Japan's America

Pokémon Black and White shake up the Pokémon formula more than any previous games in the series have. That said, this is the Pokémon series so they haven’t had to do much to achieve this. Black and White are far from the total overfall they may have initially seemed to be but they’re still solid and well balanced games that take days to complete and much longer to master.

First lets start with the changes. The battle system has received it’s first major style change since the beginning of the series. Its not the fully 3D Pokémon stadium style but its a step closer. All battling Pokémon are animated in 2D in a 3D space. Basically the camera can move for the first time and jumps between close ups of hits and right back to the trainers on the edge of the battle. Don’t expect anything too fancy though, the 2D sprites don’t allow the camera to rotate or make any major movements. This much more flued style is reflected in changes to the battle mechanics, once hit the damage drains almost instantly and the text during a battle can be read through much quicker than previous games, something that should have been done years ago. These changes give Pokémon battles a much needed kick up the arse, making them much more engaging and far lass boring than some of the long stings in Diamond/Pearl/HeartGold/SoulSilver.

The basic story premise continues to remain unchanged but aspects are delved into a little more. You begin, as always, as an innocent youngster in a small town. This time around its the Unovo region, extemely loosly based on Manhatten, the region is the first to based on a non-Japanese setting. Unovo and its population have a nice American feel to them, or at least  a Japanese idea of an American feel. The Pokémon too reflect this change. A complete new set of 151 are introduced and unlike previous games are the only types available until you’ve beaten the game, forcing veteran players to get to know the new additions. Again the new Pokémon are hit and miss, some bear traits of the initial Red and Blue 151, keeping their design simple but others fall victim to over design, they simply have too many bells and whistles attached to them and fail to have any recognizable features.

Although the game still follows the tradictional earn eight gym badges and take on the Pokemon league while taking care of meddelsome Team “Something” this game finally does something different with it. For the first time this goal has become much more justified than in previous games. Each Gym leader actually plays a part in the story, the focus this time lies more on stopping Team Plasma with the Gym Badges being more of a side story. Generally on arriving in a town you join the Gym leader in confronting a faction of Team Plasma and challenge them afterwards. This approach means that Gym battles are fought with a sense of history between you and the Gym leader, rather than them simply being a stronger challenge. Reminds me of what happened with the Zelda games from Majora’s Mask onwards where you have to solve a problem in the over world before entering a dungeon.

There’s much more to do after the main story than there ever has been with a large portion of the map still to be explored after the main quest ends and the online functions. A greater list of features has been added to Pokémons Online Capabilities including an online central hub from which you can view stats in your browser. Battles still suffer from a huge Rage quitting problem, the game can’t distinguish between a rage quit an a connection fault meaning if your opponent quits just as his last Pokémon faints the battle won’t be recorded as a win. Fail Nintendo, fail.

Pokémon Black and White fail to give the huge revamp the series needs however it adds a huge amount of new and interesting features and is certainly a step in the right direction. With a main quest that takes well over 20 hours to complete and countless more over this, Pokémon still presents some of the best handheld game play of today.