>>54738095>It has 11 fewer routesI'd like to note that you're not including every map, nor the quality of them. If we did, yeah Emerald still probably wins, Route 119 is a masterpiece, but I don't think most of Emerald's additions improve on the already great RS by much, whereas B2W2 took the okay BW to the next level.
>Its postgame facilities are completely casualized and not even remotely challenging to beat compared to Emerald's.Challenge isn't depth. It isn't breadth either. If you want to talk challenge, maybe Emerald is more challenging, but given the challenge includes Battle Palace I'd rather have a fun easy game, I love me some Kirby and Pokemon hit the Kirby level of quality best some time between HGSS and B2W2, although again Morimoto did a solid job with Emerald.
>There's no contests, and musicals and movie making are completely shallow in comparison.I agree Musicals are hot garbage that is not worth the development time put into them, but Pokestar Studios is a very clever challenge when you go for the cult endings. I'd say the end result has a lot more character that contests as well, but there's so many new assets made for Pokestar Studios that it's not a fair comparison. Contests are probably one of the better non-combat content in the series, if only because it takes the existing themes of Pokemon's gameplay and alters it rather than a more action orientated minigame like the Pokathelon.
>There's no secret bases. There's no berry farming.Yeah, it's a real shame the Dream World shut down. Thankfully there's somebody working on that, we'll see it done in our lifetime.
>The maps are lackluster and involve little to no problem solving compared to Emerald's.If we're just talking B2W2's new additions, then I disagree. Like, they're not better than Emeralds, but they're really close. If you want a few examples, I can list them. Off the top of my head, the Castelia Sewers are very similar to Shoal Cave, both solidly designed.
