Update (12:30 PM, Saturday) – We have reason to believe this may be fake. While the source continues to wholeheartedly maintain it’s real, saying “I hope you can understand that I would not purposely come up with a prank like that after working in the video game community for years,” he posted obvious “fanart” of Minotauros on our forums claiming it to be beta artwork (though later he said it was just to give us an idea of what the real Pokemon would look like). This isn’t what convinced me of his legitimacy earlier, but nonetheless, his present actions just seem too fishy – perhaps his source fooled him, since we know he is an incredibly reliable news reporter for the gaming community. Like we said earlier, this may all be fake, and for now we’re going to classify it as such even though it could still be real. If something proves the legitimacy of this news, we’ll revisit this story and the other stuff he showed us. But for now, my sincerest apologies everyone. (Ongoing discussion about all of this here.)

This afternoon we were contacted by a man named Martijn Müller, the webmaster of an old and famous Zelda website. He claimed to have insider information on Black and White, and after spending a few hours verifying he was who he claimed to be, we decided to indulge and see what he had to say. Granted, we often get a lot of people claiming to know insider information on Pokemon games, with some going to extreme lengths to fool us. However, he has revealed insider information to gaming communities before, which leads us to believe he is telling the truth. He also personally showed me some developer material from Black and White, which further cemented to me that he was telling the truth. Nevertheless, this information could be one highly elaborate scheme (it wouldn’t be the first time), so for now, please just take all of it with a grain of salt – it’s not confirmed and could be fake. As a fan site it is our duty to post rumors when we have gone to reasonable lengths to verify the sources, which is why we decided to post this. Remember, grain of salt!

• There will be 157 new Pokemon, bringing the total amount to 650.
• Like how Giratina compliments Dialga and Palkia, a large, green cobra will accompany Reshiram and Zekrom.
• Tauros will have an evolution: Minotauros. It stands on two legs.
• In previous games, either through moves or through abilities, players were able to alter the weather conditions of the battle field to boost certain types. For example, Groudon’s Drought summons sunlight, which boosts Fire-type moves by 50%. In Black and White, players will be able to collect certain items that alter the weather conditions of the battle field. Approximately twenty of these items will affect the weather conditions so that they will boost certain types (kind of like Stadium cards in the TCG?), with some types getting added bonuses depending on the item. As a side note, in today’s CoroCoro scans, there was a screenshot showing a new weather indicator (we overlooked it), which could give credence to this claim.
• One example will be setting up a Poison Field, which causes all Poison-type attacks to gain 30% accuracy, Sludge Bomb to have a 100% poison rate, and the effects of Toxic Spikes’ poison to have an immediate effect.
• Black and white, good versus evil, and yin and yang are going to play a major part in the plot. However, unlike previous Pokemon games, the decisions and choices you make will “influence” the plot of the game. If you make “good” choices, you might get certain help or items, whereas “bad” choices could have negative effects. The point is that the plot will not be as cut-and-dry as previous games, changing depending on the player’s actions.
• Tsutaaja, Pokabu, and Mijumaru had rough designs over this past year or so, but in the last few months received major overhauls, becoming the final designs we see today.