Pokemon White Review/Experience
Being the overgrown infant of a Pokemon fan that I am, nostalgia got in the way of my common sense when I went to buy Pokemon White, after all the Pokemon are all largely the same, any step forward the games make would be akin to shuffling their feet in a given direction rather than a huge leap of innovation. And having recognised the pattern of Pokemon SoulSilver not giving too much new as well as thoroughly disliking most of the new Pokemon designs, it would appear logical that I should just not bother with new Pokemon games and just replay old ones.
It then occurred to me that all this time I had been playing Pokemon with the wrong mindset, in every game I just mindlessly battled and caught without really thinking, not bothering to implement strategy beyond the occasional Player vs Player match that I could scavenge, and not bothering to catch all the Pokemon until it seems like there's already far too many to even bother with.
So upon starting Pokemon White, I set myself a challenge: build a strategic team rather than just brute forcing my way through, and catch every Pokemon in each area so there's less backtracking later. For those who don't know, the main two selling points of the Pokemon series are the battling and catching of Pokemon, meaning you could either devote yourself to making your team the strongest possible, or enslaving one of every one of the blighters that crosses your sight until you've caught 'em all.
I myself made a compromise between the two, at the time of writing I've caught every Pokemon in every area I've been to (with the help of Bulbapedia, natch) and tried to evenly level up my Mons. It's certainly improved my experience, but it means that I'm doing everything that the game suggests of me and it means that nothing they've designed has gone to waste. :D
Well, I just checked and this document is 4 KB long and I haven't even mentioned what's actually different in the game. And while I'm only up to the third dungeon at the moment, there's definitely been a few new bits. For starters the NPCs feel a lot more human in this game, as they talk slightly more realistically (within reason of course, they still apparently have Alzheimer's since they still repeat themselves every time you speak to them), as well as the fact that this is the first game in the series to address the fact that you're trapping small animals in balls and using them in your virtual zoo exhibit that only you can see like some sort of crazed collector of invisible insects. There's also a few different moves, but nothing too new at the moment.
One new thing definitely worth a mention is the battle animations. In the past Pokemon games, the battle animations have been largely static with the Pokes generally not moving and the animations for the attacks not always making sense. Not so with Black and White, the Poke on are much more animated than before, there's actual an in battle camera that zooms around depending on who is attacking or being attacked. It really makes battles just more fun to watch, the same way the Pokemon Stadium games did when they were released, granted it's not nearly as detailed as those games but a step forward for the handhelds at the very least.
My one major complaint though, like many people would be the Pokemon designs, beyond a few of the starters and the occasional few in between, none of the Pokemon really endear themselves to me the way they did in the previous games, they don't really feel like Pokemon anymore, more like fanmade Pokemon that couldn't make it into previous games. I'm definitely looking forward to being able to transfer over my Pokemon from previous games so I can see them in the new battle animations. Also, as well as the Pokemon, the human characters don't really strike a chord with me either, and while I did say that I liked how they appeared more human, they don't have much of a personality if that makes any sense.
Overall though, it's a good game if you're not as familiar with the series, and an average game if you are, but I'd still recommend the earlier games in the series over these, because if there's one thing that nags me during this game, it's that I can feel the word "Sell out" written over every pore of the game, it only exists because people still haven't gotten bored of Pokemon yet rather than game freak actually wanting to try something different. I'd only recommend this game if you've already played all the games from Red and Blue to HeartGold and SoulSilver, because those games feel much more like the games actually had ideas behind them rather than thoughts of money. Make no mistake, these games have certainly been fun in terms of battling and catching Pokemon, and I fully expect to stick with this game for both those things, if only to be up to date more than anything else.
