Pokémon X (2013)

I'm back with another review within this franchise. Today I want to detail my recent playthrough of Pokemon Y. This is a generation that I have replayed 4 times over the last 12 years or so, but today I want to give my review on Pokemon X/Y. I chose to replay Pokemon Y in anticipation for Legends Z-A (which I'm currently playing through as of writing this review, expect my review on that in the near future). I've always been partial to Y over X since I definitely prefer Yveltal to Xerneas. I think in the 4 playthroughs I've done of these games, 3 out of 4 have been Y playthroughs. Anyways, here's my review/ramble.

I want to start by talking about Pokémon XY as a whole. I remember seeing these games announced in early 2013, being excited for a few months, and then losing interest. I was in the 6th grade when these games were announced, and by the time they released, 7th grade me went through that phase a lot of Pokemon fans go through where they stop caring about Pokemon and "grow up." It wasn't until Spring 2015 that my curiosity peaked for the franchise again, and I really wanted to play Y. I bought my childhood friends' 3ds off of him, sunk about 40 hours into Pokemon Y, then sold my friends 3ds and Pokemon Y around for a profit. Yeah, idk. I guess I just had a momentary interest in Pokemon again, and after beating Y it disappeared. I chose Chespin as my stater, as I had always planned on doing, and I remember enjoying the game, but when it was over I guess I stopped caring again. That was my first go-around with Pokemon Y. A year and a half later, after working my first summer job, I was fully invested in Pokemon once again and after buying a pre-owned 3ds Xl from GameStop, playing Omega Ruby, I hopped back into Y for a second playthrough before Sun and Moon's Release. I remember kinda speeding through this playthrough as well due to wanting to finish it before Sun and Moon released. I don't remember much from this playthrough, though I do know I once again chose Chespin as my starter. I think my final team ended up being Chesnaught, Blastoise, Krookodile, Weavile, Lucario, and Talonflame? I'd have to look but it was something like that. I kinda just replayed it to refresh my memory before Sun and Moon, and then a year later in 2017, I came back to finally Play X version. I chose a different starter in Froakie this time, and I think my team was something like Greninja, Florges, Raichu, Toxicroak, Pangoro, and Charizard. It's fun to look back on and see what Pokemon I liked nearly a decade ago compared to now. Greninja has actually lost it's appeal to me over time: I can't get behind the fact that his mouth is just constantly open with his lounge hanging out now. IDK it just doesn't hit the same for me as it did when I as a teen. Raichu, Pangoro, Charizard, and Toxicroak are all still fine Pokemon IMO, but I'm not sure what persuaded me to use Florges back then. I don't think it's a terrible Pokemon, just not one that I'd probably plan on using again. Anyways, I just wanted to lay out my full history with XY before I get into my recent playthrough which I obviously remember much more of. Overall, I think I can say that my playthroughs of XY were always kind of mid. I think has to do with a variety of reasons which I'll get into, but these are very middle of the road Pokemon games to replay.

Now let's talk characteristics of these games. First off the story. It's uh. It's there? IDK man, the Story of XY has always been kinda lame to me. Super interesting lore with the ancient war, AZ, and mega evolution, but the actual story you play is pretty standard for a Pokémon game. I won't say it's the worst in the franchise (looking at you SwSh), but it's kind of down there for me personally. I feel like nothing really happens? Team Flare isn't the worst team in the franchise, and I have grown fond of Lysandre over the years, but it doesn't reach the heights of say Gens 4 or 5. The friend group is not all that exciting, though I don't hate the rival in this game. They're inoffensive, but not annoyingly hyper like other rivals in the series. Poor Dinatha is one of the worst champions in the series due to her non-involvement. I like a lot of the Gym Leaders like Viola, Ramos, and Wulfric though. Professor Sycamore has grown on me over the years as well. He's a good professor imo. Routine Pokemon story of get all gym badges, defeat evil team, beat elite 4. The post game with Looker and Emma is interesting, but can be beaten in about 2 hours. Just kind of mid all around in terms of story imo.

The OST here is rather poor for Pokemon standards sadly. My favorites from the OST are Lysandre's theme, AZ's theme, Sycamore's theme, Anistar City, Snowbelle City, Boutique theme, and the powerplant/pokeball factory theme. Oh, I also really like the main trainer battle theme. Possibly the best in the series imo. The use of the electric guitar is just awesome. Routes often reuse a lot of the same OST, and unfortunately most of that reuse is pretty bland imo. The one I enjoy is route 15, and even then I can name dozens of better route themes within the series. I think XY has a weak OST comparing it to the rest of the series. The legendary theme is good, but not great. Gym leader theme is ok. Elite 4 theme is good, but takes a while to get going. Overall, not a stellar performance.

The locations/environments here actually look pretty good. With XY being the first mainline games in the series to jump to 3D, I think cities and towns look good. Ambrette Town and Cyllage City are cool coastal towns, Geosenge is nestled peacfully, Courmaline has a cool monorail, Laverre is straight out of an Autumn fairy-tale, Dendemille has cool windmills, Anistar has a great theme and cool lore with the sundial, Couriway has they majestic waterfalls, and Snowbelle is maybe my favorite Wintery town in the whole franchise. I want to live in Snowbelle City. I gotta be honest here though, chat. I hate Lumiose City. I hate navigating it. I hate the way it looks. I hate the OST. It's a nightmare. I know this was the biggest city GameFreak had worked on up to this point, but I was not impressed. I still find myself getting lost in the Lumiose, and not in a fun "exploratory" way. I was skeptical with Legends Z-A strictly taking place in Lumiose, but I'm happy to say that I think it's much better implemented there. The city is still kind of boring, but I like the OST a lot more, and it's much easier to navigate. I think the Kalos region is beautiful, and has plenty of towns/cities to show it off.

Pokemon design time. This generation has the lowest amount of new Pokemon added to a new generation in the history of the series. Only 72 new Pokemon designs were added. Unfortunately, imo, most of these new designs were duds. I love love love a select few of these mons though. The Chesnaught line is still one of my favorite Grass type starter choices. Its recent new mega revealed in Legends Z-A makes me love it even more, that is a top tier mega. Talonflame is still one of my favorite starting bird Pokemon, tied with Staraptor and Corviknight. Phantump/Trevenant are like a top three ghost Pokemon for me, amazing designs. Noivern is a top tier dragon type pokemon for me. Pangoro is probably my favorite bear Pokemon in the franchise, and Tyrantrum is a cool fossil T-Rex. Yveltal is a cool legendary Pokemon, Xerneas is ok, and I really only like Zygarde in it's 100% form and even then it's just ok. Everything else is kind of meh to me. I know there are other fan favorites in this generations like Aeigslash, Greninja, and Hawlucha, but those just aren't for me. Also, the most recent eeveelution in the series, Sylveon, was introduced in this generation. I hate it lol. It's design is just not for me. It's my least favorite eeveelution to date. The fairy type as a whole is one of my least favorite types tbh. To this day still one of the strongest typing competively speaking though. Just not a ton of fairy type Pokemon that I enjoy.

While I don't like a lot of the new Pokemon introduced in this generation, this generation also introduced a new battle mechanic known as Mega Evolution and I absolutely love it. 28 old Pokemon from previous generations were given mega evolutions forms, and I like about 75% of them. Of course popular Pokemon like the Kanto starters, Lucario, Gengar, Tyrantitar, and Garchomp were all given mega evoultions, but some less popular Pokemon like Medicham and Abomasnow also received love. Mega evolution is so cool. The designs are usually pretty sick, and they basically make Pokemon OP during a battle. Unfortunately, you can't use a majority of the megas until the post game of XY. You get a free Kanto starter and a Lucario pretty early on, but other than that, that's it. I think you can get Aerodactyl, Ampharos, Gengar, and Abomasnow and a few more before post game, but don't quote me on that. You can't use a lot of the cool new Mega Pokemon prior to completing the main game. Luckily, Lucario has a badass Mega that I've enjoyed using previously. The 2 Charizard Megas (of couse he gets 2, duh), Gengar, Aerodactly, Ampharos, and Abomasnow also have great megas imo.

Ok, so that was the meat of my review for XY as a whole. Now I want to discuss my recent playthrough.

My most recent playthrough back into Kalos was different from previous playthroughs. For starters, there was none. No like actually, I refrained from picking Chespin again. This is because I wanted to use a Mega Chesnaught in Legends Z-A, so I refrained from using one here to avoid the potential burnout. Yeah, we all know how that panned out. I was unable to use a Mega Chesnaught in Legends Z-A because it's locked behind the Season 3 ranked battle system, so i have to wait and do another Legends Z-A playthrough with my beloved Chesnaught later. Oh well.

My team for this Y playthrough consisted of Ralsei the Mega Ampharos, Slurpee the Lapras, SoundCloud the Noivern, Yggy the Trevenant, Jotaro the Pangoro, and Griffith the Talonflame. Ralsei is a character from Deltarune. Slurpee is based of this funny 7/11 promo card in the TCG featuring Lapras that I became obsessed with. I think I'll post a pic of it to end my review. SoundCloud based off of the music app. Yggy is a character from Kirby that has shiny Trevenant colors. Jotaro from this one bizarre adventure. Griffith as in the leader of the "Band of the Hawk." Yes, a very interesting team to run through Kalos with. All were their shiny variants, and I started the game with all of them at level 5. Yes, I totally obtained all mons through regular means and not hacks. Anyways, this was a tough playthrough and I not really sure why. A lot of my team evolved late, and didn't have great stats. I didn't want to go crazy with Mega evolution as I knew I'd be using it a lot in Z-A, plus you can only Mega evolve once/battle in XY so I figured I'd just use my Ace Mega being Ampharos, a Pokemon I adore dearly. I didn't use the EXP Share at all, and man, this was probably the most I've struggled in XY in all my playthroughs.

I took notes of some "story highlights" and head canon lore that I added to my playthrough, and that was fun. Below you'll see what I mean in terms of this being a tough playthrough. You can skip this part if you don't really care about my personal experience too much.

-Ralsei evolved into Ampharos at the Kalos Powerplant, enhanced with the electricity flowing around.

-Griffith evolved into Talonflame on route 14 (swampy/autumn leaves route) right before Laverre City Gym Battle.

-Griffith Solo'd Valerie's entire fairy team. My god, this and the battle before it with Clemont were tough battle for my team.

-Yggy evolved into Trevenant on route 15 (Brun Way, this route is also covered in Autumn leaves much like shiny Trevenant)

-Jotaro evolved into Pangoro inside Lysandre's Cafe (Team Flare Hideout)

-Mega Ralsei defeated Lysandre's Mega Gyarados barely in Lysandre's final battle. Clutched up fr

-SoundCloud (Noivern) came in CLUTCH against Wilkstrom (elite 4 steel type member). It was my last last pokemon and took out 3/4 of Wilkstrom's Pokemon. Noivern has always been a favorite of mine.

-Bruh. Comin down close between champion Diantha and me. She knocked out Griffith with her Ghourgeist. Only Yggy remains. Yggy comes in. I know her ghourgeist is likely faster. I go for a phantom force. Ghourgeist also uses phantom force. Because Ghourgeist is faster, Yggy moves after and connects with his own phantom force KOkng Ghourgeist. Dianthas gardevoir is in now. It’s 14 levels higher than my Yggy. Pretty sure it knows shadow ball. Yikes. We shall see. Imma go for the destiny bond and see what happens. YGYYYY MY FUCKIN GOAT. Just survived a shadow ball from a mega evolved gardevoir with 26 health left. Destiny bond connected. This fight will end with both of our mons knocked out I think. Yep. OH FUCK. Both our mons went down but ig diantha won the fight. Bullshit if you ask me wtf. Imma leave this part here cause Yggy was amazing here and that would’ve such cool ending but no. I’ll rematch.

-“Canon” victory came from destiny bond Yggy against the mega gardevoir again, except I had SoundCloud (Noivern) in the back so I kept one mon alive.

-Going into the post game I was super underleveled against Serena (like 15 lvs under) so I did have to pump some rare candies into my mons in order to even odds (sorry not sorry cause i didn’t play with exp share turned on)

So yeah. There's my very lengthy review of Pokemon XY. Not my favorite game in the series, but not my least favorite. Again, middle of the road. I doubt I'll revisit this generation outside of Legends Z-A for a longggg while. Sorry for my ramblings, I just like to document my thoughts on this site and I'm bored at work rn. Feel free to respond at any point in the future to discuss anything Pokemon with me! It's my favorite franchise and I love to nerd out about it. Au revoir!

This game is far from a perfect pokemon game but the designs for the generation are incredibly good, mega evolution is such a fun way reinvigorate some pokemon (can't wait for it come back), and for their first 3D game you can tell there was a lot of care and attention to detail for the Kalos region.

Honestly this would be one of my favorite pokemon games of all time if it wasn't for the fact that it feels severely unfinished. I'd guess the development team just ran out of time on this one. But at least what we have is very good, at least in my opinion.

4 / 5 Stars

Playing this game on -redacted- is such an incredible experience. Really looking forward to the switch 2 generation of pokemon.

This is just a really well made pokemon game. Hoping that the switch 2 generation of pokemon can have good performance.

I own many pokemon games but this might be my favorite of the past few years. Good music, a chill vibe and a modern take on the formula. The creative use of camera angles really does make me wonder what we might have gotten if the games stuck to the tile based layout. You'll have a eureka moment after play the new games coming back to this.

• You can't move the camera, so you need to memorise the layout of the environment.
• The terrian provides creatively placed items and trainers.
• Pokemon moves can zoom out the camera
• The smaller scope means the screen is always dense with people, items and objects of importance.

I have played through Pokémon Y twice now. Despite the great new content that X and Y add to the Pokémon franchise (Mega Evolutions, new abilities, PSS, etc.), the games are horrifically underbaked.

Why? Well, either play testing wasn't sufficient to address the games' issues, or play testing was sufficient and they decided to release this pile of utter mediocrity. The reason I think this is because the game is clearly not built with EXP share in mind. Key battles are too close together and/or the EXP share over-levels you far too easily. This isn't a problem with the EXP share per se, but rather the developers' inability to balance it so that it levels your party in a way that matches your opponents in a typical playthrough. This is especially true late-game, as you'll find your Pokémon at least 10 levels above the final gym leader, Elite Four, and Champion without really trying.

This sounds like a big ask, but it isn't. Far larger RPGs (such as the Persona games) implement an experience share system which can level your party in an appropriate manner for a far larger (and longer) game. While Pokémon is (and always will be) too easy, there is no excuse for such an oversight in a game that is hardly huge expansive. Absolutely no effort has been made to address this issue. The best thing you can do is turn EXP share off.

Oh, wait. Remember how I said that Pokémon games are always easy? Well, this takes the biscuit. Throughout the game, opposing trainers have too few Pokémon (usually three or four at most even at the late-game), and opposing trainers' Pokémon in key battles might not even have a complete moveset. Again, no excuses can be made here. Previous games rarely presented this issue.

And this goes without saying that, as with most Pokémon games, there is little semblance of a story, plot or characters. And speaking of plots, the main antagonist's plot doesn't make sense and is arguably contradictory.

Despite all of this, there are some good points. As with all Pokémon games, the fact that they're JRPGs with fully customisable party members is a treat. Additionally, having the multiplayer functions implemented into the lower screen is pure genius. It's called the PSS and it's convenient and updates nearby players and interactions in real time. Sun and Moon really missed a trick by ditching the PSS, that's for sure.

Secondly, the additions of new Mega Evolutions, Pokémon, abilities, and the Fairy type really contributed to a more diverse competitive scene, while the super training feature made EV training as accessible as it had ever been up until Sun and Moon's release.

Overall, X and Y aren't terrible, just the perfect example of the all-to-easy, underbaked and under-tested state of recent Pokémon games.

This is a pretty solid Pokemon game. But aren't they all? My difficulty with Pokemon is that they never really wow me on any front but creature design (maybe character design) when I first play through. It took however many years since this was released (I know its close to a decade don't you dare remind me) for me to revisit it and really be able to appreciate it outside the confines of Pokemon's neverending capitalism. Was this game made because there were fresh ideas just waiting to pop out? No! It was made so we could have another Pikachu Shinkansen decal! But new ideas there were and they were executed well.

X/Y is the perfect length for a Pokemon game and, along with Sun/Moon, hits a critical point, I think, with sheer amount of Pokemon. It metes them out slowly and evenly and gives you a chance to really build a team you love.

I think that's really the takeaway from Pokemon that's been lost over the years. It's a collection game! It's an exploration game! I don't want to see Pikachu because I'm not going to point at the screen and say "Pikachu!" like the Pokemon Company thinks I am! And it may be a presumptuous claim, but I don't think kids will either! Just saturate it with tidbits of creativity and let me explore.

My last observation is that if this were released a few years later I would have loved to see some Kalosian forms for Pokemon Xp

This is one of the first instances in Pokemon where I honestly feel the game is a downgrade from its predecessor. The only positive aspect I can actually think of from my experience of playing this game is the music (this game has a really good soundtrack) and Mega Evolution as a concept (the execution is a different story...).

While technically better, the 3D graphics are far less aesthetically pleasing than the pixel art in Gen 3, 4 and 5. I am of the belief that a majority of the Pokemon 3D-models looks worse in 3D compared to earlier iterations, with Typhlosion, Meditite, Charizard, Hitmontop, Xatu and Salamance being some of the worst offenders. Some of the new Pokemon looks great, but there are unfortunately only around 70 new ones. I am all for quality before quantity, but according to me there are about as many uninspired or bad designs here as in gen 5. And since gen 5 introduced 156 new Pokemon, the disapointing design decisions doesn't take up as much space of the regional roster. It doesn't help that both Chesnaught and Delphox are disappointing final evolutions of two promising starters. Gen 5 didn't have the best starters either, but in my opinion they are at least tolerable (with Serperior being my favourite of all starters).

The massive pokedex can be appealing when replaying with self-inflicted Nuzlocke-rules, but sadly the region really looses the sense of an eco system when you can find up to 15 Pokemon of completely different types that are not at all explored in the context of their habitat. This also adds to the problem of there being so few new gen 6 Pokemon, since they disappear in the fauna of older ones (less than 15% of all catchable Pokemon are from gen 6).

Some people probably see this as a positive, but I prefer a tighter roster of old and new Pokemon, like in Platinum or Black and White 2. Ironically, instead of feeling a lack of variety as in HGSS or DP, the availability is just overwhelming to me.

Moving on, the game is in a kind of awkward transition stage between the grid based surroundings in the earlier games and the 3D environments found in later ones. While the grid design works with the topdown perspective of gen 1-5, it really frustrates me to move around in this game, especially the clunky switching between roller skates and walking. Add to this a REEEAAALLLY bad in game camera at some times (I'm thinking of you, Lumiose city), and the traversing actually made me frustrated at times.

But the by far worst aspect of this game is the story. The team flare plotline feels unexplored, rushed and actually random at times. I am not going into spoiler territory here, but when a game that has chosen to center the plot around an evil team completely fails to make this team interesting, that is an issue. I don't know what the scriptwriters thought of here, but I would have preferred a game-centered experience like the gen 1-games or a more coherent story telling in the veins of gen 5 or 7 far more than this mess.

Add to this an insultingly low level of difficulty, the addition of Mega Evolutions basically being non-existent in game (Compare this with the excellent use of Dynamaxing in the Sword and shield gym battles as a way of exploring the mechanic in-game) and the obsessive gen 1-nostalgia (we already had RBY, GSC, FRLG and HGSS!!), and my collected experience of this game is that it feels like a lackluster, even somewhat unfinished, addition to the mainline Pokemon series.

It is worth noting that, while I play a lot of Pokemon competitively, I do it mostly on Pokemon Showdown. I started playing Pokemon in 2017, and have not utilised the online functions of other Pokemon games than those from Gen 7 and 8. My experience of watching old videos from the XY VGC torunaments and metagame analyses of VGC and Smogon have given me the impression that this game added some really nice twists to the metagame, but also created an extreme power creep even worse than the one in gen 5, giving many already excellent Pokemon (Legendaries, Psedo-Legendaries, Lucario, Scizor, Blaziken etc) mega evolutions, boosting them to absurd levels of power and in turn invalidating many earlier Pokemon from gen 1-5.

I can understand if someone mainly playing Pokemon competitively that was active when this game was released would rate it higher based on those merits, but I am rating the single player experience only.

my favorite game in the franchise! i love gen 6's pokemon so much, and the story isnt my FAvorite, but im one of those people who dont really care about the pokemon story as much as i care about the pokemon themselves and the gameplay. which is funny cause in most games i care more about the story? pokemon just hits different i guess. idk

my only complaint is that if you play as a boy trainer, you dont get any cute clothes

I can't in good conscience call this a good Pokemon game even if it barely keeps the fundamentals of its combat afloat. Although arguably, Fairy type was incredibly unbalanced during Gen 6 competitive and still is even so now, and Mega Evolutions were a complete bust in either devaluing a shitton of the meta or by making this game pathetically easy. So maybe I can say it breaks the fundamentals at least partly.

Even still, a ridiculously shallow attempt at a story with a region that has no real sense of its identity thanks in no small part to having the "everyone is here" nostalgia bait from all past regions of a Pokemon roster, and no aesthetics identity bar a few areas (seriously isn't this supposed to be France??) and a bleh soundtrack should be enough to deter most people who like this series. And if that doesn't set any interest in fucking flames, then maybe how this is by in large the easiest entry other than Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire with the most pathetic balance I've seen, and it's not even Exp. Share's fault, that's actually fine! They just throw all the good mons your way and have the shittiest teams!

I'm very tempted to call this a bad game in general, but it manages to still have a soul at times, although barely. It's certainly a Pokemon game and it has the amalgamation of features people expect from it. It doesn't royally break apart a good enough structure to make a solid enough rpg. It's meh, I still don't recommend anyone play it. (4/10)