The story of this game would have been much better if Team Plasma actually kept a facade of having noble causes instead of being cartoonishly evil and having one of the grunts say out loud that Ghetsis is trying to trick people.
>>59250296Even if the facade had been well written, which it isn’t, the story would still be terrible.Make it their actual cause, and actually make a point out of why they are wrong.
>>59250296>remove ghetsis or just his "HAHAHA I AM LE EVIL AND WAS MANIPULATING N ALL ALONG" bit>story goes from mid to ludokinoIt's that simple.
I totally agree, i'm not even sure why this should make someone mad, it's genuinely badly written.I mean, in the end, after reflecting, many of the things people say to defend it are headcanons or proof that the plot failed, the game is truly poor and with huge plot holes, it's confirmed that they wanted to create a grey story, but there is nothing grey about it.
>>59250299They could have even kept it as a facade, but they had to show perfect grunts, instead of having them kick Pokémon, they had to be kinder than common trainers, they genuinely had to make you doubt, and then in the end you would have felt a sense of real helplessness, you know that Ghetsis doesn't believe in it and wants to rule the region, but it's hard for you to refute what the team is doing, that is a true ethical dilemma, obviously too deep for GF.
>>59250299>Make it their actual cause, and actually make a point out of why they are wrong.This way it wouldn't have been a dilemma, but a narrative in which the author uses the characters as pawns to reach a conclusion they have already established, but then there is no conflict, it remains good versus evil, who is right and who is wrong, the whole point is precisely to create a story in which neither of the two poles is right, because both arguments are valid.
>>59250308>obviously too deep for GF*Too deep for Masuda. Modern Pokemon games are heavyhanded because they're being written by Gen Xers who are absolutely fucking terrible with concepts like feelings and emotions but clearly want to tell stories that are more poignant than Masuda's Saturday Morning Cartoon Slop. Lots of the modern games are clearly trying to take a lot from BW and expand upon them, but they're also being held back by general incompetence, limited dev scope, TPC/Nintendo telling them "you can't do that" and franchise expectation. You aren't getting perfect Pokemon games anymore because they innately need to be baby shit. If any game was supposed to overcome that ghetto, it was BW, and it failed
>>59250314I agree. For what it's worth, i think base SM is the closest we got to a good story
They tried, at least. But yeah, the story is pretty shit.It's marginally better in B2W2 since the facade is abandoned entirely at that point, at least.I've always said Pokemon's story is at its best when it takes a backseat and just kind of exists so there's an adventure to go on in the first place. So just gens 1 and 2 and their remakes, basically. Every time Pokemon has tried to have a story beyond "are you a bad enough dude to stop the bad guys, become the champion, and catch 'em all?" it's fallen flat.With that said, I don't think poor writing ruins a Pokemon game, so long as it doesn't get in the way of exploration. Unfortunately, in BW's case, it does.
>>59250296This is bad. Or Plasbad for short.
>>59250315I do agree, but unfortunately Gen 7 is cutscene hell, which makes it hard to appreciate the story. The recipe for an awesome Pokemon game was there, but I feel like I'm mashing A through dialog more often than I'm actually playing the game.I do love the Sun and Moon anime though.
>>59250323Credit where it's due, this line was kino.
>>59250316I believe that a more complex story could work, the worldbuilding potential is there, and even the themes that the games have could potentially have been interesting, the point is that they don't care, they want to speak to both children and adults, but they fail miserably by producing something that speaks to no one. And seeing how many people idolize BW without ever actually getting into the merits of the plot, pragmatically they aren't wrong not to put in the effort unfortunately
>>59250309Lol that is not the story at all. The story very much paints Team Plasma in the wrong, but simply points out their hypocrisy instead of addressing the argument. If you think GF intended you to sit down after finishing the game and wonder “hmm maybe Pokeballs ARE bad, it’s a grey area” then you’re out of your mind. > This way it wouldn't have been a dilemma, but a narrative in which the author uses the characters as pawns to reach a conclusion they have already establishedThis isn’t a bad thing, a dilemma should be explored from both angles, but if the author doesn’t offer their own conclusion then the story ultimately has nothing to say for itself.
>>59250328To be fair BW does have some strong points (pretty awesome music even for a pokemon game, pretty memorable locations and characters, a few really cool pokemon (unfortunately they all evolve so late you'll never get to use most of them), and this one's kinda specific and trivial but i really like the TV dialog), but the story just really is not one of them.
I fucking hate "twist" villains where the turn comes out of nowhere, no thanks>But that isn't what I want either!These are the Pokemon writers, this is about as subtle as they can be, I'll take two different characters representing two different perspectives on the antagonist's side over whatever the hell they've been doing lately when it comes to antagonists. Shitty Xenoblade 2 7 years early is an upgrade.
>>59250334Yeah, i meant the story specifically>>59250329But it's what they said:Toshinobu Matsumiya (lead writer) from an interview:It’s been 14 years since the first game was released. By now, people catch Pokémon without questioning it at all. In that context, we chose "Pokémon liberation" as a major theme to re-examine the relationship between humans and Pokémon and get people to think about them once more.[...]Exactly, that was the goal. We didn't want the story of Pokémon Black and White to be a simple tale of good vs. evil. We wanted players to wonder what to believe in when both sides seem to have a point. Even if there is a mastermind pulling the strings in the background, we wanted players to feel that ambiguity.[...]I wonder. Children can be surprisingly sharp sometimes. Even if something is logically difficult, I think they can grasp a lot of it through intuition. When creating a Pokémon story, we take great care to avoid the fixed notion that "it must be a simple story so children can understand it." From the perspective of a child playing, I think they would feel insulted if we did that.Source:https://web.archive.org/web/20110603070309/http://www22.atwiki.jp/bwhuman/pages/48.html#id_0291458a
BW was even more disappointing when it came out, since it released right after HGSS, the best Pokemon game by far.
>>59250340They completely fail at that, when they discredit every character advocating for Pokemon liberation a hot second after they are introduced. Even by the end when N tries to offer a conclusion to the story it boils down to the same sentiment as always “you and your Pokemon love each other so the bond between Pokemon and people is special”. Aside from being completely anecdotal it completely sidelines the very real issue of people mistreating Pokemon or simply the Pokemon wishing to remain free.The story and the writing reinforces that if a trainer treats his Pokemon well their Pokemon will eventually learn to love them back no matter what, which is a really awful take.> When creating a Pokémon story, we take great care to avoid the fixed notion that "it must be a simple story so children can understand it."The actual guts of these people. As if the majority of Pokemon stories don’t fall squarely into that category, and the few that don’t fail miserably.
>>59250340Fucking hacks, I remember getting to the scene where a normal guy is swayed by Plasma’s words and releases his Pokemon and wondering if the game would actually portray this as morally ambiguous. But hell no, the game is practically screaming at you NO YOUR POKEMON LOVES YOU DON’T DO THIS
>>59250336>I hate this trope when it's poorly executedStellar statement, anon.
>>59250296>cartoonishly evilDon't play games for children then.
>>59250296Team Plasma is not for you, moronThe whole thing about them is that N and sheep believe in them and thinks it's a just cause.Why the FUCK WOULD *YOU* THINK RELEASING ALL OF YOUR POKEMON IS A GOOD IDEA
>>59250780There are works for children that respect their intelligence
>>59250296There was never truly a facade. N's followers and Neo Plasma existed since Accumula Town and the Munna kick. The schism in BW2 made this obvious.
>>59250819Yeah, I never said otherwise.
Agreed
>>59250296the focus of the story is that N grew up in a cult, if they were noble then the premise doesn't work
I never thought I'd see the day on /vp/ where the majority of posts in a thread would be agreeing that BW's story is terrible.Perhaps the world is finally healing.
>>59250342HGSS was already a disappointing slap upside the head most people couldn't make sense of or find the words to express at the time.BW was a straight-up gut punch of awfulness that was way easier to articulate disdain of.The last good Pokemon game was Platinum.
>>59250340What a catastrophic failure.
you fuckers just do this every day
>>59250296I like it better this way. Ghetsis is cool as fuck
>>59250296I like how Team Plasma filters this autist so much he has to keep making threads about it for years.
>>59250299This. >>59251472>f-filter!!!Holy cope
Kojo just because we're disappointed with Gen V doesn't mean we like Gen VI
>>59251411>HGSS was already [FANFIC]platinum is good though
>>59251654>fanfic
>>59250296They did keep the facade. It’s only the player character and the main characters that see past the facade and know Ghetsis’ true intentions. BW2 still have old plasma grunts that believe in the cause. If what you mean is that you wish Ghetsis actually believed in his propaganda and thought Pokémon and humans should coexist separately then that would have been dumb. It’s much more interesting that Ghetsis is a power hungry man who uses his son as a puppet to create a false narrative.
>>59250296I agree. It could be a lot better
>>59251664>all recent revisionist retardation>unironically using mistah merriku and pokemon challenged to back up your pointkekaroo
>>59251683Unironically never really thought about that
>>59251484>weSchizomode
>>59251696the "revisionism" wouldn't exist without an already underlying existent sentimentotherwise, everyone would have carried on propagating the johtoddler astroturfing that had gone on for almost two decades prior
>>59251683Ghetsis is a fine villain for what he represents, it's kind of frustrating to know he was dumbed down from the actual schizophrenic "the Hero King was WRONG??" character he used to be in the older scripts to babify the game but they could've at least done a better job at presenting Plasma as a genuine cause from the get go, and clearly B2W2 were trying REALLY hard to double down on the fact that there really was a genuine belief behind the original Team Plasma while Neo Team Plasma are just a regular evil team doubling down and ruining Team Plasma's reputation as a whole. I feel without B2W2, BW would've aged MUCH worse than it didBut again it's clear they don't want to make actually interesting stories and when they do, they're incompetent messes like Z-A. SM is the last time things truly clicked as being any form of mature and even that has problems being more like a VN than an RPG
>>59251401>>59251416>>59251664you really gotta change your filenames
>>59252118He does it so it can be organized so he can post them at the right time :)Almost like it's an avatar/signature use or something
>>59250308>kinder than common trainersIt would be kino if the grunts of Team Plasma looked up to Ghetsis and would be disgusted if they ever found out what he was really like, and the team as a whole was perceived as extreme activists with genuinely good beliefs.Honestly, BW1 are very close to having a legitimately nuanced story that really makes you think about the relationship between Pokemon and trainer, but unfortunately they made Team Plasma way too obvious and ironically made the conflict much more black and white.
Junichi Hacksuda
