Well Pokemon X and Y were just announced, so good time I suppose to talk about my latest Pokemon experience. Oh and I hate the acute accent on the “e”, makes things difficult so I will go on record as never planning to use it in this blog. Before I start though, briefly I was a little disappointed with the comparatively cold reception of the DKC2 comic compared to all that Rockman stuff I posted. I guess people like Rockman a lot more than old comics about B-list Nintendo franchises (or Rare). It’s just I put so much more effort into the comic, and I was certainly happier with it than my rushed Rockman posts. Anyway no-one’s to blame or anything just wanted a little grump about “oh everyone hates Donkey Kong muh muh”. Let’s move on, shall we?

Back in my Game Boy Color days (I think the official international name lacked the “u”…) I was a huge fan of Pokemon. The craze had taken off, all my friends at school were into it. It was big. My first ever game system to call my own was my Pikachu Yellow Game Boy Color. Soon afterwards my parents realised I would need some games to play, so I got Yellow version as well. And I was set. I loved my Pikachu, the rest of my team was pretty lacking.

Anyway I also watched the show before school, picked up the trading cards (for collecting, the game wasn’t much fun), and loved to play Stadium or Snap when I got the chance by renting or at friends’ houses. Soon my brothers were into it too, and we all had Game Boy Colors and Gold/Silver each. We were trading and Mystery Gifting all over the place, it was great. I also played the everloving Pokeheck out of the Pinball game with the rumble feature, which made the cartridge amusingly huge. My best score was I think 4 billion, I normally only managed half that.

This fervour cooled off a bit as I discovered other great game series, but we still shared a Ruby version when we upgraded to Advance. That was unfortunately stolen along with all our portable games and we didn’t replace it, instead getting heavily into the Final Fantasy Advance series (better when we only had one system anyway). Since then I’d viewed the whole thing with nostalgia, not really following the subsequent installments or spinoffs. Mind you, I’m not a 151tard- I recognise that the series is advancing, albeit slowly, and I welcome new additions to the Pokeverse, especially the more they tie into older ones.

Therefore when my wife started getting interested in Pokemon, I supported her buying HeartGold. With my fond memories of Gold I enjoyed it through her, even myself playing the more tedious parts she didn’t want to touch such as the Safari Zone. We both came to an appreciation for the new series then, at a time when Black and White were new. When the sequels were announced as paired versions, a first, we decided to get one each to celebrate that together.

Now I’ve talked a lot already and I’m not up to the game itself, but that’s ok. This blog is not just game reviews, it’s remembrance and celebration of games, and my own personal history. But let’s move into the review section, shall we?

I loved White 2. I’ll just get that out of the way. It had been too long and it was great to fully embrace the Pokemon formula again. Formula, of course, being the watchword. I don’t think I’d appreciate this quite as much if I had been following the main series, playing each game and comparing them. That way madness lies. For I found that although everything had a shiny coat of paint and many new mons, it was still essentially Pokemon.

This may not be such a bad thing. I feel that in many ways, the iterations have produced a superior product at the end, not something you can say about every game series. In this case, they know what they want and it’s what sells, I suppose. You could say I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t different enough, but really at this point I liked being reminded of my memories, with so many bells and whistles attached.

Perhaps the bells and whistles were a little overwhelming. The game encourages you to do all this side stuff, the Battle Subway, the World Tournament, the Movies, the Musicals, Join Avenue, the Dream World etc. But truthfully it’s totally ignorable. I just feel a little bad having a lot of content in the game that I know I will never look at it, it feels weird. Plus I probably prefer the Safari Zone anyway, although it was too complicated in HeartGold.

That’s another thing I noticed about this game. It is just so complex. I had to spend a long time before I really got my head around what the C-Gear actually is and what you use it for. Naturally, being a modern game, the manual is complete shite. Yellow’s manual was awesome, it even had a mini-Pokedex in the back with Ken Sugimori’s strange but wonderful Gen 1 artwork. But White 2 has all these systems that present a high learning curve, especially for beginners.

I think the philosphy for this game was to give something to longer-time players and fans, especially those who played Black/White. That would certainly explain the reliance on plot and mechanics from those games to carry this one. But I didn’t play those because they looked boring, so there were times when I felt a little lost. They feel like a package deal, and I’m missing out by just playing this.

Incidentally, the main reason I avoided Black/White was its strange insistence on being a soft reboot. They must recognise that people stay fans of this series and have played previous ones, and therefore want previous Gen mons. They’re all in the game, but you can’t access them til endgame. Introduce new mons, sure, but I don’t think you lose anything by sprinkling in older ones, and integrating them to make it feel like a cohesive world. Black/White 2 did exactly this and it’s great!

Part of me still feels though that I’m not getting all I could out of this (partially due to living in a second-class country with bugger-all events/distributions). That part now looks towards X and Y with regret. But screw that part, that’s no way to live. So I enjoyed what I did have. (Really though, announcing a game 9 months in advance? And only 3 months after shipping the last installment (in the West, anyway)? Is that any way to do business?)

So I’ve got through all the gyms with my super-cool, totally non-optimised team, and beat the Elite 4 (thus seeing the credits and completing the main story). But it seems the good thing about these newer Gens, compared to Gen 1 and 2 anyway, is the huge amount of endgame content. There’s still like 4 or 5 towns I haven’t visited, new Routes, new optional plot events, all the side stuff I mentioned, not to mention catching them all.

Let me just mention a few of the things that made me happy here. I loved naming every Pokemon I caught with silly or ironic names. I loved reuseable TMs. I loved discovering new places, with the unexpected graphical or weather effects, and each town having a distinct personality. I loved finding old friends in the long grass (hello Ampharos!), and being introduced to new ones through the (no longer) free Pokedex 3D. But I think most of all, I just loved playing Pokemon again. It had been so long. It was like… coming home (lol sappy and ok that’s really overstating it, but it was familiar and was good.) I also liked being able to compare notes with my wife, trade with her and just experience the same thing at the same time. They make Pokemon for sharing (hence paired versions), and it is better like that.

I don’t really know what the Internet thinks about BW2, but I know there’s a lot of Gen 5 backlash and also a lot of anti-backlash backlash. I would say from what I’ve played, Gen 5 is fairly safe but the iteration has served it well. I will very tentatively say that Game Freak is able to make every new Pokemon the best yet, at least in terms of mechanics. I still love HeartGold because of the familiar but revamped setting and retold plot (nostalgia). HGSS also had a huge thing over any subsequent or previous game barring Yellow, and that is your leading Poke FOLLOWING YOU EVERYWHERE. Easily the best feature you can point to and say “Why are they not still doing this”.

This feature really helped you bond with your Pokes, and added an element of verisimilitude to your journey. It was just really cool. Personally very disappointed they are still not adding it back with Gen 6 (at this stage). I just, I really think after HGSS had it everything should have it. The Pokes are the stars after all, at the end of the day I don’t really care about the Gym Leaders, Team Plasma, N, Hugh, or even the silent protagonist. I care about my team and finding friends for them. I know some people really are “into” the human characters but frankly they bore me to tears.

Anyway, rant over. After I finished White 2 I put it down for a bit to play other stuff, but I’m looking forward to picking it up again soon to do all the post-game content, and visit new towns. Pokemon still has the power to grab me after all these years, and the first few weeks I had White 2 I played it constantly. Then I played it regularly, and now it’s on hiatus. But I really enjoyed the experience. I give it some Master Balls out of some. (No scores on this blog!)