Pokemon Black & White’s 3D world exposed after player tests out-of-bounds area

The secrets of Pokemon Black & White’s 3D world have been revealed by a player exploring the out-of-bounds areas of the Unova region.

The Pokemon games on the Nintendo 3DS were the first entries to truly be in 3D, but the entries on the DS attempted a fusion approach. This led to games with 3D worlds mixed with 2D characters, with the Pokemon battles retaining their sprites.

Pokemon Black & White and their sequels were the last mainline entries on the Nintendo DS. The developers accomplished amazing things on the system’s limited hardware, with large city environments and the spectacle of crossing the Skyarrow Bridge.

Game Freak had to pull off a few tricks to make the Unova region look as good as possible. These secrets have now been unveiled in a new video that uncovers the visuals of Pokemon Black & White.

Pokemon Black & White’s illusory 3D world has been revealed

The latest episode of Boundary Break on the Shesez YouTube channel has revealed how the Unova region was put together. The 2D sprites present in the game world are almost totally flat as if they’re leaning backward at all times.

The intention is for the game to always be seen from an eagle-eyed perspective, the same as the old Pokemon games. As such, many of the 3D objects are half-complete, as the player will never see parts of them without hacking the game or are placed too high or low to maintain the perspective.

Pokemon Black & White (like the rest of the DS Pokemon games) extensively uses culling, which removes objects to load in new ones as the player moves. This leads to the ferris wheel in Nimbasa City only loading carriages as they enter the player’s view.

Nowadays, the Pokemon games are fully 3D, so these kinds of tricks are no longer necessary. Then again, the new Pokemon games are often criticized for their visuals and performance, so maybe these old tricks should come back.

It’s fascinating to see all of the tricks developers used to try to bring the Pokemon world to life on a handheld system. The Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto, and Unova regions all felt lifelike on the Nintendo DS, yet the details of their worlds were just clever illusions to make them seem more fully realized than they were.