Zero Punctuation: Pokemon White

[LeonLethality]

Alternatively, you can have one ridiculously strong Pokemon that can one-hit kill all of your opponent's Pokemon.

Depends mainly on how well you built your sweeper and how good the opponent's team is at countering it. In most cases having one pokemon to take out the entire team is not going to cut it, because if they take it down you have no options left.

Also as the above person stated you are all scaled down to the same level.

Only under certain circumstances, like in the battle zone in diamond/pearl/platinum and with other human players. As for the situation of having my one Pokemon being taken down, I usually keep a good supply of healing items like hyper potion (most of the time, it's more cost efficient than max potion) and (max) revive. After that, the only issue is running out of PP for my Pokemon's attacks.

Most competitive play forbids items other than hold items.

 

[Amplify]

I want to know why some people think Pokemon is a super-complex game. Raising Pokemon is complex, but when it comes to battles between similarly-raised Pokemon it's just crossing fingers and hoping the other guy doesn't send out scissors when paper is in play.

Or hope he doesn't send in a level 1 Rattata.
Tip: turn your volume down

I see your video of somebody being beaten by 6 F.E.A.R Rattatas and raise you a team of level 1s that doesn't break species clause beating level 100s.

 

[LeonLethality]

A Flying/Electric pwned your power-leveled Ground?

Correct me if I'm wrong (never played past Red), but Electric is weak against Grass.

No grass does neutral damage on electric but electric is not very effective on grass.

Electric has only one weakness; ground. But Emolga is flying electric so he gains flying type's weaknesses (ice and rock) and electric does neutral damage.

 

[samaugsch]

Alternatively, you can have one ridiculously strong Pokemon that can one-hit kill all of your opponent's Pokemon.

Depends mainly on how well you built your sweeper and how good the opponent's team is at countering it. In most cases having one pokemon to take out the entire team is not going to cut it, because if they take it down you have no options left.

Also as the above person stated you are all scaled down to the same level.

Only under certain circumstances, like in the battle zone in diamond/pearl/platinum and with other human players. As for the situation of having my one Pokemon being taken down, I usually keep a good supply of healing items like hyper potion (most of the time, it's more cost efficient than max potion) and (max) revive. After that, the only issue is running out of PP for my Pokemon's attacks.

Most competitive play forbids items other than hold items.

Well, I have started lvling up other Pokemon after I beat the Elite 4. I could start introducing Pokemon with moves like Knock Off for competitive gameplay (like if someone sent out a Pikachu with Light Ball). Moves like Thief and Covet could work, too, but only if I didn't already have an item on him.

 

[MB202]

Yathzee reviewing Pokemon? ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!

Not, he already reviewed that game.

Anyway, I also was almost religiously devoted to Pokemon back in the day, but nowadays, I just don't really care that much anymore.

i used to think that as well until i recently decided that i was bored enough to pick it up again and see if it was still as fun... AND IT TOTALLY IS!! gotta catch em all!!!

I'm sure it is, but it's got to be a real time-consuming game.

 

[Jadesprite]

You know, this is why I love Zero Punctuation. I have Pokemon Black and I really like it, having finished the game and actually enjoyed the ending, a rare thing for me.

But everything Yahtzee said is still true. (Except "catching them all", that is no longer viable. Wow, that would be a lot of work.)

I liked the game, but it did have its flaws. Nothing is perfect, no matter what other reviews tend to say. Yahtzee brings attention to the flaws in a pretty funny way, and he's right. But I still like Zero Punctuation, and I still like the game. Someone can disagree with you and still be a good and funny guy, Internet. Did you know that? Cause I don't think you did.

So Yahtzee, keep making those scathing reviews. The world is full of imbeciles, yes, but some people will go "Yeah, that's right, that doesn't make much sense, does it?" without becoming a raging ape bent on weakly challenging your sexuality and eating habits. Some people, despite all evidence to the contrary, are sane and find your reviews very funny even if it pans a game they enjoy. Keep panning them for us, okay?

Who am I kidding, Yahtzee will never read this comment anyway. That was a waste of time, wasn't it?

Edit: I'd like to talk about the actual game, namely the electric gym in the review and the insinuation that it has no strategy. I'll set the stage: The pokemon I used in the successful fight were a Herdier and a Sandile. After leading with Sandile and failing, I decided to lead with Herdier. I repeatedly used Take Down (periodically healing, of course) as the leader volt changed between her two Emolgas, hoping to kill at least one of them. It didn't, but it turned out to be better because she used all of her potions on those Emolgas. When she ran out of potions, Herdier was low on health and I used him as a sacrificial lamb (dog, I don't really care) to get that last hit in and kill one of them. As the other was at practically no health, she sent out her Zebstrika and I unsurprisingly one-hit killed it with Sandile. Then I sat there for ten minutes listening to the gym-leader's-last-pokemon music, then killed her second Emolga easily. So, as you can see, the strategy doesn't appear that often during the main game, but it does exist.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

Funny review as always. I like the fact this game is trying to have a plot beyond "kid wants to become Pokemon master and evil guys are jerks for the sake of being jerks".

 

[Maclennan]

Heres the question he missed, what do the people in that world eat since every animal and most of the damn plants are pokemon?

I think a miltank would be quite tasty. Pikachu would probably be kind of stringy. They will probably resort to "iceberg lebtuce" soon.

I'm not gonna lie, there's one of the new ones that looks like ice cream. http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/582.shtml

How was that one not hunted to extinction ice cream is delicious

 

[Maclennan]

Haven't played Black or White at all yet, but I'd say I'm somewhat a fan of the series. Used to like it alot back when I was a kid then lost interest. Now I'm back to playing it again (funny how that seems to happen). Of course it was the discovery of the Nuzlocke run that brought me back in. That helped me to have fun again with Pokemon's constant grind by making it a bit more interesting. I'd encourage players to try one out sometime or another.

Heres the question he missed, what do the people in that world eat since every animal and most of the damn plants are pokemon?

I think a miltank would be quite tasty. Pikachu would probably be kind of stringy. They will probably resort to "iceberg lebtuce" soon.

They eat slowpoke tail apparently. This is canon.

I remember that, you can buy them in silver/gold i think and feed them to pokemon, which i sadistically fed one to my slowpoke, if only they put in an Easter egg for such a twisted act.

 

[jak1165]

You dont even need to catch them all anymore, you only need to encounter them to get an entry in the Pokedex >_>

 

[Flare Phoenix]

You got your game strategy thrown off by EMOLGA enough to complain about it? Pokemon wasn't EASY enough for you that a Gym Leader you COULDN'T sweep with one move is a negative point against it?

The bane of Yahtzee's existence.​

It's less that he couldn't sweep it in one hit and more that the game misled him. Like he said, everybody in the gym, both in and out, tell you to use Ground-Types. The area outside the city is filled with Ground Types. Then the game pulls a 180 and has you face a Flying Type. Confusing players like that is bad game design, and there's no excuse for it.

Not really... Emolga is part electric type so it's not like the player is being mislead when facing the gym. Honestly I'm surprised so many people have having a little whinge the game made them have to think outside the box a little.

Besides... every gym pretty much bold-facedly tells you what type the gym leader specializes in so you can't really say that particular gym was trying to mislead you.

 

[CrimsonDeath]

I always figured the reason their society revolved around Pokémon was because their world is infested with monsters that can shoot lightning, breathe fire, control the weather and tides, rearrange the landscape, and crush people's minds with a thought. I mean, if just Charmanders existed in real life (I think I just dated myself there), there are only a few hundred industries that would be completely different or nonexistent.

 

[profpeanut]

I was expecting Yahtzee to review Pokemon someday...Diamond/Pearl and HeartGold/SoulSilver were probably way too samey-samey for him anyway to have made an enjoyable review.

All those arguments come down to the same: a lot of pokemons with a lot of moves.

Now let's remove the pokemons and moves that are basically useless, the exact same thing, work fundamentally the same way, or are countered the same way.


...woops.

Double woops once you consider playing the same person a second time. Surprise element's gone. Now even if you have millions of pokemons it's irrelevant. You know what your opponent has.

Triple woops: There's only one pokemon active at any one time.

That said, all of that would be very relevant, if it wasn't a spread sheet nonetheless. A very big spreadsheet. But a spreadsheet nonetheless. The match is decided before it starts... Except for the very bane of a good player's existence, the good'ol random factor. Isn't it nice when an attack just suddenly fails, fucking you over royally, due to a random statistic? Yeah. Pokemon seems saturated with that... "True" comp games eliminate random as much as possible. This isn't even like card games where you need the "random" factor of the draw... It's just there to fake some depth.

But hey, if you enjoy it, that's cool. The idea of competitive pokemon to me is akin to competitive rock, paper and scissors

Let's play a game: I've got a Gengar here, moves, stats, teammates and items all set up. Pick a Pokemon and try counter it.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Was kinda waiting for him to address the "why don't the bad guys just use 40 pokemon each" thing since they're breaking the law everywhere else, but good overall. It really hasn't changed, though thanks for the heads up on the electric gym.

 

[The Bandit]

You got your game strategy thrown off by EMOLGA enough to complain about it? Pokemon wasn't EASY enough for you that a Gym Leader you COULDN'T sweep with one move is a negative point against it?

The bane of Yahtzee's existence.​

Besides, "catching them all" is no longer viable...or even the point, really. It's all about competitive play, with the advent of wi-fi in D/P/P.

And the game has changed a lot. The basic 8 gyms, 4 moves per pokemon, Rock/Paper/Scissors combat system hasn't. But the other mechanics have.

From the infinite TM use of B/W, to the infinite item bag after R/B/Y's STUPID limit, to the addition of Abilites in Gen 3, The Special split in Gen 2, the Special/Physical MOVE split in Gen 4, and even the removal/addition of new HMs for world exploration, to the key item mapping for easy Bike use.

I think you need to look up the word "change."

 

[Flare Phoenix]

Was kinda waiting for him to address the "why don't the bad guys just use 40 pokemon each" thing since they're breaking the law everywhere else, but good overall. It really hasn't changed, though thanks for the heads up on the electric gym.

The bigger question is why they use Pokemon at all when bullets would seem far easier and less hassle.

 

[Cat Cloud]

I actually enjoy pokemon. I'm not really sure why. Nostalgia? Oh well, great review.

 

[b1u3too]

Love it. Though, in the three weeks after release day, I was a survey mastermind on public transit and at the University. Just serves to show that geeks do indeed congregate.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Haven't played Black or White at all yet, but I'd say I'm somewhat a fan of the series. Used to like it alot back when I was a kid then lost interest. Now I'm back to playing it again (funny how that seems to happen). Of course it was the discovery of the Nuzlocke run that brought me back in. That helped me to have fun again with Pokemon's constant grind by making it a bit more interesting. I'd encourage players to try one out sometime or another.

Heres the question he missed, what do the people in that world eat since every animal and most of the damn plants are pokemon?

I think a miltank would be quite tasty. Pikachu would probably be kind of stringy. They will probably resort to "iceberg lebtuce" soon.

They eat slowpoke tail apparently. This is canon.

I remember that, you can buy them in silver/gold i think and feed them to pokemon, which i sadistically fed one to my slowpoke, if only they put in an Easter egg for such a twisted act.

Yeah, I always wondered about that but never actually did it due to the fact that there were ungodly expensive to buy.