Top positive review
I haven't played Poke'mon in 11 years...
By T on Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2011
Played the first two generations, and then, called it quits. I had a blast with both Poke'mon Red and Silver, plus, the several Poke'mon spin-off games that ended up on the Game Boy Color and N64. But then, I decided to take an extremely long break. The Poke'mon formula is addictive but it wasn't enough for me to go nab the next couple of generations.So fast-forward to a couple of days before the official N.A. release of B/W. I was looking at the different details, and thought, "why not?" So, had it pre-ordered and here I am right now. I'm taking my sweet time with the game so I'm far from finishing it with 32 hours clocking in.There are a lot of impressive things in the game and of course, some disappointments. But overall, I think B/W is a good generation to try on for someone who hasn't played Poke'mon in a long time. It definitely does give off a refreshing feel even if it uses a lot of familiar past Poke'mon game elements.Good stuff...+ Battles are much quicker now from what I remembered. Same with the speaking text. You can now change how fast you want the text to go.+ Two - three Poke'mon VS battles now.+ Game animation is more fluid.+ 3-dimensional buildings in a city. I'd have to give Game Freak a lot of credit for that, even though, graphics is really something I don't judge into that much.+ You have the change of seasons and weather per area.+ Different forms of climate regions are explored as well.+ Different shops/people will offer events that may be a daily thing or happens only on a particular day.+ Unlimited TM/HM usage is a huge relief!+ The scope of the Unova region is huge. There is a lot more to do now than I can recall, in terms of battling and backtracking areas. Also, finding secret items is a fun quest of its own.+ The prices for items have gone up for the better from experience. I find myself purchasing items with money worries, which is a plus, compared to the first two generations where it was easy to not spend much money. (And the duplication cheats pretty much annhilated the point of buying Poke'balls...) Maybe, this may be attributed to how much easier it is, in B/W, to be KOed by a lower leveled Poke'mon no matter how high you are. Back in the early days, it was easier to KO by your level number and not so much by your element power.+ The Battle Subway offers up a nice challenge.+ Enjoyed the brief interactions with several of the people you run into. Some of them may even be weird....+ You get the bicycle after the beginning of the game. Yaay...+ I like the use of the C-Gear shortcut options. Yet...(continued in the negative section)..+ What I liked the most among all these positives is: there's an improvement in plot. There is now a story that I can actually care about compared to the past. It's like combining the plot of a Poke'mon show/movie with the game. It's still a bit simple, but it's much better than: "I am going to be the best Poke'mon master in the whole world! Once I defeat the Elite Four and Team Rocket, I'll come back home and wave my ego in my (pre-determined) RIVAL's face!!"You still have the goal of filling up a Poke'dex and beating every single gym leader in the Unova Region. Yet, you now have story-interactive gym leaders, a ditzy best friend, and a best friend who has a determined dream. Above all, you now have enemies whose goals are not to obtain rare and powerful Poke'mon. We now have Team Plasma, who thinks on the same level as extreme activism (-- worse than that?). To say further would be spoiling it.What I wasn't crazy about:- The Poke'mon PC. There were some new features added to it from the last time I saw it, but, I was hoping there were more flexibilities in the system. I wish Game Freak could just combine DEPOSIT and WITHDRAWL together. Meaning, you could switch and move around Poke'mon without having to manually switch in and out all the time. It's 2011, and we're still manually going back and forth between DEPOSIT and WITHDRAWL. Also, the Battle Box. You can't just move Poke'mon from your party to it or withdrawl Poke'mon. You have to first move Battle Box Poke'mon into any of your boxes just to withdrawl a Poke'mon.- Edit update for the C-Gear: After further exploring, I finally understood about check-marking the box underneath all the other items. Yet, the check-mark pretty much saves the area in the item selection that you were last lingering on. I think this could still be implemented in a slightly better way, but it's better than opening up the C-Gear menu entirely. I think the boxes need to be moved to the top part of the screen rather than the bottom part.- I said there were more things to do/see, but within each town/city, other than item/Poke'mon related events, you just talk to some people and battle others. There is still this feeling of wasted potential. In the amusement park related city, for example, there could've been carnival-like mini-games here. You can't even access the ferris wheel (again). Sure, the Battle Subway is the main meat along with the gym, but there was just this feeling of "that's it?". This feeling echoed with me from the very first main town. I know there is a lot that was put into this game already, but, Game Freak has the chance to push the system even further to match Level-5's "Ni no Kuni".- The mail feature is very limiting. You can't type out your own words. You're forced to use the system's custom made mail.- In 2011, you still can't skip cutscenes or chats with NPCs. Oh Game Freak...Neutrals:o Feels a bit odd to be going through a region that mirrors the NYC tri-state area. It's like combining NYC with Japan elements. In the past Poke'mon games, we had stores with multi-leveled floors and I didn't understand that until I had a trip to Japan. Now, back with a Poke'mon game that focuses on my region, it took a bit of a time to get use to this.o I actually tried not to remember too many Poke'mon names after Red. I just couldn't keep up even when I was playing Silver. :D So with White, I'm just taking it easy with some names. In the long run though, I'm not even going to bother with them too much (and just their custom made nicknames).o I remain neutral on graphics. Graphics are the least of my concern for any game.o The Poke' balls seem to have irregularities in the type of Poke'mon they can contain? Sometimes, the basic Poke'ball can capture a powerful Poke'mon and the higher level balls don't seem to work at all.o Game Freak should make the next generation have a more interactive wi-fi community than just limiting a wi-fi city to Black. Also, GF should also be thinking of letting us customize our characters in the future, too. (Although, I'm not sure if I'll be playing a Poke'mon game after this one. I stopped being die-hard during Silver/Gold's time after all.)o Is there a duplication method for items/Poke' balls in B/W? I have to wonder...Overall, my experience has been 9/10 so far. The game is definitely not Famitsu perfect, of course, but it's fun and that's what counts the most. Even if it uses the same ol' battle formula with some improvements.
Top critical review
3 people found this helpful
A disappointment.
By C.R. on Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2013
I am a long time pokemon fan, having started playing the series when I was maybe 8 or 9, with pokemon red. I own a game from every series (not counting the remakes) up to this one, and this is the very first time I've ever felt that a pokemon game was unappealing. I re-started platinum to see if this was just because I've finally outgrown the concept of the game but alas, no. Platinum I still enjoy, so it really must be that this game just doesn't deliver. In the black version game, the very first thing I noticed is how long and drawn out the introductory 'tutorial' part of the game is. I don't ever recall having to be told how to use a pokecenter before, or having so many interaction with so many 'rival' characters before. Maybe some people like this, but essentially, I just want to be left to my own devices to figure out how to play a game. On the other hand, the new features of the game (the stuff replacing your pokegear etc) are not explained, and using them is inefficient.One thing I am particularly underwhelmed by is the 'battle animation'. Why is it that the battle sprite for my own pokemon is still horribly rendered? I thought the selling point for the new games was amazing graphics? Not impressed. Also, when you use an attack on an opponent, the game usually zooms in on said opponent, which frankly makes me nauseous. Yes, you can turn this off by disabling battle animations, but this also disables all of the other normal move animations like seeing fire or electricity when you use special attack type moves, which makes the battles boring.I've heard people say that the pokemon are more imaginative in this game... And I disagree. Someone praised the fact that there are no more zubats, which is nice. Those are irritating. Oh, except they got replaced with Woobats, which are nearly the exact same thing. Geodude, replaced by a boulder with a giant crater in the middle of it instead of a face. Your standard three stage evolution flying type, which looks like a sickly version of the three stage bird from the previous series. Also, Rattata's equivalent in this game appears to be rabid, which I find disturbing. Very few of the pokemon I've encountered thus far are anything other than a (slightly creepy) new take on an old pokemon. There's even a replacement polywag, which appears to be both sad and terrified (or possibly having a seizure) when you are battling it. Choosing a starter pokemon has always been hard for me, as I have always found them all appealing. This time, I had difficulty choosing because I found none of them appealing and was trying to merely pick the least objectionable one. I have never had the heart to save over an old pokemon file because I grow attached to my party, but I have no such feelings towards my team in this game.The gyms and gym battles are still fun and a bit more interesting than in previous series, and the idea of making the first gym equally hard regardless of which starter you pick was brilliant. Then they went and took away all the challenge by having an npc give you a pokemon to use in that battle that guarantees you will win. Bam, concept circumvented. If the game designers wanted to do that, they should have just made the first gym leader that chooses to fight you be the one that is weak against your starter to begin with. Or better yet, just put the normal type as the first gym, which will be completely neutral.Meanwhile the 'team rocket' of this game, team plasma, is running around trying to liberate pokemon by stealing them from little girls, and telling you that it's wrong to force pokemon to battle. Of course, you and your friends' response is always 'LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING MY POKEMON BOND WITH ME AND WE BOTH GROW TOGETHER FROM THE MEANINGLESS VIOLENCE OF MAKING THEM FIGHT ONE ANOTHER'. Like, if this is the moral platform of the bad guys, the main characters should at least be doing some soul searching and considering it as a serious point of view. Of course, your very second encounter with team plasma you see them kicking an innocent blob of pokemon to get it to spit out some kind of magic smoke. They they see their leader and make a comment about how this isn't him being up to his usual task of tricking people into giving up their pokemon, this is him coming to punish them. So yeah, it appears that even team plasma isn't serious about treating pokemon better, and this is apparent from the very beginning. Maybe their goals make them more interesting and 'deep' as your in game opposition in the minds of some people, but I personally feel that being presented as blatant hypocrites really detracts from my ability to take them, and by extension the plot of this game, seriously.I'm about a third of the way in, and beginning to feel as if finishing the game is an onerous task rather than something I'm doing for fun. This may be the first pokemon game I don't finish. I wish that I'd bought heart gold or soul silver instead, as playing a remake of a game I actually enjoyed would have been a vastly better use of my time and money than buying and playing this game.
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