Pokemon Black and White

Short Livestream of previously mentioned arts, spoilers for game: www.livestream.com/serain?t=46… (offline)

I usually don't put up reviews here, but I thought this may be relevant to some people who watch me:  

I picked up a copy of Pokemon White last Saturday and trudged into this game because damn, it's pretty much tradition for me to play at least one game from every generation, but shit. Shit.

I am impressed by this game.

First of all, let me say that Black and White is still the same old pokemon. Very little of the game mechanics have changed, still lots of different little mons that you can catch, raise, and collect, a somewhat stale battle mechanic and more random encounters than you can shake a stick at. If you don't like pokemon, you won't like this game. But if you already liked pokemon, then you will love this game.

Maybe it's because this game has a new director, but these games have a really solidly written story - I know, SERAIN, are you implying that pokemon had a story in the first place?! Answer: IT DOES! CRAZY! I don't want to spoil any details, but when I was fighting the final boss, I was seriously into it, instead of blindly MIN/MAXing like I usually do. Combine that with 3-D rendered cutscenes, character development, decent dialogue, and some morality that isn't completely black and white (pardon the pun), they have a really solid story on their hands.

I mentioned character development. Instead of stale, flat characters with 1 or 2 repeating lines, there are a lot of interesting ones in this story. Most of all, your adversary and rival, N, gets the most (he says some pretty strange things when you first meet him that start making sense as you learn more) and your friends - who receive a starter with you in the beginning - grow and evolve throughout the story.

There are also some funny nods to previous games.

Gameplay-wise, one of the strongest points of this game is, of course, that you will not encounter any of the old pokemon until after you finish the main plotline (after you beat the Elite Four), which honestly reminds me of starting a whole new adventure, with only the unknown ahead. A few of the new type combinations had me stumped for quite a while, while I desperately searched for a move that would damage them. In this vein, I also suggest consulting the wiki/guidebook sparingly. Grinding, one of my least favorite parts of the game, is also reduced greatly, if you're a good player you can get through the main plotline without much grinding or itemspamming at all, and still have the opponents be a challenge. Level scaling opponents is much better overall. However, the encounter rate seems to have been increased (though this may just be in my head). I can't count the number of times I couldn't walk, literally, 3 steps without hitting an encounter for 3 or more encounters in a row.

As for everyone complaining about the new pokemon designs: suck a dick. Each generation has it's hit-or-miss designs. Some of these are pretty strong, others are a bit weaker.

Great game. Definitely a recommendation from me. Fanart incoming, of course.

Edit: Done