Upcoming Games: Pokemon Black and Pokemon White

By Salvador

This Sunday will see the release of a new generation of Pokemon. At first you may think all they did was add a handful of new Pokemon, dolled them up a bit, and slapped a new color on the box and called it a day. You would be mistaken.

That handful of Pokemon I just mentioned is actually over 150 new ones. We already have 493 (give or take) and they’ve added the equivalent of the original two Pokemon games on top of that. And don’t forget with new Pokemon come a slew of new moves to teach old and new Pokemon alike.

And those old Pokemon from previous generations won’t show up till after you defeat the main story of the game. Eight Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, and the new antagonists, Team Plasma, are sure to put you through your paces before you can catch those older generation Pokemon.

Not enough for ya? How about the new Unova region is based off the New York Metropolitan area and is rendered in actual 3D environments unlike the pseudo 3D with the previous games?

The Pokemon’s sprites are also more animated in battle and they added dramatic camera effects to make the battles more dynamic. As if the new 3 v 3 and rotation battles weren’t enough to make the battles even more strategic and dynamic.

You also have season changes, local trade and matches, random Wi-Fi matches, video chat (DSi and XL only), surveys, and an online site called Dream World. This site functions as a beefed up version of the Pokewalker from Heart Gold and Soul Silver were you can train your Pokemon outside of battle, build a house your friends can visit, and grow berries. You will even be able to meet Pokemon with rare abilities or abilities they wouldn’t normally learn, like a Pikachu with surf, and be able to transfer them back to your Black or White game.

It makes me wonder how they fit all those new features on that tiny cart with 649 Pokemon already on there.  

As a side note, one of the starter Pokemon is Tepig, a Fire pig Pokemon. I'm totally going to call mine either BBQ or Bacon. Which should it be?

Sources:
kotaku.com
ign.com
wikipedia.org