Buckle up kids, because we are doing this in the style of a classic Something Awful forums Let’s Play thread!
So right away I notice a tone difference on starting Black. We’re thrown into an opening cutscene, very somber, with some guy with green hair being crowned, and there’s a throne and onlooking crowds, and another guy with green hair (the same guy but younger?) hiding in the bushes.
And then the typical pokemon music slams you in the face and its all like HOPE!! DREAMS!! DISCOVERY!! POKEMON!!
Okay, come back game, what about this somber king shit?
No?
Alright.
Here’s the pokemon professor. It’s a hot old lady instead of a meh old man this time!
“Pokemon and humans complement each other.”
We also occasionally compliment each other! My pokemon often tell me my hair looks great and my boobs are very perky.
We encounter the standard ‘are you a boy or a girl’; question, now sensitively rephrased as “tell me about yourself.”
We’ll be playing as a boy because girls smell funny and make me feel weird in my pants. Boys also smell funny and make me feel weird in my pants but I’m sure that’s normal.
Our name is Sin-kun, because we’re a massive weeb and Sin-chan wouldn’t fit. All in caps because when we are always yelling. (and couldn’t figure out the capslock on pokemon as a child, and now its a tradition.)
Sexy Madam Juniper thinks that’s a wonderful name and I’m feeling funny in my pants again all of a sudden.
Apparently we’re either amnesiac or just plain stupid, because we don’t know who our friends are. Well, that’s typical for a pokemon protagonist, so we’ll just roll with with it.
No, you know what, I know what this is. We’re an isekai protagonist who just woke up in pokemon and Juniper here is the lovely truck-goddess getting us acquainted with our reincarnation already in progress.
Man people were right, this game DOES have a great plot! 😂
Cheren and Bianca, our best friends, are apparently a grumpy know-it-all and a ditz, so we’re not really breaking any gender stereotypes here but I’m just nodding along at this point. Maybe they have hidden depths.
I love it when an old lady thinks I have potential. What’s Juniper grooming us for, and is it an ecchi harem?
Whatever it is, we get a standard “dreams and pokemon” speech.
But what she really wants is for us to find what’s important and grow as a person. I’m guessing we were not a very motivated person before Truck-kun came by and gave us a personality transplant to start the game.
But all that’s about to change, since we know the jingle, it’s all over tv in our home world of 1998 where Pokemon is the hottest thing on American tv! There’s 150 pokemon, and we’re gonna be a pokemon master!!
Right?
Right?
“Autumn” flashes briefly on the screen, and we have an actual cutscene to start us off. It’s brief, but it does exist! Progress, am I right?
Oh look, Mr. Grumpy Boy is here to wake us up out of our truck induced fugue state. Will he notice that something’s different?
No, he’s just here to remind us we’re getting a pokemon from Juniper, and bitch about Bianca, who is late. Again, apparently. I’m getting the sense that she’s one of those characters people probably have a lot of ADHD headcanons for.
The headcanon is probably correct.
Okay, knowledge unlocked. Cheren is autism, and Bianca is ADHD. We will proceed accordingly.
Bianca meanwhile wants to know why the pokemon we’re getting aren’t here in our living room already. Hasn’t she ever played a pokemon game before? Obviously we have to go to the lab.
… we don’t have to go to the lab? Straight from 1998, Sin-kun’s mind is fucking blown that you can just get pokemon delivered to your house. Is that normal, or is that a favor from the best milf in town?
The pokemon are literally in a gift box like a christmas puppy in an inadvisable holiday ad.
I wonder if Juniper is used to people getting into fist fights over who gets to have the fire starter?
Straight from 1998, Sin-kun knows that you always pick the fire starter. A cute little piggy might seem like a downgrade from a cool lizard/dragon, but we’re sure he’ll grow.
Right? That’s how pokemon works.
Hopefully he’ll turn into a pig-dragon.
You know, like Ganon or something.
In fact…
Wait… what?
Bianca wants to have a pokemon battle before we even nickname our pokemon?? Things are getting all out of order!!
I’m with Cheren here, nicknames are important!
Okay, you lost me, Cheren, what are you, some kind of hippie??
Oh, yeah, okay, no, that’s true. Carry on. Wouldn’t wanna roast the furniture.
Bianca remains undeterred.
Bianca has challenged us to a pokemon match in our own living room, with a pokemon so new that we haven’t even given them a nickname yet.
Surely nothing can go wrong.
Tepig doesn’t know any fire moves yet so as usual this match is going to start as a tackle off.
Snivy is faster than our Tepid so unless Bianca does something stupid like use leer, we’re probably going to lose.
… he used leer. :3
This match is fucking close as hell. The liveroom is a mess. Tepig and Snivy have surely destroyed the couch and all of our designated parental unit’s precious vases and urns.
It all comes down to this. After a couple of turns it actually looks like Tepig and Snivy have the same speed, because Snivy went first twice and Tepid went first once.
The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. We have to win! You never lose to your rival in the first match, that’s Pokemon 101!
YES!!
By the skin of our teeth, we won!
Hey, what’s this hippie shit about “both pokemon did their best”? We won!!
Oh. The livingroom actually is a complete fucking mess. Thanks, Bianca. Our designated parental unit is going to go fucking ballistic over this.
Thank fuck for a pokemon journey because we’d be getting kicked out of the house over this either way!
I hope so, Bianca, cause we’re a terrible son.
Cheren at least knows we’re about to get our asses beat, and not in a pokemon match.
Bianca may be stupid.
I’m definitely imprinting on Cheren here. At least he heals our pokemon for us, but I don’t think there’s anything he can do about the unholy disaster of our poor room.
Bianca. Bianca its still a fucking disaster please don’t do this.
Cheren, you’re on my shitlist now too.
And just like that he slams us into another pokemon battle– and we still haven’t gotten to name our adorable little roast suckling pig yet!!
Technically speaking, Cheren’s Oshkoshbigosh has a type advantage over us, but given that neither of us have any type aligned moves yet, we should be fine if we obey the golden rule.
Attack, attack, attack and never let up!
Good ol’ “attack”. Nothing beats “attack”.
What do you want to bet our room is even more of a mess now after all?
Cheren’s blunder was not having a pokemon that went first in attack order. He’s excited to be a trainer though, something we can definitely refer to.
After all there’s literally nothing cooler than being a pokemon trainer.
Do you think if we beg and grovel for forgiveness she won’t flay our flesh from our bones? Our parents in our last incarnation were always flaying our flesh from our bones.
No shit, Bianca.
We save our game and…
WAIT WE STILL HAVEN”T GOTTEN TO NICKNAME THIS DAMNED PIG!!
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