Post #5113 · Sun 131013 211952
And while everyone else is playing X/Y, I've just started Black.

(I got X, just haven't played it yet... still have White2 to do too...)
It's definitely an improvement in some ways from previous games. Lots of nice little tweaks I like so far:
Also some really cool new features: double wild battles, triple/rotation battles, real 3D (very pretty! but sometimes confusing perspectives)
I'm finding the difficulty to be pretty decent. In some ways it really holds your hand (you aren't given hints so much as flat out told what to do; you're quite literally given a Pokemon that can lay waste to the first gym, and Fighting types to destroy the second are easily caught outside), but at times you're made to go through a shitton of grass and trainers to reach some goal, so you can't just turn back and heal (or risk dying on the way back); enemy levels increase at a pretty good rate, and they have a variety of different moves, so if you're not super over levelled you actually end up having to strategize and use items and conserve instead of just spamming the same attack all the time.
It definitely does have its flaws, though - in particular I find the menus rather poorly done, especially compared to HG/SS.
- Lag sometimes, especially when opening a menu. It manages to delay just enough that you'll think "oh I guess I have to press A to advance the textbox" and press it right when the menu appears and activate it without even seeing it every goddamn time. (Technology borrowed from Google?
)
- Low health alarm still exists, and still keeps going when it doesn't need to, like while your HP is refilling
- C-gear and online stuff is generally baffling and awkward and a waste of battery power (and they've already shut down the online services
) - seems like they wanted social stuff like 3DS has, but it's specific to this game
- Menus are often displayed on the top screen while a perfectly good touch screen is sitting there being useless
- Item menu is particularly bad - half the screen dedicated to a bunch of pictures of bags; you just need to memorize which is which; quantities aren't shown until you select the item (this also applies to shops)
- Compared to HG/SS, the Move Pokemon menu in the PC is awkward (instead of just listing your party at the side at all times, you have to drag the pokemon to an icon to make the list appear)
- So much empty space in menus that could be put to use. When you select a Pokemon on the lower screen, the upper screen could be showing its stats and moves (which could certainly fit all in one page), but instead shows nothing at all until you actually open the page (and then the info is split across two pages with a ton of empty space still). While HG/SS had the menu on the touch screen at all times (very convenient), here you have to press a button to pull it up (other times the touchscreen is showing needlessly large wifi "radar" thing, or item finder, or nothing at all). Your trainer info screen is just a giant gym badge display, and you have to go to a second page to actually see useful things like your money.
- No longer have the L=A option (that was subtle but nice, you could take your other hand off for a sec and keep playing)
- Camera movement in battle is awkward especially for double battles. When two Pokemon are hit by a status move it zooms into one, shows the animation and textbox, zooms back out, and then repeats this for the other. No reason it couldn't just show both at once, especially since it does this for other animations/effects.
- Camera is awkward out of battle too; lots of places it looks like you should be able to fit through but nope
- HM moves still can't be forgotten except at a Move Deleter, even though you could just teach them again if you deleted one you needed
- For that matter, HMs are still a thing, and still mostly shit moves, so you still need to sacrifice move/Pokemon slots to them
- Artificial linearity is artificial ("oh I'm not gonna let you go by until you get the gym badge because I'm a cock and I just feel like standing in the way")
- Sharp rises in opponents' levels means lots and lots and lots of grinding, and there are no good places for it. Choose from a place full of twats that spam sleep/paralyze/poison/confusion/burn moves and/or do stupid amounts of damage so that you need to heal after every 1-2 fights, or a place where the levels are so low it'd take forever. Also, fucking everything knows Detect/Protect.
- Also fuck Incinerate and Bug Bite; two moves that just destroy any berry you have, at a point in the game when they're in limited supply. That's just a cunt thing to do.
- No more automatic running shoes; have to hold B all the time, and without them is agonizingly slow
- Cottonee fucking hacks, how does Hypnosis miss 5 times in a row on multiple occasions
- Still no way to adjust screen brightness from within the game that I can find
- NPCs are fucking experts at stepping in front of you as you walk by, I swear they go out of their way to block you
Very enjoyable game, but very tedious too. I feel like I'd enjoy it more if I used a hack for 2x or 3x EXP gain.

Probably won't bother to do that though.
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