Sorry for such a delay, I've had to write about 8 papers for school over the last few weeks. If anyone really wants, I'll post some papers about some Political Science shenanigans. Just kidding, video games for life.

Warning this may be slightly biased since I'm obsessed with Pokemon in what is sure to be an unhealthy relationship.

Pokemon Black and White marks the "5th generation" of the Pokemon franchise and bringing the Pokemon count total up to 649. Now we can't expect Nintendo to want to shake up the formula too much, as Pokemon is the 2nd most successful video game franchise of all time, so the basic formula is for the most part the same. You start out as a noob 10 year old in a shanty town with 3 houses and a Pokemon lab and you must conquer the obligatory 8 gyms to live your dream of becoming the champion of the Unova region.

Now the most shocking change is the introduction of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and a DECENT STORY! For you all saying there is a story in the previous games, just stop, I love Pokemon but I'm the first to admit that there is absolutly no engaing plot in the previous games. This time however you are still trying to save the world from an evil organization, but now this organization actually has a motive besides stealing all pokemon for world domination and characters that you come to familiarize and even, dare I say, feel for.



Your enemies this time are an organization called Team Plasma who are led by a manchild name N and a person named Ghetsis and some other Sage peeps. They question the often criticized moral ambiguity of catching wild creatures and forcing them to battle. Team Plasma's goal is that for everyone in the Unova region to release their pokemon. Along the way you constantly run into them and I don't want to spoil too much of the particulars but they remain a significant aspect throughout the ENTIRE game.



Your rivals Bianca (Who strangely looks like a female version of your rival in 4th Gen.) and Cheren are also constantly with you the entire game, instead of having the one battle with Gary only to watch him run off and only see him at random intervals throughout the game. While they don't follow you the way Pikachu would follow you in Yellow, they will move from town to town with you, and you are constantly interacting with them at wherever you go.

Finally, in Black and White, you actually get to learn about the Gym leaders, as you are often required to work with them or must accomplish a task for them before you may challenge them. Overall in this game, character interaction and development play key roles in the game. While I don't want to reveal the story, all I have to say is that it is unlike any pokemon game before it.

Of course what's a Pokemon game without the most important aspect, being the actual Pokemon. There are 156 new pokemon and this time around all of the favorites we have grown up with and have come to love are not present anywhere in Unova until after the Elite Four. This gives a much needed breath of freshness to the franchise.

Gaming aspects have changed in some areas while largely have stayed the same. My favorite and often under reported is that Pokemon gain experience points in a new way, which makes it much easier to level your guys up and makes it viable to have a full 6 man team without the need for constant level grindings. In my whole play through I never once had to grinding because my guys were always tough enough for a fight.



There are also 2 new battle modes, one being Triple fights, which act as double battles but with now 3 poke's on each side. The other are Rotation battles, where 3 pokemon are sent out but only one will fight at a time. However before you attack, you can "rotate" to another pokemon and attack with them. Sadly both types of battles are not included much within the main story, however you can fight in these modes in the games version of the battle tower, called the battle subway.

These new battle modes aren't as much of a cluster fuck of Pokemon that I originally thought it would be and do actually require a good amount of strategy.

TM's and Hm's are revemped in this game too. TM's become everlasting and won't break after a use, which makes them so much better, but finding some of the better ones can be a bit tricky. HM's are also nicer as there are only 5 this time around, and most are unneeded for the game. Only if you want to go into side areas will you need to use HM's. For once in a Pokemon game, you will not need a token "HM Slave."

Also with the day and night mechanic that was revamped in Diamond in Pearl, Black and White introduces a new "Seasons Cycle," where every month, there will be a new season that will last a month. The season change is largely for aesthetics purposes, but with the change will come changes into accessible areas and what Pokemon you will find on certain routes.


There's also a huge online mechanic now where you can play a kinda co-op game with your friends, however I haven't played any of this. It has a lot of potential and seems like it can be a lot of fun. For more details I highly suggest checking out Serebii.net.