>>50565326People were fucking sweeped by Lenora's Watchog or Elesa's Emolga for example, so I'd say that Gym Leaders having 3 Pokémon wasn't really a problem. They were hard enough and used different strategies with completely unknown Pokémon at the time. That was one of the good things to have a 100% new Pokédex without old Pokémon until post game. If you went blind, you had a fsir challenge
Elite 4 had 4 Pokémon in their first match which comes just before the finale in N's castle that has a lot of battles and a narrative climax, so from a game design point of view they did good by not making the E4 battles last longer so they didn't take from what came later. Rematch has them with 6.
Music was great and arguably the best in the series, with lots of interesting things like adaptive music that added or removed channels or music for specific situations like the gym leader's last Pokémon or each gym having its theme, fuck you.
Region was linear but with TONS of side areas you could explore and get rewarded for doing so if you stepped out of the main path. HM use was the best in the series.
The "Nonsense roadblocks" are needed and they even make fun of that. Also, you are thinking about the "We are here for no reason and someday we will go" which is ONE (1) roadblock in the entire game and is from BW2 btw.
Rivals appearing everywhere was well executed, kinda like in Gen 1. Also, they both had a compelling character evolution.
And all of this the first time they try to revamp the Pokémon formula and do a soft-reboot. You have to see the things in context, and also you have to understand a bit of game design and rhythm.
Black and White and their sequels are the best games in the series. The DS era was the peak of the franchise, period. This coming from someone who was 10 when Red and Blue came out and lived through the Pokémania.
(Cont)
