Pokémon White Version

Have you ever been really excited for a new game in one of your favourite series?
Have you ever bought that game, brought it home, and realised that it was everything you DIDN'T want?
That's this game.

Each Pokemon generation up until this point had become more linear than the last game, and had far more of a focus on the story.
Each time the evil team plot reared its ugly head in these games, I almost always wished it weren't there so I could play the game I actually wanted to play.
Pokemon Black and White are nothing but evil team plot.

You're never given a break from this game's cast accosting you and telling you what to do and when to do it.
Your "best friends" harass you, and one forces you to watch her resolve her daddy issues.
Team Plasma appears in nearly every town in the game. Sometimes they commit random petty crime. Sometimes their leader pops in to tell you you're a horrible person. Sometimes they just pop in to say hello. It's absolutely infuriating.

In most Pokemon games, the evil team plot is mercifully over before the final badge and the Pokemon League. Not this time. In fact, you don't even get to become champion. No, the "king" of Team Plasma decides to drop by before you can face the champion and fucks everything up, summoning the legendary dragon Pokemon, forcing you to catch one, and having "a final clash of truth and ideals". What the fuck ever.
Ghetsis turning the evil team plot into "I want to rule the world" at the last minute somehow made it even worse.

The region is more or less a straight line. They aren't even obtuse about it this time by requiring you to backtrack. It's just a straight line from your house to the end of the story they've laid out for you.
Unlike R/B/Y and their remakes, which allowed you to play at your own pace and explore the region at your leisure, B/W make sure you're doing exactly what GameFreak wants you to do at any given time.

This game started the trend of gym leaders only ever getting to have three Pokemon, and the Elite Four only having four Pokemon. People who complain about X/Y making the series easy as fuck should step back and look where that trend started.


The graphics are an ugly mishmash of 2D sprites and 3D models. Unlike Gen IV, which had a fixed camera that ensured all the sprites stayed the proper size, B/W decided to say "fuck that" and put the camera wherever they felt like, leading to horrific sprite scaling on bridges. Half the region is bridges, as a note.
Not only that, but the overworld sprites are all in really noticable T-poses. It's really strange and distracting.
The Pokemon battle sprites have gone from predefined poses to T-poses that, like, breathe mid-battle. Why would you want to see a Pokemon pouncing when you can watch it breathe?!


Filling the region's Pokedex with only ever new Pokemon lines wasn't a bad idea, but it was handled absolutely ridiculously. "Tired of Zubats in every cave in the series? Well, this game's got a Pokemon in every cave called WOObat!"
I also NEED to mention those damn genies. They made three Pokemon that look almost identical, and gave them all sprites that were in the exact same pose. If they'd given Pokemon sprites that showed off their personalities/abilities, they could have made the genies look unique and not the most immediately ridiculous addition to the Pokemon in the same generation that introduced many easy targets.

For my money, Gen IV had the best new Pokemon, in concept. Introduce some cool new ones, sure, but also give evolutions to old Pokemon who aren't very good, and add branches to spice up some other lines. Some of these, such as Togekiss and Gallade, turned out beautifully. Bitch about Rhyperior all you'd like, but shit like Tangrowth and Ambipom was absolutely necessary.


B/W did introduce some objective gameplay improvements, such as infinite-use TMs , hidden abilities, and a pop-up that lets you use another repel right when your old one runs out. It's just a shame that they had to be introduced in the worst game possible.