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Warning: Long post with my thoughts and feelings ahead! SPOILERS!

OK, so I beat the game roughly a week after the game came out. I would have finished sooner if I hadn't spent so much time catching every single pokemon I could. Here's the team I ended with:

- Emboar (Olivia) Lv. 56
- Audino (Melody) Lv. 55
- Stoutland (Scruffy) Lv. 55
- Simisage (Nappu) Lv. 57
- Excadrill (Foremole) Lv. 57
- Liepard (Baron) Lv. 57

I was originally going to choose Oshawott as my first starter, but after watching the anime in Japanese I grew to love Tepig. In addition, after finding out its English name I decided that that was the final straw and decided to abandon Oshawott in favor of it. While I wish they hadn't made another Fire/Fighting starter, I don't regret choosing Tepig as my starter. Olivia easily tore apart her foes. I chose Audino despite already having a Lillipup at the beginning of the game because I thought that Audino's would be rare and hard to catch. I soon learned that was wrong. XD Oh well, I already had my team chosen before I figured that out. My team also has a horrendous weakness to Fighting-type, with more that half weak to it. :P

Now I developed a training regiment in the fourth generation because I grew tired of getting an unbalanced team level wise and losing to the Elite Four and Champions so easily in past generations. First, my team for the entire game is decided before I challenge the second gym. This can be trades from other games or pokemon I can normally catch. Traded pokemon's level has to be lesser or equal to the second gym's highest leveled pokemon (usually level 20). The second thing is that all my pokemon are trained to the same level before challenging a gym. That level equals the highest level pokemon the gym leader has. Third, I will try not to let a pokemon battle a trainer's pokemon if it is already to half the required XP required to level up; I'll just use another pokemon. Once all the pokemon in my party have reached that halfway point I'll stop continuing the story and fight wild pokemon. I have to say that last part went a whole lot faster thanks to Audino.

While none of the Pokemon games are particularly challenging (at least that's what I think), this game just goes by a lot faster due to the change in the experience system. There are more trainers to battle than in any other pokemon game and Audino gives out so much experience that using my training regiment allowed me to be at least ten levels higher than my opponents after gym four! I didn't have to do any extra training from that point until I got to the Elite Four and that was only two levels for my Simisage and my Liepard.

The game took me over fifty hours to beat but that's only because I caught every single pokemon that I could before the credits rolled. The only pokemon I didn't catch was Zorua and Zoroark, but that was because one I didn't have a second DS to use the Relocator, two I ended up losing my Pokemon Diamond game -_-' which had my shiny beast trio and three I wanted to wait to get Zorua after I completed the Celebi event in HeartGold. I have gotten Zoroark thanks to my girlfriend giving me her extra shiny beasts. Now post-game I'm looking to catch em' all! So far I've worked my way up to Route 9 catching all the pokemon I can now that I have the Super Rod and a few new areas have opened up.

This is by far my favorite game in the series. While I have been playing these games from the beginning, the Pokemon series has come a long way and I find myself enjoying all the new pokemon and all the improvements they have made over the years. The first games were only harder for me because I was a dumb little kid and didn't talk to every person, wasn't able to figure out the simple puzzles, etc. This game is meant for kids and saying that the series has been dumb down in difficulty since then seems a bit unfair considering that most of us have grown up with the series. While we got smarter, pokemon has stayed the same; a great RPG that has the accessibility for kids and the competitive complexity for the old. Black and White are no different except this time they've made more pokemon than any other game. I liken the difference between all the pokemon to the Pokemon Factory. While the previous games had one designer, this one had many. Just like the Pokemon Factory we got more pokemon out of it.

I also love how they sped up the battles and the new UI is much more streamlined. Making TMs infinite use makes me use them more without regret and making HMs not require a gym badge (at least from what I've seen) should be interesting in my next playthrough.

The story was so much deeper than the other games too. They dealt with a serious topic; I just wish they would have made the argument for keeping Pokemon with humans better. The ending was the most epic the series has ever been and the NPCs seemed to have made a bigger impact. Instead of the gym leaders sitting on the sidelines letting us handle everything, they had a much bigger role. N was a much more sympathetic villain than Giovanni or Cyrus and I like the fact that his pokemon were those you could find where you fought him. While the story wasn't unpredictable it was in the end satisfying. He's was more of just an antagonist, not a villain. Ghetsis was the true villain, fitting into more of the typical villain role. At least he was more subtle. I also like the lore of Zekrom and Reshirem, the Pokemon of Ideals and the Pokemon of Truth. It really fits the theme of these games.

I do have a few complaints. One, I wish they hadn't removed the L=A feature from the Gen. IV games. It's a minor gripe, but I liked using one hand during battles and walking around talking to people. Two, I wish they hadn't made it so that you can't trade until after you beat the first gym. It's going to make my goal of training every single pokemon line through a campaign at least once less enjoyable. I like having my team as soon as possible. It makes me feel like I'm bonding with them more. My third complaint is that Alomomola isn't the evolution of Luvdisc. XD Those are the only complaints that I can think of at the moment.

Anyway, long story short this game was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see what they do to refine the experience in a possible third version. While it was seemingly easy to do so in the previous generations, there's a bigger contrast between these two games, so it will be interesting. I think my favorite third version would be Emerald because the story was better by combining the two teams. Platinum made quite a few refinements which is something I didn't really expect, so I expect they think of something special for Pokemon Grey/Gray/Whateveritscalled.