The Unova Link, on the other hand, is undeniably cool. Why play these mediocre games with your friends when you could be battling or trading Pokémon? The same goes for the Xtransceiver minigames as well. They’re quite forgettable and honestly don’t serve any purpose except for netting you some items. The Funfest missions are minigames that involve running around towns and routes seeking certain items before your friends do. We now have Funfest Missions in the Entralink, minigames on the Xtransceiver, and the new Unova Link feature. We see the return of the Pokémon Global Link and Dream World in addition to the seldom-used (at least by myself or anyone I know) C-Gear features from the original Black & White. Trainers can now communicate with each other in dozens of ways, although not all of them are very useful. Perhaps one of the biggest innovations these games have are in their connectivity. Of course, with new areas comes new content. PokéStar Studios replaces the musicals from the previous games and sees you fight off against a giant robotic Tyranitar. Making films is a fun little pursuit with a bit of depth, but the appeal doesn’t last too long. A couple new places worth mentioning are the Pokémon World Tournament– where you can battle past gym leaders from every region– and Pokéstar Studios, where you can make Poké-films. Players like myself who have combed through Black & White for hundreds of hours will have loads of new places to explore. The amount of content in terms of game area is really unprecedented in a Pokémon game. I won’t spoil all the surprises, but expect to find five brand new towns, three brand new gyms, and tons of new routes and tunnels to explore (plus nearly every area from the original games). The adventure in Black 2 & White 2 begins two years after the previous games in a completely new area of Unova. It’s been the same since 1996, but it’s just as well that it’s still loads of fun to play, and in Black & White 2, the changes are more in the world of the game than how it plays.įor the first time, we’re able to experience a region we have been to before with fresh eyes.
Players run around, catch Pokémon, battle gym leaders, fight bad guys, save the world, and take part in any number of games and activities along the way. Of course, the first two adventures reinvented many aspects of the Pokémon series, so why not redo the entire game release formula at the same time? That said, we’re returning to Unova after only a short wait of about a year and a half, so what does Black & White 2 bring to the Pokémon universe to make it worth another trip?Īt their core, Black & White 2 are nearly identical to their predecessors in terms of gameplay. I think we were all taken aback when Game Freak announced that it would be developing a pair of direct sequels to Pokémon Black & White instead of the expected third version with added features.