Pokémon White

After 15 years of sequels and spin-offs, the Black and White games is the freshest take on the franchise. Using the mechanics from the past four games, with the feel and build of the first. The biggest difference this game has to offer is the restriction of Pokémon, which doesn't sound all that great. But it is! The game has its own region, based off America the creators say, with its own 202 Pokémon. None of these Pokémon have been in previous games, and are all completely brand new, (Unlike the past games, which have had older Pokémon show up in the wild.) You can have your Pikachus and your Beedrills after you beat the story mode. I say story mode because as Steve Sheridan shows us, beat the game in 40 hours, play for another 600. Breeding, abilities, natures and a crazy antagonist organization is back from the past four generations for a wonderful game.

A usual criticism I hear is "These Pokémon look dumb. I remember when they used to look cool." Well, as much as I like to respect your opinion, I'm going to say your wrong. Every generation has visual hits and misses. Sure this generation's designs can be laughed at, like Klinklang (bunch of gears) or Vanilluxe (ice cream cone), but what made Voltorb (ball) and Tauros (a bull) or Ekans (snake backwards) so amazing to look at? And when you get down to the competitive nitty-gritty, looks mean nothing. There is a complex meta-game underneath it all that makes some of the dumb looking ones amazing and the rest of the dumb looking ones, well just dumb. I'm looking at you Luvdisc...

I really liked the game, but backlogger beware. It's not to hard to finish, but it because the real meat of the game is after the Elite Four, it's something I wouldn't pick up for a quick "Fun and Done" kind of game. But if you played Pokémon back in 1995 then there is no better time to get back in than now.