Trying not to Convert Myself...

[Maneco]

Well, for those who have already seen me on some threads, you might know I'm a big opposer to Pokémon Black & White. And, in my point of view, it's near a trolling opposition. But too bad I have to admit that some changes on gameplay mechanic are starting to get my attention.

At first, I thought Triple Battles were nothing more than an excuse to "we don't have anything more innovative on the battle system", but its concept seems interesting in the end: only the middle Pokémon is able to attack any of the three opponents, while the border ones can only attack two of them. More interestingly, the Rotation Battles bring a new strategy to battles, making the player anticipate the opponent's move even more. I must say I'm really interested to see how these battles will work.

What I feel that's a good aesthetic change is the existence of seasons. It'll be interesting to see how the map will change during the years, drawing the player's interest (who will not see the same routes and cities every time he or she plays), as well the new online functions (although some seem kinda useless, like the "Dream World").

Some other "changes", like many that were always present in a new generation, are, in the end, only illusions to make the player think like a big innovation. N, at first, seemed to represent a difference in the story plot in the series, but now that I know he'll get involved with Team Plasma, everything goes back to where it started. This C-Gear, although it looks like cool and useful, doesn't really look like innovative (although the Pass By Mode is quite useful). To make thing worse, I'm afraid that this application will ruin the Touch Screen Menu which was the big thing in HeartGold & SoulSilver, simplifying that irritating button pressing to get to the party and bag.

Another thing that I don't see as really innovative is Victini. I really don't understand why it must be #000 in the regional dex. Logically, it doesn't make sense, because you only start counting anything from one. Still related to species is the access to the Pokémon Global Link. It looks like you need a specific Pokémon to do so, and that doesn't seem nice to me. To access the most promising part of the game you are forced to get a certain Pokémon? It's not nice at all. And also, these "exclusive areas" might seem quite innovative to many people, but, to me, it's just lack of creativity to think of anything else which could be exclusive (although the design differences in the same towns according to the version seems cool).

And things that we're always asking to change and they don't are still present in these new versions. The existence of Pokémon unlocked only by events (Zorua and Zororark, in this case) still pisses me off, while the story seems to return... again. Please, take in consideration the importance of this again. Again, we have childhood rivals (can't we ever have a rival matching Silver's cult-following or Wally's differencial storyline?), an evil team, eight gyms and (probably) the so hated HMs. But what pisses me the most is Game Freak's stupid (in my opinion) conviction that there must be more and more species to keep the series selling. I'm not going to discuss this a lot, but I'm really not happy with any of the Pokémon revealed so far and I don't see the need of their existence.

Aside from that, it looks like Pokémon Black & White look really nice, but I'm really struggling not to convert into a Generation V lover, like I did with DPt. I just wished Game Freak just looked a bit more into these mechanics that are being implemented rather than focusing on designing another hundred new Pokémon.

I wanted to know your opinion on the new features of Black & White: good and bad critics, suggestions and hopes to these games. To me, I just hoped they discarded that obsolete western logo and used the cool japanese one from now on...