Go read Parts 1 and 2 if you haven't!
Hello, fellow kids; let’s continue on this journey across Unova! There’s not a single challenge big enough for us! There’s not a single opponent that cannot be made into a friend! There’s not a single Gym we go through without having encountered Team Plasma on the way towards it! There’s not a single Gym Leader we defeat without Cheren wanting to prove himself better than everyone else at Pokémon battling, and subsequently losing to the player!
Hello, fellow kids; let’s continue on this journey across Unova! There’s not a single challenge big enough for us! There’s not a single opponent that cannot be made into a friend! There’s not a single Gym we go through without having encountered Team Plasma on the way towards it! There’s not a single Gym Leader we defeat without Cheren wanting to prove himself better than everyone else at Pokémon battling, and subsequently losing to the player!
The story is even more focused than in previous
Pokémon games, with the conflict against Team Plasma clearly taking more importance
than the Trainer’s journey to get the eight badges. Although Cheren’s constant
desire to battle the player character gets kind of annoying after a bit. Even
Blue and Silver weren’t that persistent.
We reach Driftveil City, which is an ocean port city
in Unova. It’s also close to Route 6 that leads to Chargestone Cave, and the
Cold Storage can be found south. There’s also a nice market around here, where a biker can
teach you about the new types of Pokémon battles taking place here, one
of the two in each version:
-Triple Battles: Three Pokémon on each side, thus
having to take into consideration all attacks that target multiple opponents.
The Pokémon are in two rows of 3, so the Pokémon on both end can only hit the
opponent Pokémon they can reach – therefore, no attacking the one at the
opposite end of the other line.
-Rotation Battles: Single battles with a twist; at the
end of each turn, your Pokémon is called back and you switch for another one,
among three of your team. You’re limited to those three Pokémon but can rotate
them as you please.
Personally, I’m a fan of neither, I’m still the kind
of guy who prefers single battles or double battles.
Don't trust that guy, he's called Zinzolin! And if we're to discriminate on names, don't trust any Ghetsis either! |
I have a Southern feeling about this. |
Why? Because it doesn't bring up any arguments against you? |
We do some cleanup down there and come back up, and
near the exit that leads to Mistralton City we encounter N again. This time, he
wants a battle. Then again, we know how it must end if we want the story to go
on: N loses. Dude, take the hint already. I mean, I want him to understand, but
there seems to be something that prevents him from understanding. It’s like N
suffers from something undiagnosed. Nobody can tell what, just… something. When
Prof Juniper and Bianca show up, N walks up to Juniper and goes on a rant about the Pokédex and how
it’s wrong to treat Pokémon as objects of study. “You appear to have no qualms about the relationship
between Pokémon and people. You put Pokémon into categories using arbitrary
rules and think you can understand them like that... The very idea of a Pokédex
revolts me. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Simple, N. Very, very simple. There are so many
Pokémon that we need to classify them. I mean, when this game came out, there
were 649. By classifying them, we can better study them. By better studying
them, we learn how to better live with them. By better living with them, we
avoid treating them like a problem, much like we avoid becoming a problem to
them. Long story short, once again you’re fighting a good fight but targeting
the wrong people. Hell, you should be pro-Pokédex, you’re rambling about
science all the time… why would you disallow humans to be able to learn from
Pokémon?
Who do you think I am? Quasimodo? |
Ouch. All in all it was just another skull hitting the wall. |
So! Where do we go next? Oh, right, Route 7, then Twist
Mountain. This cave is a maze on multiple floors, with a wide open area in the
center. It’s a very smart idea, it’s great to look at. However, before we can
enter, we get challenged by Cheren again. Dammit Cheren, now you’re just
annoying! When Cheren suffers his umpteenth defeat, he starts acting like
a sore loser, until Alder shows up and once more knocks some sense into him.
This time, Alder tells Cheren that he can’t have strength as a goal, he must
have a goal in which this strength will find a use – you know, basically what I
said at the end of Part 2. He also gives them the Surf HM. Yay, I can go on
water now! Nick travels through Twist Mountain, and reaches the end where he
sees Cheren confronting a few Plasma Grunts. Ah, it feels good to have someone
else do my work for me for once! After the grunts leave, Cheren tells the
player to continue forward without him; he wants to stay here and think about
Alder, the Unova Champion’s words.
"Pardon broken my English. Me supposed be Unova from, was weird in speaking in Kanto. Now back Unova am I, weird speak anyway. This not sense makes." |
I really have no idea why, this time around, we slide in circles while every other ice in the Pokémon universe had you sliding forward. |
Marvel at its beauty! Marvel, I say! ...Come on, marvel at it! |
Back at the entrance of Dragonspiral Tower, Alder
shows up. Having recognized the legendary dragon’s signature move, he tells
the player, Cheren and Bianca to hurry at Relic Castle. He explains that Team Plasma will
attempt to look for the second stone, to prevent the meeting of fates that N desires, by stealing Zekrom's stone. Since it’s probably resting among the
remains of the old Unova, we head to Relic Castle.
Quick side-note about the gameplay; after Pokémon X
and Y, I’ve gotten so used to being able to move around in 8 directions that I
need to get used again to walking in only 4. Similarly, there were subtle menu
changes between generations; oh, how slow this one was when you had to pick
options on the menu! Now that I think of it, oh, how slow it was to move
Pokémon around in the PC boxes since you couldn’t move multiple Pokémon at once
yet! Outside of the stories, the games change quite a bit between generations,
and it’s always interesting to see how each generation improves on the last in
its menus, its timing, all these details the casual gamer pays no attention to.
General consensus is that Game Freak manages to ameliorate each of these
aspects with each game, so the players agree that the current generation is
better on those aspects than the previous one, but will be outdone by the next.
If I,m the chosen one, does that mean I can punch you? What? Other Chosen Ones do worse than that. |
That's a lot of weight on my shoulders... you guys are the Champion and the Gym Leaders, can''t you do that? |
With the stone in our arsenal, we can move on to the
next town. Back to Icirrus, we get to Route 8, then the Moor of Icirrus, then
we’re about to get on the impressive Tubeline Bridge.. but we’re stopped by
Bianca who wants a rival battle. Aw, right now? Isn’t the situation too dire at
the moment? Well then, we defeat her but we say she’s gotten stronger, Bianca
pursue your dreams, yadda yadda… sorry, there’s a lot on my – er, on the
protagonist’s mind at the moment…
We continue on our way and walk on Tubeline Bridge,
towards Route 9 and Opelucid City. On there, we encounter Ghetsis surrounded by
the Shadow Triad. He outright reveals himself as the true villain there,
explaining how he raised N to be exactly the way he is now; a naïve teenager
who believes nothing but his cause, refuses to listen to anyone else, and has utmost trust for Team Plasma… Apparently, N was found in the forest as a
child, where he lived with numerous Pokémon who had been abused by their
Trainers, so his view of the world – a world where humans and Pokémon are
separated – couldn’t be rooted more deeply. Gee, no wonder my words never got
through to him! It’s like trying to explain a man of the Middle Ages that the
Earth isn’t flat! Ghetsis then says that, through N’s words, people will start
releasing their own Pokémon, and the movement will grow until every Trainer out
there has freed their Pokémon… oh yeah, except Team Plasma. The true genius of
his plan lies in the idea that, once the idea of owning Pokémon becomes morally unacceptable and the human cities and Pokémon fauna reserves become too
distanced to allow would-be Trainers to catch Pokémon, he would then be able to
rule Unova like a dictator, using his own Pokémon – and his underlings, Team
Plasma, who also get to keep their Pokémon – to rule. Anyone who tries something
will get beat up by Team Plasma’s Pokémon to stay in line, and the tyranny will
continue.
That’s fucking diabolical!
And N, who in the end is just a pawn, unaware of the
real plans behind Team Plasma, naively pursuing his ideal, what he considers to
be the truth… when he really should pay attention to how the people close to him
actually act. Worse than that, Ghetsis’ plan also hinges on the gullible people
who’ll believe in Team Plasma’s plans, and on peer pressure to eventually make
everyone release their Pokémon. For his plan to work in the long run, everyone
has to stop thinking for themselves and choose to blindly follow the mass. And
yet, people should be encouraged to think for themselves! To question what
their leaders tell them! To criticize what’s happening! The case presented in
Pokémon White is an extreme, but it can be applied to just about any form of
politics in the real world! The people who represent democracy and who would
rather have the public stay uninformed, so that it can be better controlled!
The next madman who presents himself for presidency with ideas that appeal to
the hateful voters to get easy votes! The corruption that seems to plague so
many democratic governments! And what about the parts of the world that live
under a totalitarian regime already – where the dissident opinion gets beaten
down, imprisoned, or assassinated!
…Wow, I wasn’t expecting to get so political about all
this…
Ghetsis leaves afterwards, indicating that while he
knows you have the stone and are planning to revive Zekrom, he believes you
stand no chance against N and his Reshiram. Now we can move on to Route 9,
where Nick can enter a large department store where he can buy anything he
needs before the final challenges. Then we get into Opelucid City, where Alder welcomes us;
he brings us to a crowd in front of which Team Plasma is again preaching to the
masses about their “ideals”… which, thanks to Ghetsis opening his yapper
for us on Tubeline Bridge, we now know it’s 100% bullshit.
Alder then brings us to the house of the city’s Gym
Leaders, Iris and Drayden. Here’s another brilliant concept other Pokémon
generations have never done before; a City can have two different Gym Leaders
depending on the version! In this case, you fight Iris in White, Drayden in
Black. Story-wise, they're pretty important, Iris because she shows up earlier in the story earlier to help Bianca, Drayden because he brings up the best argument on why Pokémon don't want to leave humans: If they wanted to leave, they easily could, the same way these machines of destruction equipped of Hyper Beams, Thunderstorms and Surfs could cause plenty of damage to the humans they don't like.
After visiting the city some more, Nick enters the Gym, which is dragon-themed. Defeating Trainers on the way, Nick reaches Iris and battles her, soon winning and earning the final badge required to enter Victory Road: The Legend Badge. I like the sound of that. Alright then, it’s time to head to Victory Road.
No truer words frtom a wise person. |
After visiting the city some more, Nick enters the Gym, which is dragon-themed. Defeating Trainers on the way, Nick reaches Iris and battles her, soon winning and earning the final badge required to enter Victory Road: The Legend Badge. I like the sound of that. Alright then, it’s time to head to Victory Road.
In Part 4!
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