VISUALS:
-Overworld is a definite improvement from the 4th Generation games. The 3D transition is much better, too.
-I like the interface pictures overall, crisp and effectively placed.
-The fact that the backsprites are zoomed in is annoying, but moving sprites are fairly nice (though they do have the disadvantage of effectively eliminating creative poses from sprites).
INTERFACE:
-Being able to register more than one Item is amazing; I love the flexibility you have with the Itemfinder, Bike, and Fishing Rod.
-I enjoy being able to skip directly to the overworld with a single tap from almost any screen.
-Automatic Item sorting is great (though I wish it was more than just alphabetical). You can also skip down a "page" with a button click, also nice.
-The Battle Interface is fantastic. The fact that weather no longer takes a huge chunk of time every turn is lovely, as is the fact that Abilities are more obviously noted (but in a way that's not obstructive). Pokémon commands are usually easy, though one can run into trouble with two fainted Pokémon being replaced.
GAMEPLAY:
-The starters aren't bad, though they're not that great, either. Snivy isn't very good in-game, Tepig isn't very fast (though Flame Charge can help this), and Oshawott is... well, decent I guess (I haven't used it).
-I enjoyed being able to use HMs from the moment of obtaining them, as well as most of them not being necessary.
-The game flows from one area to another fairly seamlessly, which is nice.
-As per usual, the games are fairly easy. I don't complain about nurses/doctors and Infinite TMs, and here's why:
•Nurses and Doctors make it much easier to go through areas that would otherwise require an annoying amount of backtracking, and are great for training Pokémon
•I honestly hated how TMs were one-time use, since it made them impractical in-game. I was, basically, forced to just use my team's level-up movepool if I wanted to use a TM competitively. I'm a collector; I don't like using one-off Items if I can help it. Sure, the TMs make the game somewhat easier, but for the most part you can't get the really good TMs until later in the game, which helps balance.
-The Gyms are... well, the Gyms. Same basic story progression.
-However, the story itself was excellently executed (the best in any Pokémon game yet, IMO), as is the twist ending.
CHANGES:
-The Experience System change was... good, as far as reason goes, but it rather forces the game to give you a Lucky Egg about half of the way through. I will say, though, that with this combination, there's really no reason that you'd have to grind.
-Special terrain patches are, in my opinion, a fantastic addition. The ability to find Pokémon that would otherwise require evolution or those that are very rare gifts (like the monkeys).
-The Dream World is a good concept, but it's, in my opinion, poorly executed. I suppose that the minigames themselves are fine, but when you're doing them all the time, they can get boring.
-Certain move changes were rather obnoxious, most notably the buffs to Jump Kick and Hi Jump Kick, as well as Tackle (which, by the way, is now statistically superior to
CUT.)
-Being able to fight the Elite Four in your own desired order is lovely.
MUSIC:
-Honestly, Black and White's music is excellent compared to that of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. There were only a few tracks in DPPt that I sincerely disliked, the bike theme (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoEbDs39lY8) being one of them, but the songs were, for the most part, not all that memorable. The Galactic Battle themes, Cyrus Battle theme, Sunyshore City theme, and the Mt. Coronet Top ones were the only ones that really stood out to me.
-Black and White's music, however, works very well. The music fits its region, for the most part, and a lot of it is quite catchy and memorable. Many of the songs incorporated old sections from earlier games, which helps with the nostalgia value, but also makes the songs stronger, overall (in my opinion). One of my favorites is definitely Alder's theme (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fquuOdoeG7Q), which has a sagely sort of sound.
BIGGEST GRIPES:
-The fact that swarms still exist. They really make no sense to me, as far as logic goes; when they increased the chance of finding otherwise rare Pokémon, I was fine with that, but now they're just a cheap way to give players older Pokémon.
-Making Zekrom and Reshiram a necessary storyline capture. Game Freak, legendaries are better when they're hard to find and hard to capture. Sure, a capture rate of 3 is much more annoying than that of 45, but these Pokémon are supposed to be tough to capture; it is, in my mind, part of their charm.
-Making Zekrom, Reshiram, and Victini impossible to be caught as Shiny. Uh, what exactly is the point of that? A "screw you" to RNG manipulators who use that to get powerful Shinies? A revolt to the dedicated Shiny collectors? If you can't get the Shiny form, then the sprite for it is kind of pointless, yeah?
-
BROKEN BRIDGES (as in the gameplay kind, not literally). Game Freak has always been bad about this, but some of these really just bugged me. For example: I can't break the Galvantula web covering the hole to Chargestone Cave, even though I too have a Krokorok, which is even stronger than Clay's, just because the game says that I can't.
-Cynthia hanging around. She's kind of annoying by now, and she wasn't cool in DPPt (in fact, she was kind of a jerk). Bring back Blue or Steven or something.
-Censoring nicknames. I was never one to nickname my Pokémon offensive names, as I believe that it's juvenile and pointless. However, the censoring blocked some innocently given nicknames. To wit, Poof (apparently a slang term for a homosexual in Britain) for Cottonee, as well as Chi-Chi (a term for breasts), which would have been given in honor of Goku's wife in Dragon Ball Z. If you're going to censor those, then why not just ban nicknames altogether? Practically anything can be taken in an offensive of sexual way. They even went so far as to change the initial move-replacement sound (from "poof" to "ta-da") and change descriptions of some moves (Present had a reference to "booby-trapped" removed).
-Berries not being harvestable in-game. This is lame, especially since you have to use the clunky Dream World to harvest them.
-Pinch Berries
still not widely available. And then you taunt us by having Morimoto use them on his monkeys
and give them to Subway Pokémon.
-The Pokémon Musical. You basically leave the placing of Props to chance, since you give no indication of what kind of prop fits each kind of Pokémon and Musical style. You choose these of the (at least somewhat) skill-based Contests? NO.
-Roamers still being obnoxious. They're easier to track now, but still really annoying to capture (and it's very difficult to reset for them because of this).
BIGGEST APPLAUSES:
-Expansive places to explore, including some that have some new areas when you visit them again.
-Pokémon Names being properly capitalized.
-Making almost all Moves and Abilities have an in-battle effect. I'm still waiting on Teleport and Run Away, off of the top of my head, but they made headway.
I know I had some more to put here, but I think that this is enough (for now). I really do think that these are the best Pokémon games yet, even though there are still many problems with them.
I'll comment on the Pokémon some other time.