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To put that into perspective: consider Generation 1 games like Red, Blue, Yellow, LeafGreen, FireRed, and Let’s Go Eevee and Pikachu. The first Gym is designed to exploit type advantages in such a way that you are immediately on the back foot. You didn’t have one rival, you had two - shortly thereafter, you realized you had three. Pokemon Black and White were, from the moment they started, relentlessly ambitious. Looking back now, ten years later and having since been won over after my younger brother convinced me to give them one more try, I can finally put my finger on why, and I can describe it with two words: growing pains. Black and White were the first mainline Pokemon games I didn’t finish within a week of launch. I have since grown to love Pokemon Black and White, mostly for all of the reasons mentioned above, but it took me a long time to finally admit to that, and even longer to actually finish the game. Related: Pokemon LeafGreen And FireRed Are 16 Years Old Today - Here’s Why They Still Matter Over and over again, I turned off my DS and played something else. Over and over again, I got to the first Gym and emerged victorious. They were diverse and sophisticated, focusing on the nefarious scheming of Team Plasma in a way that made previous villains seem almost juvenile, and the nuanced depiction of N as a pillar between right and wrong floating along his own personal trajectory ushered a new kind of maturity into the series. Black and White introduced a record-breaking number of new Pokemon and saw the first implementations of the now standard in-battle sprite animations. So it was weird that, despite my best efforts to stay invested, I simply couldn’t.
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After journeying through Kanto as a child, before traversing the vast landscapes of Johto, sailing the tumultuous seas of Hoenn, and enduring the harsh, glacial landscapes of Sinnoh, I, personally, was ecstatic about the prospect of finally jumping into the bustling metropolis of Unova.
POKEMON BLACK AND WHITE 1 SERIES
On this day ten years ago Pokemon Black and White launched for the Nintendo DS in Japan, introducing fans of the series to its highly-anticipated fifth generation.