey by the two previous rivals it's interesting to see what two years has done for these characters sharon's a gym leader still a beacon of resilience but he's the first gym leader his role isn't necessarily about power it's about being the gatekeeper for prospective trainers it's about being there to guide them through their first steps into the pokemon world no doubt inspired by what alder did for him though he's still adjusting to his new job and is clearly not used to it yet he seems genuinely happy he's found his true purpose it's the same as bianca now professor juniper's assistant she's there to give you and hugh your starter pokemon she may have given up on becoming a master trainer but she's still helping out in a way that lets her continue to interact with pokemon and learn more about them it's doubly great that they're able to accompany you throughout the story sharon may have settled down in recent years but he's still a noble and powerful soul ready and willing to help you in any way he still can team plasma have returned to wreak havoc once again though their facade has long since been brought to light they're no different these days than a gang of sky pirates it seems as though unova has mostly moved on from this perceived moral dilemma it's strange their presence feels pretty desperate and as a result the story template is far more standard they openly steal pokemon and commit acts of terrorism the group feels as though it's in its death throes the most interesting admin there chorus doesn't even seem to care one way or the other what happens to the organization he's part of his fights with you feel more like a game he's playing to pass the time you get the impression that although gets us gave him his mission he's basically doing whatever he wants most of the sages left team plasma during the post game of the original so it's basically just getsis and the unhinged grunts that remained that more hostile violent approach ends up affecting your rival hugh now i'm not gonna pretend his dialogue is perfect the game lays it on pretty thick that there's something up with his sister's purloin man i wonder if something happened to it he's only made it clear to me about 10 times he's also gonna let you know when he's really angry i don't know it's a little too much for me to handle sometimes but honestly when you learn more about what actually happened to this purloin it's pretty damn sad this pokemon is completely unrecognizable come the end of the game it's evolved into a lie part and hugh has to simply accept that it's going to take a long time for a full recovery if at all it's quite rare that we see abuse or neglect towards pokemon addressed and it makes his story stand out that he is able to soldier on in spite of it all is admirable he isn't meant to push you to become stronger nor does he have a super meaningful character arc he serves a much more minor role in illuminating how truly evil team plasma is there's a particularly tough scene where hugh has to reconcile that not everyone who joined team plasma two years ago are still bad people and there might not even be anyone to seek revenge on a lot of them left when end did and the sycophants that remained make up the new organization you can't just point himself at all of team plasma and give them his ire because it's more complicated than that there are no easy answers i see it said a lot that black and white have better stories while black 2 and white 2 have the better gameplay i suppose in a vacuum this is true but it also feels like a fairly reductive way to treat each of them that assumes this is a zero-sum game where one game has a good story which means the other must have a bad one and vice versa while this story isn't as salient on its own it's also doing stuff that only a sequel can characters are able to grow to reflect on the events of the original and to change without these games we would never have gotten another confrontation between getsis and n gets us has changed so little since the original some might argue he's become even more unhinged even more spiteful even more sadistic end's journey was an enlightening one and the pieces definitely seem to be lining up for him it's immensely satisfying to watch and roast his abusive father after his plans are once again ruined by a child while the game's script might not be as meaningful as the originals at face value i think this is the true strength of it being a direct sequel that it's able to feel new by simply switching up the way in which you explore the region black 2 and white 2 resemble gen 2's return to kanto but with a far stronger effect the first two gym leaders are normal and poison and they reside in entirely new cities on the west end of the region returning gym leaders like clay berg and elisa have had their teams shaken up when you reach miss alton city they fly you straight to the new desert city lentimus which spits you into undella town a post-game exclusive city in the original as you make your way to opelucid city for the seventh gym battle against draydon no matter your version and an eighth in the newly added humilao city with the new water gym leader marlin standing before the elite four which iris now stands on top of instead of alder my point in saying all of that is that a lot has changed in only two years and it is incredibly satisfying to uncover that change it makes a second trek through the region much less exhaustive especially when you take note of the new regional decks which has added a ton of older pokemon i believe this to be about as genius as the decision to exclude old pokemon from the original which might sound a little paradoxical at first but allow me to explain as a direct sequel there's only so much that can be done to change the raw feel of what you're seeing sure now there's a big dungeon in the castilia city sewers and the gym's been given a new look with new puzzles and a new team but at the end of the day it's still castilia city and it's still bird the bug type gym leader the biggest change that you're going to feel then is a sudden infusion of old pokemon on top of all the unovan mons that are already there now you get to make a much more diverse and varied team to take on the main adventure it also makes it much easier for gym leaders to swap out pokemon on their team elisa swaps out one of her imoga for a fluffy skyla replaces her unpheasant with a skarmory pretty chad like swap if i do say so myself and drayden replaces haxarious with flygon you could argue that a lot of these changes don't add much to the teams and in some cases don't even make a lot of sense such as clay replacing his palpito with a sand slash but what it does is give you and the gym leader more to work with i don't think one approach is necessarily better than the other in this case black and white are better games for making the decks more restrictive and black 2 and white 2 benefit from a more expansive dex because they needed to stand out as direct sequels i took advantage of this when making a team for black 2. gavin the superior performed essentially the same role it did in the original game team bulky grass type blaze the chandeleur is also a fan favorite of mine that slotted in pretty well with the rest of the team with her fire ghost typing and massive special attack output other than those two though i was pretty excited to broaden my unovan horizons as it were laura the lucario fit a fairly standard mixed attacker role with the steel fighting type i still think it's so cool that you're actually able to catch and use a ryolu for a while at the beginning of the game really let her fit in with everyone else vinaya the flygon one of my favorites from gen 3 her dragon ground typing helped a lot for coverage and some good resistances baby ryko the jolteon is a pokemon i haven't actually used in a very long time probably because it was easily the best of the original trio of eeveelutions in battle but i felt like it was finally time to adopt another speedy boy and he did pretty much exactly what you'd expect him to volt switch is an incredible new addition to the type as a whole and he made great use of it finally we have chester the wall rain i actually didn't like this mod much until i put it on my water monotype for gen 3. after using it there i kind of fell in love with this bulky water ice type and its versatility served a similar function to superior essentially while also being my designated water type since hm still exists somehow really really cool team by the way the battle against iris was a nail biter this is turning into a bit of a ramble but since i already basically talked about the gen 5 mythical pokemon there's another gift-like edition which is infinitely cooler in pretty much every way imaginable in the original game n would use pokemon that were only obtainable in the area you fought him after which he would release them you'll see that his rival teams are pretty random and he swaps the entire team out each time this was a neat little detail in the original which allowed n to be a competent pokemon trainer without sacrificing his core character conflict if you're playing black 2 and white 2 and memory link with your completed black and white save file you'll be able to meet and catch the specific pokemon that end used they're a one percent encounter but also their ends [ __ ] pokemon they even give you enz zoroa through the main story not only is it a guaranteed zoroa so you don't need any event [ __ ] it's also enz zoroa you unlock various cutscenes that fill in the gaps between games did you ever wonder why the strite in elemental trio never showed up at n's castle well there's a cut scene you can view through memory link which shows they didn't feel like they were strong enough to assist everyone and vowed to split up and become stronger individually rather than as a unit makes their appearance the world tournament later feel all the better this link feature is unfortunately a tad convoluted but there's a lot of cool stuff packed in there instead of having sharon or bianca vaguely reference the player character from black and white now they'll actually use the name of your player character on your save data the unlockable hard mode will give gym leaders an additional pokemon have them hold items occasionally and raise their levels it's unfortunate that accessing this feature is ridiculously dumb requiring that you first beat black 2 then communicate with someone that has white 2 which unlocks a key or something that unlocks the hard mode i don't know it's dumb i emulated the game so i didn't have to worry about it emulation's the future baby i don't see the pokemon company offering any alternatives so [ __ ] them the fans are usually the ones that have to compile all this [ __ ] anyway i mean look at cereby look at bulbapedia look at all these pokemon fan sites dedicated to documenting each and every facet of pokemon the fans love these games the franchise's legacy is being held on their backs these videos wouldn't even be possible without community contributions wait a minute serebii and bulbapedia are websites right surprise it's actually a squarespace sponsor spot there's really no excuse to not have a website these days even i have one if you're interested i've partnered with squarespace for this video to offer you a chance to make one be it for music art merchandise whatever squarespace can accommodate your needs i assure you i use my squarespace website as a hub for newly released videos updates on future 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king k to get 10 off your first purchase that's squarespace.com king k using the code k to get 10 off your first purchase there's really no excuse not to have a website these days so get started now with the easiest most accessible tool [Music] [Music] i still think gen 5 is the best pokemon has ever looked okay it's the best mainline pokemon has ever looked which i'm sure is crazy to say right before the generation that would usher the main series into the third dimension but hey i don't say gen 5 is the peak for no reason i've always loved the look of this generation the 3d stuff they were toying with in gen 4 takes its next step here and it's gorgeous the bridges are all really extravagant and the camera changes its angle depending on where you are the camera in general does a lot of the heavy lifting making the experience feel much more cinematic than pokemon has ever felt before i'm convinced it's part of the reason the stories in the univer region land the way they do because there's this epic undercurrent to your adventures there this feeling that you're on a larger-than-life quest to see the unovan sights there are unique animations for every in-battle sprite including enemy trainers and all of their pokemon and the quality of those sprites and the way they move are frankly ridiculous the season system paired with the time of day can make one jog through a route or city completely different one month to the next honestly even just little things like the over-the-top battle intros the last pokemon remaining theme that all the gym leaders get there's this exciting energy to getting to run around in universe but who am i kidding it would be a moot point without these two soundtracks wouldn't it both of these soundtracks are certified bangers a lot of fast-paced electronic-y techno-e-beats gold and silver were more adventurous ruby and sapphire were more bombastic diamond and pearl were pretty laid back every generation has a unique vibe or sometimes even a prominent instrument used as a late motif in keeping with the inspiration for the region the sounds in universe are larger than life they're frantic idealistic fierce you feel that in the evolution of n's battle theme you get the feeling this guy is completely out of your reach his headspace is so far beyond anyone else's he's like an alien over the course of the game you begin to understand him better his weaknesses and his strengths what gave him his unusual conviction when you're both at the apex of the pokemon world the both of you have to come to an understanding only through a final bout will the both of you reach an answer getzes theme which comes right after also feels quite foreign perhaps even a little creepy the mastermind steps out behind the curtain and he's ready to greet you even if his plans are falling apart at the seams so too does the song driftvale city is a bop and a half perfect for a bustling shipyard that houses the american stereotype ground user the elite 4 battle theme is suitably gritty and dark in a way that i adore i'm trying to refrain from just dropping all the tracks i like you get the point what i'm trying to lead to here is black 2 and white 2 specifically its approach to the soundtrack many of the city route and dungeon themes are the same though they've been given a very slight remix the gym trainer and wild battle themes are so similar that they may as well be the same some of them though were remixed the team plasma theme was always a good one the perfect anthem for a group of maniacal radicals the remix for the sequel really fits their new loud and proud mo less of a sinister evil lurking in the shadows and more of a holy [ __ ] there's a pirate ship shooting at the city [Music] i love how the remix forgets this being more chaotic represents his devolution into a madman [Music] even the little things like every gym having a full-on remix of the regular gym theme fit with a visual makeover really helps freshen up the second journey of course there are new tracks as well but not quite as many iris's champion theme is certainly different but i like what it's going for a lot it has this little girl could destroy the world energy and the fight certainly fits that mood hughes battle theme is a standout too though i think everyone else likes it a little more than i do but of course colarus i am not exaggerating when i say that kolras's battle theme is one of the best in pokemon his battle theme is extraordinary i listen to it often [Music] allow me one greg though the fact that this theme only plays once and the rest of your battles with him played trainer or world tournament music is a sin there's not even a pared down remix for his initial fights like for n nor is there the beefed up team plasma remix it's just the regular battlefield i mean you really only get to hear the souped-up version of n once too but it just feels like a missed opportunity to do something more here stuff like this just makes walking into a new city dungeon or fight all the more exciting and with these games already making significant quality of life changes like having infinite use tms and a hub where you can more quickly get a pokemon ready for competitive play i don't think it's a coincidence that this is the generation where competitive play really took off in a big way or at least it's when i started seeing a lot more officially sanctioned tournaments and wi-fi battle videos i have no doubt there existed competitive communities even since the first generation any game with multiplayer pvp will have those communities but as far as when it really took off onto a grander stage the introduction of wifi connection on the ds really paved the way for this format to become more accessible talking about competitive pokemon is sort of like opening pandora's box there is so much to discuss here i've already talked about the mechanics of making a team getting their evs and ivs in order getting the right nature etc that stuff is still mostly the same although it's been made quicker and more convenient than in previous games i also don't really have the perspective to talk about what competitive pokemon was like back in the day because while i was around to notice i also didn't really watch it very much i watch wolfie for that so let's talk about something i'm actually equipped to discuss pokemon showdown thank arceus for this website as you might imagine each generation brings with it a litany of changes the competitive meta can shift on a dime depending on what each new game introduces and since each new generation will always at least introduce new pokemon but usually also introduce new moves or a new mechanic or whatever basically every generation has a distinct meta and it's a little sad that you can never go back and experience even a simulacrum of what it may have been like back in the day with pokemon showdown you can battle in whichever generation you want bound by its strengths and weaknesses god help you if you play gen 2 competitive please go touch grass i do think they've made it easier to create a team for pokemon but having any barrier to entry always sucks so what i like to do a lot is test out a team i'm making in showdown before committing to making any long-term changes to my actual team after a battle or two you can switch out your items switch out your moves adjust your evs whatever and then once you have everything perfect you can make the team for real it's both a tool that players can use and a historical document where you're able to see how the scene has changed and evolved it's not exactly a perfect site in that regard since each generational meta is currently playable they've all evolved accordingly with the passing of time but it's a tool that i desperately hope the pokemon company never nukes out of existence as i said before pokemon fans carry parts of the franchise on their backs and this is no different using showdown i've been able to understand and enjoy competitive battling during any time period i want love him or hate him i think smogon has done a remarkable job vetting the single scene at the very least although it does present a unique challenge smogun is not an official pokemon entity they make rules for showdown they don't make rules for the games this is something i was confused about as a kid when i heard people throwing around terms like oh you and ubers wondering what they even meant supposedly you couldn't use higher tier pokemon in lower tier battles but there has never been an in-game system to reinforce those decisions in the games you can basically use anything that isn't outright banned by the facilities you enter usually just mythicals the official competitive pokemon standard is also doubles this puts smogon at odds with the pokemon company in certain respects because the way they run their show is only enforced on pokemon showdown and i have very little doubt that a good chunk of people use showdown instead of playing the games however the actual registered showdown users are probably .1 of pokemon players anyway and i doubt it's realistically had any impact on the sales of the games at least that's what i tell myself every morning hoping showdown still exists and i do think there's a value to showdown that you will immediately lose when it's shut down because again they basically run singles i consider the weather wars singles meta of gen 5 to be a fascinating part of the generation as a whole where there was an increased focus on weather since in this gen abilities like drizzle and drought set weather permanently so you saw a lot of pokemon like polytode since it gained drizzle i don't know i'm growing increasingly impatient with the crowd of people that are only willing to support something if it's officially endorsed fact of the matter is pokemon is as powerful as it is for a lot of reasons and the pokemon company nay any of these major companies are not solely responsible for that the sooner we all recognize that the better in pokemon black 2 and pokemon white 2 there are new areas to explore and new gym leaders to battle the new pokemon black version 2 and pokemon white version 2. you can discover the new in 2. a lot of the things i said in part 1 apply here the dungeons and routes are large with lots to do and see the journey itself is decently challenging it's paced very well there isn't much to comment on in that regard the new desert area is pretty neat though it's a bit small the haunted house is a nice touch the castilia city sewers is a fantastic addition and the fact that it leads to a patch of grass with a wild eevee is just i love when eevee isn't this ultra rare gift pokemon i want to make an eevee team in this game someday since i don't have much to really add let's move instead to the post game the originals post game is pretty decent you get to collect a bunch of old pokemon explore the other half of unova fight alder lose to cynthia you also get to round up the sages and learn how they're all dealing with the team plasma fallout a few of them renounce team plasma a few of them show remorse it's pretty great feels less like a story and more like a world when you get to see this much after the credits saving so many routes in cities for the post game and loading them with old pokemon powerful tms and harder fights makes for a pretty decent post game as far as i'm concerned black 2 and white 2 have a flat out better post game since you explore post-game cities in the main adventure this time you save locations like dragon spiral tower twist mountain and israel city for the post game so it has the same general structure but with its own original flair you encounter team rocket as you're exploring your old home you can battle a gauntlet of tough trainers in black tower or white tree hollow to get a shiny dratini or gibble respectively you can even battle en in his castle and upon defeating him he will release his legendary and you can go catch it which is just [ __ ] like this that makes a sequel really special you can also rebattle him every friday where he switches out his team based on what season it is and uses the appropriate weather team to match rain team for spring sun for summer sand for autumn and hail for winter you can just do that every friday at the [ __ ] ferris wheel ends team building now it's great it's remarkable to me because as much as the black and white post game was decent especially compared to the nothing we get nowadays there were several things that really bothered me about it black city and white forest are version exclusive post game zones in the original you went to white forest to catch new rare pokemon and you went to black city to buy evolution stones and other rare items they also obviously have drastically different vibes kind of like future versus past opelucid city you can guess which one fits me better as someone who loves the souls series mains a dark knight in final fantasy xiv and consider shadow their favorite sonic character it all started with you i know it did you're what made me so edgy you [ __ ] [ __ ] so yeah i love black city conceptually and it's a damn shame that white forest is blatantly better you can actually get pokemon there there's no contest the items you can eventually buy here are obtainable elsewhere so the only thing you can really do is battle pokemon you can eventually buy heart scales but only if you manage to wrangle the correct npc from white forest via entrelink which is a local multiplayer feature where both cartridges have to interact it's a huge pain in the ass these days and there's pretty much no reason at all to even go to black city not only do you need to own two ds systems and two different versions you also need to stay on top of it because if you wait too long people will just leave why would this even be a feature what exactly is the punishment here not playing the game literally every day you basically just end up with a barren city that will probably become even more barren once you drop it like a hot rock which is why it's amazing to see that this whole black and white city thing was overhauled in the sequels what they lose in their distinction they gain in a more coherent and less frustrating experience both cities have a battle tower mechanic where you go into a big tower and fight a bunch of tough trainers as i said before the reward for completing this is not only a shiny gibble or dratini but in the case of black city you also get more and more residents the further you progress white forest has kind of dropped the find pokemon angle but it has instead taken some of the rare items that were previously in black city bam now the aesthetic of the area is more of a concern than its mechanical identity so picking the wrong version doesn't feel nearly as pronounced and both games get to interact naturally since they both have their strengths and weaknesses another gripe i have with the original post game is that it feels like there's a scarcity of things to do and pokemon to find you can only catch the unovan legendaries and besides doing the championship again to fight alder your only real post-game battle hub was the battle subway which is you know the battle tower that's in every game like yeah i think it's really cool that cynthia is just hanging out in undertown ready to battle you but it also sucks that none of the gym leaders have rematch fights something i thought was starting to become a bit of a staple so now we have all of that stuff from the original plus battling n doing the new battle towers catching the new legendaries battling your rival and kohlriss again they added an achievement s system where you get little medals for doing certain tasks there are medals for completing the elite four with different monotype teams or even just with a single pokemon reaching the final floor of the abyssal ruins finishing pokestar studios oh yeah that's another thing it isn't technically a post game feature but i usually save it until then anyway pokestar studios is this movie set where you get to do battle with aliens and giant robots you select moves in a more puzzle like fashion rather than a straight up duel since you're aiming to make an entertaining movie it's nothing huge just another cool thing you can sink some time into if you're bored that isn't to even mention that some pokemon have hidden grottos where they'll have their hidden ability when caught or join avenue where you can build up an area of npcs based on your in-game progress and can even unlock shops where you can pay to increase evs and buy a bunch of berries there's so much to do and see and if you've played the game before there's one more feature i have yet to talk about a feature that is so beloved by pretty much everyone and is one of the primary reasons these sequels rank so highly for people before we talk about the world tournament proper let me discuss the team i've built for it this facility is where the best pokemon trainers in the world come to compete so i decided i needed to craft a team that i'd feel comfortable using as a champion and as karen expertly said so long ago just try to win with your favorites so i did just that gavin the superior he's evolved since defeating iris and has now achieved his perfect form a light clay dual screen synthesis giga drain set because superior still does not get contrary in this game even without it though gavin is a master of the long game he can stall out pretty much anything especially if you give him giga drain a true leech and a proper annoyance for anyone to contend with deluxe ray the luxray de luxray runs flame orb and guts with crunch facade wild charge and ice fang basically he can get in and wreck some [ __ ] especially if he has a good opportunity to use guts-boosted facade icefang is great for some of the dragon users though you do kinda have to hope he survives long enough to get them off usually though if he hits the opponent they're going to die or be close to it xenos the absol xenos is probably the weakest link of this team but there is no way in hell i'm making a champion team without my favorite pokemon i tried my best here super luck to raise crit chance salac berry to raise speed at low health and a moveset of baton pass night slash swords dance and psycho cut the idea here was to make it so that it would likely out speed whatever it's fighting if it gets to eat it's salak berry and then it can baton pass out if it manages to get a sword stance or two off great idea but uh more often than not it just kind of died i experimented with a focus sash set for a while before kind of just given up i still love you absol i just wish your speed wasn't based 75 oh well tis merely a test of his reflexes ego the empoleon eggel is another bulky set his steel typing mixed with his naturally good bulk defensive evs and a rocky helmet for good measure no sword will cut deep enough his moves are skulled flash cannon stealth rock and toxic skuld is a fantastic move that has a decent chance of burning the opposing pokemon cutting their attack in half stealth rock and toxic are pretty self-explanatory and flash cannon is there for the stab coverage plus the occasional special defense drop agile was one of my best pokemon able to soak up most heavy hitting attacks and resist the dragon type which is one of my team's more prominent weaknesses doesn't help that the dragon type teams are naturally much harder than most of the other types blaze the chandelure blaze was created for one purpose and one purpose only to hit stuff really hard with special attacks call mind hex psychic flamethrower with a life form giving her flame body for the occasional clutch burn admittedly her 80 base speed can sometimes be extremely frustrating but more often than not she just eviscerates whatever she's up against the queen in more ways than one and now a returning favorite a reliable pokemon that has smashed up more than one post-game gauntlet an iconic pokemon which towers above all the rest [ __ ] lance returns for one more bout as part of my champion team i don't think i need to explain to you why [ __ ] lance is busted especially if you watched the previous videos i didn't even really change anything intimidate choice band outrage stone edge aerial ace and brick brick it hits stuff like a truck and for the first time ever it can even take advantage of its nickname it is worth noting i think gen 5 prohibits swear words and nicknames or something so like i hacked it in we have one last hurrah with [ __ ] glance and then we'll move on all right so that's the team i'm rolling with the pokemon world tournament is better than the battle frontier just uh ruminate on that a little bit this is an event hosted below driftvale city you first visit it in the main story as clay introduces you to how the brackets work and you fight kolras it's essentially like the battle dome without all the extra mechanics you can enter a single double triple or rotation battle giving triple and rotation battles especially much more prominence overall while it isn't quite as cool as the battle factory there is an option to do this using the rental mode where you're given random pokemon inheriting its spirit you also get a new mode called a mix tournament where you swap one of your pokemon with one of your opponent's pokemon you get to choose after they do so it's not just a game of luck it's a pretty cool shakeup on the traditional format and you can even run into bianca sometimes if you're lucky this alone is more than enough to keep players occupied for quite a while but we honestly haven't even scratched the surface after beating the game you unlock the unova leaders bracket the attendants as you'd probably guess are the unova gym leaders all of them including the ones that weren't in this game like bryson lenora and the elemental trio you get a set of them at random and you fight three of them per entry as with most post-game battle facilities these teams will have a competitive ready pokemon of course they're gym leaders so there's only so much they can do to overcome their weaknesses but i think they have some pretty damn awesome monotype teams anyway sharon's team is pretty brutal the normal typing gives him quite a bit of coverage as well as access to many heavy hitters like buffalond and zhang goose stoutland cincino and la bunny offer a lot of coverage in the form of rock bug grass electric dark fighting and ice he even reps a cast form though it usually doesn't get to do very much since he doesn't have a weather team props for the attempt though every single one of them carry appropriate items too a lot of berries that raise specific stats at low health and type gems which increase the base power of whatever move you're using a single time it's funny because you'd think sharon and lenora would be painfully similar but they're actually completely distinct she uses a clefable with a steel gem packing meteor mash cosmic power thunder punch and wish her signature annoyance makes its return and she actually unironically genuinely puts a dunsparce on her team it is admittedly weird that dunspurce could have either serene grace or runaway i would honestly prefer these teams having locked abilities to make them more deadly still though pretty cool to see a coil roost glare and rockslide dunsparce with serene grace potentially in the back pocket i think it's the most interesting with early game gym leaders you get to see this massive glow up for their teens it's fun to fight them yeah but the reason i love jim leader rematches is because it makes them feel like the master trainers that they're supposed to be i'm glad they reincorporated the gym leader rematches into these sequels when you don't get to see these master teams it's kind of hard to imagine them doing very much when they come in at the end of the originals and help you out and the game seemingly agrees with me since memory link confirms it so yeah you get entirely new competitive level teams for every single unovan gym leader from both games it's pretty damn cool on its own seeing as you can enter this tournament in single double triple rotation rental and mix yeah i'll keep you occupied for a good bit but it's not over when you finally beat the unova leader's bracket you unlock the kanto leader's bracket then the johto leaders then the hoenn leaders then the sinnoh leaders you heard me correctly this [ __ ] video game has every single gym leader across the entire series including juan and janine think about that every single gym leader that has ever existed is here all of them have competitive level monotype teams and the gym leader themes get a unique remix for every region you thought that cynthia was the only one getting a remix no no no no you get more more bangers please i don't think i have the proper words to untangle why this is the coolest post-game feature we've ever had sure the battle frontier had at least five facilities in past games each with their own unique gimmicks and frontier brains some of those were really cool but i think it would be helpful to remember that a lot of them especially in emerald were pretty frustrating and kinda redundant while the facilities were better in platinum i also wouldn't say any one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest except for maybe the battle factory which is in part here by the way just a reminder it also didn't help that in most of these facilities the streak system meant that you had to win like 40 some battles in a row sometimes and most of those early trainers are scaled lower so their teams aren't nearly as threatening as the frontier brands well in this case every single [ __ ] person you battle is a frontier brain and not only that they're gym leaders from previous games granted heartgold and soulsilver offered these same kinds of rematches for kanto and jodo and platinum did it for sinnoh so some of these teams look a little similar however owens teams are mostly new since the rematch system in that game was a little strange and two whole generations worth of pokemon were added for them to play around with but it's kind of a moot point anyway since all of them benefit from the new pokemon moves and items added in gen 5. let me run through some of my favorite new teams blaine isn't messing around this time he's got a life orb charizard a choice scarf mag mortar flame orb rotom heat it isn't phenomenal or anything but it's enough that he's at least decently threatening depending on what team you bring and that isn't something blaine has ever been able to say for himself giovanni appears in his sunday best sporting many of his iconic members from back in the day his team is less important than the fact that he's here at all i actually didn't think they'd even want to include him because i mean he's giovanni ex-leader of team rocket i don't know who co-signed some of these contestants but i'm not complaining it's pretty damn cool that he's here my man bugsy feels like a giga chad now he rocks okaberry sizzor kobe berry heracross chardi berry yant mega he's got chuckle and fortress on the defensive and pincer to round out the team it's not exceptional or anything bug is never going to be but it's a competent team full of bug pokemon that i really respect and love morty is surprisingly annoying his signature pokemon the one he leads with every single time you battle him is a gengar that has shadow ball focus blast dark pulse and hypnosis gonna key in on hypnosis there other moves split across his pokemon include parish song pain split curse willowisp sucker punch recover confuse ray and foul play morty was always a challenge and i started sweating buckets whenever he was one of the leaders in the bracket winona has always been one of my favorite gym leaders it felt like she really understood her typing and took advantage of its wide type coverage so many pokemon have flying as their secondary type and winona utilizes that to great effect altaria peliper swellow skarmory tropius and haunchcrow not a single shared primary type her fights were similarly brutal depending on the three that she decided to use for singles and that went doubly so if i decided not to pack a deluxe ray or [ __ ] lance because then i just had very few options against her beefy altaria with cotton guard roost sing and dream eater she is a force to be reckoned with and she has one of the coolest monotypes of all time tate and eliza kinda fascinate me tate uses soulrock and eliza uses lunatone but aside from that their teams are identical zatu chimecho grumpig claydal and a third evolution of roles however the sets they use are different most of tate's pokemon for instance used trick room and so that's what his team is primarily built around liza has a lot more calm minds and cosmic powers so she'd rather set up and sweep then there are the individual differences tate's chimecho runs hypnosis dream eater energy ball and trick room assumedly to synergize with the rest sleep talk grumpig that he also has liza's chimecho runs light screen psychic yawn and reflect offering more defensive utility helping the grumpig in other ways which instead has shock focus blast power gem and calm mind tate runs gallade for physical coverage and liza turns claydol into a physical attacker so her team isn't entirely special she also uses gardevoir the opposite evolution it's just a cool idea to split the twins up like this meilene is a monster pure power meta-chan with bullet punch zen headbutt brick break and bulk up lucario with cross chop bone rush extreme speed and swords dance infernape with close combat mock punch fire punch and bulk up like sure you could just bring a physical wall or something since she doesn't have any special coverage but man if you don't have an immediate answer to her pokemon she will wreck your [ __ ] in pretty much every team here is cool they get a little weaker when they share a type with another gym leader especially the rock type brock roxanne and roark share many of the same pokemon and the rock type in general just isn't very diverse at this point so they can be a little bland and pretty easy to take down for the most part though these brackets are a blast and once you complete them all you gain access to a bracket where every single leader from every region can participate and you can enter it in singles doubles triple rotation rental and mix just think about how much content this actually is you can go in with any team you want meaning and make a bunch of teams for what is essentially gym leader greatest hits no matter what team you build you're going to struggle and triumph against different people you will forge new adversaries and retire old ones not only that you can enter with a rental team and you can actually use one of their pokemon you can use a gym leader's pokemon that's just this is so much that you can do and it's only one small part of the post game and i'm not even done you thought i was done didn't you if you win the all-gym leaders bracket 10 times in a row you unlock the champions every champion i can use [ __ ] glance to fight lance and he actually has a good team now you can fight blue and stephen and cynthia you fight red red shows up but he puts the ellipses down oh this is a lot as much as i love playing the main story seeing how everything's changed i think my favorite part of it all is right here this mode they created with almost limitless replay value i unfortunately skipped out on these games at release so my first playthrough was a lot more recent than the other games but i have a feeling that if i had played this at launch it would be my most played pokemon to date just because of how fun it is they crammed so much into these sequels and it's sort of bittersweet generation 5 is the peak it's the moment in time where i considered pokemon in its bag across these two games we get an enthralling tale filled with compelling heroes and villains who go through meaningful arcs grappling with their purpose in life we get a region full of diverse individuals trying to get along despite their differences we get the most new pokemon we have ever gotten we get the best post game to grace the franchise with meaningful story content solo challenges and multiplayer components we got a stunning visual showcase for the ds a game that still stands as an absolute triumph of sprite work we got a banger of a soundtrack full of original and remix tunes when i think pokemon i think unova the most ambitious passionate and creative region yet in my opinion mainline pokemon has struggled since these two games and in retrospect it marked the beginning of a turning point for the franchise going forward it casts a shadow over it that has still yet to dissipate this generation is an absolute triumph and i sincerely hope this franchise will once again reach those same heights [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: KingK

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Id: 6aBKea_Ko9w

Length: 48min 2sec (2882 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022