I couldn't find a single thread about this, which kind of surprises me (if there is one someone direct me to it please, I want to post in it) so here we go.

I originally wrote this for a different web site so if there's something I'm not supposed to be talking about on Victory Road that I didn't filter out I'm sorry.



Well, where to start. I'll start with the positives, I guess. They were a bloody work of art. Everything, from the NPC designs, (most) of the Pokémon models, the in-game battle scenes, the landscape, especially the water textures. The Hondege family using Swords Dance. Riding Gogoat. Photos. And, of course, the literal picture book artwork that played during important cutscenes and whatnot. If you don't believe how awesome the graphics are, just go up to any mirror and look at it or go sit in the bench Route 7.



With only a few exceptions, I liked the new Pokémon that were added. I really don't care how stale it is seeing Aegislash competitively, it's still a living sword so any and all complaints can be sent to dev/null. Greninja is (dare I say this again) tongue tied. We have Jack-O-Lanters and haunted trees now. We have a non-legendary phoenix-like thing in Talonflame. Megas were quite cool and have their places to shine, and yet the handful I used didn't feel stupidly overpowered in-game, not even Blaziken. Even the controls were pretty good, considering Pokémon is a franchise that meddles with the world of 3D programming about once a generation. (With one exception that I'll talk about later, I'll rate the controls of this game right up there with games like Super Mario Galaxy.) And if you ever get bored of actually Pokémon for some reason, you can stop to do a few cool minigame-type things like experimenting with berries, torturing your Furfrow by giving it a haircut, horse around with the character videos, feed your Pokémon in Pokémon Amie.



Oh yeah, there's Pokémon Amie. You can pet a Gyarados on the head and make it give you puppy eyes. Yeah, need I say more?



All that being said, the games definitely weren't perfect. I guess I'll start where everyone does when listing things about X and Y: the level curve. It was nonexistant. Even after I stopped using the Experience Share, and even when I wasn't using my Blaziken with the experience multiplier, I stayed about ten levels above my opponents at all times. Every single Gym, Flare and Pokémon League battle was so bloody easy I barely even noticed them. I miss the days of DPPt, where I actually had to strategize to beat the first member of the Elite Four. And after you beat the Elite Four for the first time, you could not rematch them at higher levels (although to be fair the Battle Chateau seems to try to compensate for that a little). In Black and White, the experience function more or less accounted for itself in trying to make sure your team is at least somewhat well balanced, but X and Y's system of taking experience and giving it to everyone just broke the whole thing completely.



Next, we'll talk about the story. Wait, wait. Story? What story? The thing they tried to pass off as "story" was basically a Mad Lib of the mad scientist, destroy world template. I wasn't crazy about the DPPt story because it was rather ludicrous, but this one takes "ludicrous" to a whole new level. Lysandre was . . . a friend of Professor Sycamore? Who also happened to be addicted to beauty? Whose brain somehow took "beauty" and "destroy the world" and equated them? Whaaaaaaaaaa? Yeah, I've played X twice and watched several other people play it, and still don't get it. Also, especially in the last few generations, at least a few of the Gym Leaders and Elite Four members were memorable in someway: Jasmine because of the lighthouse, Crasher Wake because he is basically a Ludicolo in human form, mostly everyone in Unova except maybe Elesa, Pryce because he was slightly creepy. They stepped outside their gyms more than once per year. Well, maybe Juan didn't. They had personalities. The only Gym Leader that I even remembered after finishing the game was Korrina, because of her roller skates and Mega Lucario.

Even the Champion herself, Diantha, all but said "I was shoehorned into this game in the last four minutes of development!"



Now I'll deal with the changes to the metagame. First and foremost, the fairy type. I just don't get it. They threw in the Fairy type to supposedly nerf the Dragon type (and to boost pre-order sales off Sylveon, I'm convinced). Except that doesn't make any sense at all. When they were created fifteen years ago, Dragons were supposed to be mythical creatures. They were supposed to be at least a little bit broken. These days we're giving the honor of Dragon typing to random slugs (sorry, Goomy), bats and pieces of seaweed and at the same time throwing out something that makes Dragon one of the least impressive types in the game. Also, not entirely sure what's with the other type matchups of Fairy. Even obscure existing matchups like Grass > Ground, Ice > Dragon and Fire > Ice make sense when you think about it. But Fairy x Fire and even Fairy > Dragon itself? There have been theories on the Internet, but they're much more obscure and (in the case of Fire) completely nonsensical.



Also with regards to the metagame, this is a little more personal but I think they made too many changes. Before now, generation shifts would only change a few things without blowing the whole thing open. Johto gave us the Dark type and held items. Sinnoh gave us the physical/special split. Unova really only added a few fancy abilities (which turned out to dominate OU, but they couldn't have predicted that). Kalos? Fairies, an otherwise rearranged type chart, rewired moves that have already existed for years, rewired types of Pokémon that have existed for years . . . on top of the pile of new moves, abilities, Pokémon and held items. Guys, I just finished investing many hours into learning the ins and outs of competitive Pokémon in Black and White. Did you really have to turn it all on its head now? I'm surprised they didn't just throw their hands in the air and add a seventh stat category!



Moving on, there were a few things that were exceptionally not fun about the games. There were a few places where it was just badly designed. Inexplicable invisible walls in Parfum Palace's front yard (um, Nintendo, this isn't 1995 anymore). There were dust clouds that chased you around in the desert and sucked you into random encounters - even if you were wearing a repel - with Pokémon that more than likely had Arena Trap, meaning you more than likely weren't going to be able to simply run away. There were a few patches where I couldn't walk more than two or three steps without getting into a battle. Lumiose City, while nice, was simply too big and I ended up getting lost more in there than I did on my first day of college (and even worse, there's relatively little architectural diversity in Lumiose so it all looks the same). After having two generations where nobody ever missed a hidden item, the Dowsing Machine is once again a worthless piece of crap. And in the one place where the controls fell short, they didn't just fall short, they were painful: riding Rhyhorn and Mamoswine was slow and hard to control.



Then there are a number of things that didn't take the transition to 3D very well. If one-way ledges were moderately absurd in Red and Blue, now they're just GameFreak's way of saying "deal with it, we're the ones with the code." Seriously. You could jump those things with crutches. Could you at least have made them look more than knee-high? Getting back to the Rhyhorn thing, the idea was that the ground was too rocky to walk over normally. Except . . . that barely qualifies as "rocky ground." I wouldn't exactly recommend riding a bicycle or rollerskating over it, but come on. A kid who's old enough to traverse the region alone is old enough to walk over that stuff without killing themselves. And then there's the varied types of geography. I like the way it turned out, but walking twenty feet from Route 17 (which has enough snow to bury an 8-foot Mamoswine) to Anistar City (which has green plants and a few flowers) just doesn't make sense.



And wrapping up my complaints is the lack of walking Pokémon. Get it together, GameFreak. Those things were what made HeartGold and SoulSilver my favorite set of Pokémon games, even though they too fell short in many places. I could possibly imagine them being omitted from Black and White because maybe that many extra sprites may not have fit on the cartridges, but this time you already had the freaking 3D models! Since the Pokédex 3D happened in 2010! And half of them already have passable "walk" animations from the battles! If you had time to retexture Vivilon for every physical region on Earth (plus some) and give Aegislash a special animation for sword-related moves, you could find time to polish the walking animations of each body type of Pokémon.

I was dazzled by a lot of things in the games once I got them. I ignored much of the prerelease media to retain my surprise when October 12 finally came. The early game music was astounding, the atmosphere was beautiful (almost on par with my amazement when playing Pokémon Colosseum for the first time), and the animations in and out of battle flowed so perfectly (mind you, I had 3D off the whole time).

However, as I began to play, I noticed subtle things that ruined the experience for me. I'll put it in list format.

• I'm just going to say it: the gym leader theme is pretty flat compared to the Unova one, which made every gym battle epic (until that stupid low-HP song punctuated it). Most of the other epic themes varied in quality. I particularly liked the Xerneas/Yveltal battle theme, however.
• The Friend Safari is a piece of crap. It's a stupid gimmick that attempts to force socialization in a location it really doesn't belong. I'd love to see it come back WITHOUT requiring you to add a billion random strangers to your system just to increase the odds of a shiny Charmeleon. The worst part is that removing someone from the 3DS Friend List will remove their safari. However, that brings me to my next point.
• The features of the bottom screen are a complete mess. The PSS alone have way too many options cluttered all over the place yet manages to hide away anything you'd care about changing. Why is there a trade button in the PSS menu when you can more conveniently tap an online user on the player list? One major problem (and this ties in with the Friend Safari) is that removing someone from your friend list does not remove them from the PSS friend list (although you can't interact with them unless nearby). The Pokétch was a mess, but at least it had a few useful tools that haven't returned, like the step counter, clock, and egg display. At least the Super Training screen is quite useful.
• Sky Battles are stupid. They were hyped up to appear to be a variant battle, but instead they're a limited battle where a person with Emolga or Zapdos can own. I don't need to get into it more because I'm pretty sure most of us share the same feelings.
• There exists only one place to do the Inverse Battle. It really could've been cool to try it with friends. Instead, we're stuck with useless Triple Battles.
• The Poké Transporter is not built in.
• The camera (Phil the Photographer, not the camera that ruins Lumiose City) was severely gimped. After Animal Crossing, I was expecting to take screenshots or receive a handheld camera.
• Lumiose City sucks. Dragonite has an ample explanation.
• There is not much post-game content. The Battle Chateau can be fun, and finally managing a team that can get a high score in the Battle Institute is a great feeling, but it seems like the only two reasons to play the game after beating it (beyond the small amount of content I will refrain from mentioning due to spoilers) are to breed and train.
• The story is pretty bad, especially after Unova.
• The 3D is pitiful and was obviously tacked on. However, my only experiences with it were a few times early in the game.
• The difficulty was nonexistent, and the Exp. Share didn't help.
• The Dowsing Machine is unusable.

• The 3D models are really good and fit nicely with the rest of the beautiful graphics.
• A lot of the route and town music is quite good. The sound quality is certainly superior to Unova.
• It still had that Pokémon charm that made it a really fun game to play.
• There were a ton of Pokémon that could be obtained in the Kalos region on its own.
• Shinies are easier to obtain.
• Breeding is easier.
• The region is quite large and fun to explore.

Theres only 3 things i hate about these games, and they are:

1) The offers now in the GTS after pokebank came out in japan. (Yeah come on, quit asking for a darkrai or a event legendary for a lv1 pokemon you claim has 6 or 5 31ivs) I liked it within the first 2 months the games were out.

2) The lack of post-game stuff. Heck HG/SS & B/W2 had better post game stuff.

And 3) The lack of more clothes to choose from. I know we got some neat stuff, but they could have added more hair styles.

The things i like about these games is that they made it feel like i was playing my gamecube pokemon games, but in handheld form.

The music was great, (I loved the legendary music) even the story was pretty good. (Made it feel like i was playing Black and White 1&2 stories)

Last but not least, I like how battling and trading made it a little easier to do. (They brought back the auto-level thing even if it was to lv50) Also like everyone else loves, is the easy breeding. Beats using RNG methods all the time. (Well unless i need to get a certin old legendary with decent IVs in a past game, i need RNG for that)

I'd like to bring up another question: does anyone feel like Pokémon X and Y were rushed? What about the entirety of Gen V, which coexisted with Gen IV on the same platform?

X and Y didn't feel rushed themselves, but I think the space of time after Black 2 and White 2 came out definitely were. Generation 5 is the shortest generation by something like a year. I don't know if they wanted to move on to the 3DS quickly or get away from a generation a lot of people weren't happy about or what, but I really wish there was (1) more time for the competitive metagame to unfold after B2W2 and (2) at least something HeartGold/SoulSilver-ish. They already had the engine. All they have to do is relandscape Unova to turn it into Hoenn. Seriously.

Or they could have just skipped the DS and put Black and White on the 3DS to begin with. Might have made the console's launch do a little better, too.

Likes:

• Pretty much every single theme in the game. Although constant breeding has made the Route 4/5/6/7 theme a little redundant.
• 3D models. They look beautiful~.
• Most of the Pokémon introduced this generation were memorable...of course there are still a few that I forget about sometimes... (particularly Litleo and Bergmite, for some reason)
• The roller skates. They are amazing and you cannot convince me otherwise.
• Customization. It was a nice touch and I found myself messing around with different outfits. Definitely cool.
• Wonder Trade. That is a funny little thing that has actually gotten me some suitable breeding Pokémon. At least when I'm not up to my neck in Magikarps and stuff.
• Dialogue. I love how they just threw in little bits and references here and there...
• Fairy-types. I don't care what anyone says, Fairy-types are cool.
• The fact that they keep adding rivals on is nice. I just wish you could battle them in post-game...
• Trainer PR Videos. They might have been skimmed over by most people, but I find a lot of enjoyment in making these short clips.
• Friend Safari. So helpful in making competitive teams...
• Super Training, for the same reasons as above.
• Pokémon-Amie is more fun that it seems. I literally spent 10 minutes playing one round of that yarn ball game...my precision's getting pretty good if I may say so myself.

• The Exp. Share. They really screwed up the level curve in this game. Even playing this game with only Grass-types was easy.
• The lackluster post-game. The Looker Missions were fun, don't get me wrong, but that was the extent of the post-game. I really wish there was more to do.
• Customization...wait, this was on my likes. Yes, I liked the customization, but, if I may say so, it doesn't nearly reach the level of customization as something like, say, Animal Crossing. I wish there were some more outfits or pieces to choose from.
• The fact that only 69 (72 counting event legends) Pokémon are Kalos-native. I'm facing a syndrome where I want to have a Kalos Pokémon on my team but there isn't room for one. And no, I refuse to use Aegislash or Talonflame because I'd rather not. For my own personal reasons.
• The Dowsing Machine. SO MUCH RAGE
• The lack of a truly creepy area in the game. This game's haunted house was a joke and the Lost Hotel simply doesn't do it for me when it's also the base of a...roller skating group...
• The lack of an alternative to battling. Sure, Contests were kinda lame, Musicals didn't benefit you in any way, and Pokéstar Studios was a little cheesy, but I liked having these options. X and Y, unfortunately, doesn't really have that...
• The unmemorable Gym Leaders. In B/W, the Gym Leaders actually did stuff. These guys, with the obvious exception of Korrina, never seem to even leave their town at all. At the same time though, I can't bring myself to hate Ramos...
• Mega Evolutions. Probably my most controversial choice, and I feel like I need to justify my stance a little. Well, first off, I feel like a lot of the Mega Evolutions were given to Pokémon who...well, didn't really need them. Mega Mewtwo just broke everything with its BST of 780, Mega Kangaskhan is an extremely hard hitting tank with respectable speed, Mega Gengar is a ridiculous wallbreaker, Mega Tyranitar and Mega Garchomp have BSTs of 700, almost equal to Arceus...I feel like a lot of Pokémon that were already good were given Mega Evolutions. And I know that some were given just to appease the fanbase (lookin' at you two, Charizard and Lucario). In essence, only the ones from Generation III, plus a few others, deserved the Mega Evolutions. Manectric got a much needed boost, Banette earned Prankster, Gardevoir got one to complement its Fairy retyping, as did Mawile, and Aggron's typing was mitigated by pure-Steel retyping and Filter. I really wish that more of the underrated Pokémon had gotten Mega Evolutions, and not mostly the Pokémon that were already powerful enough, like Scizor, Heracross, Gyarados, Blaziken, Garchomp, and so on and so forth.

Well, I personally enjoyed a lot of the game. My complaints start with the ridiculous framerate drop when 3D is enabled. They could have handled that much better. It felt improperly utilized (I really hope this doesn't become a trend with the 2DS now out) and as a person who bought the system in part for the 3D, I use it quite a bit, but in X and Y, it's kind of pointless. I was so excited to finally be able to play a Pokemon game with 3D, but was strongly disappointed. Another framerate issue was when more complex character models like Mega Charizard X were on screen, it just dropped a ridiculous amount (especially with two). I also thought a lot of the battle themes were a bit lackluster. To me, it seemed as if the music was overly simplified due to the inclusion of better sound quality (except for the PC blips. Those weren't as high quality, but that's a very minor thing). I liked the Xerneas and Yveltal theme and Diantha's theme. Now as far as champions themselves...EHH. Diantha seemed like she was very rushed. When I first saw she was champion, I thought to myself a big,"Whah?" and wondered why they would take a completely pointless character a role of champion. The gym leaders (with a few exceptions) also weren't very memorable. I like the whole AZ plotline, but Team Flare seemed somewhat motivationless. Now as for the things I liked: I loved the 3D models. They make the game look much nicer and add a sense of realism to the games. I also like Kalos itself. It was a very large region with a lot to explore. I really like the Fairy Type and the new strategic elements it gave. I like most of the new Pokemon and the Mega Evolutions were nice albeit some being lazily designed (Venusaur especially, even though that's one of my favorite Megas with its Thick Fat ability.) I like the trainer PR videos and Wonder Trade and I also liked the easier shiny methods. I also liked the town themes and route themes. There is probably a lot on both ends that I didn't mention, but those were a few things I liked/disliked.

To add to Dislikes (I don't really have anything that add that hasn't been covered):

This is a minor detail- Actually have Flying types touch the ground when Gravity is in effect and when Smack Down occurs. They already have models on the ground in Amie, so why not copy paste? Also, Charizard X needs to be on the ground, not gliding as if it's a Flying type.

Here are my own personal problems with the games.

First off 80 is no where near enough, I know people are saying that if they added more the designs would be lazy but there's no such thing as poorly designed pokemon in my opinion. They seemed to be leaned more to the idea of reintroducing the older pokemon yet again which was incredibly unnecessary thanks to BW2.

Plus the Mega Pokemon feel like more of an afterthought to bring in more evolutions, they don't even have a dex entry and feels completely unfair for any Gen V or VI pokemon to be left out.

I'm also mad that they decided to pander to people who complain about new evolutions/ pre evolutions by not including any because it's a better way to give certain pokemon attention then Mega Evolutions. I'm totally mad that Mawhile and Banette will probably never get a regular evolution because the developers took the lazy route by giving them a Mega Evolution. Of course Eevee got a new evolution because people are always insane about Eevee to bad it was only introduce to get people interested in Fairy types, which annoys me incredibly.

The post game stuff didn't bother me that much since this was a very big region and long game play but they could have added in more pokemon with the return of the Poke Radar and brought in Swarms. Glameow been catchable through normal means since Pearl and there are loads of pokemon unobtainable yet again. Wouldn't be bothered by this if they were more willing to make a game more like XD again! But nnnooooooo the games need to stay on handheld even though most of us older fans are incredibly uncomfortable doing that!

And finally the storyline is seriously the worst since Red/Blue which is saying a lot. The only leaders we see leave the gym are Korrina and Wulfric one for a mandatory side quest to shoe horn in Mega Pokemon and another to visit a certain route. This game easily has the worst champion ever no only is she incredibly easy to defeat but she has absolutely no personality and does nothing the entire game! But it's still some how completely obvious that she is the champion apparently. The stuff with Team Flare was just kind of meh I still don't fully understand Lysandre's motives and the AZ stuff felt forced.

It's starting to feel like they're making the main games in the series bad just so they can improve on them in a third version. I still enjoy it but I'd rank it below R/S as a rating but it's still above the original R/B.

Changing my opinion a little, two weeks after I wrote the first review. I think I figured it out.

They focused on graphics and left everything else to the last minute.



And the graphics looked good. The landscape, a majority of the new Pokémon, battle animations, character models, every outdoor battle scene and most of the indoor ones, the music was decent (though still not Sinnoh. But then again nowhere but Sinnoh could be Sinnoh). If the game was only to be composed of running around Kalos and talking to NPCs, I'd give it a 10/10 for what it did.



But no. The games were supposed to be Pokémon games. And at that they failed in shining colors.



No, they weren't Red and Blue. Psychic and Normal did not dominate everything, and there wasn't a chasm the size of Russia between the good Pokémon and the crappy Pokémon. We do have the Physical/Special split, and moves actually do what the flavor text says they do. Integer overflow did not kick in at weird places and break the flow of everything.



But the game still failed in shining colors.



Take the often-cited Experience Share and difficulty curve. The only challenging battle for me in the entire game was the first Gym Leader. After that, it was basically one-shot the entire opposition, including Lysandre and the Champion. Even the second time I played the game and didn't use it, all of the Gym battles were horrendously one-sided. It's like they only started play testing at about 11:45 PM on the 11th of October.



The main change to the metagame, and by that I mean Sylveon. It's cuter than Pachirisu, it was revealed on Valentine's Day, it's an Eevee. It evolves through Pokémon Amie. To top it off, it's a member of the shiny new Fairy type. What does it do? It nerfs Dragons, Dark and Fighting for some reason that's still beyond me, it's weak to . . . poison . . . and . . . steel? And it can't hit Fire for beans. Yeah, that was a marketing tactic. Nothing against Sylveon personally, but the Fairy type was completely unnecessary. And Dragons were supposed to be mythical and overpowered, you idiots, at least before you came along and started dishing out Druddigon and Goomy.



The same could be said for Megas, but at least Megas came out of the mill looking awesome and being fun to use and added to the metagame instead of beating it over the head.



The Rhydon and Mamoswine controls, the Dowsing Machine, and other pieces of awkwardness. Once again, if they actually play tested the game I'm pretty sure at least a few people would have stood up and said "Are any of the programmers willing to stay at work an extra five minutes and make this less painful, please?"



Sky Battles. Once again, that was probably thrown in the trailers just so they could say "LOOKIT DIS COOL NEW BATTLE STYLE!" and get a few more pre-orders. There were like five in the entire game, and they were optional (although it wouldn't entirely surprise me if Smogon has a fairly dedicated Sky metagame by the end of the generation).



The aftergame. I try not to get on games' butts for this, mainly because Black and White 2 had more aftergame content that the entirety of Super Mario Galaxy, but this aftergame was like Tetris. If I wasn't already convicted that graphics came first and Pokémon was wedged in at the last possible moment, this doesn't help.



And, of course, the plot. Where to even begin with that one. I used to bash Red and Blue for having a terrible plot, but not even in Red and Blue did it contradict itself like it did here. You want a beautiful Kalos, and you thought blowing up the planet was a good place to start. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.



And the interesting thing is the graphics were so good I didn't even notice the game design issues for a while. The first weekend of release, I was like "this game is AWESOME!" I finished the game the Monday after and restarted the following weekend because my save corrupted, playing with more of a neutral starting point, and it toned down to "this really isn't anything special." By the end of that run the following weekend, it became "I honestly don't know why I wasted my time finishing that again." By this point, now that I'm over the graphics, I'm not sure I ever want to run the program again, even to install the Poké Bank to grab the Celebi.



I wanted to like X and Y. I wanted it to show the world that Pokémon didn't die with the 90s and wasn't a game for eight year olds. But I also wanted it to be more than a polished, $40 diorama. The rest of this generation had better be a hell of a lot better than X and Y were.

I personally think that Pokemon Y is my fav game in the series by far. The nerf of dragons was super necessary. (considering almost all Dragons ended up being top tier according to Smogon) i.e Dragonite, Salamance, Kyurem W and B, and basically any other legendary dragon you can think of. It's nice to know fairies can kill some of the major annoyances such as Haxorus or Hydregion. The addition of roller skates made travel on foot somewhat worth it and gave another option besides using the obvious bike. Another thing to mention is that it's approachable for newbies while also treating the vets by bringing Pokemon Bank into the matter. Wonder Trade (another great feature) made it to where you can get rid of breeded Pokemon with great ease. And mega evolutions added a major change to the gameplay without ruining it. That's probably my favorite part about the game, you NEVER had to worry about something super OP. Every Pokemon in the game is counter-able and pushes you to become creative with your options, it's not all about the GENERIC uber dragon types anymore as much as it is the other Pokemon, some who haven't had spotlight or attention for a very long time end up finally getting used now commonly, to me, that's the sign of an amazing game.

Likes
- I like how they introduced a new type that is super effective against Dragon. It makes battling better.
- The 3D Models are amazing.
- Mega Evolution, I know there are people that who are against Mega Evolutions but I feels that they make the games more interesting.
- Breeding is much easier in this game.
- The new EXP. share is awesome, and if you want a challenge then just turn it off.
- Horde Battles, and Sky Battles are very interesting new ways of battling.
- There are so many Pokemon that you can catch in this game!
- The new features are really fun.
- Auto level 50 WiFi battles!
- Having the ability to custom your trainer.
- Friend Safaris are fun to explore.
- There are more methods to finding shinies then just pure lucky.

Dislikes
- MEGA BLAZIKEN IS TOO OVERPOWERED. They gave him speed boost as a Hidden Ability in the 5th Generation, and he became really overpowered. Now they gave him a Mega Evolution making him even more powerful.
- There are only 72 new Pokemon, there should of been more.
- Lack of a post-game story.
- Lack of another things to do then just battling.
- Lack of in-game transferring devices. I know there is Pokebank, but it is only free for thirty days and after that you can't transfer your Pokemon without paying a fee to use an online cloud storage which I am probably never going to use.

At first I was a little put off by the way Passerby works in the PSS. Before I didn't like how it would pull up a random list of people I don't even know just because they happened to be playing the game at the same time as me. I thought it was a list of literal passerby. But now I have a new purpose for it. I could never fully test out a team because Battle Spot's random battles still restrict to Gen V's set rules. But with the passerby I can battle random people as if they were friends with the normal rules. This has restored my liking towards X and Y, if at least for the battling. While Black and White excelled in their story, X and Y fix the mistakes caused by Gen V's bad battling.

I've had 4 great battles for testing out my gym team so far. I'm confident in their ability.

Well, my post doesn't really belong here because that is in no way my "overall opinion of the games," but because it was randomly moved I guess I shall finally type up what I've been holding in all this time. This will be riddled with spoilers, not like it matters.

For the vote, I cannot choose an option. "Awesome!" is being way too generous but it at least gives an experience that is something above "Meh." Now if I remember correctly it's about you and a group of friends taking on the gym league challenge (sort of) and fighting the evil Team Flare along the way. Also featured are the special Mega Evolutions (and the little bit of plot they have) and the grand spankin' new Fairy type.

In my opinion these two games were among the weakest in the series. Definitely above R/S/E, but I'd put them below just about all others. The one thing that makes portable system games special is the single player experience. Some games try to break this, actually very few, and they work out when friends are present at all times but that causes the story to be very weak. That was the case here. Even though X and Y are only the first pair of the generation there is a clear focus on interconnectivity and training postgame. Game Freak is subliminally calling out for players to breed, wonder trade, and battle other players. The biggest indicator of this is that the story is boring and feels rushed. Your "friends" seem like a group of people that just show up out of nowhere (which they do), force you to join them (which they do) and pretend like they've known you forever. The only one who shows growth with you is the rival figure. A little bit of Shauna too, but she scares me... Anyway, Team Flare is the least scary of all the evil teams. Their goals are unclear and childish, so by the time their leader actually does come out with a serious ambition you can't really take them seriously. And AZ... did he even HAVE an introduction? Who WAS he, really? Even Team Aqua and Magma, who I pick on constantly for being the worst teams in the series (I don't even think they're evil), succeed in their ambitions and threaten the world. It's clear what they want from the beginning and that's why it's a scary shock rather than a ridiculous shock. Then there's the gym leaders. Unlike the leaders of practically every other game they don't leave their gyms for any story related reason for a chance to interact with you. The only exception to this is Leader Korrina because of her involvement with the Mega Ring acquirement. The rest are just pretty cookie cutter to fill the void, but have potential. I won't even talk about the Elite Four because I can't quite honestly remember the names nor types of any of them. Their only jobs were stability placeholders to uphold the Pokémon tradition. Diantha was sorta memorable, she wasn't bad but she doesn't stand out either. And for the icing on the cake, there's practically no postgame. You just get one city, and that again promotes more interconnectivity. FRIEND Safari, IV Checker, and the BP earning spot which nets you TMs and BATTLE items. There's the little Looker Bureau sidequest, but is that satisfying? Compared to Gen V, Gen IV, and maybe even Hoenn the single-player experience of X and Y was disappointing. This hurt me more significantly because I prefer to play my games alone.

Now that I've ripped on the games a bit, I can give it its praises. The aesthetics of Gen VI are indeed the most beautiful to date, even if it did take me a while to accept them as feeling like Pokémon. X and Y are only the first pair of Gen VI games, there's bound to be more and there's a lot that can be improved upon. And Pokémon is a series that, while being handheld and portable, has a very strong multiplayer format. The tweaks made to battling (and maybe even shiny hunting, not my scene) are very helpful for people like me. The Destiny Knot tweak, horde EV training, Super Training (I use it as icing on the cake when I have like 12 or 24 leftover EVs), and Friend Safaris made it easy to breed for and train Pokémon, something I found to be extremely tedious before. Now I have a little more fun pretending to be competitive as I set up teams to fight others. That in turn increased my confidence in battling skills which lead to making more friends through battling, like what I did at Katsucon recently. If I were to look at myself, I'd say that I'm a mix between a casual battler and a competitive battler. I don't do tiers, I don't do Hidden Power, the only clauses I personally accept are sleep and hax (and I'd like it if paralysis were added to that list :I), and I can't come up with a full on team strategy to save my life. But I do know how to EV train and IV breed, so I at least rank as a threat to some battlers. What I like is fighting, and I'm good at that. I used to stick to simulators because that allowed me to fight without flipping the luck coin required in Gen V and before. Now X and Y are more friendly to people like me so that I don't even need simulators anymore. Breeding a Pokémon with potential is faster and less luck-based and tests can be performed with a push of a button. The way battles are conducted was given a neutral area with normal battles. It's not the raw power of Lvl 100 all and it's not the high restriction of set battles, but it's just what we all needed. The PSS is the social hub that allows you to connect to other trainers whether through Wi-Fi or out in the world like at a convention. It works greatly and I hope to see things like it in future titles. If there really is a Hoenn remake perhaps it'll be added to the PokéNav Pokémon Amie is a cute little gimmick for those who like that sort of thing, but I stopped being that soft ages ago. The games are a nice distraction but all the petting and feeding stuff I only try for the EXP boost. Back to the battling, the Battle Maison was done well. It was a super upgrade to the regular Battle Tower format so that the BP earning is greatly increased and you can pause at any time without breaking a streak. I was able to accumulate 103 BP with no problem when in Black 2 I probably would've only made it to 63 BP with more of a struggle. The Battle Chatelaines are cute and funny with their dialogue and can be tough to beat in the super matches. Oh, and the best part? You can CHANGE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC. The BM doesn't have many options, but in PVP you get like 11 different choices<3 So the strong point of Pokémon got even stronger.

Now I can talk about the things I'd like to have fixed. The gimmicks need tweaking. Specifically things like Sky Battles and Inverse Battles. They have no point other than to exist and be seen. Give them an arc or a shout out or a purpose. Something more than "Hey, we coded this thing in, we're so cool!" Single stage sucky Pokémon could be given Mega Evolutions to give them a fighting chance against the big dogs. There's a large following for Farfetch'd and Delibird (so large it scares me.) Plus, NO Kalos Pokémon got Mega Evos. Just... why? The 3D wasn't fully realized and felt tacked on at the last second. Not only that, but it also lagged. Is that why the 2DS came out on the same day? Most importantly, DIFFICULTY. Now I know Pokémon is aimed towards kids and Nintendo is a family company but screw all that. That doesn't mean games should cater towards 2 year olds all the time. The Legend of Zelda didn't give a damn how old you were, its difficulty was in your face and the only thing you could do was make it HARDER by naming yourself Zelda. X and Y's pacing is too fast, the EXP share while being optional was made unfair (whatever happened to the EXP All being a separate item? I still remember that) and battles were made less challenging. And the one thing that makes me most angry is that even though Pokémon rarely changes its core mechanics it always feels the need to review them at the start of EVERY game. Can we get a veteran switch, Game Freak? Please and thank you. There's a lot more that frustrated me, but I can't get it out right now. Perhaps I'll update this as time goes on. If I were to give this game a rating it'd be 3; 2/10 for single player experience, 8/10 for multi player experience, and 5/10 as the overall average.

Oh, and Cat? This might be a hard thing for you to comprehend, but they're called "options." As humans we are able to make multiple choices in our lives even if they end up to the same thing. Just because you can click on individual people and get the battle and trade options from there doesn't mean there's no need for a big flashy button. And just because you're antisocial doesn't mean the more social aspects are pointless.

Alrighty....My Overall Opinion.
First thing's first. I Love this game. But after playing it twice I think i've finally solidified my opinion on it, but Before I go on a Tirade I'll organize my thoughts and show them more eloquently and give proper insight into these games.
So
My Thoughts and Opinions on X/Y

1. Competitive Balance and Unbalance as Well as In-Game changes
-I Love what they Fixed in X/Y for Competitive Balance. No More Infinite Weather, no more running Politoed and Jirachi for extra Emphasis. No more Sand Rush Excadrill ravaging teams. A New Fairy Type to re Balance the offensive Dominance that existed in Dragons and Fighting Types as Well as making the more useless offensive typed moves Actually Useful. Although as I Stated I Really didn't like the opportunity missed in Making Fairy and Dark weak to each other. Sadly...there aren't enough GOOD Fairy type pokemon. I'm not saying give us an Amazing amount but. Half the Fairies were just retypes. and out of those retypes and new additions only a few were good. And out of all the Fairy moves Only one move was Physical in Play Rough..Coulda had a little bit more Variety there. Another Aspect that kinda has me teetering is the Nerf to Hidden Power as well as multiple special and some physical moves. This Nerf kinda lowered the fire power of certain pokemon. Lowering the BP of T-Bolt, Ice Beam, and Flamethrower kinda as stated before lowered how hard certain pokemon can hit (Unless you're Thundurus-Therian when a Base 145 Sp.Atk Stat it doesn't matter). Otherwise, Moves Got Buffed, New Items..although one of them is INCREDIBLY BROKEN *coughWeaknessPolicycough*. But now On to my more....borderline Issues with Competitive X/Y...Mega-Evolutions. I Love them I don't really find them all that gimmicky..besides a select few that are utterly Stupid in strength and how they Operate. Mega's (Kangaskhan, Lucario, Absol, Blaziken, Scizor, Charizard X&Y), Others had quirks and traits that I liked (Abomasnow, Medicham, Manetric, etc.) Although more Needy pokemon could have gotten the Boost....(Mega Sceptile, Typhlosion or Empoleon anyone?). One Other thing i'm glad they fixed was the set Levels in Wifi...another great Bell and Whistle they added. Now an Issue is with the main game, although easily circumvented it's the fact that. It was too easy. the MASSIVE Buff to the Exp.Share made the game really easy (As if any pokemon game was legitimately difficult), but It made the Leveling up process fly by..You could have Level 40 Pokemon by the 3rd Badge..it was ridiculous. But again it's easily avoided by having it Turned off. Another Addition were the Roller Skates. Three words. Bring. Them. Back. They were tons of fun to just play around on.

2. This Game is Magnificent Looking
-LORD This Game is Absolutely Beautiful. No place looks the same; every terrain, City, the Desert, Caves. Just everything looks near flawless......but the brighter the picture the darker the negative. Lumiose City is the biggest example. BUT It is a Camera's NIGHTMARE. The Camera is absolutely BUSTED here, Turning, Looking around is like cutting with a Spoon. Well..not that exaggerated but yeah. The Pokemon Sprites are Flawless. Smooth looking and some cases awesome (ex. Sneasel), and In others...oddly Disturbing (ex. Espurr and Mr.Mime GOOD..LORD WHY WHY). The Character designs also looked well polished as well. Lysandre's Hair....nuff said, And look. Clothes for your character to wear. CUSTOMIZATION FINALLY!........

3. The Music
-Need I say more. X/Y's Soundtrack rank up there in the entire Series. Right behind HG/SS and it's Originals along with B/W 1&2's it is Just That Good. From Flare's theme to Sycamore's theme and the Champion's theme. it is outstanding. One that will always catch my ears however is the Main Legendary theme's. It is one of the most awesome themes beside's Giratina's in Platinum hands down.

4. 72 Kalos Pokemon
-For some odd reason, people complain about the Small amount of Pokemon in the Kalos Dex. 69 Obtainable and 3 event legends. I For one don't have too much of a problem, but I do understand other's complaints. I Could very well raise the obvious argument that "We have 69 newer pokemon that are paired with older ones so we don't have a B/W issue"....really...we basically got 100+ pokemon in B/W and people complained that they wanted the older ones?..then we got 69 new pokemon in X/Y with the older ones and people want newer pokemon. I guess this falls under the saying "You can't please everyone"...then again I could agree in saying it may be too little so this is kind of a tick for tack argument.

5. The Lack of Post Game.
-.....No beating around the bush. X/Y's Postgame is Non-existent. Simple fact of the matter. Besides the Friend Safari (Which you need other people's FC's ALONG with them to be online to get all 3 Pokemon), and All it did was turn it into a "Get the better pokemon you want" safari with the amount of people to look for certain Safari's to pique their interest kinda takes the "Friend" Portion out of it if you catch my drift. Then there is the Battle Maison....okay I grind for BP there...and?, and then there are the Looker Missions. And that's it. The End. Wait for the 3rd Version. That's kind of a Sour way to end a game isn't it?..They better improve Upon this....i'm getting massive R/S deja vu just thinking about it.

6. The Story
...The Honeymooning period between me and the story to this game has ended. And truly, and honestly. It's meh. it's not ZOMFG it's HORRIBLE....but it will never be B/W..or even B/W2. Again to me it's like. It's just Meh. My only Big issue with the story is Lysandre's intentions. Why go after AZ?...someone who wasn't even Introduced. or even Given proper BACKSTORY..only to lay it down on us in a 5 Min. Exposition?.And his Plan......To destroy the world..with the Mascot legendary to make the world beautiful again. Honestly that's just Very Rushed writing. Not really bad cause I liked where it was going, it's just that The payoff was severely Underwhelming. Again attributes akin to R/S. Basically a simple flowchart like this
Villain is introduced->Villain Speaks to MC->Plot Interest Item found-> Villains intentions and ultimate failure->Move to last Badge......that was it. then again It could be attributed to every pokemon game but. It's extremely Glaring here if I could rate the story out of 10..it'd be an honest 6. Not Horrid. but severely Underwhelming like they dropped the ball. The characters that were intertwined were also kinda...eh not to the levels of a Blue/Green/Gary, Barry or Silver, or Cheren or Bianca...Not Truly memorable..but like they just existed to be there Gym Leader's included. They took a big step back....but oddly enough it reminds me of R/S...huh..i'm drawing a lot of parallels to Gen 3...

7. Afterthoughts.
- All in All. I still love this game. But with my 2nd Playthrough I just noticed So Many Glaring things with it. And yes it Irked me. But it didn't deter me from playing. I play Pokemon cause it's Fun and easy to pick up, It's Meta is VERY interesting and exciting to get into with it's calculations and what'not. It's not like me forcing myself to play anything from Gen 4 that isn't HG/SS or Platinum. It was Fast. Quick to the point and Didn't drag it's self out. I Made so many Gen 3 Parallels cause well...it's exactly what it is to me. Ruby and Sapphire.. I may be drawing for Straws. Or just looking too deep but that's exactly what I saw.. If I were to score X&Y in it's Entirety out of 10 it'd get a 7.
It...Got so much right...but...let down so much at the same time.

Where does it say she hosts the Pokémon World Tournament? Clay built the building, shouldn't he be the one hosting it?

I can't really give depth behind why she was fought, but if you're talking about purpose then you're lost there. It's part of the postgame. The postgame has nothing to do with the story and therefore anything that happens after beating the champion has no purpose, besides the sage arresting for TMs.

Steven Stone, despite how awesome he is, was randomly and blandly placed in HG/SS and all he does if give you a starter. He shouldn't even be able to do that since he's not the professor. But no one complains about that because he gives you a gift, right? Sinnoh Champion Cynthia's presence, if not her music, is enough of a gift to me.

R/S/E was the birth of Pokémon plot (which I believe is far too overdone by now, now everything HAS to have lore to be important?) but D/P/Pt gave more importance to the people. That has been built up more and more until X and Y came along and dropped the importance of the plot altogether to tighten up the aesthetics and battling. They touched up on the niceness and all, but I think the story should be tightened up on if there's a Z.

* pokes *
If you'd like, I'll make a Cynthia thread too . . .