My Full Thoughts on Pokémon Black 2 and White 2

Last week, Nintendo promised us gamers a major Pokémon announcement for that Saturday, and while we all thought it was going to be the speculated Pokémon Gray for the 3DS, we ended up getting news that it will be instead Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 on the original DS. This is something no one could have ever predicted, and has provided plenty of controversy. I can see why they did it, but I can also see how it can hurt the Pokémon franchise immensely. (Side Note: I figured out you can use jump breaks on Blogger, so I'm gonna start doing that to save space on the main page. I'm also really considering retroactively adding them to my older posts, too.)

 Nintendo is known for doing the unpredictable, but this could prove to be the wrong move for Pokémon (excuse the totally-not-intended pun)

So why would Nintendo/Pokémon Company/Game Freak want to do this? Well, let's look at it from a development standpoint. Making Black and White 2 on the outdated DS would be easier than making it on the 3DS for a couple of reasons I could see. First is the existing assets from the original Black and White that will be surely used for their sequels, just like every "third game" of a Pokémon generation has done. Developing for the 3DS would mean starting over basically from scratch, which would take longer. The other issue would be changing systems in the middle of a generation. This has never been done before (well, neither has two generations on the same system), so Ninty/PokéComp/Game Freak might want to play it safe. Even though I'm presenting these ideas, I do not necessarily agree or look at them as more than excuses. So what do I think?

Honestly, they can do whatever they want with it, and I won't complain. It's definitely not what I would have done, but I'm not Nintendo. Though this means my sister, who is using my old DSi, can play through another Pokémon without upgrading, which means she and I can play together. Maybe this is what Nintendo had in mind with Black and White 2. Since some people haven't gotten the new 3D hotness yet, the Big N wishes to serve those currently 3DS-less Pokémon fans with at least one more round of Pocket Monsters. I think its a case of overly serving your customer base to the point of alienating parts of it. I know some 3DS owners will feel duped, thinking that the next big Pokémon adventure would be optimized for their new toy. I think it would be wise for Nintendo to have 3DS-specific features for Black and White 2, like better graphics, support for the 3DS' wider screen or even 3D features. Even with that, however, this could be bad for the 3DS.

Having support for a console that has been succeeded for over a year is something Nintendo has never done before. This is the same company that shelved the practically-complete Star Fox 2 for the SNES in 1995 because they didn't want its polygonal graphics/gameplay to compete with the Nintendo 64, which wasn't going to be out for almost another year. Why they are now allowing this is beyond me. Maybe Game Freak was too lazy to start over from scratch or wanted to keep each generation exclusive to one handheld, or maybe some other reason I can't think of. Only they know.

Sorry for taking forever for this post, family-related stuff (including a trip upstate) got in the way. I hope to keep bringing the posts, hopefully on a regular basis.