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20 Memories of #Pokemon20 – Day 8: Black and White Memories

Continuing our catch up, celebrate #Pokemon20 with some experiences of some members’ ways of playing Black and White.

For Day 7’s post, we recapped in the history and hype behind Pokémon Black and White. Catching up with Day 8’s post (with only six days remaining) for today we’re featuring recounts of Black and White from PokéCommunity members.

Hikamaru was one such a member who kept up with all the hype:

5th Gen holds significance to me in many ways, with Black and White being the first games of a new generation that I actively followed the news and updates to (HeartGold and SoulSilver were the first I followed news of, but it wasn’t a new generation) and seeing every screenshot made me feel hyped to see the new approach the games were taking.

Pokédex_BW_art

Exciting first experiences

For some members like SteveTheFish, it was their first experience with a Pokémon game ever, but some made the most of these experiences:

Man, there’s a lot that I could say about these games. Black version was my first Pokémon game. It was magical, I got hooked and took my DSi with me wherever I went so I could play. My older sister and I ended up having a contest to see who could complete the Unova Pokédex first. I won this contest by one day and one Pokémon. WHEW! It was intense. A couple of my friends were into Pokémon too, and it was the coolest thing ever to be able to trade and battle with them.

Different ways to adventure

MagmaFlash started playing Pokémon White at the age of 14, experimenting with the joy of nicknaming Pokémon:

Actually, Pokémon White was my very first Pokémon game. I still have clear memories of my first run-through of White and this was when I was 14! I chose Oshawott and named him Otto. Heck, I still remember some of the Pokémon that I caught. I had a Musharna named Mary Jane (don’t ask), an Unfezant named Jetta, I named my Zekrom Shadow, my Kyurem’s name was Snowball, a Crobat that my friend traded, and my beloved Raticate, Cricket. I trained them until they were at least level 90. (Then I leveled them up to 100 with Rare Candies I obtained thanks to my Action Replay. I have a lot of regrets.) It took me a whole month to defeat the Elite Four, but 30 minutes to defeat N and Ghetsis. I didn’t like the fact that you could only catch previous-gen Pokémon in the post-game.

Dream World

Oddball_ also started with Pokémon Black, and particularly enjoyed the Pokémon Dream World:
Pokémon_Dream_World_logo

Black version was the first game I ever actually bought myself, and as such it meant a whole lot more to me than the others. I remember playing in Dream World and finding how unique that experience was compared to everything else we had had prior. I remember decorating my little dream house with dolls of all my favourite Pokémon, and growing berries, and finding special pokemon in the Dream Zones… Good times.

Users of the Dream World were able to maintain a house and a garden.
Users of the Dream World were able to maintain a house and a garden. Source: Bulbagarden

Loose ends

MagmaFlash reflects on Pokémon Black and White’s online interactivity:

I missed out on a lot of Wi-Fi features. I could only use it at my friend’s house since I still had my DS Lite. I’ve only been in the Dream World twice and I couldn’t do much in there anyway because they had a time limit imposed. The Global Trade System was an utter nightmare. When I finally got my 3DS, the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection was already in the process of shutting down.

As the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection has shut down, hence resulting in loss of online connectivity for Pokémon Black and White, players like MagmaFlash ended up losing out.

 

The fifth generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon Black and Pokémon White, were released in Japan on September 18, 2010, and internationally in early March.

Edited by bobandbill.