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Co-written by Thomas Levett and K.A. Wilks
Welcome back, and without further ado, let’s move on to the fifth generation of Pokémon. To be honest, Black and White are oddballs. They feature entirely new Pokémon (not a Pikachu in sight – except as a lawn ornament), show up on the exact same platform as the last generation, have a region based on a place not in Japan (New York), question the whole premise of the franchise (which PETA was doing already – I’m just going to call “Team Plasma” “Team PETA” from now on), and try almost every type combo not already in existence. That’s quite a lot to introduce in one generation. As a final oddball point, there is no remake in sight.
Consider it GameFreak’s reaction to being backed against a wall. This was not just fanbase backlash. This was a dramatic spin of the chessboard in an attempt to win back the favour of what had become a very diverse fanbase indeed. You had kids into Pokémon, teens into Pokémon, and hard-core fans who had been around since Gen I to placate – an unsightly mix if I ever saw one. GameFreak was, at this point, struggling to please everybody at once, and wound up with another Gen III situation: solid games by themselves, but still not quite resonating. This lack of resonance was at least partially the fanbase’s fault.
There had been complaints that Sinnoh had been too nostalgic; all new Pokémon it is! Were the things in Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh too weak? Presenting a plethora of powerhouses! No sexy or female professors? Aurea Juniper filled both roles nicely. We heard you thought our games advocated animal cruelty – allow us to make a straw man out of your argument (we’ll get to this as its own point). Also, your TMs are now unbreakable, because who likes TMs that break? That last one was a pretty good move given the glut of new Pokémon, albeit one that nobody really asked for. Still a lovely gesture.
More furry bait was added too, in the form of Zoroark. While it received its own movie, it was also completely optional. The most the game does is show you N’s own Zoroark and Zorua, and leave you with a few creepy NPCs and areas. That’s really not bad considering how much they hammered Lucario in; most likely people reacted badly to more of the same, although Delphox in Gen VI foreshadows that anthropomorphic dogs aren’t going anywhere.
Zorua and Zoroark
Another good thing they did was link B/W to the Gen IV games in a subtle, but charming way. Caitlin of the Battle Frontier in the last few games has now become a (psychic) member of Unova’s Elite Four. Nice touch; it gave the games the sense of continuity that R/S lacked upon release, without beating the connection to previous games into our faces.
Gen V also stands out in that the technical differences are minimal this time around, probably due to them on the exact same system as Gen IV. By contrast, the advanced hardware of the Game Boy Colour gave Gold and Silver a little more to work with, compared to Red and Blue being developed for the original Game Boy.
The most important changes are the Dream World and its accompanying Game Sync, which let you play with your Pokémon online and level it, as well as gain access to non-Unova Pokémon and new abilities. For now, though, let’s focus on what the game chose to focus on, even over the all-new Pokémon: the story.
One thing Black and White did right was not only create a slightly different story for each version, but also made that true for the sequels. There are certain differences between Black and White that go beyond version exclusive Pokémon; for example, Opelucid City is futuristic in Black, but a town taken out of the past in White. The post-game exclusive areas are, likewise, a neon metropolis in Black and a pastoral village in White. Enough details are different that, if you play the sequel to the wrong version, you feel a cognitive disconnect – an “am I missing something?” feeling. This is all in the same Generation, so it’s not like the disconnect I mentioned with the Gen I/II games and R/S.
There are, however, a few things that still show wear. What? After flipping the chessboard? Yes.
Let’s look at how Team PETA is characterized throughout Black/White. They start out as what looks like a well-meaning group, thinking that Pokémon battling is wrong…and yet battling Pokémon anyway. Their “leader” is N, an attractive young man (fangirl bait, let’s admit it) who possesses the unique ability to talk to Pokémon. He is after the opposite Pokémon of your cover Legendary, not to take over the world, but to show humans everywhere that Pokémon are not tools. He will become a hero – an icon – just by taming one Pokémon, and then encouraging others to set their cockfighting pets free.
Now, that’s not so bad, right? In theory, yes, but in reality…
It’s difficult to make Team PETA legitimately look like the bad guys. It’s really hard to make animal fighting look ethical, and organizations such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States have money, and thus lawyers, behind them. Never mind that “Pokémon are humans” lore- that would just make people rage harder. The developers did some very odd things with Team PETA in their attempts to dodge legal bullets.
The new face of animal welfare… or is it?
For one, N is revealed as a pawn. The real brain behind Team PETA is Ghetsis, who does indeed seek world domination. N’s plan to free Pokémon was just encouraged; if Ghetsis was the only one left with Pokémon, he’d be king. It’s kind of like if we just found out the owner of PETA was secretly into dogfighting.
What they did was make a straw man fallacy, which presents the other side of an argument as weaker than it actually is. There is a legitimate argument to be made against animal death battles. By making the main advocate of that argument little more than a pawn in a bigger plan, they have dodged that question. Like this:
N: “Pokémon battling is wrong and abusive! You should all release your Pokémon because I, as a person who can talk to Pokémon, have heard what they think of it. Also, I’m attractive, and have a cool dragon, so…yeah, ready to set your Snivy free?”
Player: “Excuse me, but you’re just a pawn in someone else’s game. You’ve been manipulated your entire life. Put your dragon back in its ball.”
See what I mean? They don’t address the abuse argument against Pokémon at all…or do they?
Yes, they do, but you have to read the fine print. Or just talk to all the NPC’s.
I’ll start with the biggest, most obvious example first: Through your many encounters with N, his dialogue implies or outright states that your Pokémon were having fun, and seemed really happy to battle for you. That’s really important: battling is enjoyable for the Pokémon getting cut, scraped, and burned, as well as the humans who like seeing monsters go at it. Since Pokémon battling is treated as a sport in its own universe, this makes a lot of sense. It is really, really easy to get injured playing sports. Just ask anybody who watches rugby.
Another example that really stuck out was one Team PETA grunt seen in N’s castle. Just when Team PETA’s ideals are about to be put into motion, this one grunt has a sentimental moment with her Patrat. She questions, almost at the last second, what releasing her Pokémon would mean. She would miss her pet and possibly best friend – just like everyone else would if something similar happened in real life.
They could have made this argument stronger without beating it into our heads. While an outright abusive rival a la Silver from the G/S games (and thus HG/SS) is tempting to show that real Pokémon abuse isn’t in the fighting, the thing that really would have helped, also from Gen IV, is simply including Pokémon that walk with you again. N talks about how he can miraculously hear your Pokémon say that they’re enjoying themselves from inside their balls. A few other lines of dialogue also comment on how happy your Pokémon look. If one of my Pokémon was outside of its ball, that would be a lot more credible.
I told you it was happy!
I won’t get into the implications of this for the real world, but in Pokémon, the counterargument is shown, not told: through Pokémon battling, humans and Pokémon bond. Pokémon battling is a way for humans and nature to interact. Children learn about the world and the animals within, and meet all sorts of new people on their journeys. Some Pokémon even evolve when treated well, and it’s very hard to make effective use of Frustration, the one move which requires a Pokémon to dislike you.
Humans and other humans also bond thanks to Pokémon. I’m sure we can all name one friend we’ve made through Pokémon. Thanks to online trading, we can meet even more new people, and strengthen existing ties by splitting things like breeding workloads. Some of us are seekers of truth, while others are idealists; that doesn’t mean we can’t get along. Isn’t that just beautiful once we realize that’s what the original B/W games were getting at? One wonders why such charming displays of unity through Pokémon showcased in HG/SS weren’t put on display in B/W, as they would most likely have stopped Team PETA cold.
That said, I don’t want to talk much about Black/White 2, but I will say that there are a few more damning pieces of evidence that the creators really wanted to end things there. The most obvious of these is that every Gym Leader from the past games comes back to battle you in Pokémon B/W2, albeit in an unnecessary bit of post-game. The post-game is probably the best part of that game; Team PETA has abandoned their PETA-esque ways, and resorted to all-out terrorism, so B/W2 is the same old song and dance (as of Gen 3) if not for that epic stuff after the storyline.
Timeline-wise, the fifth generation is second to last, if not dead last. It takes place a decent amount of time after anything in Gen IV. There’s a bunch of evidence for this, but here’s the most obvious, as mentioned before: Caitlin of the B/W Elite Four is much older than the Caitlin of the Gen IV Battle Frontier. An official tweet states that B/W2 are at the same point in time as X/Y. That makes sense…right?
Sort of. Something else is going on with X/Y. As acknowledged by Game Theory, with evidence from the canon backing it up, X/Y can take place at any time they darn well please. They are not, however, in the same universe as the other games. The issues that arise with this, and with Generation VI, are covered in a later part of our essay.
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