Pokemon Black/ White: Too little and way too late

     I know what you’re going to say, “Hey, Pisko, didn’t Pokemon B/W come out in March (Ed. Note years ago, btw)? What took so long?” Well, I’m glad you asked Johnny Everyperson! I work 40 hours a week and [this blog] isn’t cool enough to get advanced copies of games yet so I’ve had to put 80 hours on a portable game in my spare time. That’s right, my “finished” game clock is 82:34 and I put finished in quotes because as any Poke-veteran knows you can NEVER be done with a Pokemon game. With that being said I have decided not to so much “review” the game in the traditional sense because if you are reading this article you either 1)Already own Pokemon B/W and/or 2) Have read plenty of reviews by guys who had early copies and therefore posted their articles WAAAAAY before me. What follows is simply a collection of thoughts from a seasoned Pokemon master. 

     As for me, I’ve been playing Pokemon since Red/Blue and have completed each one of the main games in the series, so you can bet I know what I’m talking about here.

The game is awesome. I say that about every new adventure in the pokemon world Nintendo let’s me have but this is clearly the first attempt to drag the series kicking and screaming into the gameplay of today. The overworld still sports a 2.5-D view from a top down perspective but it feels more colorful and immersive this time. The little things bring it together. For example the trees move in the breeze and the water ripples, etc. It’s not much but it feels more like a world that’s alive. Pokemon still hide in tall grass and randomly pop out but now and then you will see one give it’s position away by shaking the grass and drawing your attention. More times than not this is a pokemon that appears less than the others that randomly pop out. The places you visit are more varied than any other region the games have traversed in the past and you get more of a feeling that more thought was put into the overworld layout. Each town still has a gym leader with a “type” but it’s less likely that the town reflects the gym leaders pokemon preference in the town architecture.

Is it me or do they all seem like lazy fucking design?

     The overworld wasn’t the only part of the game to get upgraded this time. Battles finally feel faster and more satisfying as the pokemon better move and react when attacking or taking damage. One major gripe is that the pokemon still look like GBA sprites when the DS can clearly handle so much more. Having played this on a DSi XL I have to say the sprites looked stretched out and out of place with the rest of the game being so pretty and polished. If it takes too long or too many resources to make better looking pokemon I’d be fine cutting the number of monsters down in favor of better looking ones in battle. Battling is the majority of what you’ll be looking at anyway so it makes it hard for me to understand Nintendo’s decision to graphically upgrade the rest of the game but leave these visual turds on the most used screens of the game. While the battles themselves are more gratifying and better in general the visuals of those sequences still suck it hard.

     The story itself is a new take on the old, “Go get 8 badges and try to catch ‘em all” dynamic. In this game the bad guys actually have a decent but confusing purpose. Team Plasma is the most fleshed out of the games baddies that have ever been and their purpose contradicts everything the game itself stands for. The message they spread is an ethical one most children won’t pick up as hypocritical but adults can see as plain as day. The pokemon series has one message, “Catch ‘em All” and Team Plasma points out that this message not only traps these animals in cylindrical confined cages called PokeBalls but that these animals are essentially sent out to fight each other for their trainers amusement and boastful pride. Instead of trying to steal trainers pokemon for power, or whatever Team Rockets shitty message was, Plasma wants to liberate the creatures akin to the Pokemon universes version of PETA. It’s a bold choice and I wonder who slipped this by Nintendo to make it into the game as it undermines their ENTIRE marketing machine.

I hope you have friends... Or enough money for a copy of each.

     Ethics aside the game is still a stellar RPG and the perfection of it’s style in the genre. The game is still dated in so many way but Nintendo covers them up as best they can. I think it would be impossible not to recommend this game to anyone who loves Pokemon, animal fighting, Michael Vick, or just RPG’s in general. I’ve always called the Pokemon series, “Cock fighting for kids” and it would seem Nintendo understood the appeal of that from the start. Kudos to the house that Mario built.