Brought Out of a White Retirement

So as most of you know, I got a copy of Pokémon: White Version yesterday.
I haven't even received my first gym badge and I'm surprised at how I'm already hooked on it.

Sure, this might be attributed to my addictive personality, but, I think there's more to that, personally.



Among my friends, I was always considered the Pokémon expert and an excellent PokéBreeder.
No matter the question, no matter the problem, I was always able to help people out with their Pokémon-related problems.
Of course, my work would have to end sometime, and I slowly began playing my Pokémon games less and less (it was around the time I picked up World of Warcraft).
And sure enough, sometime during the autumn of 2010, I announced to my friends that I retired from the Pokémon scene and pretty much stopped playing.

I'm going to be honest - when I first heard of White and Black, I was a tad concerned with the then-upcoming fifth generation of games.
I mean, when I retired, there were officially 493 Pokémon in the world, and the fifth generation games planned on extending that number to 649.
Not only that, but from the images I saw, it looked as though the concept developers were beginning to run out of Pokémon design ideas.
I put in a pre-order anyway (because let's face it: I'm a die-hard Pokémon fan, retired or not) and began thinking, "Sure, this could help with a new mass of people being introduced to Pokémon, but... will it work? Will it be critically successful (because we all know it'll be commercially successful) and be able to keep the attention of both amateur trainers and Pokémon veterans alike?"

Sunday, March 6, 2011 would prove to answer my questions.
Not only did it sell well (my friends at my local GameStop told me it was packed almost all day, and the sales figures I've seen were pretty damn high), but from the reviews I read, it was also successful.
What's more, some of my friends from work and elsewhere who I'd never picture playing a Pokémon game right now picked up a copy and told me they liked it.

So yesterday, I decided to do good on my pre-order (until release day, I was considering shifting my pre-order to some other game) and picked up my copy of White.
I like it so far.
True, my fears about the developers starting to lose Pokémon design ideas were true, but apart from that (and a few personal in-game option gripes - why did they remove the "'L Button' can be used as 'A'" option? LOVED that...) it seems to work rather well.



I guess today's entry has one message I'd really like to get across:

Pokémon: White Version has officially brought me out of retirement.

What this means for the players out there varies, but here's what I see:

• an interesting choice of Pokémon amongst the new ones (from what I scanned of the PokéDex, there's a few I'm definitely interested in - shame they're showing up mid-game)
• people will probably be hitting me up for Pokémon-related questions again really soon (already getting them at work)
• I need to do my research on which Pokémon will actually be capable of true combat (like the old 151, some look badass, but compared to others, they're lackluster in stats)
• I need to research names (I'm a fan of giving my Pokémon awesome names)

Fufufufufufu... now, I have a lot of catching up to do, so if you'll excuse me, I'll be playing White and fetching some foodstuffs before I clock in at work.



Oh, and in case you're wondering, I chose Oshawott (Water-type) as my starter. Always been a fan of the Water-type starters (although Torchic and Cyndaquil were pretty awesome, too).



Pokémon-training... awaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!