


(As for Sugimori, his first reaction to Masuda’s proclamation of the newly-declared revolution of the content was, “…Again?” His next reaction, after hearing the plan, was, “Don’t give me so much work…”) Some of the changes Masuda put out were so shocking that the team completely doubted that it could even be done. However, Masuda specifically stated that he wanted to take everything he knew about the game - everything that they had thought was “obvious” about the series - and break it. After all, having created Pokémon for so long, Masuda felt that the creators’ views of the series had been solidified and could prove to be a hindrance in some regards.Īs Iwata summarized in the interview, usually when a strategy works, most companies decide to stick with the formula. He viewed of the task of creating B/W as a challenge to the creators to make a completely different game. Masuda stated that he was afraid that people would regard B/W as “the same game” as Di/Pe, even if both were the first of their generation. Years later, now that the DS has been experimented with and explored, they felt they needed to concentrate on other aspects of the design. In Di/Pe, the team were required to concentrate on all the perks that came with the new (at the time) system - the two screens, the touchscreen, the wireless capabilities, just to name a few. However, because both games were to be on the DS, it would be extremely obvious if they were too similar to Diamond/Pearl or HeartGold/SoulSilver. As such, in a new Iwata Asks interview, the game’s directors, Junichi Masuda and Ken Sugimori, revealed that the most important focus of the new game was to create “a new Pokémon.”

Pokémon Black/White will mark the first time a second completely original Pokémon game is released for an existing system. In the past, every generation of Pokémon has coincided with a new system, with Red/Green on the Gameboy, Gold/Silver on the Gameboy Color, Ruby/Sapphire on the Gameboy Advance, and finally Diamond/Pearl on the DS.
