Pokemon Black

My experience with Pokemon mostly stemmed from me watching the cartoon when I was a kid. I did play Pokemon Yellow, but that's the extent of my game knowledge prior to picking up Pokemon Black. With Yellow, I tended to have my favorites from the show and once I collected them, I tended to use those favorites all the time. That's not really the best way to enjoy a Pokemon game, I've now realized.

That's why Pokemon Black was just what I needed. It starts in a new region, the Unova Region, and there are none of the first generation pokemon available until after you beat the game. This turned out to be an immensely enjoyable feature. To be totally new to this world, starting the game blind, everything is a surprise playing this way. What kind of pokemon is that? When does it evolve? What does it evolve into? Every single new one you came across was kind of exciting. I especially took joy when in a trainer battle, and it would say the opponent was going to use one whose name I didn't recognize. Based on the name, I'd guess what type the pokemon was and then choose what pokemon I should use against it. "Lilligant? What the hell's a Lilligant? It sounds kinda grassy, I'll use fire. YES! I AM A GENIUS!"

After a while, I got a little antsy regarding when things were supposed to evolve because my need to be efficient runs counter to this exploratory mode I was enjoying so much. I found an evolution chart online and would cover up the later evolved states with my hands and try to only see the number it would evolve at. I took my ignorance very seriously. lol

I played this way and was super obsessed with the game as a whole for a good 30 hours, but then I started to get restless and ran full steam toward the end. For the most part, the Gym battles leading up to the finale weren't super challenging. Each gym was focused on one type of pokemon, so as long as you rolled in with a type that was effective against their type, it was mostly cake. I think the electric gym was the only one that gave me any issue. Stupid Emolga...

And I don't know if I was just bad about keeping items when I first played Pokemon Yellow or newer iterations aren't as cruel, but with this game, I never got sick of the amount of trainers you came across/random pokemon encounters between Pokemon Centers. Every time I was thinking I needed to get to a Pokemon Center really bad, I'd make it to town or there'd be a convenient doctor out in the middle of nowhere that I'd come across. I think overall, the game is very well balanced to keep you from having to backtrack too much in order to heal. The areas are just the right size to explore. And explore I did.

Once I had defeated all the Gym Leaders and made my way to the Elite Four, the difficulty level spiked dramatically. These four were really high level trainers, as should be expected, but they also used type-specific pokemon that my current team wasn't really equipped to be effective against. I had to hang out in the caves outside the Pokemon League for a while grinding levels of some of my weaker pokemon because they would be good against their specific Ghost/Dark/Fighting/Psychic pokemon. This is when I started just wanting to get to the end and be done. I'm not a fan of grinding. (Kiss my ass, MMOs.)

For the finale, you have to beat all of the Elite Four one right after the other, without the ability to return to a Pokemon Center or swap out your team. You can pause and use items to heal yourself between each one, but you have to ration your items carefully because after defeating the Elite Four, you have to immediately confront the two main villains one right after the other with your same crew. So yeah, your team of 6 needs to be really diverse and capable, and you need to have stocked up on Potions and Revives or you're screwed.

Speaking of the endgame, I gave the story of Pokemon Black a lot of credit to start with because it seemed more logical to have the bad guys fighting for a cause rather than the standard "I want to take over the world" shtick. Their cause was freeing Pokemon. Whether or not Pokemon want to be owned and trained by people seemed like a legitimate thing for them to question. Their methods of forcibly stealing Pokemon because of that belief was obviously wrong, but it seemed like a plausible conflict to center the game around. I was kind of disappointed when the endgame revealed that the pokemon liberation cause was just a front for their real goal...of taking over the world. *sigh* But that's a minor complaint in an overall very fun game.

I'm glad I picked up Pokemon Black, and I'd suggest it to anyone who has been curious about Pokemon but didn't know which one would be the best to start with. This one's as good a place as any to start.