Pokemon Black Retrospective, from the perspective of someone who became bored with it on their first playthrough
To preface this, this is technically not my first time playing Pokemon Black? I did play it once before, back in mid 2020, before I started PMD Rescue Team DX. I quickly got very bored with it, though, and stopped playing before I made it to Striaton City.
Pokemon Black was a strange one for me.
Like I mentioned in the preface, I didn't like it much on my first playthrough. I grew bored of it before I even reached the first gym.
And yet, in the years from then until now, I kept hearing about how it was apparently the greatest that mainline Pokemon had ever been. How it was the pinnacle of the franchise.
I didn't think much of it, until I started my mainline Pokemon marathon, and realized that I would have to give Pokemon Black another go.
I completed Emerald, then X, then Firered, having differing opinions on each. And for the most part, I was having fun! So, maybe if I tried Black again, I'd have fun with it too?
I decided that it was finally time, and I started a new game of Pokemon Black.
Like with my first playthrough, I chose Oshawott as my starter, having gotten much more attached to the species since then, thanks to my PMD OC Gen.
I named my Oshawott Arbaquo, after a neglected Oshawott-Shaymin hybrid OC of mine.
And so, I began my journey through the Unova region, hoping to see it through to the end this time.
The journey up to Striaton wasn't much to write about, but Accumula Town was cute, especially with the musicians adding instruments to the background music. The first battle with N was also neat, but I'll get to him later.
But once I made it to Striaton, I had surpassed my 2020 self, making it farther than I ever had. And I was immediately curbstomped by Cheren three times in a row.
It wasn't until I was told that I could visit the Dreamyard before fighting the Striaton gym did I manage to level up Arbaquo a bit, acquired my second Pokemon, Minro the Pansear, and was able to defeat Cheren.
Then was the Striaton gym, but with Minro by my side, obtaining the Trio Badge from Cilan was mostly easy.
Then was the encounter with Team Plasma in the Dreamyard. I had heard talk of this moment several times, but it was still a shock to see it.
It makes sense, though. Despite the name of the game, this isn't a black and white story. As my friend Icy said, this moment shows the unscrupulous lengths people go to when they are truly dedicated to a cause.
After that, dream mist secured, I returned to Striaton City, and unlocked a feature that would probably have been really cool if it was still available. Unfortunately, it is no longer available, and so I can only imagine what it would have been like.
I then made my way along Route 3, where I had another encounter with Team Plasma, though not much else happened aside from me catching a Pidove as my third team member. I named him Poliner.
Nacrene City was interesting! I found it neat how the whole town was comprised of refurbished warehouse, and there was a second battle with N!
Before this playthrough, my only knowledge of N was fandom osmosis, RP blogs, and a few fanfics, particularly kintsugi's fics. At one point, I considered having him be the human world's Voice of Life, though I decided to give that role to a different character.
It was a completely different experience meeting him through the game as intended, though. I liked him a lot, with how much he said he liked math and said he wanted to be my friend!
After that battle, I tried to battle Lenora, and failed miserably. I tried again, and failed miserably again. It took several tries, but eventually I was able to defeat her.
I had no idea that Team Plasma would try to steal from the museum, nor that they thought that the Dragonite skull was part of the legendary dragon. It's kinda silly in retrospect, but this was something completely new to me. I was
intrigued.
Plus, Burgh was here! I didn't think I'd encounter him until Castelia City, but here he was!
Pinwheel Forest was when I decided to activate the infinite rare candy cheat so that I wouldn't have to grind. It was a nice leisurely stroll, aside from the Plasma grunts, but I didn't want to get stuck having to grind later.
Soon, the stolen Dragonite skull was retrieved, and I could continue on to Castelia City.
Between Pinwheel Forest and Castelia City, though, was Skyarrow Bridge. It was really cool seeing the bridge in its full glory, the camera panning around and all sorts of cool perspective shots!
Castelia City continued with the cool perspective shots, with the city being like a mini-Lumiose, complete with side areas and back alleys. It was a lot to take in, but it was cool!
Not so cool was the fact that the EXP Share was still a held item that only worked on a single Pokemon. That battle house was neat, at least.
Burgh's gym was...something, to say the least, but he was an easier foe than Lenora, and I acquired my third badge.
After another encounter with Team Plasma, I made my way to the desert of Route 4, and was accosted by a sandstorm.
Like with Hoenn's desert, the weather chipped away at my Pokemon's health with every battle, making the route a test in how many battles I could avoid.
Eventually, though, I made it through, emerging into Nimbasa City.
It had just as many things to do as Castelia, despite being a bit smaller.
But before any of that (at least I think, this might have happened after the gym, I can't entirely remember), there was the fabled Ferris Wheel scene with N.
While it didn't quite live up to all the hype, it was still really cool! It was a fun way of explaining a bit more about N.
After that battle, I got to explore Nimbasa proper.
Honestly, I don't get the purpose of the Small Court and Big Stadium? As far as I could tell, they both just had one trainer battle each and that was it.
The Musical Theater was fun, though! I had fun dressing up Arbaquo for a musical, and the music was nice! It felt sorta like the contests from Emerald.
Then was the Nimbasa Gym, a rollercoaster of a time. Literally.
The trainers were actually harder than Elesa herself, but she was still a challenge, since half my team was weak to her. But Minro had recently learned a new fire-type move, and put it to great use here.
Seriously, why do people dislike the elemental monkeys?
Anyways, after the gym, I set out onto Route 5, where I encountered Alder, the champion.
Like in X, the champion here is more than just a final challenge, but a friend you meet along the way. I find that neat, and Alder's theme music is great.
After making it across Driftveil Drawbridge, I made it into Driftveil City, home of Charles the Heartbreaker.
The rotation battle with him was really fun! It was an interesting and intriguing new way of battle!
But before I could get too comfortable in the city, I had a job to do: Investigate the Cold Storage, and find one of the sages of Team Plasma.
It was a neat ice sliding puzzle area! And I caught a Minccino while I was at it! I named her Minrir.
After finding Zinzolin, it was time to take on the Driftveil City gym! It wasn't too challenging, but Clay was still a fun foe!
Next was the quaint Route 6, where I caught another team member, Daria the Deerling.
Chargestone Cave was really cool! I really enjoyed the puzzles with the floating magnetic rocks, and I caught a Drilbur here, who I named Rilia!
The Team Plasma encounter here was cool, too! It was neat being surrounded by the Shadow Triad to be taken to N, and seeing N clash with Professor Juniper.
But soon, I emerged into Mistralton City, and not a moment too soon, for I had a breakthrough:
I had figured out how to use my Action Replay to activate mystery gifts, and let me do the Victini event.
Upon activating the code, I received the Liberty Pass from the mystery gift deliverer, and promptly flew back to Castelia City, to see what this event was all about.
It wasn't much, probably because I was way over the level for it, but it was still fun battling the Plasma grunts, learning about Victini, and then battling and catching Victini!
After that little side tangent, I flew back to Mistralton. But before I could challenge the gym, I had to trek up Celestial Tower.
Celestial Tower felt a lot like the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town back in Kanto. It was eerie, spooky, and had possessed trainers too! It was a very fun experience, and I enjoyed the climb.
After meeting with Skyla at the peak of the tower, it was time to go back to Mistralton and challenge her gym.
I thought the stuff I had heard about the cannons in her gym were exaggerated.
They were not exaggerated.
Not only were you shot out of cannons in order to traverse the gym, one of the final cannons shot you face-first into a steel wall. Youch.
But aside from that, Skyla was pretty easy, and I got my sixth badge.
After traveling across the other part of Route 7, and through the Twist Mountain mines, I arrived at the moist Icirrus City.
Gotta say, I was not expecting to be able to encounter wild Pokemon within a city, but I found it neat!
Also neat, if tremendously silly, was the quiz house. I laughed a lot at the question I got, being "What do you call your father's brother", and the hint being "it's not big brother".
But then it was time to face the Icirrus gym.
It was like a souped-up version of Cold Storage, with rotating mechanisms that change your sliding trajectory. It was a really fun puzzle!
But thanks to Minro, Brycen wasn't very tough. And I got my seventh badge.
As we exited the gym, though, who to greet us but Team Plasma? Seeing the Shadow Triad surround us was certainly a surprise, especially with them telling us to go to Dragonspiral Tower.
And so, to Dragonspiral Tower I went.
Dragonspiral Tower reminded me of Sky Pillar from Emerald, with it being more and more crumbled and unstable as you went up. It had a lot of fun navigational challenges as I made my way up to the top!
But I was too late. N had already awakened Zekrom, and now my only hope lay with awakening the legendary dragon of truth, Reshiram.
I really appreciate how, unlike Emerald and Firered, Black tells you where to go. You're not left wandering for hours trying to find the Team Magma base, only for it to be hidden behind a random rock on the other side of the region. Nor are you left to flounder after finding all your available routes blocked by Snorlaxes, only to find out that you had to backtrack to a prior city with no indication.
No, instead, Black directly tells you to head to the Desert Resort.
Speaking of which, the Desert Resort was neat! It was unique among most other decrepit structures I've seen in other mainline Pokemon games, in that you're not going up, but down. Down, down, as far as you can go, to the deepest part of this buried castle. It was really cool!
Alas, this is not where Reshiram was. They were actually right before my eyes all the way back in Nacrene City. Reshiram was the unassuming little stone in the top left part of the museum.
And so, I acquired the stone form of Reshiram, but they were still sealed, with me having no idea how to free them.
I flew back to Icirrus City, and continued onwards, making my way towards Opelucid City. But before I could get there, I had to travel across Tubeline Bridge first.
Let me tell you. It was an
experience seeing a figure at the far end of the bridge, thinking, "hey, they look familiar", and as soon as I realize it's Ghetsis, I get surrounded by the Shadow Triad.
And then he tells you his whole secret evil plan. Which, I feel was kinda weird, but alright.
Route 9 was short enough that the shock was still there when I arrived at Opelucid City.
Opelucid City was reallty cool! I loved the look of it all, and the music was great! It even had the first rotation battles I've seen since Heartbreaker Charles!
And after a conversation with Iris and Drayden, it was time to take on my final gym of this game.
The Opelucid Gym was
massive, with a really interesting puzzle. It felt almost overwhelming with how big it was, but soon, I made it to the end, to battle Drayden.
It was a fun fight, and his Druddigon gave me quite a bit of trouble. But I won, and got my final badge.
All that was left was to head through Route 10, and take on the Pokemon League...or so the game probably wanted me to think.
Route 10 had some really nice music, and the final rival battles against Cheren and Bianca. I haven't talked about them nearly enough here, so I'll do that now.
Cheren was my first roadblock, the one who curbstomped me three times in a row all the way back in Striaton. It was really neat seeing his character development, seeing him figure out what he wants to do with his life.
Bianca is a similar story. She never curbstomped me, but she had her own character development, that maybe she had a different calling in life than what she once thought. And from what I've heard of B2W2, I think she achieved that calling.
All in all, they're great rivals, and those final battles with them reminded me of the final battles with the Kalos friends, on the last route before its Victory Road.
Fitting, as I was just about to reach Unova's Victory Road.
The badge check gates here were amazing. They were like Kanto's, but with the flavor of Kalos, and dialed up to 11.
Each badge had its own themed area, with the Trio badge having an outdoor dining area, the Legend badge having two dragon statues, and so on. And with each gate i passed through, more instruments were added to the music, until it all came together, forming the music for Unova's Victory Road.
Hoenn's Victory Road was a test of navigation. Kalos' was a test of strength. Kanto's was a test of wit. What, then, would Unova's Victory Road test?
A combination of all three.
I had to use spatial reasoning to figure out what caves went where, and which slopes to slide down. I had to use my sense of direction to make it through the caves, and know when I'm going the wrong way. And I had to use my strength to defeat some of the toughest trainers yet.
It was fantastic, probably my favorite Victory Road yet.
And finally, I had made it to the Pokemon League.
Apparently I was wrong in my X retrospective. Kalos wasn't the first region to let you challenge the Elite Four in any order you wish. Unova lets you do that too.
I unfortunately don't remember much of my matches agaisnt Unova's Elite Four, but they were each very tricky. I had to use a lot of strategy to get past them each. And I remember that the order I fought them in was Shauntal, Grimsley, Marshal, and Caitlin. And some of them had mentioned another challenger, one that came before me.
I defeated them all, though, and was ready to face Champion Alder.
But I never got the chance to, as N had already beaten him first.
It was like a twisted version of the final hour of Firered. Your rival had become champion moments before you.
Only with N, he wasn't planning on a simple battle for the title of champion.
No, as the castle of Team Plasma rose up from the ground, I knew that this would be a battle to decide the fate of the Unova region.
But I had to reach N first, and travel through the castle to get to him.
Black is, as far as I'm aware, the first mainline Pokemon game to do the unthinkable: have the plot take precedence over the journey to become champion. Rather than the game's plot ending at the 7th or 8th gym, like with Emerald, X, and Firered, the ending of the plot is the ending of the game.
It's a lot like Violet in that regard, but I'll talk about that once I write my retrospective on Violet.
Team Plasma's Castle was an experience I won't soon forget. There were no battles until the very end. I was told the story of N and Team Plasma by the Shadow Triad, N's room, and N's siblings.
Anthea and Concordia should have gotten more screentime, yes. But I still like their role here, in how they show you more of what Team Plasma was like, and what drove N to be like this.
But before long, I made it to the throne room, where N waited.
N told me I wasn't ready, that I wasn't worthy, as Reshiram hadn't awakened yet. But before my eyes, the Light Stone began to glow, and Reshiram emerged from it.
I decided to use Minro to try to catch Reshiram, since Reshiram would likely be taking their spot on the team for the coming battles. I wanted to let my faithful monkey companion have one more moment in the spotlight.
And they performed wonderfully. Whittling down Reshiram to a tiny sliver of health, enough that I could catch it.
N was my toughest opponent yet, with his team being even higher leveled than the Elite Four.
But I remembered his words from back in Nacrene City, about how, when all of this was over, he wanted to be friends with me.
I think those words are what made this part of the game so emotional to me. I wanted that to come true.
And so, I battled, and I won.
And yet, it wasn't over. Ghetsis came along, and brutally berated N. And then, he challenged me, in a battle that would decide the fate of the Unova region.
He was even tougher than N was. Fitting, as he was my final challenge in the main story of this game. It took everything I had, every single member of my team, to defeat him. By the time I was at his last Pokemon, only Arbaquo was left standing.
But despite the odds, I won. I had defeated Ghetsis.
But before the credits rolled, there was one final cutscene. A conversation from N to me. About how he didn't understand me at first, about how he couldn't understand why a Pokemon had liked me. About how he wanted to battle me, to find out why.
And then, that iconic line came. About making my dreams come true.
I like to think that my character and N became friends.
And so, the credits rolled, ending this game.
I had completed Pokemon Black.
I had so much fun with this game, and I'm so glad I gave it another go. Out of the four I've completed for this marathon so far, it's probably my favorite mainline Pokemon game.
It's not perfect. It had its difficulty spikes, and a few parts of it felt a bit awkward.
But it was fantastic. I love this game, it was fantastic.
I see what the hype is all about now.
