Pokemon Black/White - Flaws

Boy, it certainly has been a while since I wrote here. I really need to do something about it.

And I'll do just that with my most anticipated game(s) of the year (even if it came out at the beginning of the year), Pokemon Black/White. It's a great game, but like all games it has flaws, and B/W's flaws are some real headbangers.


#1 - Missed Type Combo Opportunities
B/W brought with it 156 new Pokemon, and of course some new and unique type combos; Ghost/Fire, Bug/Electric, Bug/Fire, Dark/Steel, Dark/Fighting, Dark/Dragon, and so forth. However, some Pokemon I feel should have been types that they did not get; this isn't new with the franchise (such as Deoxys not being Psychic/Poison), but this gen we got it hard.

Braviary should have been Fighting/Flying, instead of our umpteenth Normal/Flying. They missed the opportunity with Staraptor, and did so again with the [overly] patriotic eagle. Cryogonal should have been Ice/Steel, since it seems to be modeled after an ice mirror; sure, such a type combo would get busted by Fire and Fighting (especially with Cryogonal's frail Defense), but there needs to be more Ice-types with unique type combinations, and they did not deliver with the 5th gen in that regard (only Kyurem has a unique combo, being Dragon/Ice).

Druddigon is based on a gargoyle, so why isn't it Dragon/Rock? This gen DID deliver by finally giving us a fully-evolved pure Dragon-type, but did we need another? Dragon/Rock would have made Druddigon stand out more, as well as get STAB on the popular Rock Slide (which is already boosted by Sheer Force). Gothitelle and her line should have been Psychic/Dark, what with the whole black and gothic theme. Plus, Gothitelle has a heavy space thing going on, and space IS dark... Speaking of Dark, Accelgor should have been Bug/Dark, since it's "rival" Escavalier gained an additional type upon evolution, and Steel and Dark are counterparts in a way. Plus, you see that it's based off of a ninja, and its appearance evokes a dark and stealthy imagery.

A [dis]honorable mention goes to Pignite and Emboar for becoming our third Fire/Fighting-type starter in a row. I know that both Infernape and Emboar are based off the same Chinese legend, but three Fire/Fighting-types is just old. Emboar looks more like Fire/Dark, and reminds me more of Ganon. Fighting should have been the samurai-inspired Samurott's secondary type. As for Serperior... Psychic, maybe; then the starters would have had that rumored Dark-Fighting-Psychic typing triangle that originated back from before D/P was released in Japan. But it seems that a lot of people wanted Seperior to be part Dragon. As much as I love Dragon Pokemon, that would have ruined the type balance that the starters have against each other.


#2 - The Battle Subway is Not Worth the Effort
This is a problem that's been present since the Battle Tower started existing. Glad to see that B/W's Battle Subway is continuing the tradition. >_>

For what you put up with in the Battle Subway (hax and all), you get too few Battle Points for your efforts, especially starting out. You get more as your streak builds, but once your streak ends, you're back to the few BP. This is especially a problem when you see how expensive the prizes are; if you want them all, you're going to have to REALLY devote yourself to the subway. They should have either lowered the prices of some of those items, or given out more BP (like 7 BP initially, essentially 1 BP per battle).


#3 - No Growing Berries
Here's a huge problem; for the first time in the series since it's introduction (not counting in Fire Red/Leaf Green, since they're remakes of a game that didn't have the feature), berry growing is impossible to do in Unova. Sure, you get berries, but there's no way to multiply them, until you connect to the Dream World, and only then can you grow your berries and others'. But you can only visit the Dream World once per day, and you're prone to get disconnected at any time due to connection/server issues. Hopefully in the next game they give us an option to grow berries outside of the Dream World. ...I doubt it, though.


#4 - Want to Rematch? TOO BAD
The Vs. Seeker is gone, and unlike in HeartGold/SoulSilver where you could call up trainers for a rematch, there is no rematch system in place here in B/W. Sure, there are trainers you can rebattle everyday or regularly (in the Nimbasa sports domes, Cheren, Morimoto, Cynthia in spring, Bianca on Saturdays), but once those are exhausted, you're stuck with wild Pokemon, which in this game isn't too bad since there are several ways to boost the experience gained from battles, notably of which is the Entralink Pass Powers. Too bad they only last about 3 minutes each.


#5 - Black City and White Forest are Barren
Speaking of Entralink, here's a place that relies on it for both to remain alive and booming. Black players need to connect with White players, and visa-versa, and visit each other's places to keep them alive, and them visit the place every day. If not, then people will leave and you're stuck with a useless city or forest. Plus, this can only be done locally; no wi-fi here. This is especially a problem for people who have no one to play with. Obviously this feature was more designed with Japanese players in mind, as it's easier to find local players to connect with in such a dense population. Not so over in the West, which is much bigger and not as packed unless you live in a big city (such as New York).


#6 - No More Level 100 Battles Online
Flat battles have taken over, and now it seems that there's no way to autoset your Pokemon's levels to 100 anymore; hell, even autosetting to level 50 with the Flat battles only allow you to use three or four Pokemon (you can use all six in Triple battles, most likely because only allowing three would make those battles go by too fast). Using Flat battles for random online is great, but forcing Friend and Local matches to do it for a fair fight is just wrong. Flat battles should have been an option, but not the only option.


#7 - Ragequitters Run Wild
Ragequitters are a plague in all online games, but most games offer some kind of penalty for people who do it, such as handing the quitter the loss on their record they were likely going to get anyway. Not so here in B/W; there are no penalties for disconnects whatsoever, and as a result getting a good match on Random Wi-Fi is very hard, thereby ruining an otherwise great feature of the game. Perhaps it's because this is Game Freak's first experience with random matchup, but they should have at least had the foresight to program in penalties. I'm thinking that forced disconnects should either hand the ragequitter a loss, or the victim a win, or perhaps both at once. But it'd also have to differentiate between forced disconnects and legit disconnects due to connection problems. But either way, that would go a long way of solving the ragequitter problem.


#8 - One-Way Trip to Unova
The PokeTransfer machine on Route 15 allows you to bring over Pokemon from the 4th gen games to B/W. However, I hope you're absolutely satisfied with the way they are before transferring them over; if you forgot to give them a move, come to dislike their nickname, or find a need for them in the 4th gen game, you're SOL. Like with Pal Park in the 4th gen games, the transfer is one-way. Was there a real reason for doing this? Even the 2nd gen games let you send Pokemon back to the 1st gen games, so long as the Pokemon existed in the 1st gen and didn't know any 2nd gen moves, but then again that was a trade, not a transfer like in the 4th and 5th gens. A believe reason for not being able to transfer Pokemon back was because of the new items, but they could have sent the held items back to the bag before the transfer, like they did when you bring a Pokemon from the 4th gen over to the 5th gen.



Those are the major ones I can think of right now. Am I taking what is basically a children's game too seriously? ...Perhaps, but this game has a huge older fanbase, and Game Freak knows it. Yeah, appealing to children is important, but so is appealing to your long-time fans. ...Admittedly, they did, but they fell a bit short in some areas.

Hopefully, most of these problems in the third installment "Grey", or perhaps in the rumored Ruby/Sapphire remakes (the typing problems are sadly set in stone for the rest of the series).