If you ask Pokemon fans what games they consider objectively the best in the series, then I think the majority will answer that these are Black/White versions. In fact, for a franchise, these are very unique games, which even in some ways stand apart from the rest of the series. Naturally, they are by no means perfect. These versions have their own problems and disadvantages. But still, which makes them the best? Why are they unique? What was a high -quality breakthrough for the franchise in general? And, most importantly, why Game Freak did not further develop ideas and trends laid in Black/White? It is on these issues that I propose to speculate a little in this article.
General information
Pokemon Black/White went to Japan back in 2010, and after another year these games saw the rest of the world. They became the first representatives of the so -called fifth generation.
“Start from a New Begining” is a slogan under which new versions were sold, and it quite accurately reflects their main essence. "New beginning" can be understood in different ways. On the one hand, this time Game Freak made an attempt to enter the new target audience. Black/White, despite the usual rating of 6+, were still designed for adolescents, which also meant a new approach when creating games in general. On the other hand, Junov clearly had to become a new canto. The parallels with the first generation are sometimes visible even too clearly: similar concepts and evolutionary rulers, as well as 150 more new Pokemon, in addition to which there are no more other pocket monsters in the very postheim (even Magikarpa cannot be caught in a puddle).
In addition, Black/White, although they retained the main features traditional for previous versions, still tried to change and expand the already familiar universe. You are no longer a 10-year-old child, you are 14. Your rivals now worked out characters with their character and arch of development. Moreover, through them they are also trying to convey some morality. Professor – the most unexpected turn – this time a woman! There is a villainous team, but it is actually a background, because your real opponent is an antihero, which changes as the plot itself changes. Him-leaders are not cardboard, and also participate in the general struggle with villains. The champion does not sit and does not wait in a stone castle on a high mountain, but does something and directs the characters. The legendary Pokemon himself asks you to catch it, and the final battle has never been so epic. And, most importantly, no special mandatory muvs (HM), without which you can not move between locations! (almost)
I’ll even risk saying that against the background of Black/White the next generation of games that has already been released in 3D, it looks in some aspects as a step backward.
Also, new versions brought with them such charms as changing seasons, new battles and new online functions. And, of course, improved graphics. Movable full-fledged pixel modeling Pokemon, chic 3D cat-scenes and the same bridge, as well as sudden interruption from the usual chibiks to a full-fledged image of the character. At the first passage, after the old-like games of the fourth generation, it was very impressive.
The plot for new games was developed for a year and a half. And it really is felt. No wonder I consider this story the most worked out in the entire series.
The concept that underlies the Black/White versions as a world, but invariably always works is the unity and struggle of opposites, yin and yang, directly black and white. And this time the plot is not concentrated around the protagonist, but around two heroes. As planned, they are interconnected and must end up on each other. This is the struggle of the two ideologies. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you now, I really say that this time the games about Pokemon do not just show a typical struggle of good with evil, but the struggle of two worldviews. And the game does not give an unambiguous answer how everything should be decided.
In fact, the whole plot revolves around one problem: using Pokemon is good or bad? Can two worlds – humanity and pocket monsters – exist together? On the one hand, a rather strange question for games, where everything is built on catching multi -colored animals and force them to fight among themselves. On the other hand, this is logical. The game involuntarily makes you do self-reflection and offers to look at the usual world in a new way.
In my previous article dedicated to Sword/Shield, I said that these versions borrow the concept of Black/White to some extent, but do it worse, and in the end they can’t lead everything to the epic finale. I would venture to assume that this is largely due to the current installation of Game Freak for the "friendliness" of games. They simply and do not want to particularly create tension and involve the player into what is happening, so as not to complicate the history and relationship of the characters.
About the involvement in what is happening. All the main characters of Black/White take part in the global plot. And in the end, his span friends and all the hym-leaders who met him come to the aid of the player. Of course, one of the HIM leaders is disclosed a little more, for example, (Lenora, Burg, Eles and Dradyden), and information about the rest is mainly limited to some facts about their profession or biography. But they all help in the fight against the Plasma team. The plot does not dump everything on the child, as if there are no adults in this world at all.
The final battle with N and the resolution/zekrom – just a separate topic for discussion. It is the culmination of the whole history and the relationship between central characters. This battle is well thought out and scattered, so even though the battles in Pokemon are step -by -step and not particularly dynamic, this moment looks very strong. The clash of two legendary dragons, two powerful attacks, accompanied by a chic soundtrack … All this is impressive even after 10 years!
And, of course, the Black/White versions are known for good postgam. The most unusual here is that the main plot does not end on the formation of the player with the champion. He gets this opportunity just in postgime. Also now we can cooperate with Interpol and catch accomplices of the chief antagonist Getsis. And the player is also waiting for a meeting with the legendary Pokemon and the no less legendary champion Sino – Cynthia. And, of course, the opportunity opens up to catch even more Pokemon!
A pleasant addition is also the so -called "related memories". Access to them opens in sequels. These are small stories/dialogs that reveal some events that remained behind the scenes and complement the picture of the world. It seems to be trifles, but they make it possible to penetrate the plot and characters more.
In general, Black/White is surprisingly full of emotional, memorable moments and scenes. Is this the main sign of a competent and thoughtful plot?
But what if I tell you that https://river-belle-casino.uk/ the story of Black/White is not about the player and his journey through the world of Pokemon? What if I say that this is primarily the story of a boy with green hair, who can speak with Pokemon – N?
Just think for yourself, even the opening topic of games begins with N and its coronation ceremony. He has his own beliefs, ideals and motivation. The legendary Pokemon chose it as a hero. And during the trip, he changes his views on the world – passes the arch of development. In addition, he is directly related to the antagonist, and without him this story would not be at all. By all grounds, he is the main character.
N, probably the most worked out character in the Pokemon universe. This time, the developers were frozen so much that they screwed up an individual pace of speech: no matter what speed you put in the settings, N will still speak faster.
Another of his unique feature is that it acts as an anti -Hero. Initially, n is the king of the plasma team and has a rather radical view of the world. He wants to share Pokemon and people, because he is sincerely convinced that human activity brings pocket monsters only suffering. And he does not want to force Pokemon to fight because he feels their pain. For him, multi-colored animals are also friends, as well as for the player by default, but he shows his attitude to them differently. Thus, it is N N is the second side of the conflict in the struggle of ideologies, the second opinion, and not at all GTSS, for whom the liberation of Pokemon is only an excuse, and not an end in itself.
It is also interesting that some personality traits N are revealed as if indirectly, they are not mentioned right in the course of action. They are expressed through elements of its design and locations, associated with it. N has a mathematical vision of the world: in his speech you can often notice the word “formula”, a cube that he wears on his belt is a mathematical puzzle, and also this is a reference to Menger’s cube. Even his musical theme has references to mathematics: if counted from C = 1, then the notes in the four rising arpeggio at the beginning of the topic coincide with the first eight of the simple numbers (D, E, G, B, F ‘, A’, E ‘, G’ ‘= 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19).
The full name N – Natural Harmonia Gropius, where “Natural” is a natural number, “Harmonia” – refers to mathematical harmonious functions, and “Gropius” – probably a reference to the German architect Walter Gropius. However, also N and Harmoniavat can form the word "enharmonic" – "disharmony". That just reflects the state of the character at the beginning of the story.
We can get the main information about his past by visiting the room N, where he spent his childhood. Apparently, among his hobbies were a skateboard, basketball and different modes.
And it is all these details that make n a truly good character, the story of which you are imbued with, who wants to empathize.
What else is noteworthy is the fact that at the end of the story N does not just change its views and life attitudes. He wants to see this world himself, to see it as he really is, because he realizes that he was deceived. And he wants to correct his mistakes, so he sees his mission in teaching people and Pokemon to understand each other.
From attempts to divide the world into “black and white”, N eventually comes to the conclusion that new opportunities are born thanks to the unity of different lives and views. In other words, it is through this character that the main message of the Black/White games is broadcast.
They say that the story is as good as good her villain. And this fully applies to Black/White games. GETSIS – a real boss of the villainous team of plasma and the main antagonist of the whole history. On the one hand, it is very reminiscent of the previous “evil bosses”, only this time Game Freak decided to unscrew all the negative qualities of the character to the maximum, without hesitation at all at all.
GETSIS is the real evil. He is absolutely insane and absorbed in thoughts about strength and power. He is not at all worried about some strange global ideas like “you need more land/water”, “create a new world”. No, he only follows his selfish desires and beliefs and will not stop at anything on the way to his goal. This is what makes him really terrible. The image of Getsis is very well supplemented by his musical theme, from which I still have goosebumps running.
To implement his plans, he found an orphan N (gave him a strange name), inspired him that Pokemon suffered because of people, and then simply used it, as he wanted to get the strength of the legendary dragon. And after all this, he also calls him "Frica without a human heart".
GTSTS also poses a real danger to the player. He was the only one of all the antagonists of the series tried to kill the child interfering with him. Moreover, in the versions of Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, in an episode with the rainbow team of the Rocket, he was called up from another world to Alola. After the defeat in the battle of Pokemon, Getsis took Lily hostage and threatened to kill her if the player did not give up. The situation was saved only. Yes, what is there, even subordinates from the Plasma team are frankly afraid of him.
And even scary to imagine what will happen if Getsis makes his plans. At the end of the Black/White games, the shadow triad gives the player a sphere that are associated with the legendary trio of the creators – dialga, sticks and giratin, controlling time, space and antimatter. It is possible that the plans of Getsis were to get the power of the god of the world of Pokemon – Arkeas.
In my opinion, this is the most charismatic and memorable antagonist of all. I really want to fight against Gatsis, a real threat comes from him, and his plans and methods do not cause laughter at all and do not seem naive.
Pokemon Black2 & White2
The moment when the plot was worked out so much that it was enough for the sequels. Yes, the Black/White versions are the only games of the series that have direct sequels, and I think it does not stop saying a few words about them.
Despite the fact that we are traveling everything along the same region, the story itself this time is completely different, even though the old characters also did not disappear. The plot logically continues the first part. The plasma team broke up, some of its members chose the side of N and are now trying to help Pokemon and generally be good people, while others remained with Gitsis and continue to do dark things, only having already discarded the plausible excuse in the form of “liberation of Pokemon”. Now they just steal them.
As it seems to me personally, in the sequels of the game, those concepts on which the first parts were built by the game. There is no longer a personal confrontation, the player just must prevent Getsis from fulfilling his crazy plans. The concept of the new canteen is also, in fact, lost, since now a variety of pocket monsters from different regions are available to us from the very beginning.
Sequels play more on old images than bring something new. But this is still a good story in which it is interesting to take part. You see how familiar characters became, how they changed, how they grew up. It undoubtedly warms the soul. Also now the player has more opportunities, more different options for compiling a team, and you can even try yourself as a movie actor.
The story of Black2/White2 is now connected not with Solurama and Zekrom, but with the third legendary dragon – Curmos. We are represented by the new concept of the "merger" of Pokemon. And it turned out to be so successful that Game Freak has been in versions of Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. The divided world is trying to regain harmony for itself, as three dragons are again trying to become a single dragon of a young man.
In general, the concept of a single dragon itself is very interesting and is still unknown how he actually looked. So, in theory, when a wave of remakes one day will reach Black/White, you can make not just an improved version of the old game, but create a new story. Although, of course, it is unlikely that the developers will decide on such.
Why no better?
And finally we approached the main issue of this article. Why Game Freak decided to abandon the further development of the series along the path of Black/White and took a step back towards greater casuality and children’s audience?
The main reason for pain is banal – Black/White and their sequels simply did not collect enough money. Moreover, they became the lowest games among the main series. In total, 15.64 million copies of black and white were sold around the world, for comparison the relatively brand new Sword/Shield, which only lazy did not scold and did not kick, were sold by a total of more than 17 million copies.
Secondly, players and critics expected from the new generation of Pokeigr much more innovative solutions than they got in the end. Outdated pixel graphics (even animated), the absence of fundamentally new gameplay functions (except that new types of battles were added) … At that time, on the same DS, Zelda’s capabilities are completely flaunted, this is not at all impressive.
Thirdly, the concept of New Begining still had its negative aspects. Excessive similarity to the first generation did not really like some players. In addition, it was at the time of the fifth generation that a particularly large wave of new Pokemon dissatisfied with the design rose. Of course, they were, for example, Diamond/Pearl accused of the solution of the images of pocket monsters. However, now almost no one is already remembers about this, but the "revived ice cream and gears" still cause discontent of fans. Although, in fact, in Black/White, all the long -familiar ideas were already used to create concepts of Pokemon.
It is also worth considering that now the developers simply do not have time to work out so deeply their games. They are settled by the output of the anime and merchant. In such conditions, spending a year and a half on the creation of a good plot is an unacceptable luxury.
There are also some of my subjective thoughts about why Black/White at one time sold so badly. Oddly enough, but, in my opinion, Game Freak is a serious and elaborated plot. The fans of the series simply did not expect that this time the history would have to read. And some could simply scare away a large number of complex dialogs. After all, the usual Pokemon is a slight adventure where everything is clear purely intuitive, but not this time.
Plus, an anime, which, in theory, was supposed to spur sales, it turned out at all (Black/White arch in the series is usually preferred not to remember). The plot diverged so that the source offered, that fans could just have a wrong idea of games and, accordingly, the desire to buy them disappeared.
As a result, Game Freak decided that to experiment further and try to change something simply unprofitable. There is an old, safe, time -tested formula. There are children who love multi -colored animals, a simple and understandable story and an easy gameplay. And the following versions – X/Y – unfortunately, confirmed that the developers were right. And, therefore, most likely, we will no longer see anything better in the Pokemon series than Black/White and their sequels.
Maybe if the fifth generation games were still collected enough, then the franchise would go along a completely different path. But, alas, as they say, history has no subjunctive mood.