On my first year, I reviewed Generation 3’s Pokémon FireRed and a bunch of additional Pokémon games, like Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Rumble. Last year, I reviewed Generation 4’s PokémonHeartGold. This time, I’m getting into Generation 5, with Pokémon White. And off with the remakes, this time we’re discussing the real game of the Gen!
Original image here |
Good thing they didn't use a lys flower in their logo, or I would have gone to kill them. |
By this point, you know the deal; eight gyms, Elite 4, champion, villainous team, rival(s), a lot of exploration, etc. Just because the formula was
shaken a bit doesn’t mean said formula changed all that much. And it will be
very interesting to see how this formula evolves with the story they’re
presenting this time around. We’re heading into Unova, right now!
We start this grand adventure in Nuvema Town. As
usual, you define a gender and name for your character (Let’s call him… Nick, because I hate wasting time on a character name),
then we get a nice exchange between friends: This is the big day!
Nick, Cheren
and Bianca are beginning their journey! Juniper, the regional Professor (Yay, a
woman as Professor! Awesome), has given them a box containing the three Starter
Pokémon: Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott. You pick one, then Cheren picks the one
that has a type advantage against yours and Bianca picks the remaining one.
This immediately sets up their roles in the game: Cheren, being your friend and
rival, is the one who makes competitive choices and seeks out strength, while
Bianca is in it more to take care of the Pokémon she collects and doesn't worry as much about fighting.
After each child has chosen, Bianca will engage the player in battle; the
ensuing fight makes a mess of the protagonist’s bedroom. So wait, if a simple
fight between LV5 Starters can do this much in a little bedroom, then why the
Hell do these battles cause no such thing anywhere else? Oh good, if the
Pokémon really do affect their environment now, I half-expect my next Snorlax
to crash through floors when I use him to fight in a building. And that’s
saying nothing of any Pokémon over 9 feet tall, or those too large to be in
most rooms! Looking at you, Wailord.
Eh... that title isn't all that special. There's at least 6 other people out there who have it. |
Choose wisely. And don't hate on them before you try them. |
I hope they didn't break my Wii! Or else you owe me one! |
Ah, parents... |
Do you really think children should be trusted with the writing of an encyclopaedia? Just the thought of all these spelling mistakes gives me shivers. |
We also get a town map from the protagonist’s mother.
Bye, mom! Have fun cleaning my room! Off we go, taking out first steps in the
vast world of Unova, which was partly based on the United States. Okay, we had
US, France, we'll have Hawaii… Game Freak, Can Gen 8 be in a Canada lookalike? Pretty
please with seven hundred and twenty-one pounds of vanilla ice cream with
chocolate chips and cherries on top? I’ll buy that!
Looks pretty autumn-y if you ask me. |
Now… Experience. Yes, let’s go into that subject.
Pokémon Black and White do things a little different this time around, the
Experience system has changed quite a bit. In this Generation, when your
Pokémon battles another one, it gains EXP as usual, except the amount gained will
change… depending on the opponent’s level. If your Pokémon defeated a
lower-level Pokémon very easily (say there’s a 5-level difference), your
Pokémon will get less experience; if the opponent Pokémon had the same level as
the one you used, the EXP will be regular. You get much more Experience if you
defeat Pokémon with levels higher than yours. This may have seemed like a good
idea at the time, but since this system didn’t return in Gen 6, you can guess
what happened; it was too troublesome. Especially late in the game, where
increasing the level of a Pokémon became a real chore. …More so than ever
before, in fact. When a point comes where the Elite 4 battles are the only ones
that give significant experience…
Adding to this, Gen 5 may be the generation where Pokémon who evolved through leveling up did so at the highest levels. No less than 18 of them evolve past Level 40. Of those, 7 evolve past Level 50. Rufflet and Vullaby at Level 54, Larvesta at Level 59. Deino becomes Zweilous at Level 50 and Hydreigon at Level 64. Check the diagram; these are the Pokémon that evolve at the latest levels, and each species with an arrow next to it is from Gen 5. That's 16 out of these 30 Pokémon, and that's not counting the other evolution methods! None of this is made any simpler by this new way to earn Experience. Audino was supposed to help with that, but even fighting dozens of Audino didn’t make it any less tedious. So yes, I’m very happy that they changed the Experience system back to normal for Gen 6.
Adding to this, Gen 5 may be the generation where Pokémon who evolved through leveling up did so at the highest levels. No less than 18 of them evolve past Level 40. Of those, 7 evolve past Level 50. Rufflet and Vullaby at Level 54, Larvesta at Level 59. Deino becomes Zweilous at Level 50 and Hydreigon at Level 64. Check the diagram; these are the Pokémon that evolve at the latest levels, and each species with an arrow next to it is from Gen 5. That's 16 out of these 30 Pokémon, and that's not counting the other evolution methods! None of this is made any simpler by this new way to earn Experience. Audino was supposed to help with that, but even fighting dozens of Audino didn’t make it any less tedious. So yes, I’m very happy that they changed the Experience system back to normal for Gen 6.
Okay, back to the story now!
Past Route 1 is Accumula Town. Prof. Juniper is
waiting there, ready to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the
Pokémon Center and the Mart but were too afraid to ask. When the Trainers come out of the Pokémon Center,
they see townspeople listening to a group of people in knight outfits. These
fine gentlemen and gentlewomen call themselves Team Plasma. Ghetsis, a Plasma Sage,
speaks to the audience about Team Plasma and their goal to free all Pokémon
from humans! Um… You do realize major infrastructures of human society in the
Pokémon universe rely on Pokémon, right? I’m not just talking Pokémon
battles, I really mean most of the economy.
"Pokémon liberation"? My Pokémon are very happy with me, thank you very much.
Hey, look at that! I built a new joke out of an existing punchline! Original joke comes from VGCats, by the way. |
Nicolas used Logical Reasoning! It's not very effective... |
At the moment I’m writing these lines, there’s a big
debate in the province of Quebec over bulldogs, after one of them alledgedly killed a woman and other people were also harmed in unrelated events. The
debate goes one of two ways: Either you blame the dog for the damage it does and
ask the owner to put it down, or you look towards the owner who hasn’t trained
their animal correctly. And this, for any reason: They’re people who want an
angry animal to go with their own personality, or they want a nasty guard dog;
they didn’t have time for training; they didn’t have the money for training; or they just didn’t care.
Forbidding bulldogs will not solve the issue; problematic dog owners will just
find another “nasty dog” type to do their work.
Natural oddities aside, Gyarados is one example of a Pokémon who is very dangerous in the wild. |
The problem isn’t that Pokémon are being used, it’s that some humans will train them to follow what they want to do, which includes terrorism and other similar acts. There was a scene that went that way early on in the Pokémon anime (the episode titled "Island of Giant Pokémon!?"). Ash's Pokémon, lost in the wild with Team Rocket's Pokémon, ended up discussing around a campfire. Ekans and Koffing said they are simply obeying their masters, like all Pokémon do. They also seemed to greatly love their trainers, even if said Trainers were the (pitiful but) "evil" Jessie and James. It was the anime, I know, and it tended to contradict itself frequently, but that scene implied quite a bit about the Pokémon-Trainer relation, and the Pokémon games since seem to have confirmed most of it.
What's more, the group seemed to get along just fine after all. In a way, it's true that hadn't Meowth and Pikachu been on opposite sides, they could have been friends... |
N, your crusade would be a lot more effective if you realized that most Trainers are actually decent people. The awful Trainers are the ones to look out for. The ones who have greater chances of using their Pokémon in nefarious ways. The Pokéballs are just the common means everyone uses to catch and train Pokémon – it’s the one using the Pokéball who may be the problem.
But I doubt I’ll convert N to my view on the issue.
He’s clearly an important character in this story, and we’ll no doubt be seeing
him a lot, so changing his point of view so early would make the rest of the
game pretty boring.
I hope you won't be asking for battles too often... |
This has to be one of the most peculiar gyms in the
history of Pokémon: There are three Gym Leaders, and each one uses a monkey
with a different type, based on the three starter types (Grass, Fire and
Water). And you will be fighting against the brother who owns an elemental
monkey with an element that defeats your Starter; this is meant to get into
your head that enemies will be smarter this time around and you’ll need a
varied team, even early on. To defeat this opponent, you need a Pokémon with a
strength over the one the brother will be using; you find such a Pokémon in the
nearby Dreamyard, someone there will give it to you. Welcome the new Panpour,
Pansage or Pansear in your team! Now that we’re equipped, we can go in the Gym.
It’s a shame you fight only one of the three brothers, it would have been fun
to fight the other two at some point of the game. This fight also showcases
some of the new attacks and mechanics here. After this fight, Nick earns the
brother’s badge and can move forward in his adventure. We also get a new move,
and going around town we find the move Cut, so we can explore the Dreamyard
some more.
What, you think it'll produce dream mist if you kick it? If I kick you, will you produce Eau De Douche? |
Anyway, I’d say we’ve had enough for today. See you
next Monday for Part 2.
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