Editor’s Note: I’ve been wanting to do this review for a long time but never could find the time.  I played through the entire single-player adventure and must say the game will require a lot of hours especially when you unlock all 650+.

Pokemon Black and White for the Nintendo DS are some of the last great games for a great handheld and they push the envelope further than any other Pokemon game(s). Pokemon B/W are the first games in the 5th Generation of Pokemon games. I say first games, because usually there are ones that follow that are still in the same region and contain the same, new Pokemon.

Pokemon Black/White introduce 150+ new Pokemon into a new world called the Unova region. There are a lot of new features in B/W so I’ll try and talk about each of them and what makes each feature so great. The first unique aspect is for the first time since Pokemon Red/Blue you can only see 150+ Pokemon in the wild while you play through the adventure. All Pokemon games passed Red/Blue still involved the original 150 in some way. I can’t tell you how many times I encountered Rattata and Zubat over the years. Not anymore in B/W, you’ll only see the new 150+ Pokemon throughout the game until you beat it and then you unlock all 650+ in the National Pokedex.

The next big feature in B/W has to be the new graphics. The game has receiveda pretty sizable update by adding large-scale, 3D rendered buildings, and more animated battles than before. As soon as you start the game, you’ll realize just how much Game Freak reworked the existing Pokemon engine to accommodate the new graphics. It’s pretty amazing but still leaves you wanting more now that the 3DS is out. It’s hard to play the game and not think about a fully 3D Pokemon game (both with 3D polygonal graphics and 3D stereoscopic graphics). Even so, Pokemon B/W shine on the DS and are probably the best examples graphically of what the DS can do.

 

Another huge feature in B/W are the triple and rotation battles. These unique ways of battling add extra strategy and are a lot of fun when playing with friends. Whenever I used to play Pokemon with friends, we’d always keep switching Pokemon out until we got one that was the most effective against the other. So if they switched to an Electric type to fight my Water type, I would just switch to a Ground type before they could to an Electric move. It wasn’t very fun at all but now the triple battles add more strategy as in Pokemon in the middle of the 3 can do damage to all Pokemon on the battlefield, but those on the side can only do damage to the 2 closest to them. On the flip side, Pokemon in the middle will get more damage than those on the side so it’s a good idea to put your highest level Pokemon in the center. Rotation battles are unique and aren’t encountered until later in the game but they’re a lot of fun in multiplayer too.

The multiplayer options in Pokemon B/W are very extensive. Not only do you have all the battle and trade modes you’re used to in the past, but you have all the new modes including the ability to have a friend come to an area in the Unova world. You can even do video chat with the games using the DSi camera.

Conclusion

If you’re a long-time Pokemon fan like myself, you’ll absolutely be hooked on Black/White like you were Red/Blue. With all the new features and amazing graphics, you can’t go wrong with these games. Add into the equation that you’ll probably get easily over 70+ hours of gameplay in these and you have a great value for $30. Even if you’ve never played a Pokemon game or stopped playing after the first generation, you definitely need to check these out.

Pokemon Black and White get a 9.7/10