You are the protagonist in this game, which means you have to create your own avatar. You can choose between a male and female character, and you can also customize your character's name and looks. Scattered in different towns are fashion boutiques where you can buy clothes and accessories. They don't help you win battles, but they help make your character look fresh. You also get some distinction during online play.
As soon as you're done with your character, you start by waking up in your room. You get called on by professor Sycamore and so you get dressed up and head to the nearest Pokemon lab to get your starting Pokemon (Chespin, Fennekin, or Froakie which are grass, fire, and water types respectively). There are 69 new Pokemon in X and Y and that includes their corresponding evolution types. Can you guess how many Pokemon there are in X and Y altogether? As of the time of this writing, there are 718 including legendaries.
The immediate mission is of course to collect as many Pokemon as you can. Then, you go and challenge the (8) gym leaders in order to compete in the Pokemon League. As you go in your journey, you will also learn about the mysterious stones that make a Pokemon mega-evolve.
Every once in a while, you will receive instructions from professor Sycamore, making detours on your journey in battling the next gym leader. The story is very much connected to the legendary Pokemon Xerneas, one of the new Fairy type Pokemon introduced in the game. The usual plot is of course is to save the world. For some reason, you are gifted among other trainers and you keep giving people surprises with your innate ability in Pokemon battle.
A few companions will come travelling with you, at least according to the plot. From time to time they get to join you in battle, but since they are trainers themselves, you will also battle against them.
You're allowed to carry up to 6 Pokemon at a time. During battle, you can switch between your 6 Pokemon during your turn but with a consequence of getting hit by the enemy.
As with previous Pokemon games, the battle system remains turn-based. Battles can be against a number of wild Pokemon, or another Pokemon trainer. Other Pokemon owners can have up to 6 Pokemon with him just like you. Trainer battles can be single (one against one Pokemon), double, or triple.
\Leveling up can be done by doing battles. Every foe you defeat instantly entitles you to more experience points. Even though you have a lot of Pokemon to catch, it didn't feel once that it was necessary to grind in order to level them up. That is because at the very start of the game, a feature called "Experience Share" is enabled. In certain dungeons, wild encounters are arbitrary. Outdoors, you can only have battles when you step on the grass, water, and other specific areas. You'll love how this saves you some time.
New moves unlock on certain levels. Each Pokemon can only know up to four moves, so once a new move becomes available for learning you will have to make your Pokemon forget an older move or simply discard the new one to keep the old ones.
The game is actually noob friendly, there are plenty of tutorials that you can read to learn more about the game. Pokemon X is the RPG game that makes talking to NPC characters seem worthwhile. By talking to NPC's you get some free items, and sometimes you get very useful information while you explore the in-game world, eliminating the need for very long tutorials. Also, a lot of NPC's will ask you if you want them to say what they are about to say. So, if yo feel like you know enough, you can save a lot of time.
Now let's talk about this game's graphics which had a tremendous leap since Pokemon Black 2 and White 2. The overworld graphics might actually disappoint you at first. In some cases, you can easily mistake the game as just another DS title, but you have to look at what's going on more in order to appreciate all the efforts that the developers put in it. The trees for example only look like a bunch of card boards, and the texture and lighting isn't so extravagant. The houses and infrastructures however looks reasonably fine, and combined with spectacular change in camera angles, the game looks really beautiful during play.
There's a day and night system. The weather also dynamically changes. Sometimes you just start the game and it's raining, or you leave the game when it's daylight and when you come back to it, it's already dark. Why should you give a damn? Well, certain Pokemon grow stronger on certain weather patterns. It's up to you to know that.
For the human characters, the game combines the use of full-size human models with deformed models. During battle, the Pokemon themselves look highly detailed. The Pokemon look so close to their hand-drawn illustrations and anime counterpart. Each Pokemon are fully animated in 3D. We're talking about high polygon count and high-quality textures here.
As much as the Pokemon look really gorgeous, the amount of detail being fed to the 3DS's inferior hardware is very evident as it slows down the game dramatically with stereoscopic 3D on. The stereoscopic 3D is not available in many parts of the game, mostly only during cut-scenes and battle scenes. The 3D is also switched off during double and tag battles.
Let's shift over to the game controls. Starting with the bad, you can only control the character with 8 different directions. This makes going around the game world a bit of a pain, especially when you come in contact with edges.
The navigation can be done by either using the touchscreen or physical buttons. We just find it very peculiar that item details and move details aren't available to you right away. During battle, you have to press the L button with the A button in order to view a move or item detail. This trend propagates to many parts of the game where you have to do a lot of button presses and clicks in order to get what you want.
There is also no mini-map in towns. As a long-time RPG player, I like having a mini-map shown on one corner of the screen. So if you happen to be in such a huge place like Lumiose city, you will definitely end up minutes looking for that one single place you want to go to.
You remember that we're talking about a Nintendo game, right? Almost all the popular Nintendo franchises are well known for their music. So let's talk about the music!
The music in Pokemon X is reminiscent of a traditional JRPG. Certain themes will make old time Pokemon fans feel nostalgic, while newcomers will have the music instilled in their memories for many years to come. Our personal favorites are the battle theme, pokemon lab theme and the music theme in Lumiouse City. We recommend using earplugs to get the full flavor of the music.
When it comes to sound effects, this game just makes every action feel lively. Just about anything you do in the game has a corresponding sound effect, it literally puts you in the game.
If we are to talk about all the extra features of this game in detail, this review would turn into a tutorial.
There's a lot of things that could keep you busy in this game. The most highlighted feature of course as with any other Pokemon game is Pokemon Battle. You can choose to challenge other players either via local Wi-Fi or via the Internet worldwide.
While you're on the adventure, there is this feature called Pokemon Amie, which plays a lot like Tamagotchi. You can touch your Pokemon, feed it, play with it, and even decorate its room on the lower-screen. This feature comes with a good consolation, it makes your Pokemon like you better. Certain skills get stronger or more effective the more your Pokemon likes you or hates you. If you're not interested in this however, you can also just choose to ignore this feature and you'll be totally fine.
If you want your Pokemon to grow stronger and get some more boost with the stats than you normally get by leveling up, there is this feature called Super Training. Super Training comes in the form of a mini-game, and it's like playing target-shooting.
StreetPass hits allow you to earn PokéMiles (PM), which you can trade for some items in Lumiose City Pokemon Center. For some reason, it's possible to discover this feature very late in the game. It's not as obvious as any other game's StreetPass features. So, be sure to remember this when you decide to play the game.
Verdict
The game suffers a little bit from control issues, which often pushes you to do a lot of pressing. It easily gets you tired, which sometimes get the fun out of the game.
While the game did some compromise with the 3D effect, the game tries to get even by presenting a vast world never-before seen in any Pokemon or 3DS game prior to this. And for the first time ever, the Pokemon characters look so close to their Anime or illustrated counterpart.
Pokemon X has a lot more to offer even after you finish the game. Packed and pressed down with a lot of content, Pokemon X is one of those games that give you the best value for money. As with any other Pokemon game, your time will be ate by the desire to capture as many Pokemon as possible. The length of the game is partially dependent in you and it does get repetitive at some point. If you decide to buy it, be ready for some long hours of gameplay.
Rating for Pokemon X
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| Game Info: | Platform: Nintendo 3DS Developer: Game Freak Publisher: Nintendo Release Date: 10/12/2013 Price: $39.99 (Buy It) Rating: E (Everyone) No. of players: 4 Official Site |
The Good
- Vast environments
- Gorgeous battle scenes
- Moderate difficulty
- Pokemon Amie and Pokemon Trainer act as mini-games
- Mega Evolution is a slick way to battle your opponents
- Local and Internet Multiplayer
- Stiff controls
- No 3D in overworld
- 3D slows down during battle, even turned off in dual or triple battle
- Shallow story
- Gets repetitive, especially when you're required to do a lot of battles
- Not very obvious and not very useful StreetPass feature
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