Topic: Gen 5 Pokémon games are really dark

So I just started Black today and where other games usually have your typical adventure happening for the first few gyms and then the evil group appears generally being your generic "take over the world" type, in Black it's only moments after getting your first Pokémon and Team Plasma seem more dark than the other groups.

I wouldn't quite go that far. For a cartoony world, going 'really dark' means the equivalent of SpongeBob falling down and having to go to the hospital.

It's also didn't really make any sense to me given the context of the world. They try to bring up the issue that maybe capturing and fighting wild animals before sticking them in boxes forever might not be the best thing ever, but then fall back on "But its all about mutual love, the pokemon actually want to lose their freedom and want have to fight their own kind continuously!...also the group that said all that stuff is secretly evil so their points aren't valid anymore..."

I don't see it. Team Plasma is basically a militant version of PETA. They make some good points, but they never seem all that evil to me.

IMO Pokemon's darkest villain is Lysandre. He's not too developed, but his end goals are pretty messed up. He's basically a super condensed version of the villain from Tales of the Abyss. That said, I don't think Pokemon needs a deep story. It robs the game of a sense of adventure. GSC got it perfect. A throwaway story with a mildly interesting rival.

I don't think Black/White were really dark, but they were quite well-written. I LOVED how fleshed-out the story was compared to other games in the series. Even your friends, and their families, are written compellingly. I also loved how a parent in the game actually had reservations about his daughter going on a Pokemon journey. Little touches like that added up to make it feel much more like a living, breathing world.

Lysandre's goal was more disasterous, but It wasn't well thought out at all. It's unexplained how the world would be beautiful after the forerunner flood wa- I mean he kills all sentient life.

Plasma wasn't a major threat since litteraly its peta and people can rebel like in real..

galatic's wasn't explained with what exactly they wanted to do be it was fairly devious.

Rocket is just theives.

Magma/aqua were not only disasterous, but explained their reasons and morals torwards their plans. They seem like the more sane, destructive bunch. Flare was just physco paths.

I'm sorry what? Black/White's rivals were awful, they were 100% tell, and no show. The reason people generally like the jerkish rivals more is because those types of characters more easily illicit a reaction from the player. A friendly character actually has to MAKE the player like them, they can't just start off acting all buddy-buddy. An unfriendly character just has to act like an ass, and you'll hate them. For a franchise that is generally light on story (yes, B/W are still light on story in the grander scheme of things), the latter option is generally better.

What was awful was having one person being an unreasonable jerk to you for no reason in every Pokemon game. I find a group of friendly rivals much easier to believe. So, agree to disagree. The jerky rival character was lazy writing.

I agree that these games are generally darker. I guess this is why I enjoyed them a bit more, as it wasn't like previous games.

After all, didn't in B2W2, Ghetsis was really close to actually kill the main player if it wasn't saved from N? You know..he had kyurem made ice spikes ready to impale the player...

yeah the story in omega ruby and alpha sapphire had me groaning. more of the end of the world shit, natural disasters, putting these themes in young minds very early. but everything does these days, from batman the dark knight to childrens games..

Giovanni kidnaps Pokemon to rule the world.
Maxie and Archie want to screw with nature
Cyrus wanted to become a god
Lysandre wanted to kill everyone

Pokemon has been "dark" all along

Jerk characters in Pokemon are lazy writing. But I'll take lazy writing that gets the desired reaction out of me over efforted writing that doesn't have the space to draw the reaction its aiming for.

At the end of the day, I just don't think Pokemon should care about story. It just doesn't fit the gameplay premise. You are adventuring out into the world and training pokemon for your team. A scripted narrative gets in the way of that feeling. I think the evil teams should be more of something you just happen to stumble upon, rather than being a major antagonistic force you are working against.

If they want to do a scripted narrative, I think the gameplay needs to change. Scrap the "gyms+elite four" structure and reduce the role of collecting Pokemon.

Sorry for the bump, but from what I hear, Cipher from the Pokemon Colosseum games make Team Plasma and Team Flare look like decent people by comparison. Corrupting Pokemon to become nothing but machines without emotion is a fair bit darker than whatever Ghetsis and co were up to in Black and White 2...

They are, that's why i appreciate the story best here (the soundtrack intensifies this). N's character and development was superb (even in B/W 2), Hugh's motivation against Team Plamsa was something and the original protagonist's relationship with N is new knowledge. Just finished White 2, while a slight step down from their predecessors, still maintains what made them brilliant. In fact, ever since X & Y till date, GAME-FREAK haven't come close to Black & White's story (or any of the preceding games).

I did not view Team Flare as dark antagonists, mainly due to the big pile of yuck everything surrounding XY was: If the story, music and locations doesn't show this, then i can't take any of the so called antagonists as antagonists.

I wasn't a big fan of Cipher. The concept was good, but the games suffered from a similar problem other games do. That is, the goal of the villain isn't really backed up by the world. You never really see or use pokemon I'm a means other than tools. You occasionally see them as pets, but they aren't really humanized . It was the same problem with Plasma. With Flare, they claimed the world wasn't beautiful, but I failed to see how the world wasn't beautiful.

This comes down to the fundamental problem. If pokemon wants to be story driven, it needs to rebuild the world for that story, as other JRPGs do. That means they have to cut back on the sense of personal adventure.