It’s that time again folks, with the inevitability of the tides and the fact that day will follow night the next Pokemon game has arrived for the Nintendo DS. First things first, what’s new? Well in a sense everything and nothing. Until you’ve finished the main story you won’t find a single Pokemon from any of the previous games, there are 150 something brand new critters for you to find, beat up and throw balls at. There are a few areas in the game with a slightly different perspective, one entire city where the camera is set far lower and at more of an angle, giving the impression of a towering cityscape. To be honest this was the only shot I’d seen of the game before playing and was expecting all the cities to be designed in this manner. Thankfully they aren’t as although I see where they were going with the design to me it seemed unnecessary and I much prefer the standard way of viewing you get in most other places in the game, with the exception of a big bridge or two. The other major difference added into this 5th generation Pokemon is a completely unique area depending on your version. White players get the White Forest and Black players the Black City so for the first time there is an actual difference between the two games beyond a few Pokemon that are exclusive to each version.
There’s also a couple of extra battle modes which revolve around a 3 on 3 format, one being a strait 3v3 and the other a rotational system. This involves you and your opponent each having three Pokemon out but only the middle one can attack and be attacked, you have the ability to rotate your platform left or right before you make your move potentially creating a very strategic battle format. Unfortunately the AI trainers can be defeated incredibly easily whether you make use of the rotation or not so in the single player at least it seems redundant. The battle animations themselves are quite nice with zooming camera shots and effects flying around and the little movements of the Pokemon on the whole give a nice touch, although this varies as one has sections that flash blue which is cool but another looks as if it’s having an epileptic fit so it’s a bit hit and miss.
Now onto what’s the same, and that’s pretty much everything else to be blunt. It’s the same sequence of events as all previous Pokemon titles. 8 Gym battles to get 8 badges to get to the Elite 4 and the Champion with intersperced shenanigans of Team Plasma, Crusader dressed Pokemon freedom activists lead by your rival N (his actual name, not an algebraic representation of what you may have called him) and the Sages of Team Plasma. So far so generic but in its favour there are a few little differences thrown in from the norm but nothing game changing, and I think that’s where my problem with the game truly lies.
This instalment was built up from the start to be new and different and it just isn’t beyond a few superficial things. It gives you a new objective after conquering the Elite 4 beyond the old, go and catch anything you haven’t already got and level up for the high level trainer area whose only purpose is to test your strength without any real reward so to speak. The second glaring problem is the new Pokemon. It was a nice idea in theory, an entire new set to help give older players something new and the younger players who are first time trainers the sense we got when we played the original Red and Blue versions. A sense of discovery somewhat diminished if you know the names and looks of a lot of things you’ll be seeing. They levelled the playing field and I respect that. What I don’t respect is the new designs they came up with, in fact I think it’s safe to say that they’ve pretty much run out of ideas over at Pokemon HQs design department. I mean there’s one that is literally an ice cream cone, starting as a little fast food chain kind of thing, it evolves once into something resembling a 99 and then again into a double 99 with a wafer straw sticking out of it. I wish I was making that last sentence up but honestly it’s all true. In fact so few of the new Pokemon are appealing to look at that by the time I’d finished the main quest I still couldn’t fill out an entire team of Pokemon I actually liked, I think I managed 3 out of 6 with some place fillers to balance out where I had weaknesses.
Don’t get me wrong I did in fact enjoy the game. It’s nice that the ‘click’ of a pokeball locking on a particularly difficult to catch Pokémon still brings a sense of joy to me it used to. It also seemed harder than the previous generations, I found I actually needed to buy and use potions but that might be just that I was running with the best aesthetically pleasing team I could muster with little regard for their actual fighting ability. It was an enjoyable time sink and when you spend as much time on public transport as I do that is a welcome thing indeed. It’s nothing ground breaking, it’s not that different than it’s predecessors despite some claims but at it’s core it’s a solid Pokemon adventure that follows the tried and tested formula, and you know what they say, if it aint broke don’t fix it.
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