Pokemon Black - Initial Impressions

So once again, the world finds itself with a new iteration of the best-selling monster series. Pokemon Black and White are the fifth generation of such (in the main line of games, spinoffs don't count), and have what actually amount to some pretty significant upgrades under the hood. The most noticeable is the graphical engine, which runs a billion times smoother while looking much better than the previous DS-platform Pokemon games did. The camera also switches angles every once in a while from the standard 3/4ths isometric view, which is a cool touch. Anime cutscenes take place when you are on the phone and in several story points, which is nice looking and actually lends more flow to the whole in game phone affair compared to a tiny dialogue box that prevents yo from walking. Pokemon are also much more animated in battle.
The second big one is that the battles themselves flow much more quickly than ever, and in a game where you have thousands of battles, this can actually shave off a hundred or more hours. The whole interface is nice, and I've managed to figure out most of it despite my very limited Japanese. You also get your Pokemon, running shoes, and the Cut HM very early on. I am also fairly sure TMs are reuseable.
The third, which some people will be very happy to hear, and has the most profound implications, is that the competitive game has been incredibly streamlined. It used to be, for the last few games, that Pokemon were created along very complex guidelines called IVs which influenced each stat on a 31 point scale. Along with EVs, which were influenced by battles, and natures, which are also inheret and affect IVs directly, there was a lot of stuff to juggle in creating the perfect mon. All of that still exists, but IVs are on an 8 point scale and once you beat the game you can go into a place called the Dream World where you can effectively tailor your own Pokemon. However, this requires some online janks I haven't figured out yet, but I imagine I eventually will. You can also import old Pokemon from the GBA and DS games using a feature similar to the 4th generation's Pal Park. I have yet to do a lot of research on the other new features (I'm not very far into the game itself yet, so this isn't a review) but they are there.
I like what I've seen so far. The new Pokemon are generally well designed, and you never see any non-Isshu region pokemon, which is unique to every Pokemon game except for the obvious exception of the originals. Pokemon's been around for a long time, but it seems like this time around, GameFreak has managed to completely revolutionize what many were believing to be stale.