Pokemon X And Y

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Nintendo's latest entry into the Pokemon franchise came to 3DS systems on October 12 - Pokemon X and Y.Continuing the ongoing series of Pokemon, X and Y introduce the fewest new Pokemon of any generation, with this generation capping at 68 new known Pokemon. Of course, Nintendo also tried to recapture the sense of truly unknown adventuring that the first two generations of Pokemon gave without the knowledge being all over the internet by doing a worldwide release. That didn't stop a certain individual from getting his hands on the games early and leaking limited information, but this information was soon removed from the internet by him at Nintendo's request to avoid legal action. Carrying over on that sense of unknown adventure, there is the potential that X and Y have pokemon in them that players have yet to discover, including event Pokemon that are, as of yet, impossible to find through the typical means of using an Action Replay or other hacking methods, since the 3DS has very few known hacks/exploits for it.

 

The Kalos region's true and arguably most important claim to fame is the new concept of Mega-Evolutions, which some criticize for being extremely close to Digimon's digivolving system (all the way down to using "Mega" as a prefix), in which during battle, one of your active Pokemon that has a corresponding Mega Stone will be transformed into the Mega-Evolution, giving them stat bonuses and in most cases, a new ability. This change only lasts for that battle, at which point your Pokemon will return to its normal form. As a direct effect of not being able to hack items into the game or view the game's data (yet), players are still unsure if the known Mega-Evolutions are the only Mega-Evolutions there will be, or if Nintendo has more planned down the road.

 

Another new game feature that X and Y have brought to the table is true ability to customize your trainer character in a variety of ways. Gone are the simple times of "Are you a boy or a girl?", now you can choose a skin color/hair color from the start, and later in the game can purchase and find a variety of accessories and clothes to completely change up your look and have a truly unique character. To many, this is an appealing addition, since in previous Pokemon games, players were restricted to representing themselves to other players as one of the many different in-game trainer types rather than a personalized avatar.

 

To end out the new feature list, raising your Pokemon with love and kindness has taken a new gameplay role in X and Y, as they will now respond to your affection during battle in the form of recovering from status effects early, resisting critical hits, or even refusing to faint. You can build bonds with your Pokemon by petting them and making faces for them using the 3DS' self pointing camera in the game's sub-application Pokemon-Amie (a clever pun). Through a series of minigames, you can also train your Pokemon's effort values (EVs) in a quicker and easier fashion than the previous generations' focus on grinding constantly on the same type of Pokemon.

 

Overall, Pokemon's sixth generation, at a casual glance, looks as if it doesn't bring as much to the table as previous generations, but when you look deeper into the game, beyond the low number of new Pokemon added, you see that it has a lot going for it. Stay tuned for December, when Nintendo launches Pokemon Bank and Poke-Transfer apps for the 3DS family of handhelds, which will allow players to transfer their beloved Pokemon from previous games to the new generation!