We're about two months away from the October 7 launch of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, the first numbered sequels in Pokémon history. While I’ve been messing around with the Japanese version of Black 2 since late June, I recently had the opportunity to see the North American version in action. From what I’ve seen, PokéFans should be excited.
Here’s what I found out… but beware, minor spoilers follow. If you want to go into the game knowing absolutely nothing about what’s new or what to expect, your ride ends here - and you’d do well to avoid the Internet for the next two months.
As we already knew, Black 2 and White 2 takes place two years after the events in Black and White. You begin your journey in Aspertia City, on the opposite side of the Unova region - and quite a bit has changed. The part I went hands-on with at the demo was from the beginning of the game, right after running into a couple of familiar faces from Black and White - Bianca and Cheren. Bianca, who gives you your starting monster, is now Professor Juniper’s assistant, and Cheren is the first gym leader you must conquer.
Leave that low level Purrloin alone, you big jerks!
Without giving away anything past the game’s outset, it looks like Team Plasma is back to its old tricks, but this time without N’s leadership to guide them. Reassembled as a band of pirates rather than knights, their ultimate goal is to fulfill a Unova prophecy by finding Kyurem and joining it with Reshiram and Zekrom. As you’d expect from direct sequels, Black 2 and White 2 feel very much like a continuation of the same thought process as Black and White, but with a brand new adventure to battle your way through and some well-done adjustments and additions (which I’ll get to in a bit).
Like all Pokémon games, Black 2 and White 2 are designed with accessibility in mind, so even people who’ve never thrown a Poké Ball in their life can jump right in. Even so, BW2 include some incredible nods to the past, most notably the Pokémon World Tournament. Here, trainers will have the chance to go up against every single gym leader, Elite 4 member and Pokémon Champion from all the core games. From Brock and Misty to Cynthia and beyond, they’re all here and ready to put your monsters to the test once more. While I didn’t get the chance to try the tournament for myself, as someone who’s played all of the games since the beginning, I’m terribly excited to finally have a quick, easy way to battle all my favorite gym leaders and so on from games past.
What happened to N?! Only one way to find out...
It was also revealed during my demo that those who played through the original Black and White will be amply rewarded via Memory Link. This new system allows you to transfer over your save data from the original games for the purpose of unlocking special vignettes that tell the story of what happened between these two sets of games. Want to know what befell N and other juicy character details? If you played Black or White, the answers await you in this new adventure. The further you made it in the game (for instance, whether you just completed a few gyms, beat the Elite 4, or went the whole nine yards and tracked down all Seven Sages), the more vignettes you’ll unlock - a great incentive to finish Black or White before the October release date.
A few other new additions that were on display include an area called Join Avenue. The person who runs the place is apparently in over his head, and has asked you to take over as manager and help bring the building to life by populating it with merchants and customers. You do this by inviting people you’ve battled against, traded with or met via Tag Mode to join in on your little social experiment. The more people you meet the livelier the place will become, and the more you’ll be able to upgrade the variety of shops that pop up, which sell all manner of cool items you can’t get anywhere else in the game.
That better be one tasty dinner for that price.
The game has also added a new feature to the Pokédex called Habitat mode. This addition allows you to see which Pokémon you can catch in each section of the map, designating which ones you’ve caught and giving you a stamp for nabbing all the monsters in a given area. This should prove a useful tool for those on the prowl to catch all 649 monsters - as well as those who are just to eager to finally catch an Eevee in the wild for the first time. In-game achievements in the form of medals will also be rewarded to Poké Masters who reach certain goals, from catching a certain number of monsters to saving often to beating the Elite Four.
While I only went hands-on with a very early segment of this new adventure, which I'd actually already played through on the Japanese version, what I was shown from later in the game has me pretty jazzed to get my hands on the English version. If it is indeed an improvement over the exceptionally well-made Black and White, it's safe to say we can expect great things from this Poké sequel.
Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her wild adventures on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!
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