Monday, February 10, 2014

Pokemon X and Y are Awesome

The title post is an understatement. I know that I am a little late to jump on this bandwagon and blog about this, but my computer access is very limited and my 3DS access is not.

Pokemon X and Y are exactly what Pokemon needed to revitalize the series. The jump to 3D for Pokemon was as important as was the jump for Mario and Zelda. Gamefreak put so much attention to detail in these games that they are almost like a love letter to fans. I felt the love at least.

So what could be so great about Pokemon? Isn't it still the same standard formula? How could it be so much better? Allow me to answer my own questions.

Yes, it is the same formula, but they took that formula that felt dusty and overused in 5th gen and cleaned it up, waxed it a little, and then coated it in gold. Sweet chocolaty gold. Then they covered it in sprinkles. Diamond sprinkles.

You start out as the new kid in town which is familiar. What is different is that your new friends give you your first Pokemon instead of the professor. You don't even meet the professor for a good while (depends on how fast your play). You get the choice between Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie. These are probably the best starters Pokemon has offered for a long time simply because of their concepts. Chespin becomes a Paladin, Fennekin becomes a wizard, and Froakie becomes a ninja.


The starters have a theme and that theme is RPG classes. I love it so much. There is a starter for each type of gameplay you like. I always choose mage characters in RPGs, so I chose Fennekin and I love it!

Okay, awesome starters, what else makes X and Y so glorious? Remember those diamond sprinkles I talked about? There are so many little things in this game, such an incredible attention to detail. Let me just run down a few awesome little things for you. By themselves these things aren't amazing or groundbreaking, but add them all together and they create something special.

  • When talking to a small child or Pokemon, your character will bend down a bit.
  • You can sit. There are benched all over the place that give you a scenic view.
  • You can customize your character to be a unique person. Its also optional so you don't have to sift through an hours long character creation before you play.
  • You can walk diagonally. You get roller skates not far in the game that give you free movement in any direction. The same is applied for the bike. 
  • Sometimes in battle there will be a tree in the background and using a specific attack will knock a berry out of the tree which you will claim after battle. This is a really small attention to detail as I still haven't actually done this :P
Then there are bigger changes that add more to the game but are still optional.

  • Pokemon Amie, where you can play with your Pokemon similar to Nintendogs. You don't ever even have to look at this feature, it isn't forced at you. But if you decide to play with your Pokemon they will get bonuses in battle like more experience and higher critical hit rates.
  • Super Training, where you can EV train your Pokemon. EV training used to be one of the most monotonous things about Pokemon and a lot of people had no idea how it worked. Now its a fun mini game that gives almost immediate benefit to your Pokemon's stats. Its also completely optional. There isn't even a tutorial in the main game, only if you go looking for it.
  • Along with Super Training making EV's easier, breeding has been tweaked to make understanding and mastering IVs easier. I'm not going to go into depth about what those are, I like not having a headache, but they were super confusing and impossible to control. The tweaks have changed all that.
  • Changes were made to the Exp. Share. Now when it is on all the Pokemon on your team will get experience. This makes grinding levels obsolete. Its also optional and I played through the game with the exp. share off. I used it after beating the story to quickly evolve Pokemon and fill out my Pokedex. It is so much easier to do that now.
After that there are even bigger changes that seamlessly add so much to the game.

  • Mega Evolution. Fans were hesitant at first, but having a few of my favorite old Pokemon get mega evolutions was awesome. It is really fun to bring out Charizard and then upgrade him to a dragon and destroy everything. While I wish a few of my other favorite Pokemon had gotten Mega Evolutions, I am happy with the ones that we got.
  • The Pokedex is massive. There are so many different Pokemon is each route. The options for Pokemon to use in your team are massive. This gives the game huge replayability (stop telling that isn't a word spell check, it is so!) 
  • Speaking of replayability, Pokemon Bank finally happened. Now you can store up to 3000 Pokemon online. You can restart your game without losing all those rare and powerful Pokemon.
  • Wonder Trades. There is an option in the game to allow you to trade one of your Pokemon away in a wonder trade. The game will find you another person who is at the moment also wonder trading. You won't know who you are trading with or what Pokemon they are giving you until you get the Pokemon. This is simple but so awesome. People have started playing the game with what is called a "Wonder Trade Challenge." This is where you catch 6 Pokemon and then wonder trade them all away and then play through the game with the 6 random Pokemon you received. I love this so much.
  • The new Fairy type. There have been mixed reactions to the Fairy type, but I like it even if it doesn't make much sense that Fairies are completely immune to dragons. The reason I like it is because one of my favorite Pokemon, Gardevoir, is now a fairy and she has become even more beast. (Then add a mega evolution on top of that).
Also, just as a side note, there are three additional personal reasons that I love these games so much. One is that while there weren't very many new Pokemon, we got more new dragon types than ever before. On top of that every single dragon type is obtainable in the game. Then there are two Pokemon who mega evolve into dragons (Charizard and Amphoros). DRAGONS! *ahem*

That all being said, there are some problems with the games that I shall here and now address. These problems are minimal in my opinion, but they must be discussed.

The first problem is that there are only about 70 new Pokemon. This is the least amount of new Pokemon we have ever gotten and it is a bit disappointing.

The game is a bit short, especially if you use the Exp. Share. On top of that there is almost no post game. Pokemon usually has a lot of post game, this most certainly did not.

That is pretty much it. I can't think of anything else wrong with the games at the moment. After all that goodness that I just listed, these negatives are minor and insufficient to ruin the game.

DRAGONS! ... Sorry, I love the new dragons.

Anyway, these games are freaking awesome and you need to play them! You NEEEEEEED to. This isn't a want/vs need debate, this is a need. Its a psychological need. Go and play, I beg you, its for your good.