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I
missed out on the
Pokémon
craze by about four
years. I was
thirteen when they
got big and by then
I was too cool not
to play something
violent or involved
in sports. Hey, it’s
who I was. But I was
always a little bit
intrigued with why
they were so big.
The card collecting
and the cartoons
never looked
interesting, but I
was always slightly
envious to the kids
that got involved in
the games. It looked
cool, but again…
there was no blood
and gore and it
consumed a little
too much time.
Anyway, the games
looked cool but I
was too old to get
too involved in
them. That doesn’t
mean that I never
played them, who
hasn’t dabbled in
some Pokémon? (I’m
giving young bands
some album titles
here by the way.)
Anyway, the new
Pokémon Black and
White games released
have some serious
draw to them with
lots of new Pokémon,
some streamlined
gameplay, and some
serious
replayability.
In these games the
series is set up
similar to old
plots. You’re a kid
that lives in a
small town where you
get given a Pokémon
by a professor who
lives in the town.
You’re accompanied
by a couple of
friends who also
train and fight
Pokémon and you’ve
got a group of bad
guys that’s the yin
to your yang. The
cool part about this
game though is
there’s actually a
plot to follow,
there’s reasoning to
why the bad guys are
bad, and everything
has motivation
whereas previous
games really lacked
in that department.
Anyway the story is
similar but better
and it adds
something to Pokémon
Black and White.
The story is better
but what about the
battles? There are
two new types of
fighting styles.
Triple Battles and
Rotation Battles.
The Triple Battles
are a bit lame,
there’s just another
turn added and it’s
nothing that
dynamic, but the
rotation battles are
cool because you
don’t just pick an
attack in a battle,
you pick who’s doing
the attacking and it
adds a cool strategy
factor to the
battles. There’s
also some classic
Pokémon battle
action, but people
familiar with that
know what it’s like.
The cool thing about
this game for young
kids is going to be
the new rotation
battle of course;
it’s also going to
be the convenience
with some of the
streamlined things
for multi-player.
But most of all it’s
going to be all of
the new Pokémon.
There are loads of
new characters to
find and collect.
Some of them are
cool and some of
them aren’t but
they’ll get talked
about plenty by
Pokémon fanatics.
One of the things
that Pokémon
skeptics point to at
the series is the
lack of polished
graphics and sound.
This game doesn’t
have polished
production either.
Some of the
characters are
pixilated up close
and the sound and
the music are
annoying if not
ignorable. It’s not
terribly bad on
either front that it
takes away from a
cool RPG for kids,
but it could be
better.
Pokémon Black &
White features a ton
of gameplay for
Pokémon fans. If
they want to collect
all of the
characters there’s
about a year’s worth
of spare time game
playing. That’s
definitely a great
bang for your buck
with either game.
It’s true that this
game isn’t for
people over 12… but
if you’re getting
ready to take a long
trip or you’ve just
got a Pokémon/DS fan
in your house you
can’t go wrong with
this title.
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