Thoughts On Black & White

[applepie]

Hello everyone! It's been a bit since Black & White came out in English, so for everyone who's filling up their Unova Pokédex, how about a post to share your thoughts?

Which version of the game did you get? What do you think of the Unova region and its Pokémon? Were there things in particular that you liked or disliked? Did you like Bianca and Cheren?

Please remember, anyone who wants to leave their friends code in their comments and arrange trades is welcome to do so!

Comments

[soc_puppet]

Oh jeez, let's see if I can get my thoughts out in a coherent manner. Uh.

Was a total nerd and bought one copy of each when they came out (just like Heart Gold and Soul Silver, actually, though that was more for the Pokéwalkers than completion), but have only started a game on White so far.

I started as Hilda with Oshawott, whose nickname eventually ended up being Riptide. I'm planning to go for Tepig on Black (only starting as Hilbert next time) and Snivy on the Inevitable Third Game. No idea what I'm going to call Tepig yet; I want it to be something awesome, though :/ Snivy I'm absolutely going to call Vineglory, and no one can stop me. Even if it does mean I'll miss out on calling it Smugleaf.

Only up through the seventh badge/Dragon Spiral Tower so far; my team has shifted a lot through my game, which didn't really happen in my fourth gen games. I've got a Leavanny, a Scrafty, the one evolved Zebra thing, the one evolved Archeopteryx thing, and Victini, in addition to Samurott. I was totally planning to make Joltik both my bug and my electric, and then Litwick my fire and maybe Deerling my grass, except then I had such a good thing going with Leavanny, and Litwick was slow as f*ck, so I decided to go a different route.

I'm a little annoyed at the predictability of the rain in certain towns, and impatient for the seasons to get moving, though I don't have many particular complaints about autumn. I suppose it's matching up nicely in the southern hemisphere right now, at least.

I'm loving that we can re-use TMs now, though I'm also more than a little disappointed that the only Pickup option (prior to beating the game) is Lillipup, with no evolving. I always like to have a Pickup-er in my team, because STUFF! But I just can't justify keeping Lillipup with me, even when it's the same level as everyone else. Crappy stats are crappy.

As far as the rivals go, well. Cheren I'm fairly neutral towards. I guess I was hoping he'd be snarkier? Bianca I genuinely like, but I keep feeling like she got the short end of the stick here. She keeps going on about how weak she is/feels, and all I want to do is sit her down and explain to her that no, she's not weak, I'm just that effing badass. I beat Cheren just as often as I beat her, and does she think he's weak? No! I mean, she could be losing other battles off-screen, and I could definitely understand it better if she were losing to Cheren all the time as well, but I don't recall ever being given concrete evidence of that. I personally think she's pretty strong, especially compared to the average trainer out there. While one could hand-wave that as her being a rival and thus required to "keep up" with the player, that's still pretty damn good by Pokémon standards.

I do like the relationship between the three of them, even if I do keep wishing that Cheren and Bianca could have switched roles or something. Makes me miss Cynthia :/ Still, it's pretty nice to have an active girl rival/counterpart, instead of just the opposite-sex-player-character-choice hanging around and doing nothing to speak of/not being an even remotely credible threat. Which in my games tend to be male anyway, but we're not going there.

As for Team Plasma and N... I dunno, I guess I mostly find N to be frustrating so far? I have no idea why he bothers me so much, except that he does. Maybe I'll figure it out by the end of the game. Or by the end of the next game. Well, hopefully someday, at least.


Okay, I think that's everything. If you read through all this, you get some sort of prize.

[applepie]

That could be an excellent conversation. Imagine, you just sit Bianca down and be all "Bianca, don't be down on yourself for losing to me because I'm an all-star, cornfed, Unovian winning machine."

Hilda could be the Ricky Bobby of Pokémon.

[soc_puppet]

LOL! I'd probably try to avoid putting it exactly like that so I wouldn't feel like a ginormous asshole - play up Bianca's strengths a little more, and "my" and Cheren's weaknesses, point out that yeah, Gym Leaders lose too, and probably at a greater rate than the game would have us believe - but that's about the gist of it.

It really bothers me how much she emphasizes her own supposed incompetence. To me at least, it reeks of her trying to keep the player/Cheren from having to consider her as an equal. While that's bad enough on its own, the fact that probably ~half of all players start out as male (or are male) adds an extra dimension of squick to it for me. While I'm sure it wasn't intentional, it still echoes an uncomfortable reality for many people out there :/