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Dec 07: My Time With Pokemon X
12 years ago
General
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Status: Still feeling stressed, but that's to be expected.
█ Warning, talk of Pokemans! The game! Shock! Bail out now if such things put you into a coma!
█ I bought Pokemon X sometime late in November, so I didn't get it when it was released and I've only been playing around with it for a couple of weeks really. I suppose this journal is going to be kind of a game review I guess, but I'll premise this with the following details: I played the original Pokemon Red version. I put so many hours into it that the time played maxed out at 256 hours (or was it 255 I can't really remember) and at one point the batter fitzed out on the cartridge so my Pokemon went into the digital ether. I've also played Gold and Diamond, but I never completed either one; I just never found myself drawn back into the series. There was far too many Pokemon to deal with, and the Pokemon story never was that engaging to start with. I suppose the main crux of it was that I didn't care about these new Pokemon, because my childhood was firmly entrenched in the original set which I caught each one of them (except for Mew).
Pokemon X let me love being a Pokemon trainer again, for various reasons; but the first is because you can get the original Pokemon starters relatively early in the game. For me having a Charmander back in my party was like finding a long lost friend, that feeling of "this doesn't feel quite right" suddenly felt right again. I know that there exists complaints for how characters are overused in other games, but characters are reused for a reason: They are who people become familiar with, and the more you can use your imagination to fill the gaps the more you'll feel attached to them. My Charizard is my Charizard, and even though every other one is virtually identical; they won't be mine, and mine won't be theirs. It might be nostalgia, but I love nostalgia.
So what's another thing I like about being a Pokemon trainer? It's about the "controversial" experience share item that's also given to you relatively early in the game, an item that basically increases the experience your Pokemon x6. When you win a battle, every Pokemon in your team gets experience period. I loved that's in the game, though other people despise it because it makes the game too 'easy'. Though people really need to be honest with themselves, Pokemon was never a hard game; it was only hard if you played the original Red and Blue and you picked a Charmander as your starter. Meaning you had to face Brock with a team consisting of something like Charmander and five Pidgies. Not Effective Much? After that it was just sending a Pokemon that had whatever super effective move against the Gym leader. Odds are it would one shot every Pokemon they had and made you question their credential as a gym leader.
But I digress.
I didn't enjoy the old system of leveling up Pokemon: Starting with a low level Pokemon then swapping in a high level one to give it the experience. It was a tedious experience, and I'm glad they did away with it. Leveling up Pokemon doesn't become a chore anymore, and lets you build your personal team up much faster instead of spending hours running back and forth in tall grass to slowly and painstakingly level up another Pokemon in your team so you have more than one or two decently powered ones. Needless to say Pokemon X was the first Pokemon game I've actually played to the end since the original Red.
I still end up playing the game despite having finished it. Mostly because of two things about the end game: The Battle Maison and Breeding. The first is what I feel is what the game be like if it was designed around the "hardcore" player. All the Pokemon used are the same level (50) and both trainers will use the exact same number of Pokemon (ranging from 3 to 6). The challenge being to win 20 times consecutive battles in the 'easy' mode, then to do it 50 times in the 'super' mode. I've only managed to get around 30ish wins in a row before my team couldn't make it any further (usually due to facing a team that ended up being a hard counter to my own). This is a mode that certainly challenges one's ability to put together a solid team, it's a level of difficulty I don't often see in a game. If not for the ease of leveling up a new Pokemon to 50 to try and find a better team combination, the Battle Maison would be a horrible part of the game. Though this of course means benching some Pokemon that were part of your team for the storyline, or maybe even your whole team! (sorry Caterpie, you did me proud in Pokemon Red and helped me crush every gym leader in X; but you just have no chance here).
I suppose I should mention that the mega evolutions were probably for use with the Battle Maison, doesn't have much use in the storyline; you certainly need the stat boosts against the opponents that you end up facing there. There's some strategy around it I suppose. Mostly because it replaces your Pokemon's ability with the mega-evolution ability. So for example I have it on my Kangaskhan which has an ability that cuts sleeping effects in half, which makes using rest to get rid of status problems and regain health a easier to survive through; but if I mega evolve it it loses that ability, but does gain 50% more damage to her attacks. In the end the Battle Maison does require a fair bit of thinking and planning, which I do enjoy for the mental exercise.
The other thing that I found strangely engaging was the breeding of Pokemon. I had known for a long time that there was a hidden system under the stats, and that many Pokemon differed from each other in terms of their stats; and that you could breed them to be stronger than the average Pokemon. It all seemed convoluted for me and for people who had waaaaay too much time on their hands. So they changed a lot of it. Well... I shouldn't say changed as much as I should say they revealed the system and made it a lot easier for people to manipulate the values to breed the 'perfect' Pokemon. For me, that's still way too much work; but! They made it pretty easy to breed a Pokemon with two or three perfect stats, which is all I personally care about because I have zero intention of playing against other players in a serious fashion. I suppose to elaborate a bit is that they introduced a set of training mini-games to help boost your Pokemon's stats (as opposed to the old system which required battling certain kinds of Pokemon over and over) Takes around 30 minutes to max the values for one I guess. They also changed it so that Pokemon that breed pass off most of their own stats to their offspring, something like 5 out of the 6 stats instead of the old 3 out of 6. So if you mash a two Pokemon with 3 good stats each you have a chance of one ending up with 5 good ones. I don't take breeding too seriously, as I mentioned I just breed them to get a couple of perfect values instead of all of them; it's just nice that this part of the game has become accessible as opposed to the other versions which required like some kind of PHD in Pokemon breeding to do properly.
There's also a garden system in the game, for berries. That's a thing I suppose. I tend to plant a berry, water it and then forget about it. Might be more interesting to people who like simulated gardening, which only really involves weeding/water/batting Pokemon who want to eat your crops. I can't be bothered to weed/battle them most of the time.
I suppose the last thing I'll mention is the Pokemon Amie thing. It's a nice addition to the game and I wish they did more with it. It's more or less like having a virtual pet, but the functionality sadly is very limited as all you can do is pet them and feed them. Some of them will 'high-five' you though if you leave the cursor hovering near them, which is kind of neat. Supposedly you can make faces at them, but I never got it work properly. My Pokemon apparently have a different definition of winking an eye than I do. There's mini-games attached to this mode that don't really feel like a part of the system, they're just there to allow you to earn more food to feed your Pokemon.
But that's my experience with Pokemon X. I give it a thumbs up if you're a fan of Pokemon, mileage of course will vary from person to person.
I might share my friend code later on or something since I could do with more than a couple of Friend Safari zones (and I'm not so into the game that I'll dive into Reddit to get access to every possible set of Pokemon)
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Still feeling stressed, but that's to be expected.
█ Warning, talk of Pokemans! The game! Shock! Bail out now if such things put you into a coma!
█ I bought Pokemon X sometime late in November, so I didn't get it when it was released and I've only been playing around with it for a couple of weeks really. I suppose this journal is going to be kind of a game review I guess, but I'll premise this with the following details: I played the original Pokemon Red version. I put so many hours into it that the time played maxed out at 256 hours (or was it 255 I can't really remember) and at one point the batter fitzed out on the cartridge so my Pokemon went into the digital ether. I've also played Gold and Diamond, but I never completed either one; I just never found myself drawn back into the series. There was far too many Pokemon to deal with, and the Pokemon story never was that engaging to start with. I suppose the main crux of it was that I didn't care about these new Pokemon, because my childhood was firmly entrenched in the original set which I caught each one of them (except for Mew).
Pokemon X let me love being a Pokemon trainer again, for various reasons; but the first is because you can get the original Pokemon starters relatively early in the game. For me having a Charmander back in my party was like finding a long lost friend, that feeling of "this doesn't feel quite right" suddenly felt right again. I know that there exists complaints for how characters are overused in other games, but characters are reused for a reason: They are who people become familiar with, and the more you can use your imagination to fill the gaps the more you'll feel attached to them. My Charizard is my Charizard, and even though every other one is virtually identical; they won't be mine, and mine won't be theirs. It might be nostalgia, but I love nostalgia.
So what's another thing I like about being a Pokemon trainer? It's about the "controversial" experience share item that's also given to you relatively early in the game, an item that basically increases the experience your Pokemon x6. When you win a battle, every Pokemon in your team gets experience period. I loved that's in the game, though other people despise it because it makes the game too 'easy'. Though people really need to be honest with themselves, Pokemon was never a hard game; it was only hard if you played the original Red and Blue and you picked a Charmander as your starter. Meaning you had to face Brock with a team consisting of something like Charmander and five Pidgies. Not Effective Much? After that it was just sending a Pokemon that had whatever super effective move against the Gym leader. Odds are it would one shot every Pokemon they had and made you question their credential as a gym leader.
But I digress.
I didn't enjoy the old system of leveling up Pokemon: Starting with a low level Pokemon then swapping in a high level one to give it the experience. It was a tedious experience, and I'm glad they did away with it. Leveling up Pokemon doesn't become a chore anymore, and lets you build your personal team up much faster instead of spending hours running back and forth in tall grass to slowly and painstakingly level up another Pokemon in your team so you have more than one or two decently powered ones. Needless to say Pokemon X was the first Pokemon game I've actually played to the end since the original Red.
I still end up playing the game despite having finished it. Mostly because of two things about the end game: The Battle Maison and Breeding. The first is what I feel is what the game be like if it was designed around the "hardcore" player. All the Pokemon used are the same level (50) and both trainers will use the exact same number of Pokemon (ranging from 3 to 6). The challenge being to win 20 times consecutive battles in the 'easy' mode, then to do it 50 times in the 'super' mode. I've only managed to get around 30ish wins in a row before my team couldn't make it any further (usually due to facing a team that ended up being a hard counter to my own). This is a mode that certainly challenges one's ability to put together a solid team, it's a level of difficulty I don't often see in a game. If not for the ease of leveling up a new Pokemon to 50 to try and find a better team combination, the Battle Maison would be a horrible part of the game. Though this of course means benching some Pokemon that were part of your team for the storyline, or maybe even your whole team! (sorry Caterpie, you did me proud in Pokemon Red and helped me crush every gym leader in X; but you just have no chance here).
I suppose I should mention that the mega evolutions were probably for use with the Battle Maison, doesn't have much use in the storyline; you certainly need the stat boosts against the opponents that you end up facing there. There's some strategy around it I suppose. Mostly because it replaces your Pokemon's ability with the mega-evolution ability. So for example I have it on my Kangaskhan which has an ability that cuts sleeping effects in half, which makes using rest to get rid of status problems and regain health a easier to survive through; but if I mega evolve it it loses that ability, but does gain 50% more damage to her attacks. In the end the Battle Maison does require a fair bit of thinking and planning, which I do enjoy for the mental exercise.
The other thing that I found strangely engaging was the breeding of Pokemon. I had known for a long time that there was a hidden system under the stats, and that many Pokemon differed from each other in terms of their stats; and that you could breed them to be stronger than the average Pokemon. It all seemed convoluted for me and for people who had waaaaay too much time on their hands. So they changed a lot of it. Well... I shouldn't say changed as much as I should say they revealed the system and made it a lot easier for people to manipulate the values to breed the 'perfect' Pokemon. For me, that's still way too much work; but! They made it pretty easy to breed a Pokemon with two or three perfect stats, which is all I personally care about because I have zero intention of playing against other players in a serious fashion. I suppose to elaborate a bit is that they introduced a set of training mini-games to help boost your Pokemon's stats (as opposed to the old system which required battling certain kinds of Pokemon over and over) Takes around 30 minutes to max the values for one I guess. They also changed it so that Pokemon that breed pass off most of their own stats to their offspring, something like 5 out of the 6 stats instead of the old 3 out of 6. So if you mash a two Pokemon with 3 good stats each you have a chance of one ending up with 5 good ones. I don't take breeding too seriously, as I mentioned I just breed them to get a couple of perfect values instead of all of them; it's just nice that this part of the game has become accessible as opposed to the other versions which required like some kind of PHD in Pokemon breeding to do properly.
There's also a garden system in the game, for berries. That's a thing I suppose. I tend to plant a berry, water it and then forget about it. Might be more interesting to people who like simulated gardening, which only really involves weeding/water/batting Pokemon who want to eat your crops. I can't be bothered to weed/battle them most of the time.
I suppose the last thing I'll mention is the Pokemon Amie thing. It's a nice addition to the game and I wish they did more with it. It's more or less like having a virtual pet, but the functionality sadly is very limited as all you can do is pet them and feed them. Some of them will 'high-five' you though if you leave the cursor hovering near them, which is kind of neat. Supposedly you can make faces at them, but I never got it work properly. My Pokemon apparently have a different definition of winking an eye than I do. There's mini-games attached to this mode that don't really feel like a part of the system, they're just there to allow you to earn more food to feed your Pokemon.
But that's my experience with Pokemon X. I give it a thumbs up if you're a fan of Pokemon, mileage of course will vary from person to person.
I might share my friend code later on or something since I could do with more than a couple of Friend Safari zones (and I'm not so into the game that I'll dive into Reddit to get access to every possible set of Pokemon)
0533-5368-2560
and this is also the only way to get Eevee's fairy evolution; Sylvion.
overal, i did also LOVE to have my good old Blastoise at my side again, and when i was able to catch Cuebone i was completely satisfied :D
France sux, having the animals and having legends of norse myth does not mix well. Norse myths are swedish myths. Same goes with the region, maybe if Sweden was a region of pokemon we could have a better result of stronger trainers.
I played the crap out of Soul Silver, which was a remake of Silver in the same generation as Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. The big thing in that game is, like Ash from the television show, you could have your lead pokemon follow you around, and interact with them. I loved having my Jolteon running about, and seeing all the goofy things it would do in various environments.
I know what you mean about familiarity. Seeing zigzagoon is returning in X+Y is to me what charmander is to you.
I beg to differ that your charmander is just like every other charmander, because of the hidden values the breeding system *finally* reveals in X+Y. They've always been there, so that every pokemon will be slightly different.