North American release date! Now with European relase date too!

[Jeff]

March 6, 2011

A little over 2 months to go!

Edit:
European release date: March 4, 2011

[DivineAll]

Now with preliminary trailer!

[DarkestLight]

Wow that's early. Like, 3 weeks early. I'm used to it being like the end of March.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

A release date for Europe has not yet been announced, but it is expected to be around the same time.

Sweet! The trailer looks awesome too. But did I get it right, is this coming for 3DS too? Or what are those guys talking about?

Does anybody else find it odd that they openly declare it's based on New York while Kanto was a secret to western public for years?

[Jeff]

Well, nobody knew about pokemon regions being based on real-world locations back then, so I guess the creators felt no need to mention it. Of course, now that we do know, they always seem to mention it in interviews.

As for the comments about the 3DS, Nintendo won't have two big-name releases too close together, so they're saying that because of this, the 3DS will likely come out in late March.

[papabopp]

wait black and white ar'nt for the 3DS right?

[Jeff]

Right, they're for the DS. They do have video chat on the DSi, but there's nothing special at all about playing them on the 3DS.

[Blademaster]

When's Easter this year? My grandma has a habit of throwing money at me on any conceivable holiday. Maybe I'll use it on Black...

[Poryhedron]

Easter 2011 is going to be in late April. If you don't want to wait a month and a half, you'd better hope your grandma gives you some cash on Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day.

[Jeff]

Easter will April 24th to be exact. Which I do believe is the latest possible date it can fall on.

[Galdr]

It's amazing Europe's release is actually before American release date. XD I find that interesting, but it's good to see some change. First the games are releasing earlier than like HGSS released in the middle of March last year (March 14th in USA) so yeah, that was surprising. Now BW are releasing earlier! Game Freak must have had extra translators-for-hire or they were speeding through the game.

Regardless, I cannot wait until it does come out~ ;D I'm still getting White.

[Blademaster]

Damn nation!

[Link]

It's going to be a long wait, but I am glad it's going to be out here! Damnit...

[Master Rudy]

Interesting....however I got to be honest. Don't know if I'll be picking this up anytime soon. I haven't touched Platinum in a long time and I've barely gotten into Soul despite getting release day shipping from Amazon.

I am however curious about the map on this one. Guess they ran out of places in Japan to base the map on XD
That being said how exactly is it based on New York? Is it NY state? Mahatten Island? Long Island? Anyone got a pic of the map?

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

From Bulbapedia.

[Jeff]

It's based on parts of New York City and little part of New Jersey.

For comparison, here's the area it's based on:


And for good measure, here's the end of Brooklyn, just to show where they got the shape of the eastern peninsula from:

[Telume]

All they're missing is Long Island, lol.

[DarkestLight]

And that can stay missing. Do not need guido-esque pokemon gelling up my screen -.-.

[Telume]

I wouldn't have minded all regions of NY, it would've made it even more fun,

[Blademaster]

Oh, wow, that's quite a map... I wonder how big it is compared to Sinnoh. That place was fucking colossal compared to previous generations.

[Telume]

Well the thing is, everything feels collosal now that you're looking at it in another format. Kanto was small because the technology wasn't all there to make it feel expansive.

I'm pretty sure if they'd made pokemon NOW (as in Gen 1) they could make Kanto pretty fucking expansive.

[Poryhedron]

Here's what really gets me about Unova's layout:

There are only nine or ten Routes pre-Elite Four. There are fewer than twenty routes including postgame material.

Those routes will have to be very long and wide for the place not to feel tiny compared to previous regions.

[Blademaster]

The routes will probably by about the size of Sinnoh's, but with non-Route landmarks of immense size like Mt. Coronet. I can clearly see at least 2 mountains and a desert/badlands area to explore... Maybe Routes are gonna be reserved for actual roads and the like this time instead of just being used to name every hill, lake, island chain, and geological formation like they used to?

[Jeff]

The European release date has been announced, and it's March 4, 2011.

You read that right, that's two days before the North American release.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

In your face North America! Damn right.

[Blademaster]

Shut the fuck up Belgium nobody loves you.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Yeah, but Europe rocks.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Yeah EU countries support each other well through hard times.

Perhaps GameFreak wants Americans grow more patient, the game is taking place in their country and everything. But I thought the Euro versions have been late due to the German and French translations. Don't they do that anymore? Even in the Finnish version of Pokemon anime, the attacks are now in English maybe they are getting short of imagination.