Pokemon Red was the first video game I ever bought and I haven't missed a single generation since then. That said, I went into Black/White with a fair amount of skepticism: it was trying to be different, trying to age with its audience, and that could mean either a fresh new perspective on the beloved franchise or a failure of fixing something that ain't broke. As it turns out, it's still pretty much just Pokemon.
I bought Black and so that will be the game I'm reviewing, but the differences between the two games are few. If you're wondering which version is right for you, I'd recommend looking up a list of the Exclusive Pokemon in each game and decide which you'd like the ability to catch without trading. There's a small amount of aesthetic change, so the other thing worth asking is: Do you prefer a rural-style (White) or an urban-style (Black)? If you're still unsure, flip a coin, or get whatever version your friend doesn't.
The battle system hasn't changed from the old games. For anyone who's managed to avoid the series this long, a basic rundown is: With a unique team of six fighters with different strengths, weaknesses, and carefully chosen attacks, the player strategizes their way through battles with NPC teams. There are numerous ways to play, whether by hitting the opponent with status effects, switching out your party to best take advantage of their weaknesses, or just plain hitting them with brute force (which, despite the in-game insistence of otherwise, is a legitimate tactic when fighting NPCs).
The changes in the gameplay mostly stem from side-effects of the battles. The Random Encounter rate is off the charts annoying. Prepare to blow all your hard-earned cash on Max Repels. I literally, on numerous occasions, have run from an encounter, taken ONE MORE STEP, and got hit by another wild Pokemon. This would be made a little less annoying if these encounters gave any decent XP, but they're almost never worth fighting. To make matters worse, if you're only a couple of levels higher than the wild Pokemon, the battle can actually be difficult and still fail to reward you for bothering to fight it off.
As like all Pokemon games, this one strips away all the old special features of the previous generation and implements their own unique features. In this case, that's mostly a bad thing. Black completely drops the Pokewalker and introduces a "seasons" system that change what an area looks like on any given month. It's not a bad feature, but its uses are limited and it's restrained by the fact that it takes some thirty days to reach a new season. Some of us can beat the entire game in less than a month; when exactly will we have the chance to notice the changes between spring and winter if we started in spring?
They also made the touchscreen as useless as possible. While the Poketch wasn't particularly innovative, it was still handy to have on the bottom screen. In Black, the bottom screen is devoted to the C-Gear: an optional device that monitors for other players and saps your battery life. What were they thinking with this? Why does it need to constantly be on the screen? Where exactly does Nintendo expect people to play this game? Shockingly enough, I don't pass by many trainers in my own home, or on mass transit, or even at school, making this feature nearly useless. While I'm sure others will take better advantage of this than I can, I don't think anyone can justify why it would steal the bottom screen from something universally useful like a menu.
Speaking of removals/additions from game to game, Black won't let you catch any previous generation Pokemon until you beat the game, forcing you to let go of any biased parties and start completely fresh. In theory, this is great and makes the franchise almost seem brand new, but the selection of Pokemon is painfully sparse. I spent most of the game looking for a fire-type I liked and, when I finally settled on Litwick, its stats dragged it down to be the worst Pokemon in my roster. I constantly felt like I was looking for a fifth or sixth party member to round out my team, and each critter I tried out turned only into a placeholder.
The graphics are pretty standard for the DS, but they up the level of what we've come to expect for Pokemon. Some of the changes are just gimmicky -- like the Pokemon jumping about during battle -- and are hard to even notice until you go back to the older games and get startled by the comparatively mundane graphics. The environment still uses the standard bird's eye view with no diagonal movement, but every so often the world turns almost three-dimensional. One extra-long bridge seems to serve no purpose other than to show off the shiny new graphics of the skyline ahead.
The music is neither great nor awful. Some tracks are catchy, while others get played a few times too often to be enjoyable by Gym #8. They retain the feeling of previous games and have remixed certain tracks yet again, such as the evolution song. The biggest change I noticed was in the battle music: Whenever the player's Pokemon falls into red HP, not only does the game start playing a constant, anxiety-inducing "bee-boop, bee-boop, bee-boop" sound at you like all the previous games, but it also alters the BGM to be more frantic and edgy. That feature single-handedly made me want to play on mute -- the last thing I need during a tense battle is another element to put me on edge, not to mention the times my party fell to low health five seconds before I one-hit KO'd the Quick Attack-using enemy; there wasn't even an inkling of real intensity and the music only made the scene laughable.
Where this game really stands out in the franchise is its storyline. It's not that deep -- it's maybe not even that good -- but for the first time in perhaps ever it felt like the writers actually tried. They tried to have complex villains, they tried to have a story that made you stop and think, and they tried to make it relevant to the game. Almost all the gym leaders actually play a role in fighting Team Plasma and N is the most memorable villain since Giovanni. He's maybe a little annoying, but I can't remember anything about the leaders of Team Aqua/Magma or Team Galactic, so even if I wanted to slap him across the head half the times I met with him, N was still interesting.
If you're a die-hard Pokemon fan, well... you've probably already bought this. If you've been away from the franchise for a while, this is a good place to pick it up again. If you're tired of the same old, same old... don't expect too much, but you might be pleasantly surprised here and there. If all you want is a nostalgia boost for the old games, just pick up Soul Silver or Heart Gold and be done with it.
Pros:
+ Starts the franchise afresh
+ Good graphics (for Pokemon standards)
+ Gym leaders and other characters are fleshed out more than ever before
+ Game feels aimed at an older audience, from the complex storyline to the increase in difficulty
Cons:
- Waste of a touchscreen
- High random encounter rate
- Too difficult in a monotonous way (i.e., too much slow grinding)
- Not enough cool Pokemon (subjective)
7.7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment