Last Saturday, Pokémon X and Y has finally released everywhere. While I didn’t look at most of the press releases on some of the new features in this game, I was certainly excited. After playing the game for 24 hours, I would like to share my first impressions on the things I liked and disliked.(Image Source)
The Good
Ability to Play in Any Language
This is a big change compared to past games where one would have to play it in Japanese if you bought a Japanese copy or in English, if you bought it in America. While Pokémon doesn’t use difficult words, if one is at an intermediate level or higher understanding of Japanese, you can probably understand 90% of the story while you have a dictionary near you to look up words you don’t know.
Despite the Nintendo 3DS being region locked, you don’t have to go through the trouble of importing a Japanese 3DS to play it in Japanese. Now, Pokémon X and Y allows you to select any of the 7 languages to play in, including Japanese and Korean. I think this a good thing for people who are learning Japaanese since they can just buy an American copy and play it in Japanese. The down side is, like Pokémon Black and White, the game only allows you to choose either かな only or 漢字 and no Furigana, which is helpful for people who are learning these characters.
Full 3D
Coming from the Generation V games, 3D environments and battles are a big improvement for Pokémon X and Y. Of course this makes everything look better and allow for more exciting battles besides looking at a bunch of animated sprites of Pokémon. However, this also allow for more depth in gameplay as you can now ride on Pokémon such as Rhyhorn to cross over the rocky patch of land. Also, you can also move freely opposed to walking in a grid.
Trainer Customization
While I haven’t gotten too far in the game, Pokémon X and Y allows you to finally customize your character just like in Pokémon Battle Revolution, but with more hairstyle and clothing options. I admit that I was excited for this as you can make your character unique compared to the past when everyone looked the same. However, I admit that I want to dress my character in cute clothing when I get the chance. :p
Super Training
Super Training is also a very anticipated feature that allows you to not only to see how much Effort Values your Pokémon earned, but also add a fun way to earn them instead of having to use a Macho Brace and battle hundreds of Pidgeys. I admit that I had a bit more fun doing this compared to the old way. It’s slightly faster since you can earn various bags to aid you or raise a specific stat without doing another round of Super Training. Most importantly, Super Training automatically stops at 252 for a stat you trained for, so you don’t have to worry about going over that limit and mess up your EV Spread like you would if you did it the old way.
Berry Growing Returns
Now, you are given a plot of land to grow harries in and you can also mutate them into new berries. This is a good thing for people who doesn’t use the Dream World feature since Pokémon Black and White required you to do it there since there were no plot of land to grow berries in.
The Bad
Nerfing
While it’s understandable to see why Game Freak nerfed weather abilities and make them only last 5 turns, the thing that bothers me about Pokémon X and Y is that they also nerfed some of the popular moves. While a drop of power by 5 for moves like Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf and Flamethrower is not a big deal breaker, the nerfing of more powerful moves like Fire Blast and Thunder by 10 makes even less sense as they slightly lack accuracy. Compared to some moves like Stealth Rock, which I would like to see nerfed a bit still have the same damage and devastates some Pokémon. There goes Charizard, back into “neverused” tier. I doubt his mega evolution will make that much of a difference (except his X form, which doesn’t have a 4x weakness to Rock type moves).
The Ugly
This Game Breaking Bug
While Pokémon isn’t completely free of glitches such as the Sky Drop bug in Pokémon White and Black that prevents the target Pokémon from moving after using Gravity, X and Y has a game breaking glitch that if you save in Lumiose City (excluding inside buildings), you might get stuck. Just watch the video to see how bad this glitch is. Of course, the only way to resolve this is either starting a new game or taking out the SD card. Since 3DS games are patchable, I see Game Freak fixing this bug rather quickly.
Overall, while Pokémon X and Y has a few rough edges, I am enjoying this game quite a lot and it’s possibly be one of the best out of the series in my opinion. While I haven’t gone through all the new features like the Mega Evolutions, Pokémon Interacting and Fairy types, I will share more about them in the final review.
With that, what is your opinion about the new Pokémon Games? Are you enjoying it thus far?
Also, I’m live blogging my adventures in Pokémon Y over at my sideblog. If you want to add me to your friends list, my 3DS friend code is 2406-5224-9162 (See Below Image). Please share yours in the comments if you want me to add you. I will only accept people that I know.
I finally got my copy yesterday, and I’m really excited for all the things that you mentioned! I had no idea that some of the moves were nerfed, though. I use some of those a lot… Ouch…
If you’d like to add me, my friend code is: 0688-5759-5763
While I haven’t been that active with the 5th Generation metagame, I’m at least glad that permanent weather is finally gone as Sandstorm, Sunny Day and Rain Dance is rampant, especially when you have Nintetales and Politoed. On the other hand, at least Hidden Power is fixed, so one only has to worry about getting perfect IVs just to get a powerful HP. Still, it will be interesting to see how Fairy types will play as Dragon types has been too powerful in the past.
Also, I will add your friend code shortly.
I’m getting an error when I try to add your friendcode. D:
I missed typed the last number so I correct it in the post. Try it again and see if it works or not.
Nope, still not working.
Here is a screenshot of my 3DS of my friendcode. Make sure you are registering it using the internet, not locally.
Also, I realized that I mis-typed another number. Sorry about that.
And added! Sorry about all this! ;^_^