BW/BW2 Did Black and White Versions Lack Obstacles?

All Pokemon games are too easy. The main characteristic of Pokemon is leveling. The opponents lack any form of AI. Of course it's easy if you're 10 levels higher and your opponent is using Tail Whip for 3 turns.

Meh, who the heck am I telling this? Most of you guys grind for levels anyway. You make them too easy for yourselves.
Go play a game where you can't win in such a cheap, boring way.

inb4 whining about how hardcore your 'Nuzlocke' runs are. Those can still be cheaped out and you know it.
Come at me bros.


Alright, on-topic:
Obstacles? Oh you have got to be KIDDING me. Pokémon's 'puzzles' are one of the easiest in any game ever. Most educational games have harder puzzles than this and that's saying something. Pokemon is a mostly linear game with no obstacles. The illusion of obstacles doesn't change this and I highly doubt the number of obstacles matters.
 
StealthAngel667 said:
All Pokemon games are too easy. The main characteristic of Pokemon is leveling. The opponents lack any form of AI. Of course it's easy if you're 10 levels higher and your opponent is using Tail Whip for 3 turns.

Meh, who the heck am I telling this? Most of you guys grind for levels anyway. You make them too easy for yourselves.
Go play a game where you can't win in such a cheap, boring way.

inb4 whining about how hardcore your 'Nuzlocke' runs are. Those can still be cheaped out and you know it.
Come at me bros.


Alright, on-topic:
Obstacles? Oh you have got to be KIDDING me. Pokémon's 'puzzles' are one of the easiest in any game ever. Most educational games have harder puzzles than this and that's saying something. Pokemon is a mostly linear game with no obstacles. The illusion of obstacles doesn't change this and I highly doubt the number of obstacles matters.
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Saying a game is 'too easy' is a very bad cop-out for disagreement. As many have said before and are going to say again, a game can be good even though it is easy. Tetris, no-one hates tetris, IT'S TETRIS! Pokemon is an RPG. A Role Playing Game, a game where you level up in addition to extra paths and things to fight. If most people want to steam their way tghrough the game in order to get to the competitive side then let them. As the title change suggests this topic is now about obstacles, unless you were talking about the original post, then sorry for the rant.

Nuzlocke runs are something that challenges the player, it is niether mandatory or something to bask in fame that you completed a run of nuzlocke. Completely optional and just adds to the games prowess after there is nothing to do and the next game has come out. That is the unfortunate cycle of the Pokemon series. Next one comes out, past ones are more or less forgotten.

You say the lack of obstacles don't matter. Obstacles in a game are what every gamer tries to overcomb. Of course obstacles are neccessary no, vital to a game. If there are no obstacles, there is no game. All that's left is story, graphics and your controller, in which case the game becomes a graphic novel. A lot of kids play the game because they like new monsters and battling their friends, not all people are into competitive gaming. Although this game perked up it's story and graphics for the 3DS. I do think that the game was WAY too linear and in this case, the game did dissapoint. So there is no reason to think that obstacles don't matter to a game, it's completely the opposite.

Your forgetting that this is a 3+ game. Intended for those...I guess over the age of 3. You wouldn't stick something that has the difficulty of a Silent Hill puzzle to grab an Ultra Ball. Besides - Obstacles, not Puzzles. Pokemon isn't a puzzle game.
 
i am pretty sure this pokemon game was shot towards the younger gamers out there, as alot of kids before had like a million problems getting through the game. because of this game's straightfoward path and lack of obstacles, younger kids, like those as young as 3 if they can read as pointed out by Delta, would find this game amusing. alot of us older gamers are dissapointed by this, but the younger ones, essentially, get a kick out of this game 'cause its so easy. i'm pretty sure thats what this thread is about.
 
supergamerfreak said:
i am pretty sure this pokemon game was shot towards the younger gamers out there, as alot of kids before had like a million problems getting through the game. because of this game's straightfoward path and lack of obstacles, younger kids, like those as young as 3 if they can read as pointed out by Delta, would find this game amusing. alot of us older gamers are dissapointed by this, but the younger ones, essentially, get a kick out of this game 'cause its so easy. i'm pretty sure thats what this thread is about.
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No. This game was actually shot to older players. You probably mean beginner players because they made the game easy so beginner players would be able to get a feel for the games, etc. This is probably why the games lacked obstacles.
 
hopefully they will fix this lack of obstacles (and should for popular rating) in Pokemon Grey and games past that. but this game is still great though.
 
I agree that the game is far too linear and should have more obstacles, the only trouble I ever had was with the quicksand. I had to look up on Google to find out how to get past it. I felt stupid when I found out that I just have to walk around the edges :p
 
I do believe they were missing mini quests.... I mean how else could i have gotten the 1st 3 gym badges when I got it?
 
Yeah, I'd say there weren't quite as many obstacles either, but that's because the games didn't really need them. That being said, every Gym Leader has a reason not to fight you when you first see them (except Brycen, but he's involved afterwards), whereas in the first two generations and much of the third, the Gym Leaders and their Trainers were right there when you got to them, so you could just blast your way through the cities. To someone who does that, I'd bet Black and White would feel like there are more obstacles.

The games don't need so many obstacles because there was a strong story element to it, particularly the fact that Team Plasma hounds you from beginning to end. I had never seen a villainous team appear so early (not counting Pokémon Colosseum, as that's a side game and works way differently, story-wise), and they stick around later than any of the others too. They also get themselves really involved in your affairs and every other significant characters' whereas Teams Rocket, Aqua, and Magma were just...there. In addition, many of the characters you meet have more detailed background and relevance, most notably Cheren and Bianca. (If the battle against Alder's kindergarteners wasn't an eye-opener, either you weren't thinking hard enough or you read spoilers.)

As for backtracking, that was what really padded the other Pokémon games. Backtracking is largely considered an annoyance in other games; when I see it, I think, "So they didn't have the time or money to put in more stuff, and they have to pad it out by making me return back." For instance, the otherwise top-notch Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door had a load of backtracking. One part of the game is the village, its church, and the short path between them, and that's it. However, it can take a few hours because you're constantly asked to go back and forth between them. While it feels more unnatural for Unova to be a linear path to the end, I can definitely understand why the designers did that. Pokémon is no exception to that; having to get back to Olivine City after traveling the sea route to Cianwood City, for instance, was quite the groaner, let alone trekking all the way across Johto to get to Mahogany Town next.
 
^Except Pokemon's got Fly partway through the game so backtracking several cities is very quick. Also, Plasma wasn't necessarily the team that stuck around the longest-Charon was leading Team Galactic until you fought Heatran, which was basically the last thing to do storyline-wise in Platinum. You are also wrong about the showing up earlier too-Cyrus is seen in Platinum right after your first rival battle, although you don't know he's a member of Team Galactic (but then again you didn't know N was part of Team Plasma for a while either) and the first Galactic Grunts appear right after the first Gym Leader, which is as soon as the first Plasma Grunts did. And I don't get the part about being able to blast through the other games if you get the trainers in place-you had to do soemthing like that for almost every Gym Leader and had lots of side quests beside so it was impossible to blast through older games, unlike B/W.
 
Hmm, I didn't know that about Charon. I've never played Platinum.

If I remember correctly, every Gym Leader in the 1st generation games were already sitting there in their gyms except for Giovanni, and Blaine locked up his gym until you got around the Pokémon Mansion. You couldn't blast through the game, but only because the caves and syndicate-controlled bases got in your way--which was exactly what was done in Black/White as well.
 
You shouln't be comparing the first gen games to the fifth gen games. That was ten years ago. If you compare B/W to Gen 4, the games before it, it sucks. D/P/Pt/HG/SS all had way more to do, way more sidequests, they were longer, etc.
 
Hmmmm...the game was short...but when I hit the E4 i had a hard time. There is nothing to do post game but the level jump did make it semi interesting. Overall...it's underwhelming. They just made the game for the new poke...and did you notice how many poke you would run into in the grass? ALOT. It seemed as though there were trying to rub the poke in our faces xD "OOOO look we made a crocodile and cottonball and a centipede and a....um...coffin....OOOOOOOO." It just seemed...lazy, ya they took up alot of room for all the poke to move but...don't cut the content for moving sprites...I could do without those lol
 
pokemon black and white maybe a little short, but the competition was pretty much worth it
 
Dark Void said:
You shouln't be comparing the first gen games to the fifth gen games. That was ten years ago. If you compare B/W to Gen 4, the games before it, it sucks. D/P/Pt/HG/SS all had way more to do, way more sidequests, they were longer, etc.
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Black/White was meant to be an analogue to the 1st-generation games; by simplifying what you had to do to proceed and featuring no old Pokémon while the story is still underway, some of which have unexpected types, the game design is meant to make you feel like you're starting over in the series and to allow people who came in from the 1st generation to understand it.

I've met people who came in from the 1st generation to Diamond/Pearl, who felt it had become too complicated. (By this, I mean going through the game.) They were confused as to where to go (especially when Mt. Coronet is involved), and they felt the game moves too slow. Black/White seems designed with these people in mind.
 
Ophie said:
I've met people who came in from the 1st generation to Diamond/Pearl, who felt it had become too complicated. (By this, I mean going through the game.) They were confused as to where to go (especially when Mt. Coronet is involved), and they felt the game moves too slow. Black/White seems designed with these people in mind.
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Agreed.
I hated the Sinnoh games because they were too expansive, and I was too busy doing tasks that the game became more a chore than a game. I loved a small storyline, because it means I can get through the game faster and raise my Pokemon for competitive battles.

So to answer the thread title question, yes they did lack obstacles, and the result was a linear game. However, I consider that a good thing.
 
Wait wait wait wait. "too expansive"?
You are hating on a game that is supposed to be a kid going through the country and becoming the best at catching and training beasts, which requires going to different places and meeting new people because it's too expansive?
You can't blame a game for being too long and wide for being so, just to get to the endgame stuff. People enjoy playing the game and doing all the sidequests.

I don't know why people are complaining about games having content and being long. I thought having a long game was good, not bad. The whole point of the lack obstacles is that the game is shorter. Short games in my mind let the game down hugely. Competitive reasons shouldn't have a say in what makes good in-game. In other cases yes, but what effects longevity of a game and how it is layed out shouldn't in any case.
 
What you want in a game is not necessarily what other people might like in the game. The most important thing to consider here is that Pokémon is, at its core, a portable game series. It's also a series with a massive mainstream audience. Chances are you've been playing Pokémon games for every generation since you began, so you're more part of the core audience.

For most people, they buy handheld games to be able to play in short bursts. Puzzle games are popular on handheld devices, for instance (iOS and Android included) because you can play them in such short bursts. That is, if you're bored and have nothing to do somewhere, you can take out the game and play until you get to do something again (such as a bus ride). Thus, the length of a game is usually not a factor, or if anything, a game lasting too long counts against them because they'd lose attention before they'd finish. Every Professor Layton game can be finished within 10 hours, for instance, first time through, but it's hugely popular. Every WarioWare game can be finished within 2 hours, but that sells amazingly well too. Games like these don't really work on a home system, as they're meant for longer periods of play. There, game length can be a problem. That's why Smooth Moves didn't get as good a reception as other WarioWare titles--when it's on a home console, people tend to play for hours at a time, and it feels much shorter due to this. On a handheld, they can play one or two stages at a time and it feels normal.

Chances are you play Pokémon for long periods of time and treat it much like a home system. That's okay. I do that too. But this, based on my experiences watching people play portables, is a minority thing. People can take on a Pokémon battle going through the game, save, and quit. They open it up that night, for instance, maybe play another battle, then save and quit. When you play like that, a short game is a plus.
 
I disagree with that. I don't know anyone who only plays that little amount. And even if they did, that doesn't mean you want the game to be shorter. Why would you ever want a good game to be shorter? Its why i hated the ranger games, they were shorter and had nothing to do postgame compared to other Pokemon games. Having a game be shorter is never a good thing, it means you beat through the game and get bored of it more quickly.
 
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