Yet Another Pokemon X and Y thread!

[OrpheusTelos]

Hello, fellow Escapists (Escapers? Escapees?)!

I'm sure a discussion very similar to this has been brought up before, but I still wanted to ask a question about the latest Pokemon games, X and Y.

Now, I haven't really played through a Pokemon game since FireRed version on the GBA. As a child I was absolutely enraptured by Pokemon, watched the cartoon and played the everloving hell out of the Game Boy Advance titles. I credit Pokemon for my continued interest in video games, RPGs in particular. Unfortunately my interest in the series itself waned during high school and, outside of a brief foray into Black version (which I recognized as a good game but got really bored and stopped playing after the fourth gym), I haven't played any of the recent Pokemon games.

Which brings me to X and Y. These games look mighty appealing- what with 3D graphics and all the returning classic Pokemon- and since all my friends are singing this game's praises as "The Best Pokemon Game Ever" and I have a month until Zelda: ALBW comes out, I'm sorely tempted to pick up a copy of X (I like Xerneus' design). However, my experience with Black left me slightly cold, and had me convinced that Pokemon as a series wasn't for me anymore.

Will X change this? What significant improvements have been made since the DS installments? Will a lapsed trailer such as myself find it enjoyable?

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. FireRed was the last Pokemon game I actually completed and I really didn't like any of the DS games. I find myself really enjoying X though. The updated graphics and animations make the battles much more of a spectacle now and they are very fun.

I just wish it were more challenging, and had a properly good storyline. I know the metagame is incredibly deep but playing through the story is like playing through "baby's first JRPG".

 

[OrpheusTelos]

I had....eerily the exact same story as you. Played Red as a kid. Watched the cartoons growing up. Didn't touch it till Black came out and gf convinced me to get it.

I hated it. Though hate might be a strong word. I didn't feel like it had improved any since my childhood. My pokemon were still tiny sprites, and training/battling was still the only thing to do. I actually returned my copy of Black back to the store because I didn't play it.


But, I did pick up Y, and I'm actually really enjoying it. The exp sharing keeps leveling from being tedious. The Pokemon Amie (the close up part where you can feed/pet your pokemon) gives me a solid connection to them as opposed to them just being tiny sprites. And there's more stuff to do (like super training, and the minigames). And the fact that the pokemon you see are a mixture of every generation keeps things from being boring.

Not to mention Wonder Trading, which lets you send any pokemon you don't want into cyberspace to trade with a random person from around the globe for stuff they've put up.

I don't "strongly recommend" things, but it feels like a different beast to me, and I certainly enjoy it more than I ever did Black or Red.

That is rather uncanny. xD

That's what I'm hearing some some of my friends who have the game (who, to be fair, have been Pokemon fans from the start and have kept up with the past generations), that it makes enough significant improvements that it feels fresh.

 

[k7avenger]

Pokemon X (and I assume Y as well, but I only have X) might just be my new favorite generation of pokemon. All three sarters look decent, the graphics received a massive upgrade, and it would be a crime not to mention how much easier it is to train EVs with super training. Over all, it may be one of the better generations for pokemon.

That being said, it really is the same game that you played back then. The battle system is the same. The menu navigating you do when swapping pokemon is the same. The story is the same, yadda yadda yadda. Fairy type pokemon are new, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. There just aren't enough fairy types to really diversify yourself in that field. There aren't very many fairy attacks either, or so I noticed. And while I like the fact that they were trying to not only make dragons a little bit weaker, but make steel and poison more appealing, I think it would have worked out better if they just made poison and steel super effective against dragons. God knows poison needs some offensive capabilities. It just seems like they threw a middle man in where it wasn't needed. I'm not hating against fairy types, I mean I enjoy new types as much as the next person. However they could have accomplished the above without throwing in a new cog, ya know? And hell, I could count the number of dragon types I ran into while going through the story line on my hands.

Oh, and there's very little post game content after you defeat the elite 4.

My suggestion, if you were bored of it before, your going to be bored of this one too. I mean the game really has improved from previous generations, but well, when you polish an old trophy, its still a trophy at the end of the day. Shiny, and maybe smells better, but still the same as before. But if you just can't resist the siren's call, well there's worse generations to play, thats for sure.

 

[k7avenger]

Oh, and there's very little post game content after you defeat the elite 4.

Pokemon games have post-game? Keep in mind I haven't really played since Red (and a little Black), I had just assumed Pokemon post-game was either starting a new game, battling your friends, or collecting all 150....errr...700 pokemon.

Never really occurred to me that there should be stuff to do after the Elite Four. huh

Well, some more than others. For instance, gold and silver had Kanto you could go explore, and black and white 2 had like half the map you could go run around in afterwards. I suppose its not hugely important in that pokemon has a fair amount of replay value, but some things mean more to some people.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I swear what is with everyone hating on Black?! It always the same thing I see in so many posts talking about getting back into Pokemon, "I play for a bit and get stop because it sucks." I know, differing opinions and all that, but I genuinely want to ask why people stop playing Black and White so quickly. Yet, I never hear that about other Pokemon games despite they all have very similar feels.

It doesn't help that the game gets a lot more engaging later on, and has one of the best if not best Pokemon post game content compared to the others. Sorry for the rant, but I just really want to know, what makes it so awful to so many players?

 

[SillyBear]

The story is woeful. Apart from that, it is the best pokemon game ever made.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Just to be clear this is coming from a guy who haven't finish the game yet-

Thank to making the Exp share as key item and sharing out the full experience to your party and aswell gaining experience when you capture a Pokemon, the game as become too easy which is a good and bad thing.

Sure this is handy at the start of the game but if you don't turn it off at some point in the game, you will have yourself having overlevel Pokemon meaning they won't listen to you.

Combining with the poor layout (it take you a while to get to the third gym after the second).

Sure the 3d graphic is a huge step and being able to move in all directiom, but the movement is iffy at the start. Granted they could of improve the movement in that city when it come to 3rd person (seriously why doesn't the camera stayed behind you when you turned?).

Despite of that flaws I still find it an enjoyable game and I actually prefered the Gen 6 Pokemon over the Gen 5 (Black and White) despite having the least amount of new Pokemon in the game. Sure there are plenty of Gen 6 Pokemon that I liked (no I ain't one of those people who loathe Tubbish but Timburr and its evolved form on the other hand) but some of them had poor stats.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I can't say for Diamon/Pearl or Black/White, but Pokemon X(from what I've seen so far) is infinitely more story driven than Gens 1-3. Well, there is infinitely more character interaction, in this one, at least. I lost interest at around Diamond/Pearl, but Pokemon X is quite fun. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

I swear what is with everyone hating on Black?! It always the same thing I see in so many posts talking about getting back into Pokemon, "I play for a bit and get stop because it sucks." I know, differing opinions and all that, but I genuinely want to ask why people stop playing Black and White so quickly. Yet, I never hear that about other Pokemon games despite they all have very similar feels.

It doesn't help that the game gets a lot more engaging later on, and has one of the best if not best Pokemon post game content compared to the others. Sorry for the rant, but I just really want to know, what makes it so awful to so many players?

I wouldn't say Black and White were awful. Since it was the newest game in the series (at the time), I think a lot of Pokemon absentees such as myself decided to give it a go. And since it's, like you said, very similar to prior games in the series, many people who found that they weren't engaged with it and used it as an indicator that they weren't interested in the series anymore.

 

[Hero of Lime]

those icecream cone pokemon (I kid, I kid)

Like STY said, Black/White, being the most recent games out there, was what a lot of people trying to get back into Pokemon got.

And then came the dawning realization that Pokemon, outside of a few graphical upgrades, hasn't really changed in 20 years.

And the idea of a group fighting to free pokemon from their trainers (mirroring the joke theory that pokemon is just colorful dog fighting) was interesting until the 20 minute mark where they revealed that the bad guys were actually evil, ruining any idea of them releasing pokemon for..good?

I didn't even make it to the end game (even though I really really wanted to catch some other-gen pokemon) I beat all 8 gyms, I just couldn't be bothered to train my pokemon enough to beat the elite four.

Black/White wasn't bad, it just wasn't different enough to be interesting for me.

I wouldn't say Black and White were awful. Since it was the newest game in the series (at the time), I think a lot of Pokemon absentees such as myself decided to give it a go. And since it's, like you said, very similar to prior games in the series, many people who found that they weren't engaged with it and used it as an indicator that they weren't interested in the series anymore.

Thanks for the well thought out responses. My writing probably made it sound like I was really disgruntled, but I'm glad you guys gave your reasons for why you didn't care for the game. I just see so many responses similar to yours all over the internet, and I finally just had to ask a few people. While I don't quite agree on some issues, I understand where you're coming from, and again, it's all up to preference.