Welcome to the cKotch.Com blog. I’m Christopher Kotcher, and this is my first post for cKotch.Com’s special Videogame Month, all about games which have inspired my writing. This is my favorite setting for any Pokémon game.
Leading to the Very Best
Pokémon Blue was the first game I ever played.
My mom got the game for her Gameboy Color. She could not get past the first five minutes.
I had already been watching the Pokémon anime. So, I decided to test what the show had taught me and grabbed the game.
I picked the tiny turtle Squirtle as my starter Pokémon and began a grand journey.
Aside from the second generation of games, I have been there for everything. Even completed the encyclopedic Pokédex twice. Caught all 493 Pokémon in Generation 4 and all 649 in Generation 5.
Pokémon is just a world of wonders. Each new game restarts the journey in some new corner of the world.
Out of all these settings, my favorite remains the fifth generation’s Unova Region. The location of Pokémon Black and White along with their sequels Black 2 and White 2.
It’s a Whole New World
Pokémon Black and White came with a twist.
Unova was a region distant from all others. No old Pokémon would be present there, not even series mascot and electric mouse Pikachu. Only 156 Unovan natives.
These new species covered all sorts of ground. My first team through the region included a prehistoric turtle, an eagle, and a karate weasel. Additional favorites include a floating eel and a haunted chandelier.
The region also contained the series’ grandest cities and towns at that point. Sprawling urban centers were connected with incredible drawbridges and desert highways. There were even villages built into bridges.
Even the more natural locations stepped up their game. One of the caves was filled with floating electrified rocks. To navigate, you needed to push these stones into magnetically charged boulders.
Black 2 and White 2 only made things better with expansions of Unova’s western and eastern reaches.
Graphics may have improved since Pokémon’s fifth generation, but nothing has been quite like Unova.
Evolving the Story
Mainline Pokémon games tend to follow typical patterns.
Leave your small-town home, defeat eight strong trainers called gym leaders, defeat four even stronger trainers called the Elite Four, claim the title of champion.
Along the way, you battle a few childhood friends turned rivals and stop criminal organizations from conquering or destroying the world. Often those organizations’ plans will include manipulating some sort of legendary Pokémon.
The Unova games gave a few good twists to these formulas.
The original Black and White is the story of Team Plasma. They are a radical group which seeks to liberate Pokémon from humans.
Team Plasma actually has a goal which casts doubt on their world’s current social order.
For all the series’ talk on friendship and teamwork, Pokémon is still about training wild creatures with magical powers to fight each other. There is a reason many older fans make jokes about the franchise’s ethics.
Team Plasma even has a more central role in their game’s plot than prior evil teams.
You first meet them the moment you leave home. They are already causing crowds to murmur over their ideas.
Soon enough, you see Team Plasma’s extremism as well.
They steal Pokémon fossils and artifacts from museums. They kidnap other people’s Pokémon to “liberate” them.
Still, Team Plasma does plant a genuine seed of doubt in the people of the Unova. That alone makes them some of the series’ strongest villains up to that point.
Of course, good adversaries like Team Plasma need a good force to oppose them.
Here is where Unova’s gym leaders come in.
Far more than others, Unova’s gym leaders are community leaders. They all have roles in their cities and towns. They curate museums, manage mining operations, and protect marshlands. One is even the mayor of his city. All of them work with you against Team Plasma.
This conflict is genius.
Gym leaders are the living ideals of human-Pokémon cooperation. They are a natural opposition to Team Plasma’s ideology.
Even your own quest for gym badges relates to Team Plasma.
They want to make one of their leaders the champion to show the power of their ideals. To that end, they recruit one of Unova’s most powerful legendary Pokémon to take the title (Zekrom in Black, Reshiram in White).
Your recruit the rival to Team Plasma’s legendary to even the odds. The final battle shifts from a mere championship bout to a final fight against Team Plasma’s leaders. A battle for the fate of all humans and Pokémon.
Sequel Hook
Black 2 and White 2 continue the story as well as they can. They are a good epilogue to the original Unova games.
Certain parts are more traditional, and others are more original.
For example, you start in a city for the first time, but these games end with a standard championship bout.
Team Plasma returns in a new, more radical form. They recruit a long-hidden legend of Unova to threaten domination of the whole region.
Special memory events show how characters wind up where they are now. The music which plays with them, “Emotion Theme,” is amazing as well.
Not to mention, a special world tournament brings in all the strongest trainers from all prior regions. You can face all the old faces all over again.
Still a True Champion
Pokémon’s sixth generation had good graphics and introduced some of my favorite Pokémon.
The seventh generation’s story brought many great moments too.
The eighth generation is looking good so far but will not be here until later in the year.
Still, nothing so far has topped Unova.
The Unova games were something more than I had ever expected Pokémon games to be. It was amazing to see the first videogame series I had ever played give me a story and a world like this.
These games really showed me how good stories can come from anywhere.
I suppose that gives me confidence in some of my odder story ideas. Stories of cubes befriending line ghosts. Stories that begin with a dragon stealing a crusader’s lunch.
Pokémon made a great story with its magic wild animals. Why can’t I make something great with the wilder stuff I’ve created?
Kotcher’s Call to Action
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