So, the end has come and passed, and although the culmination of the plot has never been the ‘end’ of a Pokémon game, it’s as far as I’ll be going, with these posts at least. I figured that, as this was the case, it was time to pass a final judgement on Black & White and see how I really felt about it.
I’m sure you’ll have figured out by now that I long ago discarded the idea that the games were in any way a rejuvenation of the franchise, as I’d hoped they would be. There were some good ideas and some steps in the right direction; the more involving plot, the scaling back the usage of HMs, and making TMs reusable were all good moves that impressed me. Unfortunately as a whole the games fail to innovate and capture my attention and imagination in a way that previous games have. I don’t know why this must be, as I enjoyed the plot, and I like most of the new Pokémon, but somehow I never felt involved. No battles ever came down to the wire in a way that dramatically enthused me, and I never felt any level of attachment to the Pokémon I trained, awesome though they were. Contrast this to Soul Silver, my most recent Pokémon experience prior to White, where I enjoyed almost every second, and actually felt an attachment to the creatures I trained.
Of course, part of that might have been the nostalgia factor, but it was disappointing to come from that game, that was quite literally packed full of cool stuff to do, into the new ones, which are greatly scaled back in comparison. I don’t know why I should be surprised at this, since it’s been a nasty little trick of Game Freak’s since the very beginning to hold all the really cool content back until the inevitable third game. The suckiness of this is all the more glaring this time around as there’s really not that much to do in Black & White once the Elite Four have been beaten. Old Pokémon pop up on the post-game routes, but who cares about them? The focus of this generation was meant to be on all the new guys, wasn’t it? I’ve seen Absol hundreds of times, it doesn’t do anything for me anymore.
Another thing I really miss that I’m sure will pop up in Pokémon Grey (or whatever they call it) are gym leader rematches. Previously, the ability to rebattle a gym leader with a new and improved team showcasing their speciality type lead to some interesting fights, and was a good stage for all the cool Pokémon that had been missed out first time around – you might remember my grumbling about the lack of variety in the bug and electric gyms, given that so many cool Pokémon of those types were introduced this generation; check out some of these guys. Thanks to the absence of rematches, I don’t get to have any serious battles with these beasts, nor is there any worth in training them up for myself, because there’s no-one left to fight.
Frankly, I’m sick of it. I refuse to buy what is essentially the same game twice, just so that I can have access to all of the things that there was no reason not to put in the first time around. Why did Game Freak rush to bring out this generation? As I’ve said before, they could have waited for the 3DS and really shown off, as well as taking the time to make more complete games. I don’t understand their thought process, although I’d hazard a sad guess that they did it in their relentless pursuit of money, conned from a fanbase that somehow falls for the same trick every five years or so. Well, fuck them. I’m not buying Grey. Black and White are good, but they didn’t capture my imagination, they aren’t a revolution, and they’re not worth the effort if they’re going to be upstaged again in a year or so.
I’ll dabble with it a little more, of course, since there are still in-game things to do to pass the time. There’s the story of my epic trek to the Giant Chasm to track down the third dragon legendary, who had been eating the people of the nearby town. There’s the hilarious story of how Cynthia, ex-champion of Sinnoh popped up, and I swept 2/3rds of her team with my newly trained Lilligant, before everyone else teamed up to take down her ridiculous Garchomp. There’s the tale of my rematch with the Elite Four, after which I was finally able to face Alder in battle.. I’ve even been having some fun in the Battle Subway, much to my surprise and disgust. Overall, whilst the games don’t just fold up and die post-N, one does get the feel that most of the excitement is over.
It is a shame, but these games are like so many things; good whilst they last, and all too fleeting.
