Pokémon Black Version 2 (2012)

4/5

Replayed on my Nintendo 3DS. Played a nuzlocke run of Black 2 on challenge mode. Fun challenge, especially at the beginning. The game itself is great with lots of pokemon variety and an interesting main quest, although the story is standard pokemon-fare. Lost steam towards the end of the journey but had a lot of fun throughout. For my money, this artstyle was the peak of pokemon by far.

Super solid entry in the series! Good balance of story and world exploring; though, playing this without a recent playthrough of Black or White, I do wish we had a little more of Unova to explore pre-Champion.

Unova has always been one of my favorite generations, but some of the designs are so weird and so much of the aesthetic feels like it was immediately forgotten and reversed in X/Y. Like, look at a Durant and tell me that Nintendo didn't think it was pulling off a tougher, more teenaged Pokemon. Jury's out on whether or not they actually were, but regardless, the Unova games, and Black2/White2 in particular, give the sense of something different, a game starring Pokemon, but not necessarily driven by the franchise's desperate need to survive.

Building atop the game previously, B2W2 does a good job in immediately fixing the flaws of it. The story while not as strong conceptually as the first one does hold itself up well this time around if not better now that the pacing is actually set well for the characters and tone and doesn't willfully spend time on wasted errands of little value. The campaign is also a bit stronger, both in terms of more customization in Pokemon teams as well as being more challenging. The Hard Mode variant unlocked for NG+ in one of the versions is a real blessing for longtime players. I also find the Pokemon World Tournament postgame to be fanservice I can get on board with.

This all combines to make a more enjoyable package than the previous but I still found myself not particularly engaged in Unova as a region and the story still not to my liking. It's a refined Unova, maybe even the best it can get without completely reworking it. It's still limited by the confines the Pokemon formula set out to me but I'm sure I'm a minority on that issue, and is a longer discussion than simply saying that I found B2/W2 alright. (6.5/10)