The beginning to Pearl is nearly identical to every other Pokemon game. A professor of some local reknown is introduced, he demands your gender and name, and hopes that you will "achieve personal growth." Then you wake up in your bedroom, where, you'll note, you own a Wii. Mom is waiting downstairs. She has your shoes.

I named my "friend" Wedge, not out of any affection for Star Wars but because he has a wedge-shaped head. He seems to be the most affable "rival" to date. Whereas previous rivals were bitchy and elitist, this one is one step ahead of you simply because he is impatient. Maybe his story will develop further along.

As you poke-fans know, once you pick your starter (from the expected grass-fire-water trio), then your rival picks the one that has a natural advantage over it. The jerk. So I chose Chimchar, the fire monkey thing, and Wedge chose Piplup, the March of the Penguins thing. Get this: a third character - Dawn, a friend of the Professor - claims to use the remaining starter (the leafy turtle thing). Maybe it is she who becomes your most hated competitor?

The world is in 3D now, but you'd never know it. The people are all 2D sprites and enough of the background elements are flat (trees, most notably) that you have to wonder why they bothered. Even if those buildings are 3D constructs, it's not like you're going to get to rotate the camera around to pick a nice cinematic angle anyway. The constant scaling of the 2D stuff creates an unpleasant wavy redraw effect as the screen scrolls.

There are some fancy embellishments (see below), but by and large, it's a very familiar first impression. Even the geographical layout of your hometown is identical to the other games, complete with the fat guy walking by the lake to the south.

Here's an early battle between my brave Chimchar and a wild Bidoof...

I really like how the grass parts and flutters right before the battle begins. More of that, please. Shame that the battle itself - aside from some tech upgrades - is the same old sprite-on-sprite action, with the usual comfortable distance between the two. I'm sure that halfway through the game, I'll turn the battle animations off.

I would have played more tonight, but my battery went red so I had to quit. I think I unnecessarily drained it after downloading the Meteos Disney Magic demo while I was waiting in line at EB.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to venture into the online stuff! GO CHIMCHAR!

TIME

BADGES