Generation V (Japanese: 第五世代, Hepburn: Dai Go-sedai) is the fifth instalment of the Pokémon franchise. The first two new Pokémon of the generation starred in the 13th movie, Pokémon—Zoroark: Master of Illusions, whose names were revealed to be that Zorua and Zoroark. The titles for these games have been revealed to be Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version.
Chronologically, Black, White, Black 2 and White 2, take place around the same time as Generation IV.
Generation V Enhancements
Generation V has many new enhancements, as do all the other generations. This generation, however, is unlike the others. Almost everything is changed, including graphics, battle changes, plots, rivals, towns, viewpoints, Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, legendary encounters, landscape, competitions, and much much more.
Graphics
The graphics in Black and White have changed drastically. Below are some of the things that Generation V has to offer in this new gaming century.
Battles
The Battling System has changed very much, below are examples of some changes of it.
- Pokémon now move during the battle. When the player's Pokémon health is low, the battle music becomes different and the player's Pokémon move slower.
- Additionally, when a Pokémon is afflicted with a status effect, it changes colors in battle instead of a bar telling the status appears. Their sprite or sprite animation also changes. For example, when a Pokémon has a sleep status, its eyes are closed, as if it were sleeping. When it is paralyzed, its animation is static.
- The background moves in a circle, and changes if it is in day, night, dawn, in a building, etc.
- The weather is shown on the battle menu.
- Triple Battles and Rotation Battles are introduced.
Cities
- Cities are now in 3D.
- When exiting some cities, it will show the entire city in one screen. An example is Castelia City.
- People now can walk around and comment.
- Cities have been expanded to a massive scale.
Legendary Pokémon Encounters
- When encountering Reshiram, the 3D aspects are taken to the extreme. When it enters, it lands and shoots flames around in a fiery circle.
- When encountering Zekrom, the 3D aspects are taken to the extreme. When it enters, a storm begins. It lands and shoots electricity out in an explosion of thunder.
- When encountering Cobalion, Virizion and Terrakion, a series of three slashes appear and breaks a glass before the battle begins.
- When walking toward the Legendary Pokémon Kyurem, Kyurem flash freezes time and brings you to its cave.
- To capture Victini, you must get the Liberty Pass and get on a boat to Liberty Garden in Castelia City. When you fight your passed the last of Team Plasma, Victini awaits you in the basement.
- When you encounter Thundurus, Landorus, and Tornadus, it will fly down to the area you are in. When the battle begins, a slash will appear with a bright light (like lightning), as well as thunder being heard.
Gyms
- When the player receives a Gym Badge, the case will float to the screen, along with the badge, and be placed in the case before having the case returning to the pocket.
- In some Gyms, such as the first one, the leader you fight depends on which starter Pokémon the player chose. For example, if Oshawott is chosen as the starter Pokémon, Cilan appears as the Gym Leader with his Pansage.
- In the final Gym, in Pokémon Black Drayden is battled, and in Pokémon White Iris is battled.
- Lots of Gyms have many new 3D enhancements.
- Some Gyms don't even have the Gym Symbol on it and may be hidden.
Elite Four and Champion/N Battle
Elite Four Marshal's Room
- The Elite Four no longer move as sprites.
- The Elite Four can now be battled in any order.
Competitions
- There is a new feature called the Pokémon Musical where you can enter your Pokémon in the musical, almost like a Pokémon Contest.
- The Pokémon Contests, however, did not return for this generation but returned for the remakes of Generation III in Generation VI. Until then, the contest types of the moves introduced in this generation were unknown.
- There is a new feature called the Battle Subway where you can fight trainers while riding a Subway. It works similarly to the Battle Frontier in the previous games.
- There is a new feature called the Royal Unova which is a ship in Castelia City.
- There is a new feature called the Poké Transfer Lab that has you shoot Poké Balls at Pokémon that you transferred to Pokemon Black and White. This can be accessed later in the game.
Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
- There is new feature called the Dream Smoke and Dream World than can be more explained here. (Link)
- There is new feature called the C - Gear that can be more explained here. (Link)
- There is new feature called the Global Link that can be more explained here. (Link)
Important characters
Gym Leaders
     /Chili /Cress    Striaton City |
   Nacrene City |
   Castelia City | ||
   Nimbasa City |
   Driftveil City |
   Mistralton City |
   Icirrus City |
   Opelucid City |
Elite Four and Champion
Legendary Pokémon
The Tao Trio
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Zekrom | Dragon/Electric |
| Reshiram | Dragon/Fire |
| Kyurem | Dragon/Ice |
The Forces of Nature
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Tornadus | |
| Thundurus | Electric/ |
| Landorus | Ground/ |
The Swords of Justice
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Cobalion | Steel/Fighting |
| Terrakion | Rock/Fighting |
| Virizion | Grass/Fighting |
Mythical Pokémon
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Victini | Psychic/Fire |
| Keldeo | Water/Fighting |
| Meloetta | Normal/Psychic |
| Genesect | Bug/Steel |
Games
Main series
Side games
Pokémon
Sequel
- Two sequels were announced for Black and White. It was released on June 23, 2012, for Japan and an autumn release date for Europe and North America. The sequel takes place two years after Black and White.
Trivia
- Generation V is the first generation to:
- Not have a pair of games based around a previous region or previous installment.
- Have sequels of the first games of the generation.
- Not introduce any new Pokémon that are the evolved or pre-evolved forms of any previous Pokémon.
- Have the option to be playable in kanji, rather than only hiragana and katakana.
- Have the Kanto region unaccessible in any of the generations mainline games.
- Not introduced a new Bug/-type Pokémon. It would later share this trait with Generation VI and Generation VIII.
- Generation V is the only Generation to have two pairs of protagonists.
- Along with Generation III, Generation VII and Generation VIII, Generation V is the only generation to not have any Eeveelutions.
- Generations V has the most amount of Pokémon than any other Generation, having 156 in all. This beats even Generation I, which introduced the first 151.
- However, the Generation I games were originally planned to include 190 different Pokémon.
- Along with Generation VI, this generation has the least amount of Pokémon with a Mega Evolution with 1 (Audino being the sole Pokémon from this generation with a Mega Evolution).
- This generation introduces a bad word filter, a thing that was never previously introduced, thus preventing the player from entering a name unsuitable for younger players. If the player attempts to insert a cuss word or any other word contained on the filter's blacklist, such as sexual references and terrorism, they will be denied from entering it as their Pokémon nickname, player name, etc.. The words in European languages such as English are not case-sensitive, and the banned Japanese words (e.g., しぬ/シヌ, meaning "death") are banned in both hiragana and katakana. The filter only applies to entering the name exactly, and can easily be evaded by putting a space or any other character before/after the word on the game's blacklist. On the Global Trading System, however, the player will be denied from sending a Pokémon if the name includes any of these banned words. This even prevented some officially named Pokémon that contained the key word such as Cofagrigus and Froslass from being traded without nicknames.
- Generation V introduced the most Pokémon with (at the time) unique type combinations with 33 different Pokémon.
- Generation V is the last generation to use sprite-based visuals with its mainline games.