Fans still praise Pokémon Black and White for being some of the best games in this franchise. Gamers still enjoy the story to this day, but this series of games deserves credit for locking the older Pokémon until the endgame portion.
It’s a brave move that other games haven’t tried to replicate, which is a shame. Bringing back old favorites is great, but Game Freak should also try making gamers comfortable with their newer creations.
Pokémon Black and White won fans over pretty quickly, thanks to some great partner creatures and the aforementioned story. That fan reaction is probably why Tepig is in the starting lineup of Legends: Z-A, though it’s still weird seeing the Fire-type with Gold and Silver’s Totodile and Chikorita. One of those things is not like the other.
Longtime fans were probably freaked out at first when they couldn’t catch a Pikachu right away, but they got over it and eventually started catching new Pokémon. Forcing fans to discover new favorites is a good thing, since it helps them enjoy the fresh setting with creatures they aren’t familiar with.
Game Freak seemingly panicked when fans complained about this, as they haven’t used that unique feature from Pokémon Black and White since. Every game on the 3DS was quick to reveal that your old favorites are available to catch. X and Y even went out of their way to give players Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle fairly early in the story, instantly giving them recognizable faces.
While I will never complain about seeing Bulbasaur, it is sad how future Pokémon games don’t have that same confidence as Black and White. Discovering newer critters is more surprising these days, because a lot of the older Pokémon are just there for catching. It has robbed newer games of feeling fresh, and we hope the Switch 2 shakes things up by doing something similar.
It’s easy to blame nostalgia, but it’s also pretty hard to make new Pokémon in general. This is why other creature collectors have failed to put a dent in this billion-dollar franchise, since their monsters lack that familiarity. Palworld got away with that because they introduced guns to the mix, and it also played pretty differently.
Having completely new creatures like in Pokémon Black and White might be difficult, so we at least want to see some restraint in the next game. Maybe follow the route of Legends: Z-A or Arceus by limiting the Pokémon count to a couple of hundred? We know fans gotta catch ‘em all, but something’s got to give.