Soapbox options allow our particular person writers and contributors to voice their opinions on scorching matters and random stuff they have been chewing over. Today, Andy seems to be again at a pivotal juncture within the Pocket Monster collection which hinted on the path it might take over the next decade…
Like its eponymous creatures, the Pokémon collection has undergone many adjustments all through its evolution. A significant one graced our 3DS screens 10 years in the past in the present day with the worldwide launch of Pokémon X & Y.
The first foremost entries to make use of 3D fashions, with battles offered in stereoscopy, when Pokéfans took our first steps into the France-inspired area of Kalos, we set free a collective sacré bleu. From its charming medieval villages and dizzying cities to its verdant, autumnal paths, ethereal caves, frostbitten mountains, and fairy-story forests, X and Y popped with visible splendour. Movement was 8-directional and the digicam mounted however it might now zoom, pan, and swing to offer this world a way of scope and sparkle to which its predecessors may solely have aspired.
It wasn’t only a graphical overhaul although; there have been mechanical enhancements at play, too. The first Generation VI video games noticed the disclosing of the Fairy kind. This was the primary new kind in 14 years, introducing enchanting new nymphs in addition to granting previous favourites this elemental property to extra simply dispatch dragons. Togepi would now brush off a Draco Meteor to the face whereas Eevee may turn out to be the swish, ribbon-strewn Sylveon.
There may solely have been 72 monsters added to the roster however they made up for this with the gimmick of Mega Evolution. This allowed you to quickly bestow new types, buffed stats, and infrequently modified typings and talents to sure critters. It addressed the difficulty of energy creep, letting lengthy-forgotten ‘mons have their moment in the spotlight while imbuing fights with a flair that matched the region’s theme of aesthetical grandiosity. Its essence lives on in Dynamax and Terastallization however these pale compared to how beloved and far-missed Mega Evolution stays in the present day.
However, for as a lot as there’s to have a good time about these titles — and the non-public fondness I’ve for them — I can’t assist however see them as one thing of a paradox: the final ‘good’ Pokémon video games and the primary ‘unhealthy’ Pokémon video games.
You can’t be groundbreaking with out leaving a couple of cracks and Gen VI is the place the collection began to really feel rushed, unfinished, or usually missing from a technical standpoint — all issues which are notably noticeable in the latest era, Scarlet and Violet. This is broadly regarded as as a result of modest Game Freak workforce having to develop for extra superior {hardware} whereas beholden to a inflexible (some would say oppressive) launch cycle. Many have been rightly dissatisfied that these flagship 3DS titles did not assist the console’s namesake characteristic within the overworld.
Whatever the case, Kalos arguably lived as much as its identify — taken from the Greek for “beauty” — and prioritised type over substance. This was evident in features resembling hall-like routes, unchallenging battles (the final Gym Leader solely makes use of three Pokémon, one among which solely is aware of three assaults), and half-baked characters. There’s an try at a Stand By Me-style story of 5 children occurring an journey and the notion of a romantic subplot however they’re sadly a forgettable bunch.
Nowhere is this sense of being unfinished extra obvious than in Zygarde, a legendary leviathan that fashioned a pseudo-trio together with field mascots Xerneas and Yveltal. While the opposite two play integral elements, Zygarde was stuffed away in an non-compulsory cave, its Pokédex entry suggesting that it might present a secret energy when the ecosystem fell into disarray. Rayquaza, Giratina, and Kyurem had been caught in related positions prior to now however had later come again in starring roles of their generations’ third instalments. This custom, coupled with a reveal of Zygarde’s totally different types in Japan’s CoroCoro journal in late 2015, tacitly made a promise of a ‘Pokémon Z’.
This promise was quickly damaged. The begin of 2016 introduced the announcement of Sun and Moon, dispelling all hope of Z and breaking an 18-12 months sample. The Nintendo ‘gigaleak’ would later reveal that two subsequent Kalos journeys had been deliberate, making it doubly irritating that they by no means noticed the sunshine of day, presumably as a result of builders’ consideration being unfold too thinly throughout different initiatives. Zygarde did in the end discover itself shoehorned into these twentieth-anniversary titles, awkwardly retconned right into a Hawaiian sojourn the place it served no objective aside from being a collectible.
Aside from the swindled serpent, there are a selection of different curios current in X and Y which are extra ambiguous when it comes to whether or not they’re unused concepts or puzzling Easter eggs. An notorious one is the ominous ghost lady, who’d seem on an ostensibly regular workplace flooring in Lumiose City and declare that the protagonist was “not the one” earlier than floating away and disappearing without end. She even will get a web page on the Japanese Pokémon web site’s part that particulars spooky in-recreation occasions however whether or not she’s a terrorful tease or one other sufferer of Z model syndrome remains to be unknown.
There are additionally areas that trace at a wider world that gamers by no means obtained to expertise. One is the Power Plant with its a number of entrances that make a degree of telling you that you would be able to’t entry them. Then there’s Couriway Town with its railway that may’t a lot as get you again to the central Lumiose terminus. A persistent want of the fanbase is to have the ability to revisit previous areas and we thought this redundant station may ultimately have been our ticket to experience, however any mild on the finish of the tunnel turned out to be an approaching practice of disappointment.
That’s to not point out the troubling message about “going for help” scrawled on the again of an indication in Lumiose Station or Eternal Flower Floette, which featured prominently within the story and was programmed in as a trainable workforce member however was by no means made legitimately obtainable. In equity, among the video games’ myths have lengthy since been busted: after all Heatran was by no means meant to seem in Jaune Plaza; the Strange Souvenir was from Alola; and you’ll’t tip your method into encountering a shiny Pokémon.
And so, a decade on, Kalos continues to carry the title of Most Enigmatic Region, possessing an environment of, at finest, thriller and, at worst, incompletion. Equal elements commendable and lamentable, Gen VI’s contribution to aggressive mechanics and enhanced graphics can’t be denied however, satirically, for video games that modernised Pokémon and introduced it into 3D, X and Y have been lacking a dimension.
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