New Pokemon, new places, new people and new graphics! The latest addition to the Pokemon adventure series is fun for all
As usual you start in a small town that ironically has a pokemon proffesor and a lab. You simply find you rival which always is present when not wanted, and the adventure begins in a small meadow by the lake. You find a suitcase, it has 3 pokemon to choose from (as usual) and you pick yours first then your rival picks the pokemon that can beat your pokemons type. Nothing new.
What is new is there are more friends you meet and fight along side with, you somewhat interact more with the AI characters.
You go to each town solve some problems for any characters, fight the gym leader then move on. There is now Team Galactic (no more Rocket, although we still have villians obssesed with space). They seem more devious then team rocket as they actually do stuff in this and they are more prominent in the game.
There are about 100 new Pokemon and lots of Pokemon from previous generations.
The new 3D rendered graphics make the game a little fresher then previous titles, the enviroment looks better and there are more pokemon animations and theur battle moves look slicker.
The sound FX are the same, but with DS quality. The musical track again is DS quality but the little tunes are not as memorable as the ones in Blue/Red/Leaf/Fire titles.
Gameplay is virtually the same, the bottom screen is used for your poketch, which holds a ton of useless little doo-hickies that have no real point to the game itself. You can now use the stylus to select battle options, and the buttons are placed more effectively.
The featuers now give more enviroment effects such as snow, rain and more detailed pathways. There is one contest hall which is like a mini-game all on its own and the usual large shopping center. The pokemon breeders automatically will breed two of your pokemon simoltaniuously.
Now, onto my personal perspective. Team Galactic is more annoying then Rocket, they somewhat ruin the atmosphere of the adventure aspect. Why is it that a kid such as yourself is the only one taking out some huge bad corporation when in the show they clearly have police, plus where the heck are the gym leaders while some newbie trainer is doing all the work? That just does not make sense to me personally. The game seems way more linear with all your new friends they meet you when you first come into a town and they tell you right away what to do. The roads do not seem to have the trainers lined up ready to train you up. Your rival is not as snotty as previous ones but he is still as annoying.
The new pokemon ARE TERRIBLE I do not know what they were thinking. I only like my starter Prinplup, everyone else is pretty much lame carbon copies of previous pokemon but with stupider names than usual. Don't get me wrong, some new pokemon are alright like the scorpion and some of the new steal types. Fire pokemon and dragon virtually do not exist and Geodude and Ghastly are extremely overused in certain areas.
I was not impressed nor was I drawn in. Leaf Green and Fire Red are better in my mind. The graphics are good and the gameplay is stable and just as good. I'd give it a 9/10 even though it has alot of problems for me personally I can't make it personal and thus must rate it on its quality. A deffinite buy.