If I were to ever introduce someone to the Pokemon franchise, Black and White (and Black2 White2) would be the ones I’d recommend. They feel like a great entry point to the franchise that helps get you to figure out how Pokemon is. Every single gym felt like it was full of life and embraced its typing as much as it could with the limited dex, with the exception of the first gym because that was a little lame. Everything that any past Pokemon game had set up in the past, finally got a clean slate for a new beginning with this game and its sequel. A whole new dex with no returning Pokemon (until post-game) and a great new story to tell. Really cool 2D-sprite visuals that make the Pokemon world feel more lively than past entries with an energy that gets you to actually be excited for playing the game more than most, along with some 3D cutscenes that, while rough, for the time and console were pretty neat for a Pokemon game. The entire idea of an ice cream cone as a Pokemon (it’s peak and I won’t hear otherwise). A soundtrack that goes unbelievably hard in all ways, through both battle themes and overworld themes for the first time in my opinion.
Now how about we destroy all that for shitty 3D models because the sequel undersold a little🤪.

If I had one problem to list with this game, it would have to be the limited dex and the starters being sort of lame. While it’s not a massive problem for me since I love most of Unova’s Pokemon, I can completely understand why someone would not be thrilled at the idea of not getting their favorite Pokemon outside of the generation. I was able to get through fine though, and I ended up using a little bit of a different team than I normally would, so here was what I ran with (once again curious to know what you think about the Pokemon I picked and their nicknames):

Dr. Fetus the Reuniclus (Super Meat Boy)
Amaterasu the Chandelure (Japanese mythology)
Leatherhead the Krookodile (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
Poseidon the Simisage (Greek mythology)
Orochi the Hydreigon (Japanese mythology)
Mothra the Volcarona (Godzilla franchise)

HONORARY MENTIONS:
Greaseball the Emboar
Stoner the Pansage
Aviator the Unfezant
Scoliosis the Scolipede
Zekrom the… well the Zekrom

You’re probably noticing the lack of something in this team listing compared to previous ones. That’s right, Pokemon finally did the based thing and made most HMs. NOT. ESSENTIAL. It’s insane how the franchise went from forcing 8 whole damn HMs down your gullet just to 5, with only 2 really being needed through the whole game. Even then, two of them are still really solid moves anyways that are good to have on your team. Something about all these little quality-of-life boosts to the small things in Pokemon really matter to me, and I feel like most of them that I listed overtime kind of went missing or got scrambled. The switch to 3D models definitely takes a lot of that blame, plus switching out of the DS soundfont was something I wasn’t a huge fan of and mostly still not am. I will wholly blame that on Pokemon XY as our scapegoat, you are innocent ORAS. To me, this replay just proves that Gen 5 is still on top as the most fun games with the most polish, with Gen 4 probably coming in right behind it. I cannot wait to play the second game, which if you sort my played games by "Time Played", I think you have a good idea on how I feel about it.