Black and White 2 are excellent and complete games in the same way that the peaks of the series (Emerald, HG/SS) are, and some part of me wants to love it as much as I do those. I actually did feel that way for a good chunk of my playtime, but I soured a bit as I realized this game has a very poor sense for pacing and ordering, dampening the stakes of every challenge and the rush from every payoff. This, combined with questionable decisions like removing the "new gen Pokemon only" appeal of the original Black and White, made for a pretty average Pokemon experience from a game that could've easily been one of the best.
Narratively, this is certainly the most mature and compelling game in the series. Granted, that's not a super high bar, but it's refreshing. Being a true sequel, it aims for slightly older children who played the first game, and this clearly energized the writers. Here we get the aftermath of Team Plasma's defeat, where they have split into two factions. One group of the true believers in their professed ideology who followed N and wanted to make a world better for Pokemon, and one of remnants who go mask-off evil and continue stealing Pokemon to achieve world domination. The former group has organized to do good for the community, returning stolen Pokemon and opposing the still-evil other faction. Believe it or not, this game grapples with forgiveness with a reasonable amount of nuance, neither permanently shunning the ex-Plasma members nor forgiving them the moment they apologize. Redemption, as this game portrays it, requires consistent good work and proof of goodwill to really come be deserved...and I'm inclined to agree. It's also touchingly sympathetic to victims who aren't capable or do not want to give forgiveness when that work has been done. This is mostly told through your rival, who holds a deep grudge against Plasma for stealing his sister's Purrloin during the period of the first game. He's deeply hurt and will fall into blind fits of rage when he meets Plasma members, with the entirety of his quest being to return that Purrloin. Even while working with them to take out the Plasma remnants, he's deeply suspicious of the ex-Plasma members and never really seems to make peace with them. The game never berates him for this, it only suggests that once they've truly earned that forgiveness, it would be better for his own state of mind to give it to them. I would never expect a Pokemon game to be so gentle and fair, but we got that here. If there's any flaw with the narrative, it's that the gym and league challenges feel entirely separate and like they were only included because "that's what you do in a Pokemon game". That disconnect would me remedied in later games by making the gym leaders core parts of the main story, but this game had only just started making steps toward gym leaders doing more than just standing around in a gym the whole game.
On technical and visual levels, this is in line with the previous generation 5 games, which puts it at the top for me. This is the last gen using sprites for Pokemon and is the only one with them being fully animated. It's so lively and beautiful that I can't help but see this as the canonical look and feel of each of these Pokemon. Pokemon that came with gen 6 and afterwards I'll have to make due with imagining the 3D models, but all generation 1-5 Pokemon live in my mind as they're interpreted here. Menus are smooth, quick, and have just the right amount of convenience without going overboard and chipping away from the core experience. Battles are so snappy and alive that you almost forget how much harder this is than anything else in the main series. But when you do stop and take in the challenges you're facing, you really start to appreciate how much better a Pokemon game feels when it's not treating you as if you're incapable of thought. Kids are capable of that too, you know.
Narratively, this is certainly the most mature and compelling game in the series. Granted, that's not a super high bar, but it's refreshing. Being a true sequel, it aims for slightly older children who played the first game, and this clearly energized the writers. Here we get the aftermath of Team Plasma's defeat, where they have split into two factions. One group of the true believers in their professed ideology who followed N and wanted to make a world better for Pokemon, and one of remnants who go mask-off evil and continue stealing Pokemon to achieve world domination. The former group has organized to do good for the community, returning stolen Pokemon and opposing the still-evil other faction. Believe it or not, this game grapples with forgiveness with a reasonable amount of nuance, neither permanently shunning the ex-Plasma members nor forgiving them the moment they apologize. Redemption, as this game portrays it, requires consistent good work and proof of goodwill to really come be deserved...and I'm inclined to agree. It's also touchingly sympathetic to victims who aren't capable or do not want to give forgiveness when that work has been done. This is mostly told through your rival, who holds a deep grudge against Plasma for stealing his sister's Purrloin during the period of the first game. He's deeply hurt and will fall into blind fits of rage when he meets Plasma members, with the entirety of his quest being to return that Purrloin. Even while working with them to take out the Plasma remnants, he's deeply suspicious of the ex-Plasma members and never really seems to make peace with them. The game never berates him for this, it only suggests that once they've truly earned that forgiveness, it would be better for his own state of mind to give it to them. I would never expect a Pokemon game to be so gentle and fair, but we got that here. If there's any flaw with the narrative, it's that the gym and league challenges feel entirely separate and like they were only included because "that's what you do in a Pokemon game". That disconnect would me remedied in later games by making the gym leaders core parts of the main story, but this game had only just started making steps toward gym leaders doing more than just standing around in a gym the whole game.
On technical and visual levels, this is in line with the previous generation 5 games, which puts it at the top for me. This is the last gen using sprites for Pokemon and is the only one with them being fully animated. It's so lively and beautiful that I can't help but see this as the canonical look and feel of each of these Pokemon. Pokemon that came with gen 6 and afterwards I'll have to make due with imagining the 3D models, but all generation 1-5 Pokemon live in my mind as they're interpreted here. Menus are smooth, quick, and have just the right amount of convenience without going overboard and chipping away from the core experience. Battles are so snappy and alive that you almost forget how much harder this is than anything else in the main series. But when you do stop and take in the challenges you're facing, you really start to appreciate how much better a Pokemon game feels when it's not treating you as if you're incapable of thought. Kids are capable of that too, you know.