Last time, rvial battle!

Bianca: The Pokemon on both sides did their best!

Bianca, you of all people know my goodwill is easily lost. Quit now.

But this little one is still weak, so battle with it and make it stronger! All righty, let’s go make your Pokemon better at the Pokemon Center!

Okay, but this had better be the end of the tutorial.

It’s like the best place ever for Pokemon who battle and get hurt!

Bianca, I’m warning you.

Okay, now at the pokemon center and she’s explaining they’re all the same in appearance, which admittedly is some important information.

Let’s go inside!

I don’t need you to

Bianca: OK! I’ll show you around the Pokemon Center!

I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, BIANCA. YOU’RE ON THE LIST RIGHT AFTER DOUCHY. I’M GOING TO GET A DRAGON AND MY DRAGON WILL EAT YOU.

Bianca laughs off my threats and drags me around the pokemon center.

She does give me pokeballs, though. And she doesn’t show me everything, just the basics. Okay, she can die third. Cheren did piss me off a lot.

Ooh, ten balls! Maybe she can live.

Let’s try leaving.

More people running up to me. Mom: Oh! Nice to meet you! You must be Bianca, right? And Farla picked Snivy, then! Hee hee.

o_O

Looking good! Oh! I almost forgot! Here! Take these! They’re Running Shoes!

At last.

Mom: A perfect fit! I’ll read the instructions to you!

Please no.

“Hold the B Button to run faster than normal.

That suggests my walking speed is actually my running speed…

Put on the Running Shoes and race around to your heart’s content!” Now, you and Snivy can run anywhere you want!

Gary’s Sister: Um… This is from me!

It’s the town map.

Well then. That’s fitting.

Bianca: Why are there two Town Maps?

Gary’s Sister: I want you to give the other one to my big brother!

Okay, so let’s talk more seriously about how this is badly done.

You want dialogue to move smoothly. There’s no reason to have a second character ask a question when the first could have volunteered the information. It isn’t Bianca she wants to deliver the maps, anyway, it’s me, so Bianca is just a distraction in this conversation, and her question is so unnecessary that you wouldn’t even notice if it were missing:

Gary’s Sister: Um… This is from me!
Gary’s Sister: I want you to give the other one to my big brother!

Instead, the game compounds the problem by having a third party weigh in on the matter:

Mom: That’s a good idea! Even if it is a single road to the ocean, having a Town Map is always nice.

No one was arguing against maps in the first place!

I mean, if you use a Town Map, you’ll know all about what the Unova region is like!

THE TITLE OF THE GAME IS POKEMON BLACK 2

2!

I UNDERSTAND WHAT A MAP IS!

Bianca: Aww, you guys! Just watching this makes me happy!

Well then, you might also be pleased to know you’re back on the list of people to kill with my dragon.

C’mon, we’re headed for Route 19! I’ll teach you how to catch a Pokemon!

And you’re headed back to second place on the list.

Well, at least I’m not forced to follow her when she leaves.

I am forced to continue dialogue with the other two.

Mom: Bon voyage!

God game couldn’t you have given me a choice to talk to her here?

Take Snivy and go see many different Pokemon and people with your own eyes!

Okay, finally over.

Voluntarily speaking with Gary’s unnamed sister just gets another bit about caring for my pokemon. Unless the game’s finally implemented something that punishes you for treating them poorly, it needs to shut up.

Okay, since it looks like the tutorial will keep going, I’m going to restart now as a girl because I can’t stand the boy’s hair and that’s about half his overland sprite.

…

Hey, remember that annoying thing where you could start a new game but not save if you already saved? Black 2 still has that “feature”, requiring you to turn off without saving and then restart the game to delete your data in order to start a new game you can actually save.

Arg. That’s the girl’s vs sprite.

Let’s look at them both together.

Do you see how one of them looks like she has no idea what the hell is going on, while the other looks like an actual trainer?

I hate everything about the girlsprite except the overland sprite, which is kind of cute. And it’s that sprite I’ll be spending most of the game staring at, so I guess I’ll stick to it.

Still…

God damn it, Nintendo.

Last person before the exit:

Sometimes wild Pokemon attack people! But the ones you befriend, the ones that stay by your side, are Pokemon, too!

Well maybe the other ones are your friends as well. They’re just trying to make friends the same way you “befriended” all those pokemon of yours.

Trying to leave makes the person at the gate yell at me that I can’t go outside without a pokemon, but then they see I have one. That’s a nice callback. Then they give me a potion. Thank you, NPC. My future dragon and I will spare you.

Outside is Bianca. You can’t even edge around her.

Come on! This way!
Bianca: This kinda reminds me of that day on Route 1. OK, here’s how it works. The Pokedex’s pages fill up automatically when you meet Pokemon! And when you catch a Pokemon, more detailed information on it is added to the Pokedex!

“By magic!”

Here, I’ll show you how to catch a Pokemon! Starting…NOW!

And then she walks into the grass. A purrloin appears. Oh, purrloin. I want to love you, why must your stats suck so bad?

…wait. When she mentioned pokemon being redistributed, she didn’t mean the same nonvariety of pokemon had taken over the starting area for this game, did she? Oh god.

Bianca: What a relief! I caught a Pokemon!

…has any other catching-tutorial character ever done this?

Bianca, just go away already if you haven’t grown a spine.

Oh! Um…

WHAT DID I JUST SAY

Right. I’ll go over the important stuff. First, go find a healthy Pokemon to catch!

Unless they’ve reimplimented that thing from the second gen where you headbutt trees and sleeping pokemon come out, I don’t think I have a choice. Also ethically I think I should be catching the weakened one. This sounds like those guidelines for picking puppies. Make sure you get the healthy looking one so some other sucker’s saddled with the vet bills!

You need to remember this next bit! It’s best to lower the Pokemon’s HP before you try to catch it. Use your Pokemon’s moves to lower the HP of the Pokemon you want to catch.

I’m not sure you’re restating the same fucking information in enough redundant detail, Bianca. How I use move?

Making it fall asleep or paralyzing it will make it even easier to catch!

I wonder what’s going to be in the trainer school at this rate.

You’re going to go deliver the Town Map to your friend, right? Continue straight this way to get to Floccesy Town!

Are we done here?

Bye now! Meet lots of Pokemon and catch a lot of them, OK?

Yeah I’ll befriend the fuck out of them.

And she…goes back the way she came? Okay, fine.

I go into the grass and it’s suckrat again!

It doesn’t even look different. I hate you, suckrat.

It faints. Then a purrloin appears.

Their cute act is a ruse. They trick people and steal their valuables just to see the looks on their faces.

Man, Nintendo really, really hates cats.