Reviews// Pokémon Black and White

Because the experience has been refined to the point where you’re either exploring new areas of the easily navigable world map or battling other monsters, there’s a lot more to see and do in Black and White than any other Pokémon game before it. You could pump 60 hours into this game just by collecting all eight gym badges and challenging the Elite Four.

But even after you do that, three new towns open up, a second story is revealed following your final battle with N and the difficulty level ramps up by around 20 levels, leading you to challenge the Elite Four a second time for the ultimate glory. Not to mention the ability to transfer every single 490+ Pokémon from each previous generation into your game too. Suddenly 60 hours becomes 120.

RPG! RPG!
There is a huge wealth of RPG goodness in this game, and despite its added difficulty (even when I hit the second gym I knew I had to step up my game) it’s not so frustrating to grind your battle team either. ‘Rare’ wild Pokémon such as Audino or Excadrill will offer increased experience points for your time, and levelling up in general is a little more forgiving than in past titles.

Although there are no real distractions to confuse you beyond your main quest 2.B.A. Master, there still remains a fair number of optional modes and features to sidetrack you if the mood takes you. Exploring each town offers a different experience that muddy the experience for novice users (or people like me who don’t want to faff with extraneous guff).

Whether it’s the cruise ship and the 3D camera, which swoops around the circular Castelia City; the optional Musical Theatre or the Battle Subway that challenges you to an endless survival mode against increasingly difficult opponents in Nimbasa, the Tron-esque walkways of Opelucid or the Laboratory in Striaton, there’s enough to sink your teeth into without forgetting that your main goal is to be the very best. That no-one ever was.

Wireless! Wireless!
There’s an impressive arsenal of wireless connectivity options as well. Beyond the usual formal modes found within each Pokémon Centre, your character is equipped with a device called the ‘C-Gear’. This keeps track of all kinds of friendly activity in real time - a bar at the bottom of the touch screen displays different coloured ‘tags’ that represent nearby Pokémon players, and you can engage in a bit of crude wireless chat with them before jumping into IR or Wireless mode.

Pressing the red IR blocks will allow you to quickly trade, battle or exchange friend codes with nearby players without having to interrupt your game and find a PokeCentre.

The yellow Wireless blocks offer more sophisticated modes, including access to the Entralink - a strange world in the middle of the Unova region that lets you directly join the adventures of other players. You can even conduct surveys with fellow players if you fancy harassing others on the go.

The most interesting connectivity mode has to be the online Game Sync however. You get to pick a Pokémon from one of your saved ‘boxes’ (read: not on your battle team) and send them to bed. Whilst they’re asleep, you carry on with your adventure and the selected ‘mon uploads your journey to the cloud. When you go back to wake them up, you experience their dream and get to earn new Pokémon, items and other bonuses. It’s all a bit Inception really.

Battle! Battle!
In terms of change-ups to the battle play, there’s really nothing new to report here. You still have four moves per Pokémon, and a choice of offensive and defensive, special and physical attacks to choose from. You can meet two Pokémon in the wild at once now, and there’s a new type of battle called Rotation which sees you chuck three creatures into the arena at once and rotate between them to use their moves, but they’re not exactly the killer reasons to get this game.

What’s more impressive is the way Game Freak has refined absolutely everything to the point where this game is easy to follow no matter who you are - from the instant wireless options to the fantastic presentation and even down to slapping the shops and Pokémon Centres in the same building, everything just seems to be developed with efficiency in mind.

Going back to the Inception reference, I feel that Game Freak has done something of a Christopher Nolan here. The developer has taken what has become a convoluted, bloated role playing series and broken it down in a manner that the average player can understand and enjoy. And that sort of skill, regardless of whether it’s a true reboot or not, deserves total commendation, because at its core, Pokémon is one of the finest, most engaging RPGs on the market.

Conclusion
It’s not quite the reinvention of the wheel that was promised, but what Pokémon Black and White does do is take a battered wheel and restores it to brand-new condition. This new entry in the series feels fresh, accessible and is incredible fun to play above all else. The greatest Pokémon game yet, and something for fans of all generations to enjoy. If you have a Nintendo DS, you need this game.

SPOnG Score: 95%