Pokemon Black Part 14: Generation of War

Now that Team Plasma's out of the way, the routes leading to the entire east end of Unova are now unblocked, and you're free to explore any area in the game.

First, there's some more hidden stuff to find in the previous areas by using Surf and Strength. There's some nameless old guy looking for a legendary pokemon in a cave near Mistralton City. When you find him you get a bunch of unexpected backstory involving the origin of pokemon.

I see you're quite skillful for your age... Perhaps you could... hrm... It's a possibility, I suppose... Well? Will you lend your ears to this old man's ancient story?

It was long ago, when people and Pokémon lived in their own separate worlds... Through a war humans started, a forest in which Pokémon lived was engulfed in flames.

The Pokémon could not escape through the fire and smoke... There then appeared the legendary Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion! Terrakion used its characteristic strength to destroy the boulders blocking escape. Virizion made use of its swiftness to protect Pokémon from the sparks. And Cobalion guided the frightened Pokémon out of the forest.

Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion fought away the warring parties with overwhelming strength. The parties, frightful of the power the three showed, at last put an end to their war...

If people do not cease fighting, Pokémon can have no peace. The trio knew that people's deeds could cause the loss of many lives... To avoid contact with people, they went away to places unknown... Since then, the three have almost never been seen, and they thus turned to legend...

I have been searching for them for countless years on end... And at last, I have ascertained there to be one deep in this cave. But the legendary trio has no trust in humans. If a person draws near, they will bare their fangs and attack. They only know the world as it was so long ago, so it cannot be helped... They remain ignorant of the fact that our world has become one of people and Pokémon understanding and helping each other.

Perhaps if you could make them realize that people and Pokémon can live together in trust... Even they could choose to live with people if given a reason to reconsider them...

Who knew pokemon could be this deep? I feel like I'm reading Princess Mononoke... stuff about humans and intelligent forest creatures at war with each other...

Pokemon Black Part 13: Team Plasma's Deceit

So, there's about 3 cities left on the map that can't be accessed until beating the Elite 4... As I expected, there aren't many options for leveling up before this. The Pokemon League has always been the one part of the pokemon games that forces you to grind a lot. I'm not too big a fan of grinding, so I'm just gonna load up on potions and revives and take on the Elite 4 in one go!

Also there seems to be a lot of unfinished business still left at this stage in the game. Usually the bad guy team is beaten by around the 8th gym or so, but unlike the other games, the final climactic battle with Team Plasma's leader seems to take place after the Elite Four.

I have a feeling Reshiram will show himself at that time as well. I've already used my Master Ball on that Tornadus, because he takes after those cheapass dogs in gold/silver and runs away the second you see him. I've replaced Unfezant on my team with Tornadus.

Finally that egg that was found on the hidden island hatched into Larvesta, a fire/bug type.

... not very interesting, but check out its evolution, Volcarona.

When volcanic ash darkened the atmosphere, it is said that Volcarona's fire provided a replacement for the sun.

You mean this thing is hot enough to replace the freaking sun?! Sheesh talk about overpowered... If pokedex descriptions were really accurate this pokemon could melt the entire earth!

Pokemon Black Part 12: Ocean Exploration

At the end of route 10 there's these 8 giant doorways that require each of the 8 gym pages to pass through. Past each gate is a room with a theme based on each gym.

I came across this pokemon a lot...

"Deino" lol sounds like such a rock star name...

I'm adding Deino to my team, he can replace my level 36 Stoutland who I haven't used in a while cuz I got bored of him, and dragon types are more interesting anyway.

Pokemon Black Part 11: Last Time on Dragon Stone Z...

Team Plasma's leader said that in order to beat him, I'll have to get the Light Stone and revive the other legendary dragon pokemon, Reshiram. Now I'm at Relic Castle, the desert area from route 4, looking for this Light Stone.

There are these weird statues outside the Relic Castle, but when you give them a RageCandyBar they attack you, these statues are actually the pokemon Darmanitan in its Zen Mode.

Pokemon Black Part 10: N-ter Zekrom

The 7th gym is surprisingly immediately accessible as soon as you get to it! No forced story sequence involving the gym leader here, just a good old straight-to-the-point gym battle. It also has a fun slippery ice maze.

This gym leader, Byrcen, was also pretty easy. I used Excadrill and took out his first 2 pokemon easily in one hit with Earthquake, then his Cryogonal, which avoids earthquake, was taken out in a few hits with Rock Smash.

Pokemon Black Part 9: Turtle Power

So Mistralton Gym is an airport... with cannons... that you shoot yourself out of to get to the higher levels... What kinda crazy gym is this? You gotta be a freaking stunt devil to get through this.

Tirtouga just single-handedly plowed through all these trainers. This thing is a smug little beast.

One cannon just smacked me straight into a wall...

One more cannon and... BOOM! Landed right in front of the gym leader! Like literally a foot away from her, she didn't even flinch... I guess those "pilot eyes" of hers saw me coming and knew exactly where I was gonna land?

Pokemon Black Part 8: Existentialist Tower

A guy named Cedric Juniper shows up and comments on my pokedex (currently 70 caught)... oh so this guy is professor Juniper's dad? He upgrades my pokedex...

There's an airport in this town, which is only for Cargo... apparently Unova is very far from Kanto and Sinnoh, so much that you need to fly to get there.

If trainers want to fly, they can go with a pokemon that knows the move fly.

... uh, Unfezant, you can carry me across 5000 miles in half a day, right?

Skyla: I'd be happy to have you challenge the gym, but there's something I need you to take care of first.

... surprise surprise. Are there any gym leaders in this world that aren't so lazy they have to get all of their challengers to do them favours?

Pokemon Black part 7: Magnets how do they work

Clay won't give me his TM until I meet him at a cave in route 6. It's pretty obvious where the game wants me to go now.

Bianca catches up to me just as I go onto route 6, wants another battle. Easy as usual, except for one thing.

Her Musharna is tanked on defense at this point, it actually took me a while to take down. Plus it kept using hypnosis and confusing me with psybeam. I had so much trouble with it, and it was only level 26! Bianca is becoming a real pain in the ass to fight.

Pokemon Black part 6: Drill down to Victory

Holy crap, there's literally an ice cream pokemon. No seriously. I'm not joking. An ice cream pokemon named Vanillite.

It's an... Ice cream... Pokemon... just... how can they come up with such a bad design? lol it's almost like they're parodying themselves now. Or maybe they've made so many pokemon at this point they ran out of animals/plants to use and have to start making food pokemon.

XD this jittery electric cat thing is awesome. *twitch* *twitch*

it looks like it'll freak out and pounce on you if you drop a feather.

Pokemon Black part 5: where I accomplish very little

Went to the subway one more time and went to Anville town. Is there gonna be a hilarious cartoon gag coming up?
On the weekends, a lot of people come here to watch the trains... whoa does that mean it'll be more crowded here on the weekend? I'll have to remember that...

I'll head to Black City... and there's the Marvelous Bridge along the way, that should be cool

"They said the Marvelous Bridge is being checked!"

...Well check it later, dammit! I wanna see a marvelous bridge!

Route 16 branches off in a few directions. Not much here though except trainers and some items.

Caught a Gothita... is it just me or does this pokemon look oddly creepy.

Pokedex: "Fixation pokemon. Their ribbonlike feelers increase their psychic power. They are always staring at something."

"They are always staring at something."

Pokemon Black part 4: Where the villain reveals his plot

Explored the sand ruins and caught some more cool looking pokemon, got a fossil, went back to Nacrene Museum and turned the fossil into a Tirtouga. Now this looks like a good water type, it's going on my team.

Back to Nimbasa... wow there's a lot of stuff to check out here! Let's see... a Musical Theater, Battle Institute, Battle Subway, abaseball stadium... a basketball court... ok... yo you may be good at pokemon but I'll smoke you losers in the b-ball court. also there's Route 5 and Route 16 with a lot of trainers to level up if you need to... The battle institute isn't available yet either. Some "woman of mystery" comes out of the battle subway and heads to the battle institute. Whoa man she must be hardcore.

I tried out the battle subway, it's actually pretty interesting seeing all the weird new pokemon designs in this game. These designs beat the hell out of Gen 4...

Also someone gave me HM04 Strength... gave it to Drilbur, who also has Rock Smash... I think it's fitting that this pokemon has all the rock related moves. Hell yeah

Pokemon Black part 3: Rivals getting better

There's a bunch of items and stuff to get from people at Castelia City it seems. Since I'm not using a walkthrough I'm probably not gonna get them all. Sheesh, there sure is a lot of stuff to do though. There's a few office buildings filled with trainers who want to battle you, and some random empty office buildings for no reason... and a bunch of docks which I guess will serve some purpose later on.

Alright enough of that, time for the gym, but wait the gym leader went off somewhere. Of course, another Team Plasma distraction, I should have guessed. This time they tried to steal Bianca's pokemon. As if she didn't seem weak enough already. I kinda feel bad for her :(

After that you get to fight Burgh, the bug pokemon gym leader. It's not really a fight more like squashing bugs. This is incredibly easy if you've been training a Pidove through the Pinwheel Forest. Mine has evolved into a Tranquill making this gym a complete joke. The gym has these oddly durable walls of honey that you need to walk through.

Pokemon Black Part 2: Plot Speculations

There's that guy who doesn't let you pass until you get the first gym badge. There must be like street gangs of these people, their in every pokemon game. Oh you haven't beaten the weakling gym leader yet I can't let you pass this turf is reserved for non-weaklings... or something like that.

So far I've found out that Team Plasma wants to use dream powder to go into people's minds and brainwash them through their dreams... and that they have leaders called the "Seven Sages", and there's some sort of legend passed down about how pokemon were created or something... I GOT IT this must be another alternate Zelda timeline! I bet there's gonna be a Ganon pokemon at the end and I'll get the triforce! nah... but really though Pokemon has really improved a lot on its story since the last installment.

Nacrene city... not much to talk about here. A lot of these areas seem like their supposed to have a purpose but I can't really tell what it is until later on. There's the daycare, which I'm probably only gonna use for breeding. lol I'm going around talking to everybody and these kids at the daycare are engaged in some really philosophical debate, they're like "am I chasing after you, or are you chasing after me? by changing your perspective you can change reality..."

Drilbur looks awesome he's going on my team. Also started using a Pidove, Lillipup evolved into Herdier and became even more badass. The Panpour I'm really just dragging along I have no interest in training it. Still holding out for a good water type.

Starting Pokemon Black

Started Pokemon Black for the first time.

I'm playing as the girl trainer. Why?

she's hot. I'd rather look at that at the start of every battle honestly.

Now for starters... Snivy is my choice. I usually choose the water starter, but seriously Oshawott just looks dumb. I find grass types are very useful in the early game anyway for their abilities... and they can take out a lot of tougher defensive pokemon by leech seed spamming.

Then there's the characters. Bianca the noob trainer, who you can tell right away probably isn't gonna make it to the Elite Four. Then there's Cheren the serious business pokenerd, I guess he's basically like May's brother on the anime...

Professor Juniper is totally... there. She's lifeless and uninteresting at this point.

Every once in a while I keep stopping in a new area to listen to the catchy music... I do this in every pokemon game lol.