Games - Pokemon and its Generations

Poke'mon is the real deal. It's been around since 1996 and it's still ticking. I don't think people know to the degree in which Poke'mon was and still sort of is, a big deal. People have written books about Poke'mon. Written about it's ridiculous ability to pull and captivate not just single people into it's cute little world, but entire quadrants of our society.

Poke'mon started as a japanese manga and then transformed into two Game Boy games. Poke'mon Red and Blue (Green if you lived in Japan at the time of it's original release.) The core essence of Poke'mon's world was that younger teenagers left their home, their family, and traveled the world to collect creatures with super natural abilities and then trained them to battle. What kid wouldn't love this idea?

In a sense, Poke'mon was about ultimate discovery. Explore the unexplored, catch and train the untamed, discover the best attributes about your Poke'mon and become the ultimate, Poke'mon Master. Okay, so the end result is a little dorky, but the games remain successful because they haven't changed the core of what makes Poke'mon games, Poke'mon games. While they may change the style of the look of Poke'mon or tweak the gameplay mechanics for better or for worse, the core conceit of the game remains untouched. Explore and you'll discover.

Poke'mon Black and White comes out on March 6^th of next year with a new cast of 156 Poke'mon. That's 5 more poke'mon then what could be found on the original Red and Blue (Missing No, not included.) While the original target demographic for this series may have been 12-16 year olds that doesn't mean I won't be in line on day 1 of this release.

Black and White is adding 2 new battle variations. 3 vs 3 Battle which puts 3 Poke'mon up against another 3 at the same time and Rotation Battles. In Rotation Battles, players select 3 Poke'mon like they would in a regular 3 on 3 battle, but in this mode Poke'mon go up against one another as though it were a one on one match and the players can switch out Poke'mon without wasting their turn, this means they have up to 12 moves to surprise their opponents with rather then the traditional 4, the limit of moves per Poke'mon.

While there won't be any huge altercations to the Poke'mon formula, Poke'mon Black and White will upgrade the game we already love. I'm okay with that.