Pokemon Black/White Initial Impressions

[omnibreak]

I say Initial Impressions because the game hasn't even come out in Japan but there has been plenty of information. Of course, it still follows the similar formula. New region, starters of the same type, legends who are probably broken on the covers, one for each version. Yeesh, you'd think they would try and shake it up a little. They have already announced another Normal/Flying Type. How many more do we need? How about just plain Flying? Apparently that would break the system and cause the game to crash. Well there is a female professor this time if you care but her design, as well as the design of the femal main character, leave a little to be desired.

Just to ask but does anyone else think the Pokemon designs went downhill after Silver/Gold?

[Viltris]

Personally, I played Red/Blue, then stopped playing, then came back for the Gold/Silver remakes. Looking back over the Pokemon games over the years, though, I have to say that the gameplay has improved with each addition to the series.

Gold/Silver was a huge leap forward from Red/Blue. They re-balanced the game with the addition of Steel and Dark and split the Special stat so psychics weren't so stupidly over-powered anymore. The addition of breeding makes trading a lot more viable, because now instead of giving up rare pokemon A to get rare pokemon B, you can simply breed more copies of rare pokemon A and end up with the best of both worlds. (And making legendaries unbreedable still makes legendaries legendary.)

Ruby/Sapphire were also a gameplay improvement, where they completely revamped the stats system to one that actual made sense. Unfortunately, this is lost on all but the most hardcore of numerologists.

Diamond/Pearl gave us a minor gameplay improvement: attacks are now classified as Physical or Special. Before, attacks would use Attack or Special Attack based on Element (Normal vs Electric vs Rock vs Psychic, etc). Now, every element has a Physical or a Special attack.

Sadly, most of the people who hate on the new Pokemon games don't know or don't even care about the gameplay. They just look at the new pokemon and think they look silly. Which is understandable, because in my eyes, Mewtwo will always be the Pokemon god. (Not the new promo legendary in Diamond/Pearl that actually apparently *is* the Pokemon. I think he's just a stupid wimp.) And Pikachu will always be the most iconic. Bulbasaur will always be number 1, and Charizard will always be the most famous fully evolved firestarter. (Though Mudkip gets special treatment because so i herd you liek mudkipz.)

But honestly, that didn't stop me from playing the Gold/Silver remakes, and that's not going to stop me from playing new pokemon games.

I'm not gonna get Pokemon Black/White though. I'll be waiting for Pokemon Gray. (And there *will* be a Pokemon Gray.)

[omnibreak]

Well I do admit I was very off in not saying that the games haven't been progressing. I just wish the game had more balance. Poison types for example only damage Grass. Grass already has 4 weaknesses so why another? Maybe a new type is needed? There are pokemon whose stats completely outclass other pokemons and I'm not talking about legends. Starters for one but also suped guys like Milotic compared to Delcatty. I mean you can still use them to their best ability but why make them have lower overall stats in every area than most other pokemon. There are the moves learnable to be considered as well but some of the suped ones can learn a wide variety as well.

I don't hate on the new games; just mentioning this even though I'm pretty sure you don't mean me. I get them a bit later as I don't always pick up the newest handheld right away but thankfully this one will be for DS so I'll be getting it as well. I geuss the designs went downhill as the person who did most of the designs for R/B and G/S left. I keep forgetting that for some reason. Sometimes designs can get you interested in something, I mean, I don't want to just use pokemon because their stats are great or because they're the best choice. Look matters to me as well which is why I have two Delcatty in Sapphire. I happen to think they're adorable but I'm a bit reluctant to let them into battle.

[Viltris]

Well, when you have 493 pokemon, it's hard for them to all be perfectly balanced. If you go to smogon.com and look at their tier list, you'll see a pretty large diversity of pokemon in the Over-Used tier, so that suggests the balance is okay.

That said, there are some pretty gods damned useless pokemon out there that make you think why the hell would anyone ever use this guy?

[Crazy IX]

Out of the information I've seen, I think the starters are all actually interesting this time. I wouldn't mind the types available changing in each area though, the whole Fire/Water/Grass thing is getting a little old. I only jumped in again with Platinum, after only owning Red/Blue, but I found the game, and the changes to be fun. I hate the online only event stuff though. While it isn't part of the main game, I still feel like I'm missing out for some reason.

[omnibreak]

Some new info:
http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2010/345.html
The High Link feature seems interesting. Help other players? I wonder what that means. Co-op mode perhaps like how you traveled with a partner in the last generation? That would be great. I wonder what uploading your save would do? Hopefully something interesting and not just a quick gimmick to get a pokemon. I also hope they increase the speed of saving. Not a big deal but still something I'd like.

List of all Pokemon so far:
http://serebii.net/blackwhite/pokemon.shtml
Some are just really bizarre...and I'm not sure if in a good way or a bad way. In other words, some of them, don't know if want.