Unlimited Reviews: Pokemon Black 2 and White 2

"Think about you and your Pokémon. What are you striving for?"

Here we are again, with a new Pokémon game. In my previous review of the Pokémon Black & White, I said that those games were Game Freak perfecting the Pokémon formula, making it so much more streamlined and a breeze to navigate through. It took the DS's graphic capabilities and pushed them to the limit. They managed to give a rather deep and epic story, by Pokémon standards. They took chances and broke so much new ground, and I can definitely say that I consider Black and White to be the best Pokémon games released. However, Game Freak didn't seem to feel like they shook up the Pokémon style enough, so they decided to release direct numbered sequels instead of a third updated version. This came as a shock to Poké-fans everywhere, and I bring you my review of them today. Do they manage to live up to their predecessor?

Story:

Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 takes place two years after the first Black & White. The player character is about to setout on his brand new Pokémon journey across the Unova region, but trouble seems to be starting up again as the villainous group Team Plasma has resurfaced once more. The player character's childhood friend and rival seems to have a bitter resentment of Team Plasma as you and your rival attempt to thwart the group like that legendary Pokémon Trainer back then. Along the way, they will learn more about the history of Team Plasma that has caused them to split into two groups, as well as their former leader N and the cruel Ghetsis.

I loved the original story in the first Black & White. It was an introspective deconstruction of the Pokémon world, and even manages to be really personal with the relationship between the player character and king of Team Plasma, N. I will be honest and say that Black 2 & White 2 do not reach the same heights as they did. There are a lot of things that the story does differently to make it standout, like the civil war between Old and New Team Plasma. There's even a really cool and spoileriffic scene at the end of the storyline that pushes the E-rating in terms of implied violence. However, the story just lacks that extra personal connection that one had with the first story. You're told about how important N and that one trainer (the previous player character) are and what great/influential things they did, but you're a different character now. You have no relationship with either of those two, so why should you care?

I feel like it could have been better if the player character(s) from the first Black & White was used again, but I can easily understand why that wouldn't work. No matter how much you stray from the Pokémon formula, you absolutely have to start of the game with a newbie trainer getting his/her Starter Pokémon. Otherwise, you'd you wondering where your Pokémon from the previous game are; not to mention explaining how you have level 100 fully evolved Pokémon. I suppose they could have made it a plot reason like your Pokémon were stolen and you have to get them back, but that'll need some really good writing to pull that off. Alternatively, they could have just had N show up periodically and speak with the player character, developing a relationship there.

Overall, the story is still better than typical Pokémon fare, but doesn't live up to the previous entry's.

4 out of 5

Graphics/Design:

It looks just as awesome as it did a year ago. The Pokémon formula still requires the characters to be sprites, but I really like how they gave the sprites more elaborate animations, such as the 4th Gym Leader Elesa doing posing or the 2nd Gym Leader Roxie rocking out on her guitar. Speaking of character animations, I'm really glad they brought those back for the Gym Leaders and Elite Four. If Pokémon are allowed fully animated sprites during battles, it should go the same for their trainers. They even go beyond that and give the NPC trainers animations, which is really neat. It doesn't really matter that much, but it definitely gives the game more polish and life. I'm kind of a sucker for the little things like that.

They reused the Unova region again for this, but don't worry about it feeling like treading over old ground again if you played the first Black & White. While you're definitely going to revisit the towns and cities of that game, there are a whole slew of new ones to make up for it. Hell, even the old locations are different. They look the same but are filled with so many added features, like the Castelia City sewers that weren't there in the previous game. Even the Pokémon Gyms got total overhauls, with brand new puzzles and designs.

The game manages to still feel fresh despite reusing old locations. I'd say that's worth something.

5 out of 5

Sound/Music:

The soundtrack for Black 2 & White 2 consisted of mostly the music from the last games, but had quite a few of added ones as well. In fact, some of the previous music got remixes to suit the changes that occurred within the two years the story underwent, which is definitely appreciated. As you'd expect from Pokémon games, they're all mostly upbeat and adventurous tunes. Instead of talking about how good or bad they are, I instead would like to mention how some of them are implemented. In the previous Pokémon games, you'd always get this static Gym music that plays in every Pokémon Gym. That is a thing of the past as every Gym now possesses its own remix of the classic Gym theme that reflects on the type of person the Gym Leader is, which is actually unbelievably cool since it's really awesome to hear the same song played with different genres of music. And, what Black & White did with certain route and city music, they even have different levels/versions of the same song that depends on how many trainer you battle or where you run to. My personal favorite is the one from Elesa's gym

Needless to say, I'm rather pleased with the music.

5 out of 5

Gameplay:

Come on, we all know Pokémon. It's a turn-based RPG system where you have a team of six monster-creatures called Pokémon that you must catch in order to do battle in an elemental rock-paper-scissors style. Everybody and their grandmothers know this. It's a tried and true system that has somehow allowed this series to survive in this day and age of shooters and more innovated RPG gameplay. And I love it.

It truly is a bizarre phenomenon as to how the Pokémon series managed to continue with its old battle system, with very little changes made to it. As such, I'm not even going to bother to give gameplay a rating. You either love or hate the Pokémon games, and this will not change your mind at all. I will, instead, write about the slight changes made in the formula:

Uh…I think the only really big changes from Black & White are that you can now swap held items between Pokémon and you're given a "Free Space" area in your item bag to put items that you regularly use in.

So…yeah. It's Pokémon.

Oh! I can mention the new Pokémon World Tournament! There's this really neat feature that allows you to enter these various tournaments that pit you against every single Gym Leader and Pokémon Champion from the games, along with allowing you to download new tournaments. For example, the recently released new tournaments featured the finalists of the real-life Pokémon World Championships! The former are a really nice nostalgia trip down memory lane, and the latter puts your Pokémon battling and training skills to the test. Very, very cool addition.

As a small addition, I do admit I really wish this was released on the Nintendo 3DS. The StreetPass feature would have greatly assisted with the functions the C-Gear and Join Avenue in this game.

Interactivity/Multiplayer/Online:

I joked about this before, but I think the real reason Pokémon survived this long is because of just how awesome the multiplayer is. Almost every gamer owns a copy of a Pokémon game, and it's always great fun to whip out your handheld and do battle.

Like with gameplay, I will not rate this either since this is another Pokémon staple that you either accept or don't. However, I will mention what I failed to talk about in my Black & White review: The Pokémon Dream World. Good lord, I hate the Pokémon Dream World. Game Freak basically set up this website where you can send one of your Pokémon to to explore the Dream World, where one can locate special Pokémon that have extremely powerful (or sometimes useless) hidden abilities that you can send back into your copy of the game. It seems like a really cool idea, but then you realize that the damn website crashes randomly whenever you're searching/playing with Pokémon to capture and you lose that rare Dragon-type that you've wasted time searching for. I wouldn't even complain about the 20-hour wait each day to access the website for its time-limit of an hour per person if it wasn't for the crashes.

F*** the Pokémon Dream World and I hope they just release the hidden ability Pokémon in-game for the next games.

Overall Thoughts:

It's Pokémon. Of course I think it's great. And, like I said, you know yourself whether you enjoy Pokémon or not. You know if you want to get these games. All I can say is how it compares to the previous games. Speaking of purely gameplay terms, I'd say that Black 2 & White 2 is better than Black & White. It just took what made Black & White great and added to it. The only real failing it had was in its story department, where it's still above the usual Pokémon standards, but not as good as the immediate previous one. I'm really glad that Game Freak decided to do a direct sequel to a Pokémon game. I guess you could say Gold & Silver were a sequel to the original Red & Blue, but not to the extent that this did. I'm not entirely if they should ever do it again, since it could easily devolve into predictable as Pokémon can be, but I do prefer it over a third version rerelease.

For the latest in the catch 'em all game franchise, I give a:

4 out of 5

Positives:
– Doesn't feel like a rehash of previous game
– Excellent, varied music
– Kickass Pokémon World Tournament
– Classic Pokémon at its best

Negatives:
– Story not as strong as previous entry
– Not much change from Pokémon formula
– Pokémon Dream World still sucks

Recommendation: Must Buy!

Although Black 2 & White 2 are basically better versions of Black & White, I can't in good conscience give it the same score of 5. The original did something very new with the series, and this kind of feels like a step backwards. Still very good, but not as ground-breaking.

Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 was developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company

It is available on the Nintendo DS and, by backwards compatibility, the Nintendo 3DS and is rated E by ESRB.