Pokemon Black & White 2 [DS]

[Johnny Boy]

Well thankfully I don't have that much trouble with the PWT due to the fact that I use Raikou, Zoroark, and Swampert most of the time. Another thing that helps is the moves I taught them and the items I gave them. The only trainers I truly had trouble against was Red, Tate, and Norman(due to the fact the latters Slaking LOVES to spam giga impact and slack off).

[sniffy]

i have pokemon black 2 since yesterday and so far i love it im now in nimbasa city with the following team

 

arcanine lv 26

lopunny lv 24

roselia lv 24

dewott lv 24

thundures therian forme lv 22

grimer lv 23

 

also i traded some ofmy pokes to my old black version so i could teach them some tm moves

arcanine is a beast now

[Kuzu]

It's fun coming up with new strategies for the .

[Salamander]

The Pokemon announcement tomorrow will probably obliterate the memory of Black 2 and White 2, so I'd better finally get my review in now before nobody cares any more, as opposed to very few people caring.

 

I got Black 2 months ago and have been very slowly playing through it.  But I've beaten the main game, and am now taking on the increasingly agonisingly boring Black Tower, so I think I've more or less covered everything important.  The game practically has too much post-game content, though.  It's really overstaying its welcome.  And I think that's partly because they didn't include much game-game content.

 

The sequence of the game is pretty linear and there's very little plot in it.  I'm fairly annoyed about the fact that, after finally figuring out in Black/White that having the main plot end way before the Pokemon League kills the plot tension, they essentially fall back on their old mistake here.  Okay, sure, "the champion's been replaced!" isn't a twist you can do every game, and they were smart enough to at least have the main plot resolve itself after the eighth gym leader, but it still raises the question of why Iris doesn't just swoop in and sort everyone out with her Elite Four buddies.  And it also means that most of the game is a trudge of nothing happening.  I do really like the sequel approach, and I think they've done a fairly good job of reinventing most of the region and its areas - although for quite a few they clearly haven't tried at all.  But it seems as if "sequel!" is meant to pick up most of the slack because the real plot basically doesn't happen until after the seventh gym.  They really needed to draw it out a lot more.  There are all these roadblocks in the game concerned with Unova's trademark unsafe bridges, but the giant ice cannon in the sky doesn't create a single roadblock.  They could easily have brought that out earlier and created a bit of tension whilst also legitimately blocking your routes (and therefore legitimately unblocking them after the League).  Freeze over Marvellous Bridge and force you to go west instead.  Reveal the Plasma Frigate in the skies chasing down Skyla's plane.  I think I'd probably also have the DNA Splice sequence happen in Opelucid to add a greater sense of tension and keep the cover legendary around longer.  Then dump Black/White Kyurem in Giant Chasm as that's the best place to charge its ultimate attack that will freeze all of Unova or something.

 

And about that Giant Chasm sequence.  Pretty poorly executed.  The cover star of the game, Black/White Kyurem, is around for about five seconds.  Pretty much the moment it's created, you fight it - and because you're not allowed to catch it, it's an absolute pushover of a climax fight.  Catching Pokemon is hard as you have to survive and carefully push the Pokemon in question to low HP.  Just one Pokemon?  I almost one-shotted it.  And then we get a weaker rehash of the climactic B/W Ghetsis fight.  They could've just put Kyurem on his team, giving you a good excuse to not be able to catch it, and not dissolved all the dramatic tension by having the harder climax fight against him be essentially just cleaning house.  Such squandered potential.

 

And the whole postgame "everyone in all these routes has Pokemon of League-smashing levels, even toddlers" aspect is still dumb, just like it was in Black and White.  Let us access these routes and their trainers during the plot and then pump up the gym leaders' and other bosses' levels!  Heck, maybe actually hide some legendaries there, rather than having the Muskedeers practically give themselves to you.  I really think the discouragement of exploration that they started in B/W and seem to perpetuate here is pretty depressing.  Especially since it seems to be a lame stopover so they don't have to fix HMs until the next generation, where they probably still won't.

 

So yeah.  My conclusions on Black 2 and White 2: Like Black and White, they take some great steps forward from a technological perspective and in adding depth to the narrative, characters, and region, but they also take steps back in terms of navigation and actually using the new material they've invented.  I really hope Generation VI improves on this, as right now Platinum is still looking like my favourite Pokemon game.  Hey, remember how everyone was wearing winter clothes in that despite the narrative having no logical reason for everything being colder, and yet in the game with an Ice-type villain then there's all but zero emphasis on cold?  Nice work, B2W2.  I can really feel the effort.

 

And concomitantly, my wishes for Generation VI: B/W-level plot, less linear region and more of it used before the postgame, the Fire-type starter not being Fire/Fighting for the first time in literally ten years.

[The Kid]

I disagree with you on the aspect of post-game content in BW2. It was a startling improvement from the first game and even though some of the material was rather underwhelming, there is no such thing as having too much post-game material in a Pokemon game. Besides, the joy of the post-game material in Pokemon games is that while it follows some sort of (watered down) story, it isn't something you need to play to get the whole experience. You could quit right after beating the Elite 4, instead of exploring all those extra opened routes. Heck, if anything I'd like more post-game content where I could find some extra towers to battle or rare Pokemon. I finished the BW2 post-game in no time flat.

 

As for the Elite Four leveled Pokemon... well what do you want exactly? It's tedious and boring to have to fight Pokemon so much lower than you, especially in a post-game area. Sometimes people want to train their Pokemon to level 100 and create an amazing team to battle their friends with, but if the leveling of the random trainers you encounter peaks... well it would become rather boring, wouldn't it? This way I actually want to battle every trainer instead of just playing the Elite Four a billion times and throwing my DS at the wall.

 

But yes, the past few games have become rather easy in difficulty. The catch-rate for Pokemon seems to be higher as well. It wouldn't be a problem at all if turning on the harder difficulty wasn't such a chore in itself.

[ArtFenix]

I have yet to play B2W2 but I played White and I must admit the post game content is way too short and the main game itself is not that long either.

I don't really like Gen V as a whole. Too many idiotic, unneeded or uninspiring monsters designs. Can't wait to see whan Gen VI brings. Gen III games are still my favorite though I do love Platinum as well.

[\Lennox]

STARTERS ARE CHESPIN, VENNEKIN AND FROAKIE!
VERSIONS ARE POKÉMON X AND POKÉMON Y!

A FIFTH LEGENDARY DEER!
A XENOBLADE-LIKE GRAPHICAL QUALITY!
RIDING TRAINS! 
A GLOBAL OCTOBER RELEASE!
 

Well, now that THAT's out of the way, bring on the fan backdraft.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Lennox

[#AR]

Oh my god I love the new Water starter! Dat frog

I am now hyped for this. Legit 3D FTW!

[The Kid]

Had the biggest nerdgasm ever.