>>29705443>gen 4This is where the games feel like they reached their peak (in my opinion). The physical/special split was one of the best changes ever made to the game for starters.
Asthetically the games look fantastic, with great music to add to the atmosphere. Sinnoh (particularly in Platinum - a phrase you'll see a lot) is a fantastic region with a lot of diversity and things to do. Unfortunately the distribution of pokemon in D/P - and not to mention the painfully slow system - make them borderline unplayable. Platinum is really what people should talk about when referencing gen 4 for this reason. While the BF was a step down from Emerald, PLT still had great post game content. In addition HG/SS are by far the best remakes, even if they didn't fix the balance issues. Gen 4 should be considered the best generation as far as I'm concerned.
>gen 5For my personal taste, BW were a massive step down in quality, much like many felt gen 3 was when compared to gen 2. The pokemon designs were incredibly bland - with exception - the region felt incredibly linear and uninteresting, the colours and music made for a forgetable atmosphere and the story felt like something out of a Final Fantasy game. Many speak highly of the decision to only allow gen 5 pokemon before post-game. For myself, this is irrelevant because I always do this anyway. The game does feel polished in some ways though, with plenty of trainers to battle along with Audino training so you have a lot of options which some earlier games severely lacked. On the whole BW felt incredibly sterile.
BW2 was a large improvement on BW, but still fell short of gen 4 as far as I'm concerned. The distribution of pokemon was a massive improvement, the music was mildly better, character designs were also improved and some of the new content made the region feel more alive than in previous game. While I am forgiving of BW2 as a slightly better than mediocre game, BW feel like the redhaired bastard children of the series.
