Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Ambitious"

Playing through Black I have to say it really cracked down on battles being "easy". This is certainly a hard game for Pokemon standards, and I loved the challenge. The AI is at least smarter, and there are hardly any trainers that can just be taken out so easily, and you really have to pay attention to your battles, especially post game. I also have to say that the new battle system is amazing, it makes the Pokemon stand out more, and gives a lot more feeling to the Pokemon universe. Also love the fact there is a lot more to explore post game, TMs are infinite, and HMs aren't used nearly as much. And really it's just that Black/White does a lot of these little things that just make everything else so much better, and its been a long time coming for the Pokemon series to fix these things that B/W address. You really don't see how stale a series you love is till they make a far better sequel to give light on how crappy the past games were.

Black is also the first Pokemon game that really felt like a RPG to me, and I'm still not sure it's a good or bad thing.There is a lot of scripted scenes, and a few battles that require certain things from you. As well you don't get to chose what to do, or who to name quite as often as you may like. And while this may be fine or even better for most, for me there seems to be a loss of feeling I use to have as a kid. I think the reason I loved Pokemon so much when I was little was because you get to chose who you want, and you ultimately decide how things will play out. But with B/W there were a few times I felt very forced to do something Gamefreak wanted me to do, and frankly it turned me off this game every now and then. It wasn't enough to make me quit, but enough to put me in a bad mood. I think that's my major complaint about this game, and I think that is why I don't like it nearly as much as the older generations. And by no means is this game actually worst, rather its just different from what got me into this series. I don't despite it, in fact I like to see something more of what B/W was trying to offer me when B/W 2 comes out. This maybe what Pokemon needs to get better than it already is and that's really all I want from Pokemon, a great series, and B/W offers that potential for Pokemon to be even greater than it already is.

Conclusion: Pokemon Black improves so many small things that in the grand scale of things, Pokemon has never been better, but there also seems to be something lost in transition from old to new. Black most certainly is a different Pokemon then from what I'm used to, and although I don't like some changes to the series, overall it's a good transformation, and I hope to see more of it.