As close to perfect as Pokemon has got
The story is set 2 years after the original. You, a trainer from Aspertia City, are asked to complete the Poke Dex for Professor Juniper. You get a choice of 3 starter Pokemon. The Grass snake Snivy, Fire pig Tepig and Sea otter Oshawott. You set off on an adventure with your rival who has the goal of retreiving a Pokemon that was stolen from his little sister. Team Plasma are back, and this time, they're not even attempting to hide their schemes. They want world domination and plan on awakening the Legendary Kyurem and fusing him with the White Hero Reshiram to have ultimate power to acheive their goal with. the story gets pretty interesting and is well excecuted.
The core gameplay is somewhere in between a true sequal and a special edition remake. There are a lot of new places added to Unova and loads of older Pokemon to catch throughout the game (including Riolu, Mareep, Sandshrew, Growlithe the list goes on) - there's a whopping 300+ Pokemon you can obtain in the game without transferring from previous games. But the game is set in the same place and there is a point in the middle of the game where you are running along the same routes, battling the same gym leaders (5 were from the previous game) and you will be catching alot of the same Pokemon as you did in the previous Black and White.
You travel from town to town battling trainers and catching Pokemon. There are still 8 gyms in the game each specialising in a certain type of Pokemon; for example normal, dragon and ground. TMs are still reusable and HM moves aren't really needed. You need surf and strength, but the rest of the TMs are just to make life easier, so you won't need a HM slave or to worry about your team's attack combinations.
The new battle styles Triple and Rotation battles return and are used more throughout the game in both versions. Triple Battles are self explanitory, you issue commands for 3 Pokemon at once, but certain attacks can't reach all the way across the field so there is some strategy. Rotation Battles are where you can readily swicth between 3 pokemon. One of these 3 pokemon will be active and can attack, but can be swapped with a Pokemon on standby which can attack straight away so you don't get punished for switching.
There are some new features added like filming your own movies at Poke Star Studios and the Pokemon World Tornament where you can battle some familure faces such as Trainer Red.
But to be honest I haven't really had a chance to see most of the post game content. So there is probably still a fair bit about this game that I don't know
Much like the original Black and White, level grinding isn't really an issue in this game as the level up system is tweaked so you get more exp points when you're battling stronger Pokemon, so it doesn't take long to catch up to the appropriate level if you are underlevelled. You are also given a Lucky Egg in the game which is a hold item that gives you more experience. If you run around outside some grass, a patch may begin to rustle. Often these rustling patches conatin a Pokemon called Audino which when defeated gives a lot of exp points. Dungeons are also still linear and personally I like this. Both fast level up time and linear dungeons mean you can get through the game without having to mess about. The experience is made smoother and, some people didn't like this streamlining, but I loved it.
So what's the difference between Black 2 and White 2. Well the Pokemon and some of the aesthetics. I personally think White has the better version exclusives (barring Zekrom as I prefer Reshiram) Given that version exclusive content still stands in the corresponding sequal (apart from which Legendary Dragon is presant which is reversed) I reccomend getting the opposite version to your original (if you own it).
What I mean is say if you own Black 1, I reccomend you get White 2 to see white's differances so you don't have to buy the same game twice to see what's different.
The graphics are those used in Black and White. There are some 3D cutscenes presant, the Pokemon sprites are fully animated, although the back sprites are blown up so their pixels are big which looks a bit tacky. Doesn't really excel anywhere, but on the whole a nice looking game
The music is amazing and probably the best sound track to date in a Pokemon game. Also has some nice remixes of older songs too
This Pokemon game is in my personal opinion, the best to date. There are so many Pokemon to catch and obtain. The story is prominant and well excecuted. The game is a more fluid experience than previous Pokemon games. Deffinitley the definitive Pokemon game right now - it's only competetor being the original Black and White. This sequal took the massive leaps in the right direction that their predessors did and added more to make it the best Pokemon game yet. There's no such thing as a perfect game, but this is as close as Gamefreak have got!
I hope the upcoming Pokemon X and Y will continue to improve on the formula
milesprower2k9 Original Reviews