Hm. I do feel that Black and White were certainly underwhelming. In fact, it just did not feel the same. The early game was rather prolonged, spamming you with endless Patrats and Lillipups to fight with, along with the occasional Purrloins... then you get a special monkey, yay! ... well you thought it was special until you realise EVERY trainer and their mother (quite literally) has them too! It wasn't surprising to see a trainer with all 3 even!
We were not introduced with HM03 and 04 properly either, and the lack of water routes meant lack of water Pokemon to fill your team. Also, getting acquainted with the new Pokemon felt odd... especially since they were in very random habitats, such as Throh/Sawk right outside Pinwheel Forest, Tympole in the GRASS patches nowhere near waters, Solosis in grass patches (not laboratory of any kind), etc... things definitely felt out of place and the game did not seem to feel like a Pokemon game until you BEAT the game and start building your team.
Post game was strange. Here I was, fighting level 50 Pokemon from trainers and ALL OF A SUDDEN they're bombarding me with level 60 + Pokemon. Most of them are unevolved and a trainer had the audacity to spam six level 60 Magikarps. What a way to troll Gamefreak...
Wild Mamoswine? Wild Metagross? Wild Tyranitar? I can fish out a Dragonite? I don't know about you, but I don't like the direction this is going at all...
The adventure field was different too... quite different from what anyone would expect. However, could it just be that Gamefreak decided to go a different direction overall instead of going their routine? I tried my best to actually see where BW went wrong... I think it's just that it is different and unfamiliar, so I tried playing the old games again to see what their charm was.
Well, I'm looking at Platinum again, and I realised the adventure field was great, but the characters were incredibly bland as the game had a subtle emphasis on competitive battling. In fact, they introduced us to TOO many Pokemon at that point that it was hard to get to know them all, and some were just overlooked even in-game (Wurmple and Kricketune I am looking at you).
HGSS... was beautiful. I don't know exactly what it was, aside from the claustrophobic adventure field and the low level curve (the latter which I don't mind so much anymore), it felt great. It had some sense of story, just the right amount of Pokemon to get to "know" and befriend, and it felt just like home for children and adults alike (though I do object to some character makeovers like Sabrina, but I won't get there).
Overall, I don't know what it is that made Black and White very underwhelming. BUT, one can clearly see that BW did have an emphasis on CHARACTER development. Where the past games were lacking some kind of concrete story or some random warped up story involving some bad guy trying to catch some legendary dragon, this one definitely had a good story. I got to know each characters and how they dealt with their life in the Pokemon World. I became enamoured with Bianca trying her best to be someone noteworthy and Cheren's competitiveness. N's innocence and idealism could not have been portrayed any better. Everything else about the game was executed poorly, but the storyline is what got me hooked and playing through. Was it worth the trade? Well, I'm not entirely sure, because I felt the game was lacking a lot. It could have been done better... much better.
What say you? Because I want to know myself what all of you think about this game, and I'm putting hopes for the "upcoming Grey version" that we don't even know about to rectify a lot of these. Platinum did make DP a LOT better, for example, but I'm not sure how they will pull this one out.
" like Ash.