#15


Now here’s another impossibly popular series. This one’s from the ‘90s, though. It’s actually the reason I wanted a Gameboy Color (you see, a Gameboy Pocket just wasn’t enough to contain this awesomeness). The anime started it all, and everyone at school started playing this series. Sadly, once this installment came along, I was the only person around who still cared about it… You guys know what I’m talking about yet?

POKÉMON BLACK/WHITE





Well, everyone apart from my little brother, who wasn’t that big on Pokémon before. Still, once I got Black and he got White, he was pretty hooked. So yes, I have a bit of a personal reason to like this installment in particular.


The electric cave means a lot to me.

Anyway, I guess everyone knows the gist of the Pokémon series. You run around collecting Pokémon to battle for you. There’s tons of them, and they’re all incredibly cute in one way or another, and you need to become the very best while destroying some evil team along the way. The premise is simple, quite stupid really, but the execution is what makes it so popular among children and adults alike. The series is easy to get into, but with tons of underlying, fascinating mechanics lying underneath. The competitive scene is pretty crazy.


Triple battles are also a thing now.

Okay, but again, that’s the series in general. What makes Black and White so special? Well, first off, I love the new Pokémon designs. I may be in the minority here, but I really enjoyed a huge chunk of them, and there are tons of them, with lots of never before seen type combinations. I also found it refreshing that you didn’t get access to any of the older Pokémon until the post-game. That was a very nice touch that really drove home the fact that we are far away from the pervious regions, even if that resulted in a very poor selection of electric types.



The big reason why this generation is my favorite, however, is the story. I know gen IV went out of its way to give its villainous theme a complex excuse to do the things they do, but gen V actually tried to shake up the formula substantially. The evil team’s leader is actually very likeable, and very messed up, as it turns out later. I won’t go into very deep spoilers, but let me just say that N would make a very good SMT villain, even if just a minor one. There’s actual moral ambiguity, and though the actions of the evil team are still very “kick the dog” (it’s still a kid’s game, after all), N’s reasoning makes sense from a certain perspective and there are moments where you will actually think he has the right of it.


Also, he's very pretty. I'm a straight man and I want to run my fingers through his hair.

It’s not just the big bad that got a personality. Gym leaders are actually real, living people now, with jobs and everything, and they actually aid you in the crises to come. In that respect, this game’s story is very reminiscent to several arcs of the Pokémon Special manga, which is another big plus in my book. The rivals have some really nice character arcs as well, and there is actually some really massive build-up to the final battle, which in and of itself is actually a gigantic subversion of the typical Pokémon plot finale.
Pokémon Black and White get many kudos from me for first deconstructing its own tired premise, and later doing its best to reconstruct it on new, more real grounds. While I enjoyed the sequels and X and Y, I got the feeling that both pairs of games were simply more pandering to the fanbase, trying to apologize for B/W being different. I find it pretty sad, to be honest. With Black and White Gamefreak have shown that they can give us a compelling story and interesting characters in a Pokémon game, only to go back to their comfort zone with the following entries, seemingly trying to appease a fanbase that IMO was not that angered about the changes.


These guys are also really attractive.

The music is also a nice change in a way. Everyone remembers Hoenn’s trumpets on everything, and then gen IV had music that was a tad on the bland side, IMO (the amount of accordion did not help). Gen V not only had very nicely written tracks (such as the Route 10 track linked below), it also took some risks in the implementation of music, like making the battle music change when your Pokémon reached critical health or when the gym leader was down to the last Pokémon. Neither of these changes made a return for gen VI, and I wish they did, because those were some seriously original ideas.






Pokémon Black and White may not be the most popular entry in the series, but I think it’s a really important one and shouldn’t be missed. It’s also a great entry point into the series, so if you haven’t really had the chance to play Pokémon yet, Black and White are your best bet. As with many entries on this list, I highly recommend this game, whether you’re a long-time fan of the series or a complete newbie.