Pokemon has been around since 1998. The story lines have always been the same. A small town kid wants to become the ultimate Pokemon Master. To do so the player travels around the region to capture Pokemon. They then train their Pokemon to fight at the highest level, and collect gym badges for beating opponents in the Pokemon League. Along the way the player has to fight a team of villains that are trying to take over the world of Pokemon and it is up to you to stop them. Are you up for it or has the formula to this long and beloved franchise gotten stale?
Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 do have a first in the series. Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 are official sequels to the Pokemon story line. The games takes place two years after the first Pokemon Black and White games and much has changed since those events. You are now able to venture out into more areas in the Unova region and areas that were once locked in the first games are now accessible. Also new to the Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 universe are Pokemons from previous generations which are now accessible to the player at the start of the game.
Pokemon games aren’t known for their story. So I am happy to report that Black 2 and White 2 do a fine job of adding backstory missing from previous game. The major downfall to the stories are that the plots do not pick up until the seventh badge. The first six gyms you complete do not offer any real challenge and neither does Team Plasma. They just kind of sit back and do nothing.
Gameplay has stayed the same for the most part. You enter battle with a team of six Pokemon, each one has four attacks at their disposal. You are still traveling around the world to complete the Pokedex, and to add to the experience you can now breed Pokemon to create a Pokemon with an attack it would not be able to learn on its own.
The art direction and battle animations are a step in the right direction, but there is always room for improvement. It leaves me to wonder what Game Freak has in store for a game that takes advantage of what the 3DS can do.
After you beat Black 2 or White 2, you will unlock an exclusive mode. White 2 has an Easy mode while Black 2 has Challenge mode. The best part is that the codes is transferable. So, if you have White 2 and a friend has Black 2, you can ask them for the Challenge Mode code and enter it into your game and vice versa.
The games feel like a throw back to previous Pokemon games with a sprinkle of improvement. The games also feels like actual sequels to Black and White with their stories. The major drawback would be that the features make the game feel too much like an expansion pack than an actual sequel. It is a good addition to the series of Pokemon games but it also leaves much to be desired by Game Freak.
