Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'll keep it as spoiler free as possible, probably only going to talk about changes and things I noticed. Your choice to read or not.

Okay, so I just got my 6th badge, I think, and these are some of things you should know for better or for worse:

The region itself has felt a lot more claustrophobic than the other regions, as in there's a very narrow linear path you're allotted to follow. While to some extent this is true in every game, I don't think I've ever faced this many blocks or just...well, non-confusion on where to go. Without even looking at a map (which I've had to do in every game but this one) I'm able to just know where to go, it's a straight line all around as far as I can tell.

Team Plasma's kool, but they spend way too long on the set up...that might just be me missing the formula of tackling the villains in bulk at concentrated points of the game. In White, they spread the dealings with them apart.

Two 'rivals'? I can see the appeal, but it's a bit gimmicky - I get excited when they show up 'cause it means another fight, but I wish they had kooler personalities.

Speaking of gimmicks, three-way battles. Meh, not doin' it for me.
You have:
One Two Three

One Two Three
One attacks one and two, two attacks one, two, three, and three attacks two and three. That's the dynamic.

This just in: Rock Smash is NOT AN HM. WOO. I think they went for a simplistic HM style this time. And hell, Rock Smash makes a badass TM.

About TM's, they don't break after one use. They're reusable! Hurrah!

The gym gimmicks are much funner in this gen than they have been in other gens, I think. For instance, spoiler, one of the gyms involves you using cannons to navigate it.

The music is so much better in White than it has been in other games. Eveyr city has a very distinct flavor and battle routes are fun as hell to go on and listen to. I especially love gym leader battle music, ESPECIALLY when they're on their last pokemon. It's way too epic for words at that point, since it changes. One thing I dislike is that the music changes again when your pokemon is in the red zone...and it's annoying.

Over-all, the new generation of pokemon? I really love it. I thought I wouldn't, I barely skimmed over them when the list was released - but not enough to know what's what. I can't count the amount of times I've gone through this game going "wtf, wtf is that. omg so kool, i want it". There's plenty of pokemon to suit people's fancy, just depending on what they want. Kool, cute, monstrous, strong, stylish, etc. They're all there! And best part is, I haven't experienced a pokemon yet that I've needed to trade for, or need to do some BS with happiness. It's just straight training, and that's my taste.

Also, because this game in the beginning only supports its own generation, you're going to be building your team throughout the game. You won't have them all right in the beginning through to the middle, you'll spread out your training along with your 'rivals' and it'll be fun, trust.


tl;dr - I'm enjoying this game a hell of a lot more than I thought I would have, probably more than any other game in the series for a long time. This might be due to the fact that I'm playing with very, very, very minimal outside research on anything (that includes pokemon evolution, where I get certain tms, etc etc). I'm playing like I did when I was a kid, and trust me, it pays off.

I'm playing it right now. I am just qq'ing over it.

I wish I liked it more.

I just beat the first gym leader. Then I got confused why the Team Plasma was kicking the s**t out of the psychic pokemon. I ended up catching it and its boring. I understand the Dream has to deal with Wifi, but laaame.

I also dislike when you enter a building you zoom in and wait then you enter.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH I AM SO JEALOUS.

Neu you downer.

I'm enjoying black. The music is far more epic than previous generations.

Gotta say, I love being able to play ROMs on my actual DS. I couldn't stand it if I had to play via emulator.

Okay, so. Just beat the elite four, thought I'd give people some more impressions. Keep in mind they just pertain to things until the elite four, not post-game:

I started noticing a pattern with the gyms. Basically, all the trainers in there had 1 or 2 of the same exact pokemon (and one or two trainers had their evolved form, maybe) and then the gym leader would have the evolved forms of the aforementioned repeated pokemon (or just the exact same ones) and one pokemon of that type that you as a player have not yet seen. This started growing repetitious and though I enjoyed the gym battles, I was wondering if I was getting annoyed of this until I realized that I had to treat this game the same way I did with Red/Blue back in the day. This is a totally stand-alone generation with maybe 1% tie to past generations, and thus, there will be a ton of repeats in the gyms...same way there was in Red/Blue! Thus this oversight was forgiven.

Three way battles turned out to be the gimmick I assumed they were. There's less than a handful you have to fight throughout the whole game, and while I saw this place that was like a Three-Battle Mansion, I didn't go in.

The story, while I won't spoil it, is definitely something new. They've never touched on these themes in a past pokemon before, and the climax is very awesome if not somewhat abrupt. They spend way too much time on minimal set up throughout the game and then give you one concentrated dose of lol at the end. Still, really heartwarming and fun.

Also, the main legendaries of the game (read, not ones you have to go searching for but are within the main quest) are definitely the best since gen 1. The rest have sucked since, but these two are so awesome. (Gen 4 had my favorite side legendaries, though).

Even 'til the end, there were new pokemon to be found, so that was really refreshing. These are some of my favorite designs yet, and Gamefreak went all out with type combinations. There are so many that were never done, and more of ones that were less done. I'm a sucker for type combinations.

There are only four HM's - Cut, Strength, Fly, Surf. You only use cut through the beginning a handful of times, strength at the end very little, fly is just useful all around but not necessary, and surf only at the very end for some very brief exercises (and catching some water pokemon, optionally).

You don't get a Super Rod 'til post-elite four, and before that, I didn't get any rod...so I guess pre-elite four there's no fishing.



tl;dr: All in all, a fantastic experience. I may continue through post game 'til the translation runs out, at least. Or just to battle the elite four again to see wsup.

Also, highlight for spoiler: the team rocket grunt from Gold, Silver, Crystal that was in Cerulean City and who talked funny "hi, me bye bye a go go" is back in this installment with a almost too minor role to count, but he's there. I just thought it was awesome when I found him, you do have to look a bit!

xD I totally try to recreate that every time I play Pokemon. I never look stuff up, even when it might be helpful. I mean to be honest, it's not like Pokemon is a difficult game and I play it really casually, not like getting into EVs or anything.

Anyway, how well translated is it? You mentioned stuff that isn't translated, but is everything else like Pokemon names, pokedex entries, town names etc. translated?