Pokémon Black and White 2 - More Updates!

Hey all,
The past week has been a big news week for Pokémon Black and White 2, with some reveals by Oha Suta, CoroCoro AND the long-awaited gameplay reveal from Pokémon Smash. If you haven't done so already, check out all the Bulbapedia and Serebii.net posts and their video links for pictures - I'll only be providing one here.

First off, White Kyurem and Black Kyurem have been revealed to have the signature moves Ice Burn and Freeze Shock, respectively. No surprises there, although they're the most powerful Ice-type moves in the game - PokéSma showed an example battle of Black Kyurem vs Reshiram, and it OHKOed Reshiram with Freeze Shock!

The games are set in the Unova region, same as in Black and White 1, but 2 years in the future. Long-time Pokémon fans will remember that there was a 3 year time gap between Gen I's Kanto and Gen II's Kanto, and plenty changed there. A new official Unova map has been posted. Brace yourselves:

"Tonight's forecast - a FREEZE is coming!"

That's right folks, Unova is now half-encased in ice (Bulbapedia says this may just be to hide areas not yet revealed, but I have ice theories which I will share later). I can't find any really big, high-quality images. so I can't look as closely at the map as I'd like, but Bulbapedia has listed some of the apparent differences between the old map of Unova and this one.

• The water around the Entralink tree has dried up, and the tree itself is different. I'm pretty sure the Entralink tree appears in one of the new trailers for the game, and Global Link connectivity has been mentioned for the games, so I think it's safe to say the area is still important.
• There is a new area to the south-west. This contains the PC's home tow, Hiougi City. Not town, city. It's the size of a city too, complete with a Pokémon Centre and a Trainer School, and a lookout point which gives a pretty cool view over meadows and distant mountains.
• The road through the desert between Castelia City and Nimbasa City. It looks like it's flanked by containers, or they may be buildings; I can't tell very well at this resolution (Bulbapedia refers to it as a settlement). Either way, the desert itself may be a no-go area, although the Desert Resort area still appears on the map, so who knows...
• There've been some aesthetic changes to Nimbasa City itself - a gatehouse-looking building connecting it to the desert road, and what looks like a small area next to the ferris wheel.
• The lighthouse in Driftveil city is gone, and there are a couple of craters around the city, including where the Cold Storage used to be. I'll talk about this a little later.
• Liberty Garden and United Tower are now shown on the artwork, on the two islands south-west of Castelia City, and apparently Liberty Garden has been revamped. Maybe we'll get a new Victini event? Or is it canon that the PC from B/W1 caught the one in the basement there?
• There's what looks like a small town on the side of the mountain to the east of Unova, just on the edge of the ice sheet. Perhaps this could be where a new Gym has been put, to compensate for Striaton City, Nacrene City and Icirrus City being iced over?
• Challenger's Cave has disappeared. As it served no major purpose in the game, that's neither here nor there. HOWEVER! In the new intro to BW2, the Musketeer trio/Muskedeers are shown in quite a prominent light, and apparently a legendary Pokémon was training its student Pokémon there... Maybe, if the trio play a bigger role, the cave's been sealed off and more reference will be made to the trio's mythos. Apparently, the event Keldeo does have a function in the new games...
• The webbing over Chargestone Cave is gone. I guess this is just because it's destroyed when the PC gets there in BW1.
• Although not mentioned on Bulbapedia, someone on Facebook brought up a very good point. If you look closely at the ice sheet, where the Abyssal Ruins are, where there was once just a dark patch of water, there's now what looks like an island. Did they rise out of the sea?
• There appears to be some sort of arch structure to the south-east of the map, under the ice, just up from where the P2 Laboratory ought to be.

Anyway, on to other points. The Pokédex has been expanded to a total of 300, including all the Unova Pokémon. In the trailer, it is shown that Azurill is available early on, and from other material, such favourites as Tyranitar, Metagross and Lucario are in the updated Dex too!

Another very interesting note is the presence of two new Gym Leaders - a Poison-type (Homika) and a Water-type (Shizui). Homika's Gym looks like a rock café, and Shizui's contains a lilypad platform puzzle which looks quite fun. Interestingly, Homika is due to make an appearance in the anime soon, with her Pokémon... Koffing. Remember how in the anime, Giovanni told Team Rocket not to take their non-Unova Pokémon to Unova because they were rare and would draw attention? Now we'll have another non-native Pokémon, in addition to Pikachu and Meowth. I'll be interested to hear the rationale behind this; maybe Homika isn't from Unova originally? Or it'll give the producers a reason to introduce more non-native Pokémon to the season so Ash can use his old Pokémon in the Unova League ^^'

The new protagonist PCs look around the same age as in the last game - older than is traditional. The new rival is a hot-head, but he's a friend of the protagonist (apparently his little sister is, too).
Another new NPC was introduced too, who I'm very excited about - Akuroma. Although this brings to mind an angel from Magic: The Gathering, this guy is anything but angelic. He puts me in mind of Ein from Pokémon Colosseum, and is apparently also a scientist, researching the hidden strength of Pokémon. He is described as mysterious, and says a few things in the screenshots that makes me think he's going to be VERY important. He talks about 'a tool to activate the Pokémon I made', which makes me think of Black and White Kyurem and activating their overdrive mode. Although he says 'made', I don't think it's going to be Genesect; it's event exclusive, so I'm not sure that it'll play a heavy storyline role like that. The book Akuroma holds in the game's opening puts me in mind of Ghetsis, for some reason. Or at least, it's an older book, perhaps containing some ancient lore from the time of the Two Princes? Also, his name struck me as interesting. A-, as a prefix, means 'not' (like asymmetrical), and chroma is related to colour. As Kyurem is the representation of wuji (the absence of yin and yang, represented by Zekrom and Reshiram, respectively), perhaps Kyurem also embodies the absence of colour, as Reshiram and Zekrom are black and white. If Akuroma's name is romanised as Achroma, and does mean 'absence of colour'...

Finally, I want to talk about the star of the show, Kyurem. As anyone who's reached that part of the game knows, Kyurem is found in the Giant Chasm, to the north-east of Unova. Where does the ice sheet on the map appear to originate from? The north-east. Also, remember how I said there was now just a crater where the Cold Storage used to be? No reason was ever given for why this warehouse was specifically cold, not just a normal warehouse. Could it have been housing Kyurem? Giratina's storyline was changed between D/P and Pt, so maybe in the canon of BW2, Kyurem wasn't always in the Giant Chasm...

That's about all I have to say on the new games for now, but rest assured I'll be back with more info and theories as and when there are more reveals :) Ciao for now!