Counting Steps: Pokemon Go!

General info:

Official website – Wikipedia entry

• Developed by: Niantic
• Published by: Nintendo, Pokémon Company
• Original release date: July 6th, 2016
• Platforms: Android, iOS
• Written in Unity

I was late to the game with Pokemon. My generation was in elementary school at the height of the Pokemon craze. From what I hear, it was a grand ole time. Due to some satanic-panic logic (that remains unclear to me) Pokemon was forbidden in my house, growing up.

In fact, that was the reason behind most prohibited activities of my childhood. No Casper. No Power Rangers. No Pokemon. All of that exclusion kept me away from the cool kids’ table. Nobody deserves to be bullied, but looking back, I wasn’t any of the things you usually see in kids that get picked on. Not being an obvious target wound up hurting me in the long run. “How could you get picked on? You’re the biggest kid in class!” I was. Eventually, I had to figure out how to get with it or get left in the dust. 

Not only was it banned at home, most of the disciplinary action I witnessed in grade school revolved around punishing kids for bringing Pokemon cards to school. That prohibition was my “in.” After confiscating a large quantity of Pokemon cards, teachers carelessly tossed the collection in one pile onto the floor. 

Predictably, there were dogpiles. Whatever lay on the floor was up for grabs. I was left out of the conversation, but I certainly overheard them. What 9 years old could resist the opportunity to brag about their 1st edition Charizard? Or their holographic Pikachu? The kids making fun of me gave away exactly which cards I should steal from them. With everyone’s eyes on the prize, nobody noticed the only kid in class who couldn’t play Pokemon joining the ambush. On a few occasions, I’d crawl out with quite the score. 

My brothers obtained their own collections over time. Only, they would get caught. Every time one brother was busted, I’d overhear my parents threaten to search every bag in the house. While they sniffed for clues, I’d ditch my cards among the discarded contraband in the kitchen garbage to save my skin. In the end, every heist proved fruitless. My name’s Eric Fellner, and I stole my friend’s and classmates’ cherished Pokemon cards so I could throw them in the trash.

July 2016. Imagine my surprise the day Pokemon Go comes out, and my mom has it downloaded on her phone. After all that effort! After years of enforcement! 

Possibly the allure of augmented reality swayed my mother’s feelings on the matter? Maybe she admitted to herself the ban never had any rationale to start with? Whatever occurred, Pokemon Go was my first game in the series at the age of 23. 

It was a good summer to start! I had returned from a month-long stay in Brooklyn, which was honestly the time of my life. I had booked my first show for my return to North Carolina. A month of walking around the city got me into great shape. To my knowledge, the relationship I was in was going well. July 2016 was starting off as the peak of my “Jordan-year.”

Additionally, the whole world seemed united in (at least novel) interest in this game. And I could finally buy-in! My co-workers at Starbucks would dip into the parking lot catching Pokemon while they took drive-through orders. All hours of the night, pods of kids and adults alike crowded what was suddenly considered “landmarks.” In search of resources. Battling over gyms. Trying to “catch ‘em all.” You’re familiar with the game.

Counting on!

Personally, I loved using the game as a pedometer! It kept me in great shape. Endlessly running through the neighborhood and shopping centers felt as true to the core gameplay loop of Pokemon as you can get. Only, there was slightly less animal violence.

Then, July came to a close. One night, I stopped in late to see my grandfather who lived in town, Popop. We had open plans to visit a 24-hour bakery in Charlotte called Amelie’s. Unfortunately, he passed in his sleep sometime before I arrived. 

Between that night and the funeral, the girl I had been seeing ended things over text. The next week, I played that show I had booked while I was in New York. Due to similar circumstances in the other bandmates’ lives, the band immediately disbanded. 

After a month of riding high, things crashed spectacularly. My enthusiasm for Pokemon Go died amid the chaos and depression of the time. I didn’t feel like running. I didn’t want to see people out, people together. It’s no exaggeration that week in August took years to recover from. Not just emotionally. Regaining the sense of momentum I felt that summer took time. Pokemon Go forever resides in my memory as the pop-culture phenomenon that coincides with that period of my life.

February 2020. After a couple rough years, I was quitting the worst job of my life (thanks for nothing, Target) to teach guitar full-time. Playing music, for a living. Then, wouldn’t you know it? COVID-19 struck! 

Boy did it. And the job I just went all-in on was at high risk of being yanked from under me. Reflecting now, I wonder if the sink or swim of the moment shocked me into a state of flow. One day, my boss and I devised a plan to transition the entire studio to a remote format. The next day, the admin team and teachers were executing that plan. We were infinitely fortunate. We never missed a single day of lessons.

My girlfriend lived two hours away in Raleigh, and we decided to lock down together while I could work remotely. Despite having some work, I still had a considerable amount of free time. We were 5 miles from Moore Park, the center of downtown Raleigh, with everything in the city closed. As that normal set in, I found myself running across Raleigh playing Pokemon Go. Me and my Snorlax, Popop.

Normal is hopefully starting to shift yet again, and I continue to log (slightly fewer) kilometers in Pokemon Go. I’m no longer interested in Pokemon to get along with classmates, and if tragedy strikes, I’m a little better prepared. Pokemon Go is more of a glorified pedometer more than augmented reality, but my fondness for it still runs deep.

This piece is part of a larger collaboration, Pokemon: Creator’s Catch. Click here to check out all the work by other great writers and artists!

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First Impression: Barn Finders (PC – Steam) ~ Let’s Find Our Stock

Steam Store page

It’s no secret that I love to go to garage sales and thrift stores. I love looking around at those places to try and find unique items to add to my collection. So, when the developers of Barn Finders approached me and asked me to write a 100% honest opinion review about it, I didn’t hesitate. This game sounded right up my alley. So, after a few hours of playing this game, can I recommend this game or is this game worthy of a skip? Let’s find out while I invite you to write a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Side note: if this game looks interesting but you want to try it out before you buy, there is a demo on the Steam Store. 

Let’s find our stock

In this game you play as a guy who is living in a barn with Uncle Joe. He is your oldest cousin and together you run a thrift store. But instead of people bringing their stuff in, you go to auctions and go to barns to stock your store. 

The story in this game isn’t anything special. You travel from barn to barn while doing stops in your pawn shop. You also have to deal with your customers. You can accept or decline their offer but you can also haggle with them. Pay attention since some customers will rob you blind and even literally, there are thieves in this game. 

While there isn’t a lot of story present in this game, the atmosphere and setting of this game is really well done. I really feel that this game takes place in the late ’80/early ’90 in the more rural area’s of America. 

Now, there is something that confuses me a bit. There is voice acting in this game over the radio and the upgrade shop but all the other things are sim-lish. You know, mumbling like in The Sims. I honestly think that the game would be a bit better if this mumbling met the tone of the dialogue a bit more. 

Not everything has mumble dialogue, take for example the auctions. At the moments, you rarely have mumbling of the characters. Well, you do have it for the guy running the auction but that’s quite monotone and clearly a soundbite playing on repeat. Anyways, the voice acting itself on the radio and the mumbling is quite enjoyable for the rest. I feel that they give more atmosphere to the game and even bring it more alive. 

In terms of characters in this game, well there a few characters that you meet but there isn’t a lot of character building. While this can be a turn off for some people, I personally don’t mind that much in this game. But here is the thing, there is a limited amount of character models and quite quickly you will see the same people coming to your store. You also meet the same characters on auctions. I don’t know if they are the same characters but they are the same character models. 

All over America

The gameplay of this game is three part. The first part is simple, you have to run your own pawn shop. Thankfully there are no mechanics where you have to pay the electric bills and things like that. Most of the mechanics of maintaining a the shop are explained in the tutorial and easily accessible with the “F1” key. I love it when games have a clear and nice tutorial.

I do have some minor complaints about the tutorial. First of all, I don’t know why the part of the generator is still in the tutorial since you only have to do this once. Secondly, a small table of contents would have been amazing. Thirdly, there are some minor spelling errors like: “car Battery” instead of “car battery”.  And finally, the final tutorial has some text that runs off the yellow square while in the final square you see that they made the font small to fit it all in the yellow square… I mean, some consistency please. 

Now, the second and third part of the gameplay are kinda similar and kinda not. On some maps, there is an auction that you need to do before you can explore the map completely. And sometimes there is no auction. To be honest, I didn’t like these auctions one bit because I got the impression that they were a barrier to stop the player from progressing too fast into the game. The solution for making them more interesting would be that you would get some information about the other candidates and their shop, if you are able to outbid them or not. Since the only information you get about that is there is an amount of money on the map before you move to that place. 

While exploring the map, there are a different type of things you can collect. The first type are “trash” items. These are for example: packs of cigarettes or booze. These give you a small amount of money right away. The second type of things are the materials. These are obtained by destroying interact able objects like trash cans or barrels. These items can be used to repair broken items in your pawn shop. And the final type of thing are the times you can arrange a pickup for, to sell in your pawn shop. 

Apart from that, there are collectibles in each map. These range from new floor tiles or wallpaper to a secretly hidden golden toilet roll. Now, on a lot of maps, you have a bathroom you can interact with. Each time you interact with it, a small “character goes to the bathroom” sound plays while the screen goes black. I found this funny at first but I didn’t see the joke in it. 

I do have some minor complaints about exploring the maps. First of all, the meter for the amount of remaining items is janky. I’m sorry but what does count as remaining items? And why is this some sort of health bar instead of a number? The game shows you a number when you go to the truck…? Oh, yeah, trash items don’t count for that meter. 

Secondly, is it me or are some hitboxes of digging spots a bit off? I had to move away and closer from the digging location to continue digging. Speaking about digging, it would have added to the immersion if there was a bit more animation while digging and maybe that the item you were digging up started to slowly show?

And finally, why isn’t there a counter for the amount of resources you can still pick up or trash items that are still present on the map? That would have been a great help to know if I found every single thing on the map. 

Now, this brings me to two complaints about the maintaining of your shop. The first complaint I have about that are the various stations. You can let the item you are cleaning or reaping get in a very glitchy state when you drag the item a tiny bit out of the machine and then try to clean or repair right away. 

While I was researching why my items were glitching out, I found out that you can double bind a key in the option menu. But, more on the UI later in this article. 

The second complaint I have about the shop part of the game are the hitboxes of the signs. These are too janky to use sometimes. I had a lot of trouble trying to pick another sign to hang up. 

Close enough

If you read the previous section, you might think that the gameplay of this game isn’t the best. If you got that impression, I’m sorry but you got the wrong idea. I found this game quite enjoyable to play. But, it does have a few problems that can be solved with some patches. There is a DLC coming in the future and maybe with that DLC, some issues might get fixed. 

Is this game challenging? Well, not really. There isn’t a lot of challenge in this game. This game is perfect for when you want to relax and don’t be afraid that you get a game over screen or get stuck in a difficult level. 

Visually, this game looks quite decent. Some textures look flat like the leaves on bushes and you have the occasional clipping of characters, but in general the visuals are quite good. Now, the area’s you walk around in are quite detailed and look real. Apart from the invisible walls that is but hey, you need a way to keep the player in the correct playing area. 

In terms of animations, they are fine. All the animations of the characters that are standing still, I don’t have any complaints about them. I do have a complaint that there no walking animation of the characters. They magically teleport to the location you need them in, and they do that with a puff of smoke. At the other hand, it sort of grew on me and I felt that it added to the charm of the game. 

Like the reference achievements, those grew on me as well. It’s quite clear that the developers had a lot of fun putting these achievements together. And I think I might try to get all the achievements since it adds one more goal to this game. 

Now, let’s get on to the audiovisual presentation of this game. Let me start with the sound effects, these are good. I don’t have any complaints on that part. I do have some complaints about the soundtrack. While the soundtrack is good and fits the atmosphere of the game quite well, I feel that there aren’t enough music tracks. There are moments when the silence could have been filled with a bit of music. Then again, of most these moments where when I returned to the pawn shop or when I was loading in a map… So, does this game have enough music? I don’t know for sure. 

Let’s talk about the UI of this game. Overall, the UI is quite well done. Yet, I already mentioned one flaw with it. The fact that you can bind one key to more than one action. I’m sad to report that there is another flaw with the UI. I would be able to forgive the fact you can’t name your profiles, if you were able to disable the frame limiter… Which has been spelled with an underscore in the build I reviewed for some reason… 😉 But the most annoying mistake in terms of the UI is the controls bind menu… The controller lay-out, why don’t you use the XBOX or PS style buttons? Why the literal generic button lay-out? 

Before I talk about the final thing, I want to mention that there is no stamina meter in the game. So, when you are running and you want to know how long you still have before your character slows down, good look… 

Anyways, the final thing I want to talk about are the controls of the game. This is something that really confused me at first but as soon as I got used to them, they clicked quite well. Most of this game is controlled with the mouse and keyboard. A lot of actions are with the mouse, like interacting with objects and NPC’s. Very rarely I found myself using the wrong mouse button, but I was able to correct myself quite quickly. The controls are extremely responsive and I felt in complete control of my character. So, no complaints there.

So, I have played this game for about 4 hours now. While I found some small and big issues with the game, I still want to recommend this game to casual or adventure players who want to play something relaxing. This game is the perfect game to wind down after a long day of work. Maybe this might be just me but I find the gameplay loop quite rewarding.

While the game has some rough edges, the fact that there is an in-game feedback feature and the fact that there is a DLC coming next year is giving me hope that this game will become an even better game. Some of the issues that I mentioned in this article can be solved with in-game mechanics.

The game runs amazingly smooth and I never had any frame dips. The only minor issue I still want to mention is that I found it quite unclear when a character has finished his or her dialogue. But, that doesn’t stop me from recommend this game.

So yes, it would be a shame if you skipped this 20€ game since I enjoyed myself and I found the positives outweigh the negatives by a lot. And I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I might take another look at this game when I beat it but for now, I want to thank you so much for reading my article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim (PC) ~ Where do I need to go next?

Official site

Skyrim, a game like Minecraft that’s being ported to every system under the sun. Now, this game has been reviewed to death. I know that I’m extremely late to the party. Skyrim is one of these games that has an extremely big and loyal fanbase. Otherwise, people wouldn’t be too excited about a portable version of the Nintendo Switch. Now, if you wonder, I play as a Khajiit, a beast-man. Yeah, I play as a cat-man. Currently, I’m level 9 and I have started the first missions of the main story. Most of my time spent in this game is wandering around. Also, the three official DLC’s are installed. Also, there are no mods installed for this review. Now, that the context is set, let’s give my first impressions of this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the article in the comment section down below. 

Where do I go next?

Now, you start off with your character being transported to a village with other prisoners. It doesn’t take long before you realize that you are on death row and you are about to be executed. Right before your execution, a dragon attacks the village and you manage to escape. Then, you discover that you are a Dragon Born. Somebody who can use the power of the dragons. What happens next, is for you to decide. If you play this game, you can create your own story like in Minecraft.

The biggest complaint I have about the story of Skyrim is that in my opinion, you are a bit to free to explore around. What I mean with this is that every time I come around a new village or ruins, I’m afraid of defeating attackers. I don’t know if they are essential for a quest or for later in the game.

The story of this game is good but I honestly don’t like the overload of exposition in some areas. When some people are talking, I never know for sure what they are referring too. Maybe I need to get used to the world more, but honestly, I found the open world of Breath of the Wild easier to get into and learn the world.

Now, why do I feel so lost in this world? I love the exploration system in this game. Only the areas you discovered appear on the map. Areas that you discover through conversation and books do too, but you can’t fast travel to them. So, you would think that even with a map system, I wouldn’t get lost or confused about where to go next.

Well, I do. I find the compass pretty difficult to use. A mini-map would have solved this issue. I really like the minimap system in Breath of the Wild. Or, if a minimap is too much to ask, a button to get more quickly to the map screen would be very welcome.

The UI is something I really dislike in this game. I find it very annoying to use. This could have been streamlined a lot more. The inventory is a mess in my opinion too. I would have loved a screen where you can equip spells or weapons easier. Now, I have to go through various menus to get that equipped. So, if anyone who is reading this and knows some good UI-mods to make it easier to manage your inventory or have more map functionality, I’m all ears.

Click to fight.

Now, let’s talk about the gameplay of Skyrim. The freedom in this game is amazing. But, it’s also a downfall of the game. To be honest, this game is a bit overwhelming. In my opinion, there is a bit too much going on from the beginning. I think it would be better if the game introduced all it’s main elements to the player a bit more before it threw you into the big world.

Now, on the other hand, it’s quite fun to discover and learn the elements of the game. How crafting and magic works for example. Or how cooking works. How you can optimize the whole system to easily get the best weapons and armor and how to get the best healing items.

It’s a balancing act, where you need to think if you would be able to go to a certain place or you need to find more items to progress.

Exploring the world is great fun too. Now, during the exploration, a lot of enemies will cross your path. The fighting mechanics could have been improved as well. The combat mechanics are fun, but the big issue is that if you want to switch between bow & arrow or magic or 2hand combat, you have to go clicking through those pesky menus.

That’s why I mainly focus on 2-handed combat weapons which make the combat unfair in some situations when you are up against some heavy magic users and they burn you alive in oil.

Now, I’m playing the game on the easy difficulty. This is my first time playing Skyrim and lets me tell you, I’m glad that I’m playing this game on easy for the first time. The game still is challenging in some areas but it’s an ideal way to learn the ropes of the game and later restart the game with a higher difficulty setting.

This game’s replayability is through the roof. So, if I replay this game on a higher difficulty setting, my playthrough will be completely different. This will be interesting. You can change the difficulty settings whenever you want in the options menu.

Speaking of the options menu, something I really like is when you run Skyrim for the first time, the game sets the most optimal visual settings for you. I notice the difference between playing Skyrim on my laptop and on my gaming desktop, but it’s a very helpful feature to have.

As well as the cloud save. Yes, if you play Skyrim on different devices like me, you don’t have to move to save files between computers. You can download Steam, then Skyrim and voila, you can continue playing Skyrim.

One thing that I would add in terms of the save files is “save slots”. It would be amazing if I would be able to have different playthroughs with different characters without having to juggle between my save files of which character is which save file…

Mods and such

Visually, this game is great. The world of Skyrim is detailed and very well made. There is even an HD-texture pack for people who want more details and better textures out of the game.

So far, I have seen only the tip of the iceberg in this game. Almost literally, since I have been mostly exploring the snowy areas of the game.

The controls of the game are great. I have been playing with a mouse and keyboard but I have played this game with a controller as well. It doesn’t matter that much, this game is optimized for both input devices.

Now, one thing is clear. This game asks to be modded. So, dear reader, I have a question for you. Should I mod my game before or after I have beaten it? Which mods do you recommend?

The music in this game fits the atmosphere like a glove. Together with the sound effects and great animations, it helps me to immerse myself in the world. The things that stop me from immersing in the world is the tricky UI like I talked about at the beginning of this article.

I really see the potential of this game and I really think that this game is something for me. But I feel that the UI is holding it back for me. Ever since I got interested in open-world games since I played Breath of the Wild, I feel that some features in that game spoiled me. There are some features that I wish I could bring over to Skyrim.

Now, do I think that Breath of the Wild is a better game? Well, no. They are both completely different games and I think it’s unfair to compare them.

But, one thing is for sure. Ever since I started playing Skyrim, I want to give Oblivion and Morrowind a second chance. I got Morrowind years ago for my birthday and after playing it for a bit, I quit playing it. Oblivion I found at a garage sale.

That’s saying something. If a game makes you want to play the previous games in the series. This game makes me want to play more, even with its various flaws. I totally see where the high praise is coming from. Maybe if I continue to play this game, I might get more into it; but for now, I’m quite happy playing this game between other games when I have the time.

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I’m leaving some things for the review if I ever finish this game. There is a 40 hours adventure waiting for me and I have only beaten the first act.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

Rant #010: The New 3DS announcement.

It has been quite some time since I facepalmed with an announcement of Nintendo. This was one of those moments. In my opinion, Nintendo didn’t do the right thing with this announcement. Long time readers know that I’m a big fan of handhelds. I even did a special month about (3)DS games last month. I wasn’t planning to write an article about new stuff, but this just takes the cake perfectly. I do realize that I’m going to get some hate for this, but I’m prepared for it. I do still love Nintendo and I wish them best of luck with their new 3DS, but I think that this is going to give problems in the long run. Because I want to continue blogging about handhelds, I will buy the system for sure. But that won’t stop me from ranting about it. Anyways, I’m repeating myself. Let’s dive right into why I think the new 3DS’s announcement isn’t all that great. Feel free to leave a comment on this article. Be warned! This is my opinion and I delete harsh and trolling comments. 

DS – DSi

So, in the previous generation, something similar happened. The old DS got an upgrade. The DS Lite was mostly a visual improvement. The system became much more fun to hold. After that, we got the DSi. Apart from a better menu system and a camera, nothing big changed. Even when we got the DSi XL. Apart from a bigger screen, nothing big changed under the hood.

Because of that, it came as no surprise to me when we got the 3DS XL. Even when they released the 2DS, I expected that. Because the handheld is marketed to kids and for people who can’t see 3D (that well). It’s cheaper as well.

Now, they are going to release the “new 3DS”. When I found out the news, I was on the train home. I actually facepalmed when I was reading the various articles. I was disappointed to hear when people are hyped about this and that they don’t see the issues that are currently at hand.

Let me first start about the confusion that this device will create. Let us first talk about the elephant in the room. The name! The “new 3DS”. I seriously hope that they are going to change the name. Because if they release it like this, the old model’s sales will drop. Not only that, the word “new” doesn’t fit in a title for a console or handheld. It just feels awkward to me.

Visual issues

Let me get some design mistakes out of the way. The little button you see above the “A”, “B”, “X” and “Y” buttons, is actually a joystick. It’s one of the main selling points of this new system. It will function like a C-stick. Now, it looked first as the power button to me. A small round button like on the DSi. Such a small joystick, well, that explains itself.

They also moved the start and select buttons. So, for what reason are those buttons moved? Why couldn’t you put a bigger additional joystick there? Instead of moving those buttons?

I was about to complain about the Circle Pad addition to the 3DS, but I’m glad that I researched this a bit. It’s now rendered useless. Just great! You bought this additional joystick for nothing! You will be able to use that tiny joystick as a 2nd one.

If you don’t see the problem yet, let me tell you. It’s the size. The circle pad is bigger then the new joystick, so more comfortable to use.

The fact that the buttons now have each a different color, like the SNES controller… Well, I don’t have a big issue with that. It isn’t that visually pleasing in my eyes, since apart from nostalgia, I don’t see the point of it. And why do they to fully color the buttons on the white version and not on the blue version?

Another issue I have is that they moved the cartrigde slot into the front. If the issue isn’t clear yet, take your 3DS and hold it like you would be playing a game like Zelda. Notice where the palm of your hand is? Close to the location of where the cartridge will be. So, this might cause some problems for people who get really sucked into a game and then by accident touch the cartrigde. A solution for this problem might be a sort of latch you can pull to prevent this.

Developer issues

Here is the biggest issue of them all. The new 3DS is going to be a more powerful machine then the original 3DS. It will be able to run ported Wii games. While that sounds great on paper, it has a big issue.

So, image that you are creating a new game for the 3DS. Now, since they are going to release the new system along-side the old model, you will have to make sure that the game runs on the old models. Not only that, you won’t be able to use the power in the new 3DS to it’s full potential. So, what’s the point of the better processor? Faster menu’s? Jeez, how low have we fallen? That a wait of a few seconds is too much for us?

I could try to prove that this is going to create a mess to develop for both systems. But I think it’s quite clear that when you have so much differences in terms of the CPU and such, that you don’t need any further explanation.

Do I think the new 3DS is a bad handheld? Heck no! I honestly think that the new 3DS has everything that the original 3DS should have had in the first place. I just think that it’s a mistake from Nintendo marketing this as a 3DS. I really feel that this should be the successor of the 3DS. The new generation of handhelds. Also, are they going to release an upgraded version of the 2DS in the future?

So, that’s what my thoughts are about the new 3DS. I honestly think that the device has a lot of potential, but there are some flaws that Nintendo should fix before releasing it. I think this article will become a part of a podcast, so we might talk more in depth about it in that podcast. I hope to see you guys then, because I think I’m going to close this article. Thanks for reading and hopefully until the next time!

First Impression: Pokémon Black & White (DS) ~ Late to the party.

Official website

Before start this blog, I want to apologize for not posting for a while. I have been quite busy with my personal life. Follow me on my twitter if you need to know more. Anyways, I realize too that I am extremely late starting to play this entry in the Pokémon series. But I have distracted by other games. Yeah, that excuse will convince you. I hope. Anyways, I’m playing it now and as long time Pokémon fan I feel mixed about this entry. And I shall explain why in this first impression. Remember that these is what I think when first playing the game. Anyways, I’m going to play the sequel after this and I will probably buy the next installment on the 3DS. Anyways, let me know in the comments what you think of my opinion and what you thought yourself when you first started to play this game. Oh, and I place the Pokémon Black box-art here since that’s the version I’m playing through.

Updated yet step back.

This game has a few flaws. And I want to direct here. This game feels like how Pokémon Mystery Dungeon – Gates To Infinity cuts a lot of things. It’s a great game in many ways but I dislike many things. One major example is the unhandy menu.

Seriously, who thought of the menu? It’s such a neat idea for having some items like the drowsing machine on the bottom screen but the menu is also displayed on that bottom screen. So what happens is that you have to switch if you want to take something from your bag. This could easily have been avoided or solved if they used tabs in this game to easily switch between your items.

What I feel is a downfall in this game is that the creativity in the Pokémon design is a bit lacking. Some Pokémon don’t look as original as all the previous generations. I keep asking myself, why don’t they stop creating new Pokémon and just use the overflow of Pokémon they have? The legendary Pokémon don’t feel as legendary anymore either.

Also, they removed the ability of a Pokémon running behind you. A feature I extremely liked in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. It does make those games more unique and it gives them a reason to replay them yet the PokéWalker was doing that for Nintendo already.

And what I also find disappointing as well is the fact you can’t name your friends. This which such a nice feature in every previous game. Now they just have names already. Awn, no fun Game Freak.

More 3D

Visually this game is extremely well done. In presentation of the world, it’s a great job. The seasons are such an amazing idea and the Pokémon that fly by, it pulled me into the game without a doubt. Yet, I wished that the seasons where set with the calender instead of somewhat random. Since it confuses me that it’s autumn in the game while it’s summer here for me.

Apart from some not so creative Pokémon, this game brings a lot of features I like to the table. A feature where you can quickly access often used features is such a great addition. I said earlier that the drowsing machine has gotten an amazing upgrade. The trainer card is what it’s supposed to be now. You can make a greeting, put your mood and your trainer style! Great work.

I love running through the new world. The camera is such a nice thing. In certain area’s it shows you the area’s from the side or from other directions. Something I felt that was missing from the series for a long time.

The battles, while not perfect, have gotten a major step in the right direction. The battle screen is more animated and the camera moves more with the attacks instead of standing still. The animation is one of the better I have seen in the Pokémon games and it really sets the bar high for the next games.

Nods to the older games

This game does feel more realistic. But I doubt if this will make the game timeless. But that’s something that we will need to see in the future. But the game’s story is one that caught my attention. It’s different and it’s really fine from what I read now.

But the game has also nods to the older games. It like starting your journey at a young age or the guys of GameFreak putting themselves in the game. Nice easter egg guys.

The music is enjoyable but doesn’t have the magic that older music has. It’s probably the nostalgia factor for me but it’s not bad. The sound effects are what you are used to of Pokémon.

The game has a lot to offer. It seems that this game is extremely long too. And finally, there is now a good reason to choose between the two versions. Pokémon Black and White have a location that is exclusive to that game. The difference isn’t simply some Pokémon and the legendary one anymore. Thank the lords.

In conclusion, this game does a lot to pull you in. There are a lot of features I haven’t yet seen in the game. Like wild battles with two Pokémon instead of one, I haven’t messed around with that enough to give my full opinion. It’s clear to me already that this game is a good game but it’s far from perfect. It’s a step in the right direction for the series. So, another game I will have to review when I finally finished it. Oh dear, I better get back to playing so I can post my final thoughts on it. Take care and thanks for reading!