Well, this is a bit awkward, isn't it? Consider this a retro review, I suppose. As a recap before Pokemon Black and White 2 come to North America to accumulate all of my saliva. I also went with Black version, and the only considerable changes I can think of is that in White you get Zekrom and and Opelucid City is a total hick town.
I started in a quaint sleepy village called Nuvema Town, which I don't really get. The previous Pokemon games had recognizable themes for their city names, but I guess Game Freak threw that out the window this time around. I remember getting up and immediately being greeted by two other children, who I later figured out were supposed to be my lifelong friends; Cheren and Bianca. I suppose I can't really be picky since they seem to be the only other people there that aren't a million years old, but whatever.
Now I'm going to say without shame that I actually grew quite attached to those two, no matter how many times they would jump out of fucking no where and try to beat the shit out of me or the fact that they totally trashed my sick room. They were imaginative and likable enough that they didn't make me want to punch their faces in, so I guess that's a point for Game Freak. Well, a half of a point. There were many times that I wanted to punch their faces in, namely when they would bring my entire team to yellow health and then expected me to fight a legion of Team Plasma twats afterwards.
I also started as a girl, which added two things to my experience of Black. One, all conversations where someone called me amazing turned extremely awkward. And two; I got to see some sweet eleven year old ass every time a trainer or a wild Pokemon would try to rip my throat out.
After picking Snivy (who I dubbed Excalibur just to show my anime nerd side) I was immediately attacked by my two apparent friends, Bianca with a strange otter creature and Cheren with yet another ugly ass fire/fighting starter.
Jesus Christ, Game Freak. All you have to do is give them creative sub-types and the fanbase will spare you, I promise. Unless they're ugly, of course. In that case, you should just commit seppuku before the rocks start flying through Nintendo's windows.
Then was the standard thing where I met the Professor and all that. Then they threw a curve ball by giving Bianca daddy issues. I don't know what Satoshi Tajiri has against fathers, but damn does it show in Pokemon. With the exception of Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, but even then when I played Emerald it still involves May's dad getting eaten by a Zigzagoon, Brendan destroying his dad in a Gym match and Wally's dad crying in his house after the little butthurt bitch runs to Victory Road to get his ass beaten to the ground.
Then we set off and once I was free of the tutorial, I began catching what would become my team for the rest of the game. And when I say the rest of the game, I mean that I didn't even bother going to the PC at all and they were all caught on the beginning routes.
My first catch was a female Lillipup and later Stoutland uncreatively named Yorkie, who took over as the coveted spot of "Kill everything I don't have a type advantage over-er." While it's true that Yorkie was probably the least valuable member of my team, her only use being as a kind of pseudo-fighting/dark type to take over when things went tits up, she did save my ass multiple times.
Then I caught a Patrat, who I named Watchdog because it was clearly based off of a Prairie Dog. And then it evolved into a fucking Meerkat-esque created called a Watchog, which kind of pissed all over my nickname. He had primarily dark type moves, so he took over as that type and as a kind of partner in crime with Yorkie. Yorkie and Watchdog both knew Retaliate, so whenever one of them fell I'd exploit the free switch and Watchdog's speed to bring in the other one to perform a Revenge Kill. This strategy was effective, however kind of fucked me over if they resisted normal type moves.
Some time later I caught a Pidove and later Unfezant named Harrier, because I imagined him carpet bombing enemy trainers with shit and it brought a kind of evil joy to my black heart. He probably had the best moveset of all by the end of the game, which is kind of sad because I only really used Fly and Air Slash, and occasionally Roost if I was being fucked over too badly and didn't want to lose a turn.
I also got a Panpour who I fucked over by evolving too early named Woodstock because he reminded me of a wet hippie. Not really too interesting to dwell on, so I'll move on I suppose.
Then there was my Munna and later Musharna who I got in the Dreamyard named... Err, well, it's kind of embarrassing and stupid. I tried thinking of a good nickname but nothing in my magnificent brain or on the internet could help, so I just named it Dreameater. He just kind of hung out, killing shit with the rest of the Team. He had the uncanny habit of being Crunched and getting knocked down to red because his Forewarn ability only helpfully told me about a move after it was spammed to sweep half of my Team.
And then there was Excalibur, who surprisingly enough didn't get as much action as the rest of the Team. I literally didn't have to rely on him barely at all, he only really got the spotlight when the Elite Four was raping the rest of my team and I ran out of revives.
I never felt the need to switch any of my Pokemon around, and this isn't very good. The same goes for all Pokemon games; my Team always consists of shit Pokemon I find on the first couple of routes and I'm only really compelled to catch things if they look cool so I can Box them for all eternity. Perhaps I'm just extremely ballsy and brave, but when I'm staring down the face of a bad ass motherfucker of a Pokemon I don't know if I should feel embarrassed when I send out Watchdog to nibble on it. That's the bad thing. I grew attached to my Team and all, but I never felt it was necessary to box any of them and it wasn't like
And despite having these worthless shitstains of nature, I was extremely underleveled throughout and I still beat the main story. I only remember losing a shitload of times; once to Elesa and a whole fuckload to Clay. I'll get back to them.
After assembling my Party I was introduced to Team Plasma, a whole bunch of fuckwits led by a very creepy boy who has seven daddies and is in a desperate need of a haircut.
I don't like Team Plasma, and it's not the same kind of hate I have for Team Rocket or Team Galactic. You know, the hate you're supposed to get for antagonists. It's the kind of hate I have for Team Aqua and Team Magma; I don't hate them for the reasons I'm supposed to, I hate them because their motives are fucking Zubatshit insane.
It's only a couple of lines of dialogue that make me hate them this way. It might have been reasonable if Ghetsis was a good liar, but he's not. I didn't quite see that ending coming my way, but it wasn't a surprise really. Why? Because the Team Plasma grunts KNOW that he manipulates people with speeches and the fact that he stumbles with sentences like a Saturday morning cartoon villain running for president.
And that's not even getting to it. I don't really have a feel for the stakes. Yeah, they want to force all trainers to release their Pokemon, but they seem to be only successful against their own members and small children. I think that this might be from my own underleveledness, but I don't get how they're going to do that when Unova seems to be full of very competent trainers. There's always going to be the shit trainers, but there's always people like the Gym Leaders who seem perfectly capable of fighting off multiple Plasma grunts at a time. I know that peer pressure and social taboos are going to be part of the plan, but holy shit Ghetsis. Do you fucking KNOW how obsessed the gameverse is with Pokemon and the culture around it? They'll poke gaping holes into their own lungs before they'd give up their Pokemon.
But even through the retardedness of the plot, I still grew to love Unova. It was just the small details that made it for me. The creative camera angles, the atmospheric graphics, the kind of comic book dialogue boxes that appeared instead of the old small boxes on the bottom of the screen that made reading an absolute bitch. But then with these 3D effects added in, which looks lovely, I fear that Game Freak didn't do it because it looked cool but because Nintendo wanted them to show off the 3DS. Like when I took the marvelous and breathtaking five minute sprint across Skyarrow Bridge into Castelia City, and then being forced to sprint all the way back because there was trainers I needed to fight back in Pinwheel Forest to grind Harrier up for the fight against Burgh, and then all the way back again.
Another thing would be how they don't feature any old Pokemon until after the main story. People bitched about this, but I quite liked not knowing absolutely everything about my opponent's Team and how to successfully beat the shit out of it by just looking at them. Though I get the feeling that this caused Game Freak to get a sudden panic attack when they realized the response from the nostalgiafags of the world, so they added in a couple useless NPCs to reference the other regions a whole bunch, Kanto and Sinnoh especially.
I loved the music too, very tense and exciting, but it had the habit of being interrupted by something else that didn't fit the tone too well. For example, running through Pinwheel Forest with heart racing music pounding in the background only too keep cutting out every ten steps from random bug attacks or Rangers jumping out of the nearby grass pile to fuck my day up. Or near the climax of the story, where I have to fly a shitload of places including Nacrene City for the Light Stone, which had unusually cheery music.
Speaking of that, HMs in this game are a joke. I feel like they only included them simply too keep up with tradition. I had to use Cut
once throughout the entire game, and I didn't remember using Surf outside of battle either, but it saved Woodstock from being shit so I'll give it that. The only one that really had use was Fly, and even then it was primarily used for dodging shit when Mister Bad Ass Motherfucker comes charging at Harrier with two drills nailed to its hands like it's being operated by a tiny Kamina or something. I also don't like the fact that TMs are re-usable. It's fucking pointless, because why the hell would I teach the move to more than one of my Pokemon? Then they sit in my girly handbag all day clogging up space.
The Gym Leaders are pretty cool, and I like the fact that they join your side in the fight. First I faced Chili, who I planned on beating with Woodstock but then was fatefully KO'd by his fucking Lillipup. Watchdog and Yorkie took over then, and I imagine that they ripped their throats out because Chili, Cilan, and Cress never show up later in the story.
Next was Lenora, who I beat with Yorkie with Rock Smash. Admittedly, I did try to grind but the Pokemon nearby kept wrecking my shit, so I just faced her right away and did her tedious puzzle. Normally she would have been ended by Yorkie, but she kept spamming Retaliate the entire time and I had to bring in Watchdog to finish the battle because it was annoying getting knocked down to 2 HP every turn and having to chip away at her with Rock Smash and Bite when I wasn't being dominated.
After her was Burgh, who was a fucking pain in the ass. Harrier was able to beat his Whirlipede, albeit after several hundred Super Potions because of Poison Tail, but then his Dwebble just kind of fucked me over until I figured out that it as part rock and I was able to OHKO it with Woodstock, and then proceeding to have Harrier rape his Leavanny violently as a kind of punishment for his stupid haircut and for almost killing my flying type.
Then there was Elesa, who I would like to die in a hole. She uses two Emolgas and a Zebstrika, and the only Pokemon I have that resists Electric types is Excalibur. So an Aerial Ace and a Revive later, I had to settle on neutral damage. After paralyzing and fucking over my whole Team, Dreameater was able to kill one of those STUPID VOLT SWITCHING MOTHERFUCKERS so that it switched into Zebstrika, and the Emolga went down soon afterwards, who was immediately raped by Excalibur. Not only did she about destroy my entire Team and make me lose once, she also made me blow a bunch of money on Paralyze heals. And you know what? I realized it was fucking pointless, because it wastes a turn and even when I'm not paralyzed anymore SHE JUST FUCKING PARALYZES ME AGAIN!
I also lost a bunch to Clay, and it is primarily because of his stupid ass Excadrill. His other two Pokemon were easily two hit KOs, but oh no. Not his Excadrill, who must be spawn of Satan or something. Woodstock had shit moves ever since I evolved it early in Castelia City, so I had to resort to Water Gunning its ass and using about all the revives in the world while using the rest of my Team as death fodder. This plan failed a couple of times, primarily with Excalibur dying before Palpitoad comes out.
Then there was Skyla, who I am extremely sorry for destroying with Dreameater because she's about as hot as a pixelated character can be.
Then there was Brycen and Drayden, who despite the hype were beaten in an alarmingly short time with Yorkie and Woodstock respectively.
The Elite Four were an absolute pain, each of them taking out about half my Team before going down. This was annoying mainly because they tended to take out my Leads, AKA the only Pokemon with type advantages over them. So many fainted Pokemon in fact, that just before I went to the Champion's room I ran out of Revives and only had Excalibur left.
But then spoilers happened, I was allowed to heal and the climatic battle took place against N who had Zekrom on his side.
Feeling in the spirit of things, I decided not to use Reshiram and just went with my regular Team. Then Zekrom destroyed my Team and I restarted and used Reshiram in place of Yorkie. I was rather sad with this because I wanted Yorkie to be with the Team to the end, but I guess it had to be done. But then his Zekrom posed no threat since N kept using it's signature move instead of a Dragon move like a normal fucking person, and then I was able to beat him easily with the remainder of my original Team where Yorkie would have helped out a shitload.
Ghetsis was also a hard fight, but I was still able to beat him. And then the game abruptly ended, which surprised me, only leaving the Post-Game which I never finished because everything suddenly became twenty levels higher than me.
I felt that the best way to review it was to go through my whole experience with it, but then this whole thing turned out way too long. And re-reading this, an outsider wouldn't know if I liked it or not, which I really did. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite Pokemon games and you should totally buy Black and White 2 with me so I can have another nerd rant.
I also don't know how to end these, so I'll just use this sentence.
