Under all of its layers of Pikachu mascots, card games and television shows of a boy that hasn’t aged at all in 14 years, the Pokemon franchise has consistently remained a well-designed, finely-balanced role-playing game.

With the advent of wi-fi multiplayer battles, the franchise has now produced one of the best and most popular metagames in the market. That’s not saying much, though, since its only tangible competition comes in MMORPG form.

However, such discussion, no matter how well-deserved, about the game’s battle mechanics and metagame in a diluted market is ignoring the No. 1 reason that 22-year-old college seniors still play a game that popular culture will continue to ridicule them for playing.

“Pokemon” is video game crack.

All other things aside, “Pokemon Black” is another installment of the franchise that millions will continue to purchase as long as it continues to churn out 100-plus new characters every time it bumps up a generation.

Fortunately, “Pokemon Black” and “Pokemon White” do more than that. The latest installments, now in Generation V of the franchise, don’t try to change the formula too much. Instead, B/W makes a solid amount of key, substantial changes while still maintaining that same infrastructure that has brought the series this far.

The intrinsic question, though, as it is with every “Pokemon” game is still: “Why should I buy this version over any of the others?” This is especially important for people that already own a version of the game.

While my counterpart focuses on the plot points and gameplay features that round out the game, here we’re going to look at the key changes that make B/W different from the rest of the franchise.

A new, unique 150

Every new generation of “Pokemon” games has flaunted a new set of new Pokemon to draw in new players. However, what a lot of the games boil down to is ending up with a lot of familiar Pokemon in your party that you know are good and roll through the games with the same Alakazam and Gyarados you’ve been using since you were 9-years-old.

B/W, though are the first games completely devoted to a new set of Pokemon, meaning that no Pokemon from previous versions will appear until the Pokedex’s national mode is activated once the main storyline has been completed. This is an enormous factor in a number of areas, the first being that caves no longer involve fighting 15 Zubats and Geodudes in a row.

The lack of older Pokemon means that there’s a limited pool of Pokemon that you’ll encounter throughout the main story mode, meaning that more Pokemon will be featured more often. What this means is that there are fewer “trash” Pokemon that you catch and hide in Box 1 for all of eternity.

Even the normal-type dog and dark-type cat encountered 15 feet away from the protagonist’s house are seen later on in the game. The latter is even used by one of the Elite Four.

Another feature of the new Pokemon is a better type balance, with the rarer Bug, Steel and Dark types getting more legitimate representatives. As opposed to other versions, especially “Pokemon Sapphire” and “Pokemon Ruby,” there are fewer normal Rattata and Spearow types and more of the “holy crap what the hell is this” types. Entering the game, I had my eye on the trash bag, candle, ice cream, dark hydra and giant construction worker Pokemon. The candle and construction worker ones have panned out wonderfully.

TMs are reusable

A major change in item uses comes in the form of technical machines (TMs) which can now be used as many times as you want, like hidden machines (HMs). This ends the days of hoarding TMs you get early on to save for Pokemon you’ll get later.

Due to these changes, TMs now play a much larger role in the game. Rather than relying on an individual Pokemon’s moveset, players can focus more on type setups for their teams and statistics. The reusability factor also means that moves can be swapped in and out for certain battles.

Drastic shift in story

This is something that my counterpart will go into further detail about, but the fact that there has been a seismic shift in the plot from the rival and gym leaders to the Team Rocket equivalent (the vaguely Crusades/PETA-themed Team Plasma) of the game. The story ventures from kiddy plot to JRPG plot at times, but it makes for a completely different plot experience and it’s really a fresh change for the games.

Whether or not you should buy this game really comes down to whether you’re looking for something new in Pokemon or something refreshing. If you haven’t played since the Red/Blue/Yellow era and want something similar, you should shoot for “Pokemon SoulSilver” or “Pokemon HeartGold.” If you want something new, B/W is the freshest re-visioning of the game that the franchise has ever seen.

  Nick O’Malley can be reached at [email protected].