1. Mega Evolutions
This Generation did a beautiful thing: it added a new strategy mechanism to battling. Honestly, since Gen III's addition of Abilities, nothing new has been added to the strategy of battling. Now, on top of picking Pokemon, evs, abilities, moves, and items, you have to decide which, if any, of your Pokermans gets to explode into an awesome new forme with +100 coolness and +100 base stats. Obviously, Mega Gengar is a favorite for me, but Charizard X, Garchomp, Mewtwo Y, Ampharos, and Scizor are all pretty awesome after this process takes place. Mega evolution was AWESOME and I can only hope Gen VII follows suit in changing the metagame. I can only pray that DLC, events, or Z version are going to give us Mega Stone after Mega Stone after Mega Stone.
-1. No Evos or Prevos
Gen II and Gen IV were each big evolution generations as they took big leaps to introduce 30-40 evolutions and pre-evolutions of pokemon we love, along with two new eeveelutions. I heavily hoped and expected Kalos to follow this pattern, but alas, it did not. Sure we got ONE sweet new eeveelution to advertise fairy type, but other than that, nothing. Perhaps one of the things Z or events or DLC brings us is new additions to the evolutionary families of popular pokemon that need stat boosts (Sableye evolution, like please), as well as a 9th Eeveelution (Caspeon the ghost type PLEASE).
2. The Humongous Pokedex
The Kalos region is HUGE, and the pokedex is no different. In fact, the Kalos Regional Pokedex had 453 POKEMON, a ginormous increase from the 300 in the New Unova Dex, which was previously the largest. There is a large range of pokemon to catch and train up, and as if that wasn't enough, these games brought with them the fun idea of a segmented pokedex with three different layers. I love the idea of having many pokemon available, and honestly, I'm for Z having a New Kalos Pokedex with every pokemon from Generation I-VI. Honestly, why is it such a taboo idea to be able to catch them all? That is the point, isn't it?
-2. The small number of new pokemon
Generation I showed us 151 amazing creatures. Generation II brought us 100 more we had never seen. Generation III kicked it up a notch by giving us 135 more. Generation IV kept things interesting with 107 new pokemon. Generation V made the games fresh with 156 new Pokemon. Generation VI brought us a whopping total of... 69 pokemon. Seriously, what the heck GameFreak? I know about the event legendary trio people online are discussing, but that brings the number to 72. There are two excuses I've read online as to why this may be, and I have to say, they're both pretty lame. The first one is that the "idea well is drying up" and Nintendo could only think of 69 solid pokemon. Well this is complete bullroar to me because I can crank out 50 ideas for fakemon that are completely original in an hour, and so I doubt the people PAID to do this are less capable than I. Not to mention Gen VII is already being worked on (Apparently being coded as plus and minus versions), so there is no way they're out of ideas. The other theory I've heard is that in GameFreak's collective mind, Mega Evolutions count as new pokemon. Well, like I said about evolutions, that simply isn't the same as so little pokemon can mega evolve and the process isn't permanent. So Pokemon better have something big up their sleeve in the way of new pokemon, because I only got a tasty appetizer and I'm drooling for the main course.
3. Easy EV training and IV breeding
Making good pokemon is so easy in X and Y that the competitive gaming side will flood with new challengers. I say, bring on the noobs! With help from perfect IVs in the safari, the destiny knot that allows the inheritance of five IV's from parents, easy to decode IV trainers, and a born-to-be-a-midwife Talonflame that has flame body and Fly learnability, hatching a pokemon with 5 IV's is extremely easy now. Also, super training actually tells you what EV's you are earning and have earned, not to mention gives out 12 at a time opposed to 2 or 3 and is much easier. It used to take about a week to breed and train a pokemon to have perfect IV's and EV's; but now the whole process takes about three hours. It's AWESOME.
-3. No move tutors
In Generation 4 and 5, in addition to the nine free moves that are important to the game, three or four move tutors placed throughout Unova and Sinnoh taught your pokemon 60 different moves that they do not normally learn through leveling up or TM. These 60 move tutor moves disappeared in Kalos, leaving many a learnset less universal, and leaving very helpful strategies hanging. Liked having iron head or tail on pokemon? Too Bad. Wanted the amazing dragon type move on practically 200 different fully evolved pokemon? Sucks to suck. Liked having aqua tail, drill run, seed bomb, dual chop, low kick, gunk shot, fire punch, thunderpunch, ice punch, aqua tail, zen headbutt, foul play, bind, knock off, sky attack, drain punch, or endeavor or your physical sweeper to make them slightly more versatile? Well you can't anymore. Did uproar, signal beam, hyper voice, electroweb, ice wind, earth power, dragon pulse, snore, heat wave, or giga drain make your special sweeper super effective against a few more types? Well no more of that. And worst of all, stealth rock, the lead move above all others, has been changed from having 139 learners, to 26, 8 of which require being bred onto it from a pokemon brought from B2W2 that learned it from a tutor. The lack of move tutors truly wrecked the role of some pokemon in the metagame, and Keckleon would do fantastic with the new HA Protean, but without move tutors, Protean truly does nothing for him.
4. Online play/Community
With the brand new player search system, X and Y is the most social Pokemon game to date. You always can see hundreds of other players at your disposal to battle, trade with, or even chat with. You can easily interact with friends, and rematch that random passerby with the help of the "acquaintances" bar. I love being able to interact with all the different trainers, if you ask me, that's the best new feature of the series and best use of the touchscreen/spot pass systems. I love the wonder trade, which at first I thought would be spammed with level one magikarps named "pooploser", but the players have seemed to adapted a rule of thumb that if you put good things into the wonder trade, then you get good things out. The GTS is fun and easy to use, but some of the offers on there are ridiculous, and the battle spot is good for testing your skills against real players instead of mindless NPC's. But to me, the fact that I can battle or trade with anyone from anywhere in a matter of seconds is the thing that makes X and Y the best pokemon games yet.
-4. Trainer PR videos
Like- What? I don't understand. Somehow GameFreak thought the worst video creating software in history was a good addition to this game. Seriously, these videos are supposed to "show off your style" or something like that, but they just don't. This feature of online play was pretty quickly cast aside, however some people have made it sort of worthwhile with stupid videos like the one above.
5. Kiloude City
Kiloude City is a paradise for competitive players. The friend safari offers about 50 pokemon not normally catchable, the vs recorder you receive there lets you rewatch good, and bad, battles to see what you could have done differently or need to repeat, the IV checker helps a brother out with breeding that perfect bidoof, daily rival battles get you into the rhythm of your team, and the battle maison offers a chance to test your new team, as well as gives helpful tms and items to plop on your 'mon. This town might seem like not that much to casual players, but for metagame regulars like me, Kiloude City is heaven on Kalos.
-5. Route 14 Scary house
When I saw this house, I screamed with joy. Aww yeah, bring on the ghost types!!!!!!!!!!! I went inside to catch my babies, and what did I fine? A twenty step by twenty step room with an old man that charges kids for scary stories. Old haunted houses have brought us a Rotom, the Lunar Wing, music that makes us commit suicide, and ghost types by the team full, and this scary house let me down. The girl in the hotel who says "NO. You are not the one..." and then vanishes was scarier to me, but people are starting to say she does something different if you bring a giratina or darkrai or something. But all in all, the only scary thing about this house is that GameFreak thought it was scary.
So there you have it, my personal five favorite and least favorite things about X and Y. I look forward to reading your opinions too, so comment below!
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