9.5/10 – 53 hours
Review as written on 5/15/2023
God bless Drayano and his team for these amazing hacks. These are the PERFECT way to revisit old Pokémon games, with quality of life improvements, type adjustments, access to all Pokémon, and increased difficulty, it lets a familiar game feel refreshing and new again, and creates a whole new journey to tackle.
The original Pokémon Black and White 2 are my favorite games of all time, and playing this hack solidified that fact further. Though they weren’t revolutionary to the series and still had many old annoying Pokémon tropes (handholding, tacky implementation of linearity, and HMs to name a few), they hold a special place in my heart. They were the first games I ever followed during their development and the first games I ever pre-ordered, back when I was a lil 10 year old boy. These are still solid games with snappy and stylish UI, great story, fun exploration, and absolutely phenomenal music.
This hack in particular was a serious hurdle: most boss trainers like gym leaders, Hugh, and Plasma bosses required serious planning to defeat, and it was extremely rewarding; just the feeling I want from a Drayano hack. Even some Ace Trainers and Veterans were formidable. It was also fun catching and using mons that aren’t usually present in the vanilla games, and the adjusted typings and move pools made team building extremely fun. I fell in love with the team I chose, raising them to be sweeping machines with insane coverage, further exemplifying the beauty of the classic Pokémon formula. My only criticism of the changes are how limited your move selection can be for your mons early on, whereas gym leaders can have the goofiest coverage possible with no way for you to answer. Also, HMs could have been removed, you had the power.
I also enjoyed playing this hack on an R4 card, so I could enjoy the game on intended hardware, as well as play with friends using local wireless.
All in all, I freaking love the base games and this hack was a gift that kept on giving. On to more Drayano hacks.
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