Mixing Those X and Y Chromosomes

POKÉMON X & Y (3DS – Originally Released October 12th, 2013) Edited by Chè Love

I have always wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was.  I have traveled to various worlds to battle with the best and won many.  When going in to the newest generation of Pokèmon,  I was concerned.  They were running out of colors and I had not seen many Pokèmon details.  Then came X and Y.

Pokèmon X and Y (insert chromosome joke here) takes place in the Kalos region (which was inspired by France) adding 69 new Pokemon to the PokeDex. You meet up in the neighboring town of Aquacorde Town and meet up with Trevor (a trainer who is very curious of Pokèmon and wants to complete the PokèDex), Tierno (a kid who wants to DANCE!), Shauna (who is not sure what she wants to do and is very fickle) and either Serena or Calem (depending on which gender you pick).  With these other trainers you will be ready to start a new adventure.   You choose between three Kalos Pokèmon to start the adventure and move out.  You can either have Fennekin ( the Fire type), Froakie (the Water type) or Chespin (the Grass type).  The difference this time is that you have to face off against your strength (so if you choose Water, your first battle is with a Fire type) and the Pokèmon know a move of their own type from the beginning.  This makes the first battle a lot easier for new players to jump in to.  However, those of you who have played Pokèmon before, will be a little bit disappointed on the lowered difficulty.

You meet Professor Sycamore in the town of Lumiose City (two towns away from your hometown of Vaniville Town) and he gives you a Kanto starter as well!  So if you had gotten the Torchic from the start (for those who bought the game when it first came out) you have now 3 starters from 3 different generations! I feel at this point that this game is gearing towards a new generation of trainers (hence X and Y) and that is why there are basically GIVING away Pokèmon.  X and Y might as well be known as the Oprah of Pokèmon (You get a starter! and YOU get a starter!  Look under your chair, ITS A STARTER POKÉMON!!!!!)  I am not saying this is a bad thing, however, this hurts a part of your audience when you focus more on the newer generation and almost ignore the older ones.  This is a flaw I would like to see fixed in future games as it deters me from playing more Pokemon games without having to set house rules on myself.

There are many changes, including the intro to wonder trading.  Basically,  it is trading with a random person from anywhere in the world.  I may have been a jerk and sent out a ton of Bidoofs to the crowd but that’s my prerogative! This makes trading easier and a lot of fun!  The options of getting Pokèmon from different countries around the world is awesome, however, if they evolve they lose the region tag.  There is also a change in exp. share; before, when a Pokèmon held an exp. share, it would share points with Pokèmon that were in battle.  Now, with exp. share on (no longer a hold item), you would split the points with the team (those in battle will get more but this option can be turned off in the settings menu).  Frankly, I found this to be TOO useful as I would be way over leveled when I got to each gym.  I tried it out because it was a new feature to experiment.  This turned out a bit TOO useful as I found myself going in to gym battles way overpowered and felt bored by the time I reached the Elite Four.

There is also a new type of Pokèmon to try to balance the dragon types called Fairy.  It’s quite powerful and even the legendary Pokèmon Xerneas is a Fairy type.  They are strong so I highly recommend you have one on your team in battles.  The Fairy type was meant to not only to help balance the metagame of the Dragon type, but also to add a bit of synergy to the other types.  Fairy Pokèmon are weak to Poison, Fire and Steel types but are strong against Dragon, Dark and Fighting type Pokèmon.  I feel this was a welcomed addition to the Pokèmon universe and hope more Fairy types are implemented in future games.  Plus, they are so cute and adorable!

Also a new add on is the mega evolutions.  Mega Evolutions are like… Digivolutions.  If you have ever watched Digimon, creatures would Digivolve when needed to be more powerful, but then revert back to their base form when energy is lost.   This is sort of what happens with Mega Evolutions.  You will at one point in the game receive a Mega bracelet.  If you have a special bond with a Pokèmon who holds a Mega Stone, you can Mega Evolve into an even more powerful Pokemon.  You can only Mega Evolve ONE Pokèmon ONCE per battle.  This is where I feel the team dropped the ball.  They picked specific pokemon as their first set of mega evolutions but none of the Kalos starters got one.  In fact, as of right now the ONLY Kalos Pokèmon with a mega evolution is Diancie and that one is a legendary download!  There are only about 70 pokemon in the generation and it doesn’t get you excited when your older Pokemon are cooler than the younger ones.

Overall, X and Y made some drastic changes and some were good.  The introduction to wonder trading, new type and the introduction to mega evolutions were fantastic and I cannot wait to see what happens next.  However, the small amount of Pokèmon, the lack of mega evolutions in the new generation and the quick story make me wonder what happened. I hope the next installment cleans up this mess. Show me your mega stones.