Reviews of Pokémon games are, by now, ostensibly their own genre. Arguably, you could make a case for the proper way to review a new entry. Should a writer focus on the story? The new creatures and features? Adjustments to mechanics? Personally, I'd argue that the new Pokémon themselves are the most important thing when conducting a review. The story rarely changes and any adjustments made to the mechanics probably aren't very noticeable. And as for new features, I'd argue that I don't know a single person who actually did the Pokémon contests or the Pokéthlons, and I don't plan on participating in Black and White's Pokémon musicals. But hey, that's just me.

Surprisingly enough, Pokémon Black and White’s narrative shows some subtle innovation. Don’t get too alarmed or excited, however – much of the conventional Pokémon meta-narrative remains the same. As a trainer, you’re from a small town that’s home to a famous Pokémon professor who’s named after a tree. Your father is nowhere to be found and people still have trouble remembering names and genders. You still have rivals, you’re still trying to complete your Pokédex and become the League Champion and there’s still an evil team to deal with.

The new uber-legendaries.

The tweaks are in the details. You don’t just have one rival, you have three. There’s Bianca and Cheren, who are more friends than rivals. Also competing for your attention is the mysterious and vaguely named N, whose motivations thus far I’ve been unable to determine. He’s more the kind of rival veteran players will be used to. Expect to battle your rivals quite a bit – I’m only three badges in and I’m already starting to get sick of my rival’s desire to constantly test my abilities.

Rather than trying to steal Pokémon for no discernible reason or capture some powerful legendary God-Pokémon, Team Plasma is advocating Pokémon liberation. They believe that Pokémon can’t reach their full potential cooped up in a ball all of their lives, so they steal Pokémon in an effort to set them free. At my current progress, Plasma has been hinting at a desire to split the Pokémon/Human planes of existence entirely. I’m sure I’ll be able to stop it by capturing some fantastically-powerful legendary creature.

Knights? PETA on steroids? Who can tell?

As for the creatures I’ve encountered thus far, I’d say they’re probably the strongest selling point of the new titles. Every Pokémon you encounter on your way to defeating the Elite Four will be one you haven’t seen before. As always, some of them are absolutely terrible while some are downright awesome. On the lower tiers you have puppies, ferrets and pigeons – not exactly exciting but also not unexpected. However, there’s also Roggenrola – stupidly named, but a cool concept. He’s the new Geodude. There’s also Zen fire monkeys, lightning zebras and some pretty cool looking bugs. There’s way too many for me to cover here, but rest assured that you’ll find yourself occupied for many hours to come.

I also have to laud Black and White’s “DLC”. While the fourth generation games featured some pretty cool shiny legendaries, they required players to go to GameStop to be harassed for preorders and accessories. While this is far more favorable than the non-existent Mew events of the first generation, it’s far less convenient than the newest event: you can download legendary Psychic/Fire Pokémon Victini from the comfort of your own home, as long as you have wireless. This is a very welcome feature.

Finally a rodent-like legendary I don't have to travel to Japan for.

As for mechanic adjustments and new in-game features, there’s plenty to talk about. Battle screens and animations now move much quicker than before, making level grinding much less of a grind. The Pokémon are heavily pixilated in battle though, which in 2011 seems like a bit of a letdown. This game also contains something called the C-Gear. You can trade over local wireless, Nintendo WFC and infrared. You don’t even have to be in a Pokémon Center to trade with your friends, or have the desired Pokémon in your party in order to trade them. Thanks for catching on, Nintendo! Honestly though, the possibilities of all this kind of fly right over my head and at my current progress I haven’t had time to sort them out.

All in all, after ten hours and three badges, Pokémon Black is pretty much what I’ve expected before. Needed tweaks, slightly adjusted stories and some pretty cool new creatures. I fully intend to write a complete review once I’ve gotten much further in the story. But as for now, I’d definitely say that this game is worth picking up, both for veterans and newcomers.