Hello! So today I’m reviewing possibly the most ambitious
and innovative Pokémon games to date, X and Y. I’ll go over 4 main topics:
Graphics, Plot, Gameplay, and Music, and then a conclusion. I will score
everything on a 10-point scale, with 40 being the highest possible score. I’ll
also give an average out of 10 score and a personal score without taking the
critical stuff into consideration. Please be warned, as there are spoilers in
this review. Enjoy!
Graphics
It’s no secret; X and Y have taken a really big step forward
in graphics from Black and White 2. We went from 2D sprites mixed in with some
3D renders to a full-3D rendered game. The 3D effect doesn’t always work in the
overworld, but sometimes you can turn it on in the overworld. The same goes for
battling, except most battles enable to 3D effect of the 3DS. Turning on the 3D
effect will sometimes cause a frame drop, so I usually don’t bother with the 3D
effect in this game. The 3D effect on the 3DS isn’t really the selling point
anymore anyway. The graphics look beautiful and I love seeing all of my
favorite Pokémon in full 3D and how much detail was put into designing all of
their specific animations. The attack animations also look great and don’t feel
repetitive like people claim them to be in the Stadium games. Graphics get a 9.
Plot
We saw a rather deep storyline in Black and White 1 and
while not as much of one, a still rather enjoyable story in Black and White 2.
In X and Y, the story isn’t really as deep as it was in gen 5 but I think it’s
still very interesting for a Pokémon game. The region you explore is amazing.
The region you’ll be exploring is Kalos, which is loosely based off of France.
You’ll even see characters say certain things in French throughout the game
such as au revoir. Even the credits theme has lyrics (but no actual vocals)
that are in both the language it’s set in and French. Kalos is a huge region
with an abundance of all different kinds of Pokémon from all games in the
series. The pokédex for Kalos is GINORMOUS, being split into 3 different
sections; Coastal, Central, and Mountain, each section having around 150 Pokémon,
making the total of around 450 Pokémon for you to catch, train, and battle
with. That is the biggest regional dex in the entire series, with tons of
variety. The evil team in this game is Team Flare, who wants to create a
beautiful world by blowing it up to make it beautiful again. Yeah, I don’t
really like the motive of Team Flare, as it seems to go all over the place. At
least Team Plama had a more straightforward motive, even if they truly had
another thing in mind. The thing they had in mind was explained well enough for
me to understand, but Team Flare is just confusing. I’m not meaning to say
they’re bad, but definitely a step down from what we had in Gen 5. Their boss is Lysandre, who is in the royal
line of Kalos. Lysandre gets this key from an enigmatic character named AZ, who
is over 3,000 years old due to being granted eternal life. AZ had a special
Pokémon named Floette, but it unfortunately died in a war. AZ created a machine
to revive his friend, but doing so cost the lives of many Pokémon to bring
Floette back, and after Floette learned about what AZ had done, it left him. AZ
used the machine to end the war in Kalos. After going into the forest to die,
Xerneas gave him eternal life. Team Flare wants to use that machine to blow up
the world using the energy of Xerneas or Yveltal depending on your version. You
end up capturing the legendary Pokémon, defeating Team Flare, and saving Kalos
from destruction. Then after you defeat the Elite 4 and the champion, Professor
Sycamore throws you a huge parade and AZ challenges you to a battle. After
defeating him, he realizes what he did thousands of years ago and then his
Floette returned to him after all this time. After that he proceeded to write a
detailed letter to Princess Celestia about the magic of friendship. Just
kidding. The story also involves Mega
Evolution, one of the most unexpected yet innovative twists in Pokémon. I’ll
talk more about Mega Evolution in gameplay. There is a very small roster of 69
new Pokémon this time around, but I can forgive Gamefreak. After all, I find
something to like about all of them and I don’t dislike a single evolution
line. That is a perfect generation. They also had to fully animate 649 other
Pokémon as well as bring them into 3D, and when you add all of the alternate
forms and everything, and giving all of them specific animations in
Pokémon-Amie, you really have to cut them some slack on this. The plot gets an 8. It’s interesting enough
but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered about matters like how mega
evolution came to be and who the current Kalos king is.
Gameplay
X
and Y are a blast to play from start to finish. The battles are fun and
engaging and in terms of how addicting these games are it’s pretty much the
Pokémon norm. These games are extremely difficult to put down. So you have your
overworld you travel along, but this time you can zip around on skates and move
diagonally, and trust me it feels great to just move around the environment of
X and Y. The automatic tap and open menu from HeartGold and SoulSilver makes a
return in X and Y, but you can still use the X button to bring it up. The
bottom screen has 3 different things you can switch between; Pokémon-Amie, the
Player Search System (PSS), and Super Training. Pokémon-Amie is basically Nintendogs
+ Pokémon, except it’s more addicting and it actually has an effect on how your
Pokémon likes you and it also raises the likelihood of your Pokémon to land
critical hits in battles as well as randomly shrug off status conditions. Pokémon-Amie
has made me feel a deeper connection between my Pokémon and it and has made
Pokémon seem more real than ever. The PSS is all of X and Y’s online
capabilities in one package. You no longer have to be at a Pokémon Center to go
online to interact with someone. The PSS also has a feature where you can meet
bypassers who are playing the game at the same time as you. If you battle
someone online you can register him or her to your friends/acquaintances list.
There’s also a new feature called wonder trade where you deposit one of your
Pokémon and get a completely random one in return, making it easier to obtain
Pokémon caught by players from other countries. The PSS really makes it feel
like everyone who has X and Y are connected into one large community. The GTS
has gotten an overhaul, with you now being able to offer a Pokémon for any
Pokémon in the game in return instead of only being able to say you want a
Pokémon that you’ve seen. If you enter the name of something that isn’t a real
Pokémon, your offer won’t show up when someone looks up the specific Pokémon
you offered. Super Training is basically EV training made MUCH easier and more
accessible. You play mini-games that involve blowing up giant Pokémon balloons
that grant you extra points for a certain stat. You can also do Core Training
against these punching bags that also raise your stats. It is a great feature
for those who wanna get into competitive battling without having to fight 200
Bidoofs to max out a stat. In the overworld you can ride on Pokémon throughout
your journey and it’s awesome. With some rideable Pokémon such as Mamoswine and
Rhyhorn you can use them to break large boulders in your path. With other
Pokémon like Skiddo you can FINALLY jump over ledges on both sides. I wish the
game had more places with rideable Pokémon, but I like what it has. A new type
has been added, the Fairy type. It finally balances Dragon types so they won’t
destroy all of your Pokémon, even the ones that could be good against them.
Before the Fairy type the Dragon type was weak to only itself and the Ice type,
and with most Dragon types being able to use moves that can counter Ice types,
Dragon was very broken, especially since most Dragon type Pokémon are very
powerful. Going back to talking about mega evolution, mega evolution is a new
addition that makes certain Pokémon mega evolve into their ultimate form. You
just need to give it their specific mega stone and have the Mega Ring, which
you get in the middle of the game, and you can have fun wrecking stuff up.
However, mega evolutions aren’t completely overpowered and just because your
Pokémon is mega-evolved does not mean it automatically will defeat everything
in it’s path, it just gives your Pokémon a power boost. However most mega
evolutions are very powerful and can be near unstoppable in online matches, so
I think they are a little OP, especially Mega Mewtwo X and Y, Mega Garchomp,
and Mega Tyranitar. Mega evolution influences your Pokémon’s stats, ability,
and sometimes their type. Lots of Pokémon that were either useless or got
nerfed after the generation they were introduced in now have more of an edge in
battle thanks to mega evolution such as Charizard, Alakazam, and Mawile.
There’s also a new type of battle, Sky Battles. Sky Battles are battles in
which only flying-type Pokémon and Pokémon with levitate can participate in,
giving a unique twist to battling. You might wanna get a few Pokémon that can
levitate or fly for these kinds of battles. Also you’ll sometimes run into 5
Pokémon in the wild in Horde Encounters, and it feels GREAT to take out 3 or
more Pokémon at once. Gameplay gets a 9. I’ve dragged this on long enough, time
to move on to music.
Music
The
music in X and Y is outstanding and definitely the right foot to start on for
full 3D game soundtracks. While I still prefer Black and White 2’s soundtrack
to this one, I still love the soundtrack of these games. I especially like the
Lumiose City theme, the Aquacord town theme, the Wild Battle theme, and the Gym
Leader theme. Every theme in this game is at lest great. Soundtrack gets a 10.
Conclusion
In
conclusion, Pokémon X and Y are tremendous games. If you haven’t played Pokémon
since the days of Red and Blue or Gold and Silver, then definitely give X and Y
a go. Even if you for some reason loathe all of the newer Pokémon, there are
enough old Pokémon for you to use that you could raise a whole team of classic
Pokémon. These games rival Ruby and Sapphire for being the most innovative in
the series. Yes this game has some issues, but they don’t even hold a candle to
all of the other amazing things about X and Y. The games might have a ton of
unnecessary pandering to the Gen 1 audience and throwback in general, but the
new stuff is just so dam good that it overshadows most of the complaints I have
about X and Y. This is the best Pokémon adventure and experience to date. X and
Y get a 36 out of 40 and an average of a 9 out of 10.
Personal score
[FEELS ALERT] Now even though I gave X and Y a critical score of 36/40 and 9/10, I really must say that personally I’d give these games a higher score. You see, a few days after these games came out and I started playing them, my beautiful dog Hayley was put down. She had been diagnosed with lymphoma, which for those of you who don’t know about it is a type of cancer 4 months prior. She fought very hard and stayed extremely strong and outlived her life expectancy. I can definitely say that she died in the most peaceful way possible. I was deeply saddened by this as my dog meant a lot to me. Possibly more than she did to the rest of my family and maybe even anyone else in the world. She was my best friend and was always there to make me smile. She was very obedient, kind, and at times funny. After she died X and Y very much helped me recover from my dog’s passing. They’re very fun games like I’ve said before and being able to feel a stronger connection to my Pokémon in the ways of Amie and Super Training helped. In a way my Pokémon were there for me now that Hayley wasn’t. Pokémon has truly come a long way in its 17 years of success, and the Pokémon you raise have certainly become more meaningful than just a bunch of pixels and code on a small green screen. You can customize Pokémon a whole lot more in X and Y than you ever could in the main series and everyone has a differently raised Pokémon. I’ve never ever felt this attached to my Pokémon, neither have I felt as strongly about Pokémon since I was young and obsessed with the series. Pokémon in a way feels real now because of this. I’m well aware that it’s fictional, but that doesn’t mean I can feel any less of a connection with it. While I still like Zelda and Super Smash Bros. more than Pokémon, I still hold this series in high regards and it is definitely a series that means a lot to me, and X and Y are partly to thank for that. And for those reasons, I personally give X and Y a near perfect score of 9.9/10 and 39/40. They’re fun, extremely immersive, accessible, and polished, the new Pokémon are the best Pokémon in the series, and they’re beautifully crafted video games. All the throwback hurts it just a little bit though. I’m Ira Eidle and Pokémon X and Y are very close to being my favorite games of all time.
i give it a 10/40
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