WrenchNinja
Member
So after Pokemon Red came out on the VC and I finished that, I had a real hankering for playing other Pokemon titles. I decided my next one would be Pokemon White. The last time I had played it was back around the time it came out in 2011, so I ended up deleting my file and starting over again.
Man, this game is freaking great. It's feels like a soft-reboot for the Pokemon franchise and essentially a remake of Red and Blue. You've got 150 or so new Pokemon and those are the only Pokemon you're going to be running into till the post game. It's actually a really great idea, since you get to be acquainted with all these new species instead of trying to rely on old favourites. It also serves to distance this region from the others, this is a whole new ball game. Even the male player character sort of resembles Red, they even brought back the baseball cap. I love the visuals for the game. People knock Pokemon for taking so long to go 3D, but I wouldn't have minded it if it had stayed 2D when the sprite work looks this good.
The story in this game is actually pretty decent for the most part. I got to start off with the intro, there's a weird opening with some kid named "N" in the forest and wild Pokemon around him, and then he gets crowned and right away you know this game ain't the same old Pokemon. Is he a King? There's a Pokemon King? You start off right in your bedroom with your two friends about to pick your Pokemon in big present box. And after that, you literally have a Pokemon battle in your bedroom, which completely messes the place up, which is pretty funny. And then you're off on your adventure and what an adventure it is. Your two friends, Cheren and Bianca, well you run into them consistently throughout your journey and they serve as your rivals, Cheren will pick the pokemon with the type advantage over you and Bianca will pick the one with a disadvantage. Surprisingly, both characters develop pretty siginicantly. Cheren wants to become Champion, and is constantly challenging you. But he just wants to be strong for being strong's sake (kind of like Blue in Red and Blue). Bianca on the otherhand wants to mimic you and Cheren but she is clearly out of her depth and isn't meant for the life of a battling trainer. Whats nice is both characters come to the realisations on their own and decide on a role that fits them in the end. They're also completely part of the story and don't sit in the sidelines. Cheren interacts a lot with Alder the Champion as well as Clay the Ground type gym leader, and Bianca interacts with Professor Juniper and gym leaders like Lenora and Elesa. It's like a coming of age story for the two of them.
The antagonists in the game are Team Plasma, and the game tackles the old question and joke about how Pokemon is just cock/dog fighting. So you can guess, their objective is to force everyone to release their Pokemon because they think Pokemon are just suffering under people. They do this by using Pokemon themselves but I guess, it's a means to an end sort of thing, or at least it is until the ending and the big reveal is that, nah, Team Plasma are just greedy jerks. Though there is one character who absolutely represents the uncorrupted goal of Plasma, and that's the character of N, who sort of serves as your third rival. He wants to find one of the cover legendaries and use its power to lead the people of the world into releasing their Pokemon. A neat thing about whenever you battle him, aside from the final battle, is that he'll only use Pokemon that are in the surrounding area. It's a nice touch since he isn't a trainer and is "friends of all of Pokemon" so they come to his aid.
Got to say, I really love how all the Gym Leaders play a part in the story and aren't just bosses. They all try to teach you something and they all come to the rescue (aside from the Striaton trio) near the end. Also like how you'd run into the champion Alder around Unova. He serves a similar role as Lance, Steven and Cynthia did but there's a little more story to him. Apparently his starter Pokemon died, and he left the Pokemon League to go on a wandering journey around Unova, but he goes back when he knows N is heading there. Also think it's pretty crazy how you never even fight Alder, N beats you to it. So when you see the credits, you haven't actually beaten the Pokemon League. Though you can face him for real if you go back.
Unova is a heck of a region. It's supposed to be based of New York and the U.S. in general, so people familar with the city can recognise what each area might be based off of. I like how distinct every town and city is, the most memorable probably being Castlia City. It's the first time Game Freak has made a city really feel like a city with huge buildings, crowds and people running around all over the place to get to work. My favourite city was probably Opelucid, I love the theme music for the town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g356DvtjCOo
Speaking of music, this gen has the best music in the series. My personal favourite is "Victory is right before your eyes" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FPz7yklWrA which plays whenever a Gym Leader is on his very last Pokemon. It's the hypest thing ever, a remix of the main title theme for the franchise that plays triumphantly when you're close to winning. I was really disappointed when they didn't bring it back for Gen 6 but I'm hopefuly they bring it back during the Kahuna battles in Sun and Moon.
Another is Route 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-ZzBeDHQs
This plays in the route between Opelucid City and Victory Road. It has a very melancholic tone, like you're aware the journey is almost at an end. You're also on a quest to stop N from defeating the Champion Alder.
Got to mention the final battle between you and N: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28caQQxNhA4
Some of the cool additions to gen 5 is the season system. Every month the season will be different and so will the environment and Pokemon encounter rates and availability. There's also triple battles and rotation battles, but you don't really have a lot of those. I don't really know what else gen 5 added game play wise, I mean there are also hidden abilities. Though they went through this obtuse method of introducing it. You had to go on some website that is now defunct and the website would send those Pokemon with those abilities. I don't know really know how it worked, seemed dumb. And y'know what's also dumb, you can't grow freaking berries without that website! So since Nintendo took down the Nintendo Wifi services for the DS and Game Freak took down that site, the only way to get berries is through abilities like Pick Up or fighting Pokemon Rangers.
I never got into the online multiplayer for gen 5 but I think the single player stands out pretty well. This game has a pretty good difficulty curve, I was never overleveled and I nearly lost a couple of times at certain gym leaders and elite 4 members. Even the final final battle with the big bad Ghetsis proved to be a challenge with his Hydreigon. I think it's cause this game has level scaling, so the higher the level, the less experience you'll receive from battling lower level pokemon which discourages grinding. So yeah, Black and White are great, go play them or replay them cause even without the online, it's still a stand out adventure.
Man, this game is freaking great. It's feels like a soft-reboot for the Pokemon franchise and essentially a remake of Red and Blue. You've got 150 or so new Pokemon and those are the only Pokemon you're going to be running into till the post game. It's actually a really great idea, since you get to be acquainted with all these new species instead of trying to rely on old favourites. It also serves to distance this region from the others, this is a whole new ball game. Even the male player character sort of resembles Red, they even brought back the baseball cap. I love the visuals for the game. People knock Pokemon for taking so long to go 3D, but I wouldn't have minded it if it had stayed 2D when the sprite work looks this good.
The story in this game is actually pretty decent for the most part. I got to start off with the intro, there's a weird opening with some kid named "N" in the forest and wild Pokemon around him, and then he gets crowned and right away you know this game ain't the same old Pokemon. Is he a King? There's a Pokemon King? You start off right in your bedroom with your two friends about to pick your Pokemon in big present box. And after that, you literally have a Pokemon battle in your bedroom, which completely messes the place up, which is pretty funny. And then you're off on your adventure and what an adventure it is. Your two friends, Cheren and Bianca, well you run into them consistently throughout your journey and they serve as your rivals, Cheren will pick the pokemon with the type advantage over you and Bianca will pick the one with a disadvantage. Surprisingly, both characters develop pretty siginicantly. Cheren wants to become Champion, and is constantly challenging you. But he just wants to be strong for being strong's sake (kind of like Blue in Red and Blue). Bianca on the otherhand wants to mimic you and Cheren but she is clearly out of her depth and isn't meant for the life of a battling trainer. Whats nice is both characters come to the realisations on their own and decide on a role that fits them in the end. They're also completely part of the story and don't sit in the sidelines. Cheren interacts a lot with Alder the Champion as well as Clay the Ground type gym leader, and Bianca interacts with Professor Juniper and gym leaders like Lenora and Elesa. It's like a coming of age story for the two of them.
The antagonists in the game are Team Plasma, and the game tackles the old question and joke about how Pokemon is just cock/dog fighting. So you can guess, their objective is to force everyone to release their Pokemon because they think Pokemon are just suffering under people. They do this by using Pokemon themselves but I guess, it's a means to an end sort of thing, or at least it is until the ending and the big reveal is that, nah, Team Plasma are just greedy jerks. Though there is one character who absolutely represents the uncorrupted goal of Plasma, and that's the character of N, who sort of serves as your third rival. He wants to find one of the cover legendaries and use its power to lead the people of the world into releasing their Pokemon. A neat thing about whenever you battle him, aside from the final battle, is that he'll only use Pokemon that are in the surrounding area. It's a nice touch since he isn't a trainer and is "friends of all of Pokemon" so they come to his aid.
Got to say, I really love how all the Gym Leaders play a part in the story and aren't just bosses. They all try to teach you something and they all come to the rescue (aside from the Striaton trio) near the end. Also like how you'd run into the champion Alder around Unova. He serves a similar role as Lance, Steven and Cynthia did but there's a little more story to him. Apparently his starter Pokemon died, and he left the Pokemon League to go on a wandering journey around Unova, but he goes back when he knows N is heading there. Also think it's pretty crazy how you never even fight Alder, N beats you to it. So when you see the credits, you haven't actually beaten the Pokemon League. Though you can face him for real if you go back.
Unova is a heck of a region. It's supposed to be based of New York and the U.S. in general, so people familar with the city can recognise what each area might be based off of. I like how distinct every town and city is, the most memorable probably being Castlia City. It's the first time Game Freak has made a city really feel like a city with huge buildings, crowds and people running around all over the place to get to work. My favourite city was probably Opelucid, I love the theme music for the town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g356DvtjCOo
Speaking of music, this gen has the best music in the series. My personal favourite is "Victory is right before your eyes" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FPz7yklWrA which plays whenever a Gym Leader is on his very last Pokemon. It's the hypest thing ever, a remix of the main title theme for the franchise that plays triumphantly when you're close to winning. I was really disappointed when they didn't bring it back for Gen 6 but I'm hopefuly they bring it back during the Kahuna battles in Sun and Moon.
Another is Route 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-ZzBeDHQs
This plays in the route between Opelucid City and Victory Road. It has a very melancholic tone, like you're aware the journey is almost at an end. You're also on a quest to stop N from defeating the Champion Alder.
Got to mention the final battle between you and N: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28caQQxNhA4
Some of the cool additions to gen 5 is the season system. Every month the season will be different and so will the environment and Pokemon encounter rates and availability. There's also triple battles and rotation battles, but you don't really have a lot of those. I don't really know what else gen 5 added game play wise, I mean there are also hidden abilities. Though they went through this obtuse method of introducing it. You had to go on some website that is now defunct and the website would send those Pokemon with those abilities. I don't know really know how it worked, seemed dumb. And y'know what's also dumb, you can't grow freaking berries without that website! So since Nintendo took down the Nintendo Wifi services for the DS and Game Freak took down that site, the only way to get berries is through abilities like Pick Up or fighting Pokemon Rangers.
I never got into the online multiplayer for gen 5 but I think the single player stands out pretty well. This game has a pretty good difficulty curve, I was never overleveled and I nearly lost a couple of times at certain gym leaders and elite 4 members. Even the final final battle with the big bad Ghetsis proved to be a challenge with his Hydreigon. I think it's cause this game has level scaling, so the higher the level, the less experience you'll receive from battling lower level pokemon which discourages grinding. So yeah, Black and White are great, go play them or replay them cause even without the online, it's still a stand out adventure.
