Pokemon Black

So I recently acquired pokemon black, after having played pokemon Gold(2010) for almost 100 hours I have to say I was really really looking forward to black.  

So when you open up the case you are greeted with your cartridge and a leaflet explaining how to obtain Victini(some mythical pokemon) from Nintendo WFC.


PS. the WFC event for Victini is just running till 22 April 2011


All pretty cool and awesome so far, so I start up the game, Right off the bat you notice that the character draw distance is further away and seems like the outline is thinner than before, which if you ask me takes the characters to a whole new level of ugly.


Text now comes in the from large text bubble at the top or bottom of the screen and every now and then right between the action.


When you travel into town / buildings there are all kinds of neat bells and whistles that have been added, one of the new changes building wise is that the pokemart and pokecenter are now in the same building which is a nice touch.  But still I dislike the angle at which you view the pokecenter.


My largest gripe with the pokemon black is how the battle screen has changed, pokemon now stand out more and have depth and move a bit, even though that movement comes in a 2 or 3 second loop.  What I found disappointing was how the Graham looked, now I know some people are all well its not about the graphics and the ds has never been a graphical power house but really, those pixels look they they belong in minecraft =p


One thing I do think they did do right was to make the battles a tiny bit faster or maybe I am just imagining things =p


Now for the pokemon, they seem to be a rip off, off generation 1 and 2 pokemon with slightly different looks and some just entirely ugly and useless coupled with pretty silly names for the most part.   Though I guess the names are pretty descriptive, "roggenrola" no prizes here for guessing this pokemon.


A few things that I did find puzzling were that in gold and silver it was possible to have one pokemon out and about and follow you, this feature has been removed.  No apricorns to make pokeballs from, i know it was gimmicky but thought it was a nice touch. gave me a nice supply of free pokeballs =p  and then 


Ultimately I think black and white takes 1 step forward and 2 steps back.  But that's just my opinion...