Pokemon Black and White 2 (DSi)

Console: Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS

Genre:  Adventure RPG

Release Date: October 7, 2012

Reviewed: November 1, 2012

Gameplay:

Pokemon Black and White 2 is basically the same as all previous pokemon games for the handheld systems. You collect your 8 badges, fight the elite four, the end. But with Black and White 2 they have added so much more to that concept.

Yes, the point of the game is still the same as it always has been but with BW2 they make it so much more dynamic. The game overall will take you over 30 hours to beat if you do not rush the game and explore the new and improved Unova region. The story in BW2 is very well done. It makes you feel so involved with what is going on in the game and has some really epic and memorable moments. 

So you start in Aspertia City which is a new city added to the game. There are a bunch of new locations added to the Unova region. For the first time in Pokemon history you start in a big city not a town. You still get the same starters from the original BW games but you don't get it from Professor Juniper in this game. BW2 takes place two years after the events of BW. As mentioned the Unova region changes significantly. New locations are accessible in the southwest and northwest of the region. There are a few locations that are not accessible anymore such as the challenger's cave. There are new gyms and new gym leaders. The Unova pokedex is expanded to include Pokemon foreign to the region. The player is able to choose to play as the boy Nate, or the girl Rosa, as they travel across the region against their rival, Hugh. There are several changes to the game which makes it feel like a new adventure, not just a sequel to BW. You start off with new characters, the HP and EXP bar for pokemon has been redesigned and looks much better. New location have been added to the game such as Aspertia City, Virbank City, Floccesy Town, Lentimas Town, and Humilau City. Some of the new characters include Hugh, Colress, Roxie, Marlon and Benga. Older characters like Cheren, Bianca, Elesa, Ghetsis and Iris all receive redesigns. All Unova gyms have redesigns. There have been several changes made to existing locations, such as Driftveil City and Nimbasa City. Every trainer has their own fully animated sprite. They are much smoother. Several attacks have received new battle animations. The C-Gear has been redesigned. The Unova Pokedex has been expanded tremendously to accommodate older Pokemon. All returning gym leaders and champions receive new sprites. Route 4 has changed and also differs between BW2. Victory Road has been changed as well. The Cold Storage is now gone and has been replaced with the Pokemon Tournament. These are just some of the new features and changes to the game.

Unova has been expanded!

One of my most favorite features with the new pokedex is the habitat list. What that does is if your on route 4 for example and you are wondering what pokemon you can get from that area, just simply turn on your habitat mode for route 4 and it will show you all of the pokemom on the route. I found this feature extremely handy. A lot of pokemon are now catchable in BW2. One example of this would be Eevee. You are now able to catch them in the wild grass, and as much as you want! BW2 seems like a very polished game compared to BW. They expanded the world tremendously, they made the story more interactive and interesting. The new gym leaders are all extremely fun and all of the gyms are redesigned with new puzzles to get to the gym leaders. Another great feature that was added to BW2 was Join Avenue. Basically it's a little place that you can recruit NPC's to open their own shops to buy rare items. Now when you first get an NPC to join with their shops they start out at rank 1 and sell not so useful stuff. When you recommend and NPC to one of the stores it will gain popularity and when it does your shops will be upgraded once you hit the popularity target. When that happens they will start to sell better and more rare items for you. Overall I was extremely impressed with BW2 and yes it is a direct sequel to the originals. I feel that they are completetly new games and a whole new experience. Worth every penny.

So much more to explore.

Graphics:

The graphics in BW2 have also been improved. One of the biggest improvement to it are the sprite animations for the pokemon, trainers, gym leaders and moves. All have received a graphical update as well as more frames so that the animations are much smoother looking. Each trainer now has their very own sprite animation as well as all of the pokemon in the game. The game runs a lot smoother than BW ever did. The battles are extremely smooth and run quickly. The movement in the environment is smoother as well. The environment received an upgrade as well. When you are battling a pokemon the grass around the pokemon also moves with the air during the battle. A lot of the pokemon moves have also received an overhaul. The pokemon moves has also received an update. The moves all look smoother and better. Overall I was extremely impressed with the overall quality of the game.

Great moment.

Audio:

I have always enjoyed the audio in all of the pokemon games especially in BW2. Most of the Black and White music has been slightly remixed, in addition to the Gym Leader and Champion music from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. The remixes are very well done. My favorite music within BW2 is when you fight one of the three legendaries reaming around. All of the audio in BW2 has also received a slight upgrade in quality. Overall same great audio that we have all loved with some new ones!

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed BW2. IGN gave it a 9.6. A pokemon game hasn't hit that high in score for awhile now. You can tell Gamefreak put a lot more time and effort into the sequel and it's paid off. The new storyline will keep you interested and wanting to learn more about it. The expanded pokedex is great giving you the ability to find older pokemon as soon as you begin your adventures. The habitat list is a fantastic addition and hope to see it in future pokemon games as well. The animations have vastly improved as well as the moves. Unova is much bigger and has a lot to explore. The play time is over 30 hours if not rushed. When you beat the elite 4 for the first time there is so much more to do in the game. I recommend pokemon fans, and RPG fans to go pick up this game. You will not be dissapointed I promise.

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Pokemon Black/White Review!

Yes it is finally here! The review I said I was working on and never posted it!

Gameplay: 
So the gameplay pretty much plays the same as in all of the other pokemon games. What I love about these versions is they updated the graphics and added nice little 3D effects within the game. I will explain that more in the Graphics part. Anyway you get to choose from 3 starters like in all of the other pokemon games. The 3 starters are all new pokemon you have your fire, water and grass types. You may choose from Snivy (Grass), Oshawat (Water), and Tepig (Fire). Each pokemon are as good as you want them to be, also depends which type you like the best, for me it was Tepig then secondly Oshawat who I am not a big fan of personally. You go on a quest to get all 8 badges in this region then go on to face off the elite 4. These versions have new villians than the previous games. These villians are known as Team Plasma and are much more evil than the other teams. I am not going to explain what their roll is because it has a nice twist at the end, especially after you fight the elite four the first time. The game provides a nice challenge for newbies and there are tons more and new pokemon to catch. The gameplay is pretty long which is great. If you play and don't try and rush through it (even if you do) you are looking at at least 30 hours or more of gameplay. Plus there is a lot more to do when you complete the game. What I also enjoy about this version is your not just rushing to get the 8 badges and thats it. The story is so much more in this version. After almost every badge you have to do little side quests along your journey. Which allows you to explore the new areas a lot more. In Black and White they also introduced a new environmental feature. They added seasons to the game which means at the beginning of every month the season changes to winter, fall, summer, or spring. Each of these season offer new pokemon in certain areas. Winter can grant you access to secret areas to explore and grab awesome items. In Twist mountain when it is Winter the mountain is covered and snow and you can walk up snow hills and get to areas you cannot get to in other seasons. In this version they added two brand new battle styles. Rotation battles allow you to have 3 pokemon in battle at once. The only difference is that you only fight with one and you choose wether to rotate them or not to your other pokemon. This is a great battle mode if you are a strategic person. The other mode is Triple battle. Which is well, you guessed it, 3 vs 3. Overall they are nicely added except the triple battles can kind of get crowded and last a long time. Overall Black and White are one of the best in the series.

Rating: 9/10

Graphics:
Gamefreak has finally given the pokemon series and well needed graphical update. The environments are more colorful and a lot more detailed. They even made use of the DS and added 3D enviornments. Not a lot but it is still a nice touch. What I mean by 3D is when you are walking up the loooooooooooooong bridge (they love bridges apparently) you can see the camera rotate with you as your walking up the bridge and when your on the overpass you can see vehicles drive underneath you. There are other 3D areas but you can see them for yourselves. Don't want to ruin the exploration aspect of the game. The pokemon now are constantly moving during battle which is pretty neat. The moves used by pokemon also received an update as in they are more colorful and look nice. The only graphical issue I can really think of is when you use certain moves the camera zooms into your pokemon and it gets very pixelated. But other than that it is a nice update.

Rating: 8.5/10

Audio:

Audio is the same as always. The only difference is the new pokemon cries and the new music in the background. All of the audio does sound crisp and clear and the music in the game is nice and suits the game very much. The elite four music is awesome as always and when you fight the champion or Ghetsis the music is good to. My favorite music during the game would be when you find a rare and legendary pokemon, it gets you pumped up to catch them. The epic music also suits with how huge and fierceful the legendaries look.

Rating: 8.5/10

Conclusion:
If you are a pokemon fan or even a generic RPG fan, you will love this game. For all of you collecters out there (including myself), there is a ton of new pokemon and legendaries to catch and collect. The story is basically the same but is one of the better stories. Team Plasma are much more evil than the other teams and the gameplay is nice and long, over 30 hours! There is even tons to do after you beat the game like White Forest and Black City. Obviously White Forest is for the White version and Black City is for the Black version. Each offering new opportunites to discover and catch the older generation of pokemon. They also added a lot more wireless options such as visiting a friends world and helping them out, catching new pokemon in dream world (off of the website) and tons more. I promise you will all not be dissapointed.

Overall Rating: 9/10