14 DAY TRIAL // Pokemon Black & White will be one of the biggest video games launched of the year in Japan but the enthusiasm of some fans of the franchise might be limited a bit by the latest announcement coming from the development team. Junichi Masuda, who is the man leading the team working on the two titles, has announced in a blog post dedicated to the game that until they first finish the game players will not get to recruit any Pokemon that they already know. All the characters that are recruitable are new ones. The team has made the decision in order to make sure that those who are familiar with the series and those who are new to it start from the same place and have the same level of enjoyment of the narrative.
The team working on the video game tested the new changes on fans of the Pokemon titles, who had comments like “It's like playing something completely new, similar to when I played Red & Green”, “You don't even know the type of the Pokemon, so you're surprised at the skills” and “There are only Pokemon that you've never seen, so it's fresh and new”. They probably chose to emphasize those comments that backed their choice in character design.
The decision is likely to antagonize some long time fans who have become accustomed to using their favorite creatures from the start of the game and build strategies around them. The loss of Pikachu might lead to the rise of other Pokemon as the symbols of the franchise.
Pokemon Black & White is set to be launched on September 18, 2010 on the Japanese market for the Nintendo DS handheld. Launches for the other regions of the world are set for spring 2011 and it seems that the game will not be ported to the Nintendo 3DS.