Finally after months of the game being out, I got my hands on a copy of the new Pokemon White. I decided it’d be fun to post a couple blogs about my journey through the game, so that’s what I’m going to do. Hopefully I’ll be able to move through it at a decent pace.
The Black/White games, other than being racist, are the fifth generation of Pokemon games (not to be confused with the fifth game). This means its the fifth set of new Pokemon introduced, and presents the next leap forward for the series. The game brings along not only 100 some new Pokemon (up to a total of ~600), but a new engine, items, world, and gameplay tweaks. Because of this, the majority of the game only includes the new Pokemon, meaning me and everyone else are going into this completely fresh.
Before I start, I do want to mention that I bought this game used, which is an important detail coming up. I feel a bit bad, because the guys at GameFreak are gods for working on this, and only this, IP for 15 years straight.
With the boring stuff out of the way, let’s begin this.
Because I bought a used copy of the game, some punk ass kid named Brandon had a save with 50 some hours of gameplay. As with all the other Pokemon games, the cartridge only allows one save game at a time. Now I know I’m the best trainer there ever was, my mom told me, and I didn’t want no hand me downs. With that in mind, and quietly hoping the kid had to sell his game as some sort of punishment for being a punk ass kid, I clicked on that fucking new game without hesitation.
The new hotness - Professor Juniper
Immediately starting out I’m introduced to the new hotness…I’m speaking of course about Professor Juniper, your main mentor over the course of the game. I would take her mentoring any day of the week if you know what I mean. To my surprise she immediately starts wanting to get to know me…when she asks, “Are you a boy or girl?” Wait what? Can’t you tell? Well, now that I get to choose what kind of action I want to see, and with the idea that I’m going to be staring at this person’s ass for the next 40 hours, I choose the new hot girl. Hopefully some lesbian action will happen between Juniper and I. Immediately after, Juniper starts asking for my name. Now it’s getting to the stuff I like. Affectionately, I name my girl avatar Cunt, with an appended female symbol because apparently the new word filter for these games get confused the second you add another character to the mix.
Now that I got the formalities out of the way, it’s time to start my journey!
Opening up in my bedroom, I’m there with some know it all kid named Cheren, who’s apparently my friend. A second later, a blonde ditz named Bianca comes into the room, apparently late to this meeting (reminds me of my girlfriend). If you noticed how quickly I introduced the stereotypes of these characters, you should quickly have an idea of how shallow the character development in this game is going to be. In a bit different method than previous games, you’re given the option of picking your first Pokemon before anything else in the game. So looking at my options, I realize all three look retarded, and are named likewise. In a rare act of non-douchyness (or douchiness?) I decide to take the fire one named Tepig because a friend of mind already had the far cooler grass one. As expected, the know-it-all picks the type my guy sucks against, and the ditz takes the weaker one. I was going to hold off calling her retarded for the simple fact that she technically did pick the one stronger than the know-it-all, but then she decided to challenge me right off the bat. Bitch puh-lease, I’ll own the shit of you. Not to mention she ends up destroying my room in the process. I think I’m going to hate this girl; I don’t care what the game wants to tell me, this bitch is going down by the end of it.
Still without any real control of the player, I’m taken downstairs where my mom comes and tries to be super nice to me before I make my run for the hills. We’ve always had this back and forth of fighting between the two of us and I’ve had it. It’s my time to make it big, and she can stay here. Wait, we’re still talking about Pokemon aren’t we? Shit.
Next I’m sent to the hot professor’s house, which I have no qualms against, except it turns out she just wants to give me the pokedex. Damnit, if that’s all you wanted, why didn’t you just send it in the box with a note?! Finally, after 20 minutes of dialogue, I can start heading out on my journey.
As I am heading out, finally leaving this fucking town I’ve been living in for something like 15 years, I get stopped again. For fuck’s sake people, can we just get on with this!? Oh…my friends want to take their first step into the world together. How cute! Oh and here we go again, another lecture from the professor on how to catch a Pokemon. It’s great and all you want to teach me, but shit, I’m a veteran at this. I’ve become the best trainer in the world several times, I think I can figure it out this time around too. I realize this is for new players, but couldn’t you just ASK me if I knew how to catch them?
After what seems like ages (during most this time I hadn’t had the opportunity to get to the damn options menu to turn up the text speed, because on top of knowing how to catch a Pokemon, I also happen to know how to read at a normal pace), I’m finally free to move to the next town! What do you know, my two friends also want to make this a competition to see who can catch the most Pokemon by the time we get to the next town. Challenge accepted. These fuckers don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. The first new Pokemon I’ve seen in the wild presents itself immediately. Some shitty puppy that is probably trash and I’ll throw out within the next hour shows up. First shot, caught. Second fight, a shitty rat, caught. I spend the next twenty minutes fighting these two hoping against all odds that I’ll find something else. Little did I realize that I’d be seeing a lot of these things over the course of the next several hours.
When I get to the next town and meet my cohorts they both seem utterly amazed at my Pokemon catching ability, topping them with a whopping two caught compared to their one. Apparently the professor wants us to meet her over at the PokeCenter for a bit of an explanation on how it works I would fathom. But before that, the know-it-all decides he wants a little taste of whoop ass. I just through this guy was a douche until on my first attack I went with the pretty standard Scratch move. At this point he pops up and tells me what a clever girl I am for picking such a smart move, and he expected nothing less from me. I’m sorry, did I miss something? Are we talking about the same move? Scratch, the normal type that only differentiates itself from tackle by the fact it’s something girls do when they fight instead of what guys do. Way to prove you’re retarded kid.
In the PokeCenter the hot professor explains some concepts I learned over a decade ago and finally sets me on my way, telling me to head to the next city and attempt to take on the gym leader. But, as I walk outside, I’m told there is a commotion in the courtyard. I sure hope it’s not Jackals. Nope, it’s the new Team Rocket, now named Team Plasma, and they apparently want to end the suffering of Pokemon under the mantle of human control. After giving their speech, they promptly leave. Wow, peaceful activism being shown in a Pokemon game? To be honest, I have a hard time as viewing these guys as bad. They actually have clear intentions and good will so far. Sure they were annoying, in a PETA sort of way, but hey, they’re letting their opinion known.
With their thoughts in my head, I decide to start my trek to the next city and finally start my destiny by taking on the gym leader. Before that though, it seemed like a good time to make my first save, an hour into the game. That’s when I realized my grave mistake at the beginning… apparently you can’t save over a previous save that isn’t the same. What retarded person decided, “You know what? Why let people save over their previous saves if they want to start over? Instead lets make them wipe from the start screen before getting into the game”? Are you fucking kidding me. I just spent the last hour getting lectured and now I have to do it again… Fuck this.
And that’s my first hour of the game. I have a long way ahead of me, and I doubt I’ll be posting every couple hours because that would turn this into a novel rather than a series of blog posts, but I definitely intend to post more in this vein. But now I want to be a bit more serious and talk about my impressions of the game (which are coming a bit further into my playtime, somewhere about 3 hours more into the game.)
I really don’t like to hate on Pokemon games that much because I realize I’m well out of their targeted audience of tweens. This really disappoints me because despite being a rehashed version, I found Heart Gold/Soul Silver to be an extremely good game even 10 years after its original release. This disconnect between the games and I is extremely disheartening because I’m starting to wonder if it’s because the games have gotten worse, or if I’ve just come to expect better.
The design disconnect between this one and the previous one is even more saddening. In the original Red/Blue the player is given a slight bit of direction and exposition in the beginning, introducing you to the world, and then you’re set loose. The player isn’t even given a direction, but is encouraged to explore. When you start heading too far in a direction within the game, you always ran into someone who would stop you saying you didn’t have the requisite badges to move forward. This was smart, minimalistic design. The designers gave a few simple objectives: collect all the Pokemon, beat the gym leaders, and be the best trainer you can be. Then, after a 5-6 hours of gameplay, you’re introduced to the antagonistic Team Rocket. every town had houses to enter and people to talk to, and led credence to a full, lush world waiting to be explored. This world was filled with imaginary creatures with wonderful powers that you were able to meet and collect. I have to say, I’m envious of the kids who have never played Pokemon and finally get the opportunity to become lost in its world.
Unfortunately, after even just this short period of time, I’m wondering if the series has now taken the more modern direction of holding the player’s hand all the way. There’s no incentive to go out and discovery, everything is given to you right out of the bat, and if there is any inclination of struggle or confusion, the game is right there to direct you again. The spell out every step of the way for the player, rather than letting them find it and experience it. It’s disappointing, because it abolishes that imaginative exploration that occurred back in my own childhood with the original games.
It’s gotten me to wonder if my aversion to the changes in the game direction are a matter of childhood desire brought on by my older, albeit still young, age; or if it really is worse for children, preventing an opportunity to let their minds take control.
I’ll probably expand on these thoughts a little, but I’m curious to know what anyone else thinks. If you have an opinion, go ahead and shoot me a tweet or respond on my Facebook. (I’ll be implementing comment systems on here in a little while once I redesign this all.)