I'm not sure what's up with White and me. I bought it on release, and never really got hooked. The bridges were always my favorite parts of the game. Just seeing how the camera swiveled around something like in Pokemon game blew my mind as a kid. After beating White, I'm not sure that opinion has changed.
White is nearly identical to the previous Pokemon games in terms of mechanics. This generation didn't go hard on the gimmicks like 6+. The closest it got was triple and rotation battles, but I only encountered one triple battle and zero rotation battles the entire time, and even then that's as much a gimmick as double battles. Graphically, the White is supposed to look better than previous games. Something about it never quite meshed with me, and it gives me a similar feeling to something like Owlboy, where I look at it and think "I should like how this looks." It clearly has a lot of time and effort and care put into every bit, but it just doesn't hit me the way I feel like it should. I feel like I'm missing out on something when everyone raves about the art in this game. The overworld character sprites looks weird and long to me. Of course, the animated Pokemon all look great and it's a shame we only got one gen/four games of them before being sentenced to 3D hell. No comments on the music. I mostly played this during work, so I didn't have the sound on for like 90% of my playtime, although I'm sure it sounds at least serviceable. The difficulty curve seemed fine? It definitely didn't have any steep issues like Johto can, and wasn't a cakewalk like Kalos. I grinded a little bit pre-Elite Four, but I also skipped a lot of trainers and optional content throughout the game, so I can't really hold that against the game. I don't think I'm a fan of choosing the Elite Four order. Set order felt like a hierarchy of the trainers, whereas in White each member has three level 48s and one level 50. Then, you fight N instead of Alder, which is a big shame because Alder was set up very well throughout the game to be a wise and strong trainer that I would have felt good beating. Instead, you fight N and Ghetsis after doing some chosen one shit and the credits roll. It felt anti-climatic. At least in Sword you get to fight the Champion after being completely derailed by legendary Pokemon bullshit.
I'm sort of rambling at this point, but I want to be clear that I'm not totally sure why I'm giving White the score I am. I spent 21 hours on this run and still couldn't figure out what I disliked about this game so much more than the previous games and even some of the later games. I can't believe that it's just some kind of nostalgia for the other games that I lack with this one because I played this one when it came out and I was still like 12. I've lost my train of thought because my friend put on Donnie Darko, so I'm just gonna end the review here.
White is nearly identical to the previous Pokemon games in terms of mechanics. This generation didn't go hard on the gimmicks like 6+. The closest it got was triple and rotation battles, but I only encountered one triple battle and zero rotation battles the entire time, and even then that's as much a gimmick as double battles. Graphically, the White is supposed to look better than previous games. Something about it never quite meshed with me, and it gives me a similar feeling to something like Owlboy, where I look at it and think "I should like how this looks." It clearly has a lot of time and effort and care put into every bit, but it just doesn't hit me the way I feel like it should. I feel like I'm missing out on something when everyone raves about the art in this game. The overworld character sprites looks weird and long to me. Of course, the animated Pokemon all look great and it's a shame we only got one gen/four games of them before being sentenced to 3D hell. No comments on the music. I mostly played this during work, so I didn't have the sound on for like 90% of my playtime, although I'm sure it sounds at least serviceable. The difficulty curve seemed fine? It definitely didn't have any steep issues like Johto can, and wasn't a cakewalk like Kalos. I grinded a little bit pre-Elite Four, but I also skipped a lot of trainers and optional content throughout the game, so I can't really hold that against the game. I don't think I'm a fan of choosing the Elite Four order. Set order felt like a hierarchy of the trainers, whereas in White each member has three level 48s and one level 50. Then, you fight N instead of Alder, which is a big shame because Alder was set up very well throughout the game to be a wise and strong trainer that I would have felt good beating. Instead, you fight N and Ghetsis after doing some chosen one shit and the credits roll. It felt anti-climatic. At least in Sword you get to fight the Champion after being completely derailed by legendary Pokemon bullshit.
I'm sort of rambling at this point, but I want to be clear that I'm not totally sure why I'm giving White the score I am. I spent 21 hours on this run and still couldn't figure out what I disliked about this game so much more than the previous games and even some of the later games. I can't believe that it's just some kind of nostalgia for the other games that I lack with this one because I played this one when it came out and I was still like 12. I've lost my train of thought because my friend put on Donnie Darko, so I'm just gonna end the review here.