Topic: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

[pokepal148]

Current Players:
Pokepal148 (just cleared the second gym)
Steefasaurous (just started)

Pokémon Black and White is the first attempt by Gamefreak to really shake up the Pokémon series. With a newfound focus on a fairly strong narrative themed around conflict, and a new region based on New York City populated almost exclusively by the roster of 156 new Pokémon along with several other changes to the core Pokémon formula these games have plenty to set themselves apart from other games in the series.

It may not have made as many drastic changes as Sun and Moon did but I strongly believe that Pokémon Black and White are the most ambitious games in the series since Pokémon Red and Blue. The problem is that a lot of that ambition either didn't go far enough as far as changing the Series's formula goes or simply falls flat on it's face. This results in some of the most divisive games in the Pokémon series, and in my opinion some of the best.

I hope to see some of you take on this journey with me. My desire to see some kind of discussion of these games led to me going through with this whole forumwide playthrough idea (which is why I kind of rigged it so they'd be the first one). If you want to play along just post in the thread that you're playing along and I'll add you to the list.

One thing: if you get stuck with something post about it in the thread. Try to avoid going to an FAQ or something. The days of beating games by trading secrets on the playground may be long since over but let's try to recreate them right here and now. Besides, I'm way more charming than some FAQ.

[pokepal148]

Oh nice, I got Autumn for the current season. I know the season depends on the date on your DS/3DS and it changes at the end of the month but I don't know if it will be autumn for everyone who starts this game or if everyone will get different seasons even if they have the date set the same as me. Anyways I started out with Tepig. Last I checked Tepig and Oshawatt can't walk on walls and Snivy doesn't even have footprints to leave behind so I have no idea what happened to my room.

[Order.RSS]

All right I'll join on this, I'm pretty sure I can borrow one of these games. Are Black/White 1&2 very different, or are Black2/White2 the 'better' versions like Yellow/Emerald?

I think I'll try going in blind with some Nuzlocke ruleset for myself to make it a bit more interesting. Anyone got a good theme to base the names for my team around? I might go for hiphop artists/rappers, unless someone has a better suggestion? EDIT: Never mind I'm already sold on this idea, it's gonna be great.

[pokepal148]

Black 2 and White 2 are this bizarre romhack sequel thing to Black and White. They're excellent but they're completely different games that don't share much with the originals.

Oh and the button combination to reset your save is up, select, and B at the title screen.

Fair warning, this game has some really mean moments as far as nuzlocking is concerned.

Anyways, I believe pokemon Black and White are the first games in the series to just let you be able to catch Pokémon the first time you enter a route. Before this you usually had to run some errand before they give you your pokeballs.

[ClexYoshi]

as I said in discord, I've already been playing BW2 just for grins, and Pokepal is absolutely right so far on a lot of things. it does make me sad to play and see how many features are just broken or destitute from the death of Nintendo WFC.

Playing this has reminded me of so many small QoL changes that Black and White made that got dropped like a bad habit for X and Y and had me angry at the time of playing that game. little things like very smartly placed Doctor/Nurse trainers that offer your trainer their services to refresh your team without having to take a trek back to town if you are able to best them, or BW's own abolishment of the HM involving making them strictly for optional goodies rather than roadblocks for the main path. this left Gym badges to strictly be the obedience threshold for non-OT pokemon.


Dungeon design is brilliant non-linear affairs sometimes that will only give you a peek at some of it's goodies, as dungeon and route layouts can end up changing with the new seasonal system, along with the wild pokemon table and such.

Some of the gyms are the most brilliant things that they ever had in the series. I still hold and maintain that Cilan/Chili/Cress of Striaton Gym is one of the most brilliant opening gyms to a pokemon game ever, and offers a tight set of tutorialization opportunities WITHOUT doing things like feeding the player free pokemon or new exp share or such.

Some of my favorite pokemon designs overall belong to the 5th gen alumni. as a matter of fact, I feel I should point out at this point that since my BW2 run is pretty casual and such, I decided I wanted an alternative starter and Pokegen'd myself a larvesta, because I thought it'd be amusing to have a starter that has no chance to evolve until well into the post-game of my journey. also, Volcarona has rapidly become one of my favorite pokemon. Pokegen will also be used if I need a trade evo or want to mess around with a pokemon that has it's dream world ability, such as Shed Skin Scrafty.

I'm currently at Nimbasa city. I remember in BW1 that some pretty important character development for Bianca happens at Nimbasa, and that struck me as being something bold and WAY Different for a pokemon game to be doing at the time.

[Order.RSS]

All right I can borrow Pokémon White Version for sure, so that's great. I'll pick a different starter than Pokepal to keep things fresh. I recognise the grass starter from Pokkén Tournament, but I don't like the final evolution phase of that line, so I'm a bit torn still between going for Snivy and stopping them from evolving after phase 2, or doing the same but for the water type. Don't like any of the 3 final forms to be honest. Does this game one of those stop-evolution-stone items?

Maybe I'll drop the Nuzlocke idea if it's so difficult, we'll see how it goes.

[lolmonade]

So...my experience with the series is Blue/Red, and then dabbling in X/Y before dropping it.  Sounds like B&W2 are what the majority are playing here, so I'll look-out for a cheap copy near me and see if I can scoop it up.

[ClexYoshi]

it's kinda tough...

Samurott is a water type with equally decent attacking stats, but no bulk nor speed to back them up.

Emboar is all right, but feels like he's just blaziken with a thicker body thanks to the type combo and distribution of his stats. I have a soft spot for him.

Serperior is actually pretty bad without it's dream world ability, which you can't access without a website that went defunct even before Nintendo pulled the plug on Nintendo WFC. that being said, nowdays in modern pokemon games where you have access to Contrary, Serperior is used pretty widely because of how dumb the Leaf Storm nonsense is.

Gen 5 I think was the first generation where I actually boxed my starter after getting Samurott for the Pokedex. My plan was to use Jellicent anyway, and Unova has plenty of wonderful pokemon to chose from.



Actually, one of the joys I've had with playing BW2 is seeing the way they've distributed encounters. This seems to be the first game where they adopted the mentality of making various areas of the game very densely occupied by wild pokemon, which struck me when I played X/Y for the first time as a good move; in that game's blatant Viridian Forest paralell, they specifically packed in just about every early bug-type line that you could ever want along with some other goodies new and old. Seeing early game Koffing, Grimer, Riolu, Mareep, Magby, and Elekid sprinkled in with your BW early game staples like Pidove, Lilipup, Patrat, and trubbish made me genuinely smile. (I'm the sort that in Sun/Moon ended up trying to SOS chain me the early game salamence)

So...my experience with the series is Blue/Red, and then dabbling in X/Y before dropping it.  Sounds like B&W2 are what the majority are playing here, so I'll look-out for a cheap copy near me and see if I can scoop it up.

I'd take Pokepal's advice; play BW1. the big thing is that BW2 is so heavily remixed it's almost like a different game. VERY different narrative, completely different early game, refers to plot elements of BW1, etc. You even play as a different trainer and have a different rival.

also, the thing about BW1 is that they very tightly keep the Unova Ecosystem shut in. you will not see a Pikachu or any recognizable pokemon until after you have bested the endgame of Pokemon Black and Pokemon White, whereas BW2 is less concerned about that.

[pokepal148]

Some of the gyms are the most brilliant things that they ever had in the series. I still hold and maintain that Cilan/Chili/Cress of Striaton Gym is one of the most brilliant opening gyms to a pokemon game ever, and offers a tight set of tutorialization opportunities WITHOUT doing things like feeding the player free pokemon or new exp share or such.

Oh we're going to have some fun here. The Striaton City gym is a massive missed opportunity in my opinion. The setup of having the first gym leader just counterpick your starter Pokémon is absolutely brilliant but the thing is the game intentionally holds back pokemon that could be used to counter that gym. Since I started out with Tepig the gym becomes a water type gym and that's absolutely brilliant. It forces me to go out and track down a Pokémon like Joltik and Emolga who has a type advantage against the gym's water pokemon.

The only way they could **** this one up is to make it so there's only one Pokémon available at this point in the game who can beat the gym's respective type, that pokemon is given to you rather than you having to go out and find it, and because they only have one pokemon available who can counter the gym available at this point the gym in turn is arbitrarily limited to only having one pokemon of it's respective type and is basically a glorified normal type gym.

So guess how they screwed this one up?

[ClexYoshi]

... thinking back, I did play this game with Oshawott originally, which meant I got milage out of Pidove at this point in the game and probably didn't notice that AS badly.


I'm not going to pretend Gen 5 is perfect, because it isn't. there's a lot of stuff where they try an idea and half-heart it, like... rare encounter spots... the shaking grass, clouds of dirt, shadows in the water, and shadows cast on the bridge are all gigantic missed oppertunities, as with the shaking grass, 99.99999% of the time you can expect to see Audino. Drillbur with the dust, Ducklett/Swana with the shadows, and Jellicent/MAYBE the ooposite color of Basculin that's native to your version of the game.


Although dream world and the entralink are dead features, the Dream World Website was actually kinda terrible and I disliked every time I had to navigate that website that felt like it was a product of the AOL Fun and Games gate.


there is a LOT of ansulary bloat that I had honestly spaced out of my mind until I saw it, like the Pokemon Musical. BW2's Pokestar studios falls under this too, but at least Pokestar studios has a bit of a puzzle element to it that makes it... I dunno, kinda neat? I wish it had more immediate and tangible rewards. could be a fun feature to bring back in one of the Pokemon games that has trainer cosmetics.the 3DS Dream Radar App that was released with BW2 also falls into this category. and Entralink missions in general, but that's a criticism of all pokemon I can make post Gen 3. there's just a LOT of it in Gen 5. Black City/White Forest. there's another example.

Triples and Rotation battles are fun formats they thought up and then consequently dropped them for future releases because they were both under supported in the games themselves and also caused the poor 3DS performance to start chugging like it's Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.

I also feel like the Unova League in Black/White 1 kinda takes a massive back seat in relevance because of the sharp, nearly blinding spotlight put on Team Plasma. I don't think even Team Rocket over the course of two games has ever felt so monolitic as Team Plasma does, and it actively serves to choke out some other elements of the adventure when so much of the game is Team Plasma, Team Plasma, Team Plasma.

[pokepal148]

... thinking back, I did play this game with Oshawott originally, which meant I got milage out of Pidove at this point in the game and probably didn't notice that AS badly.

The encounters are rigged so that Pidove won't appear before you beat the first gym.

[ClexYoshi]

... thinking back, I did play this game with Oshawott originally, which meant I got milage out of Pidove at this point in the game and probably didn't notice that AS badly.

The encounters are rigged so that Pidove won't appear before you beat the first gym.

Wow, really?!? I thought I remembered Pidove being available in Dreamyard, but I guess maybe that's Pinwheel forest I was thinking of? that's a good example of my memory failing me pretty hardcore, I guess. like I said, I totally forgot the Pokemon Musical was a thing until the guy handed me the prop case in BW2.

[Mop it up]

PokéStar Studios was the best thing to ever come out of any of the games, I'd gladly take a full spinoff game like that.

That is all.

[ClexYoshi]

PokéStar Studios was the best thing to ever come out of any of the games, I'd gladly take a full spinoff game like that.

That is all.

That'd actually be awesome. it's an idea that could ACTUALLY be fleshed out into something amazing. especially with a Super Mario Maker-esque scripting component to it. sadly, that's an idea too awesome for Gamefreak. better call Genius Sonority up on the phone.

[pokepal148]

Here's a fun thing about this gen 5: Surf has no gym badges required to use it. If someone trades you a Pokémon that knows surf you can use it right then and there.

Also apparently I can surf on my little tadpole thingy. That has to be illegal somewhere.

Wild pokemon you find while surfing are usually about the same level as the ones in the tall grass but you do occasionally run into high level trainers though who will curbstomp you.

[ClexYoshi]

yeah, as I said, the badges only level gate traded pokemon's obedience. HMs are a tool of sidequesting and sequence breaking, which makes them feel less tedious as they did in the past, as rather than progress gates, they serve as bonus incentive if you bring your HM Specialists into the unexplored depths of a cave.

[pokepal148]

[ClexYoshi]

Made it to chargestone cave, wherein my hunt for a tynamo has been a tecious one. Eelektross is a pokemon that fascinates me because on paper it should be amazing but in practice it kinda is mediocre. if it had like... a leaky battery eel look and was Electric/Poison with Levitate? it'd be brilliant and might actually see play as a superb walling pokemon instead of just existing. oh well. still seems neat to be this pokemon with no weakness but just doesn't have the stats or diverse movepool to take advantage of this fact.



Can I take a moment to gush about the soundtracks here? something went VERY wrong with the way pokemon games are scored after Gen 5. I don't know if it's that they were no longer limited by sample-based sequencing, Junichi Masuda finally broke, or what, but the Gen 6 pokemon music with few exceptions sound like the sorts of compositions that are trying to parody what your standard Masuda composition for pokemon sounds like, or are really annoying sounding and forgettable EDM.

BW's soundtrack I feel has it all. memorable battle tracks, catchy and chill town themes, route themes that inspire grandeur or in the case of the BRILLIANT Route 10 theme, finality. BW2 only gets BETTER about this. I've been grinning ear to ear as I get to each gym and hear it play it's own remix of the Pokemon gym theme. the music at the world tournament is incredible. Hugh's musical themes get me boppin' my head, Colress' theme is amazing, and then there's stuff like Virbank City, which is so chill that I've just been listening to it while I do art. I've been taken aback by how much has immediately struck with me. I also love the idea of the Critical HP music theme, using the traditional 'you left your car door ajar' style alarm as an actual instrument, and think that it's a crying shame that this wasn't adopted into Gen 6 or Gen 7's soundtracks and expanded upon; I'm thinking compositions that are Panel De Pon style critical themes for each major battle theme.


I feel like the instrument choice is superb as well, which is why there's a whole youtube cottage industry of people who make remixes of songs using the BW/BW2 sample library to recreate tracks and do their own thing. this phenominon does exist with the other pokemon games (particularly Gen 3 and it's trumpet-heavy samples), but I feel it's most prevalent with the Gen 5 stuff.

[pokepal148]

So I used a DNS server hack trick thingy to get a bunch of the event mons and stuff. Along with the liberty pass which I'll talk about when the time comes, one of the events I got was for an egg. Let's find out what's inside. I legit have no clue what it is.

Edit: it was an Axew. Welcome aboard buddy.

[ClexYoshi]

Sorry, one more, because I found it and it really craps all over USUM's rendition of this song.

[lolmonade]

I went to one used store last night and it was $25, which seemed steep.  Now I check amazon, and they want $65(!), nuts. 

I got one more spot to check, but you'd think with how iterative the series is that it wouldn't still command such a high price used.

[pokepal148]

a lot of first party DS games in general have held on to their value for the most part. $25 is actually pretty good.

Heart Gold and Soul Silver are incredibly pricey.

I forgot how mean the second gym is. There's this one specific trick I remembered that I was able to work around but that gym certainly lives up to the fact that normal type gyms are generally pretty challenging. Even with Axew just blasting through everything with Dragon Rage (having a fixed 40 damage move when I still am dealing with Pokémon with less than 40 hp is fun.) I still barely scraped by with that one.

Also I love the more dynamic battle music that they started to introduce with certain tracks that play for certain situations. I wish that had actually gone somewhere with it in later games instead of just dropping it like a hot potato.

I like how outside of the first gym, the gym leaders actually do things outside of waiting around for challengers in the context of the game's story. On top of that they generally have their own lives outside of their respective gyms. Lenora runs a museum, Burgh has a local art exhibit, this is the kind of development for these characters that normally only appears in the anime and it's nice to see it come to the main games. Black 2 and White 2 took this a step further by having individual remixes of the general gym  theme for each of the gym leaders. I wish they would have continued with this in X and Y. You kind of got some of this with some of the Trial Captains and Island Kahunas in Sun and Moon though which is nice.

I actually got a good deal on Black 2 recently so I'll probably talk about that in this thread after I finish White.

[pokepal148]

So fun tip: the EXP share is in the battle company building in Castillia city. You have to beat up the Janitor for it.

So I have a full team now. I have Pignite, Axew, Zorua, Palpitoad, Simisage, and Braviary.

Pignite has basically been the Torchic line but not ridiculously OP, which is nice.

Simisage has been a fun asset, with leftovers and leech seed giving it some passive recovery while it dishes out a decent amount of damage. He's probably the best of the monkey trio


Palpitoad has been getting by with surf and just recently evolved. it's a water/ground type so it doesn't have any weaknesses besides grass. Overall it's a nice mon. I like it.


Axew is a little dragon thing i got from an egg. right now it has Dragon Rage which is still some nice fixed damage. it has other attacks but pretty much everything gets 2hko'd by Dragon Rage right now so they aren't worth talking about.

Braviary is a refugee of sorts from a White 2 playthrough i probably won't finish. He's a stupid powerful giant bird and he has the ability Defiant which means if you try to debuff him he'll just raise his attack two stages like a good boy. He normally doesn't evolve from rufflet until level 45 but in white 2 there's one just hanging out in route 4 at level 25 that you can catch and that's where this one came from. I wound up giving him the Retaliate TM which coming off of it's ridiculous attack stat will likely leave a mark on anything.

Zorua is an interesting story. There's an event Zororak in Lostlorn Forest that I was able to battle and catch because of the DNS trick i used to get event pokemon stuff. I than bred that Zororak with my Lucario (again from the aborted White 2 playthrough) so i can get a Zororak that knows dark pulse because for whatever reason even though Zororak is a special attacking dark type pokemon it barely learns any special attacks. Zorua will evolve at level 30 but until than it's been pulling some decent damage for me with Grass Knot and Dark Pulse. It also has the ability illusion which lets it disguise itself as another pokemon in my party which is kind of useless in single player.

So I just got to the infamous Ferris Wheel scene, which I'm going to keep quiet about because Steef probably doesn't know what I'm talking about but the fact that i'm playing as the female character makes the creepy undertones for almost all of the scenes from here on involving      N        so much worse.

[Order.RSS]

All right I've made it past the first town of note. There's a guy mesmerised by reading the news ticker, my mom has been stalking me, and I think I accidentally attended a revolutionary political rally.

I'm assuming Team Plasma will turn out to be the villains(?) at some point, but if their ideology is indeed to end the forced slavery of Pokémon by humans... That's... Something I would probably side with? It's interesting they're acknowledging this uncomfortable implication the series has always carried (catch animals, make 'em fight for money).
If it turns out they're just trying to make everyone release their Pokémon, only to capture them all for World Domination, that'd be a bummer.

I'm playing as the girl character too, and named her Missy E - because Missy Elliot is the producer on my hip-hop crew to be. Members so far include 2 Patrats respectively called 50 Cent and The Game because they have a manufactured rivalry for relevance, and an Oshawott I've named after Mike Shinoda because it turns out I'm VERY ignorant when it comes to knowing Asian or Asian-American rappers, but his design feels distinctly Japanese.
Feel free to suggest future names! Btw this N guy, wasn't someone from Death Note called N too? He nearly ended my run early, glad I'd already bought potions - although I liked the mart being a separate building in previous games better.

[pokepal148]

I'm betting big money that you'll manage to scrape by until you reach the second gym leader and than you'll get nuked hard.