Heyo! Pokemon Y makes its return this year, and in a very big way. It keeps things simplified while going all out. I had fun playing Pokemon Y with major nostalgic period every time I played.
(All images taken with a Lumix GF-1 – Pancake lens; Also some shots form pre-placed in-game locations.)
Being a strong Pokemon fan I couldn’t resist the Pokemon Y hype. I played Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow a hell of a lot to the point I had Blue stolen from me with my original Gameboy, and I still know who stole it. I happily played Pokemon Stadium along with Pokemon Stadium 2 while using the Gameboy features. I played Crystal and skipped to Pokemon White. I had urges to play Pokemon Ruby. I had fun with Pokemon White thanks to an ex-blogger – Persocom – to Pokemon White 2 and now onto Pokemon Y.
It is a very fun universe which brings loads of fun in the gaming universe. Pokemon Y takes a step back into Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow taking two or even three more steps forward with Pokemon X&Y. It makes the world feel more alive, more graphically enhanced, adds 3D battles, Pokemon Amie, and Online to a new point. Everything about it is new, old, and nostalgically fun in every way.
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– Related Articles:
– Pokemon White – Keldeo & Porygon
https://arcticukitsu.com/Blog/?p=3322
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I just had to get this game because of all the new features. Yes, even for the lovely Fennekin.
The game still sticks to the same formula we know and love, or hate, that this game still takes that same route. We start off fresh by starting with a new set of three starting Pokemon, while also obtaining the original starters from Prof. Sycamore who gifts you the first three starting Pokemon from the original games within an hour or so into the game. It is a nice mix of old and new. It simplifies certain things to welcome new players while also making references that old Pokemon fans would be familiar with. It is a game meant for the old and new Pokemon fans.
The game even teases you a little when you start with Pokemon Sprites and a Rhyhorn you can ride around in a very limited manner. Quite fun and amusing.
– Sitting:
You can now sit in any chair and on any bench. Why? Why not! You can sit practically anywhere, even on a mountable Pokemon in set places. As silly as this may seem to some I actually enjoy using this silly feature while idling the game, or when playing with Pokemon Amie. I do hope this bench feature will wander into the sequel spawning a co-op mode, or similar.
– Battles & Horde Battles:
The Pokemon battles still stay the same while taking a major leap in a welcoming direction. Pokemon battles are now in 3D giving the field a more life-like vibe to it. It is still the same with moves and strategies, just feels so different that it becomes very addicting now that you can view your Pokemon in their Pokemon Stadium type form.
Wild Pokemon battles now keeps you on your toes more with horde battles. There is a chance of encountering a group of Pokemon that attacks your party leader, though at a lower level than the rest due to the swarming. They are still however dangerous in numbers. They get highly stressful and very annoying to those that simply want to progress, or to level, while to those wanting to have fun will enjoy these. I actually enjoy horde battles hoping it’ll see more improvement or use in the future.
The battles also can be greatly effected by Pokemon Amie through affection. The more you love your Pokemon the more entertaining or memorable these battles become. Your Pokemon may even defy the odds of fainting or strike a critical hit depending on how much you love them.
– Player Customization:
Right from the get-go you can customize your character greatly. You have the obvious choice of male & female and then three portraits to choose how your character actually appears. From there, you visit towns and cities to purchase hats, jackets, shirts, bags, and shoes along with getting your hair changed. Pokemon Y makes a great long-awaited leap forward with player customization that was desired for a VERY long time.
Seeing as how Pokemon X&Y have beauty as its theme every Pokemon center has a change room to mix and match your appearance.
There are apparently more choices for females than males which ruins or makes those picky very disappointed. I even wanted Pokemon themed outfits featuring Pokemon silhouettes at the very least of Vulpix and/or Fennekin. Would have been nice.
– Pokemon Amie:
Pokemon Amie is a very important part of the experience. Ignore it all you want, it does add a very important part to the gameplay from all sorts of perspectives and angles. Loving your Pokemon and ranking their love/affection allows them to do better in battle.
Pokemon Amie adds the feature of petting, feeding, and playing games with your Pokemon which all adds to their affection level. You can pet your Pokemon’s head or tail, feed them Poke-puffs, or play a handful of games that will raise their affection towards you which will reward you highly in Pokemon battles. You may even make facial expressions for your Pokemon to copy and vice versa. Well, that is if you can make it read your face, which it can’t half the time. It makes the game feel like a long-awaited version of a game that should have been out in the Red & Blue era following the Anime. Instead, we have a lovely game doing what we wanted in our time instead which is equally as awesome.
Pokemon Amie brings boosts to Pokemon battle in the form of giving a chance of resisting fainting, a chance for critical hits, and just giving more “life-like” battles. Amie makes battles feel more alive with how your Pokemon reacts to everything, including a pat before the battle’s message end after a Pokemon faint. I had loads of memorable moments thanks to Pokemon Amie’s being added. My lovely fox Pokemon survived a battle thanks to it while also fighting bravely.
The only problem I find with Amie is how easy it is to abuse it. Just by spending 20 minutes to an hour you can get a Pokemon to max affection with ease by simply playing the “head-bouncing” mini-game, feeding them puffs, and petting them while maxing each and every bit. It starts to feel like cheating when using the guide method. The second problem I find are the lacking amounts of mini-games. It gets boring quickly when you have loads of Pokemon in your party.
– Torchic – Special Event Pokemon:
Seeing as how I obtained the game on launch day I received Torchic on the same day. Pokemon Y still does the special event Pokemon as with past versions. Hopefully you obtained yours turning your party using up three slots.
– Pokemon PSS:
Pokemon X&Y went all out on the online features. Everything is at your finger-tips, even a Pokemon promotional video to show others. You can see whoever is in your areas, trade on a whim, and battle anybody whenever you want. It is all made so easy that it can be easily abused, and has been easily abused. I love it, but it needs a tiny bit more polishing here and there to make it fully fluid.
The O-Powers you can get from people helps greatly. You can notice when people send you O-Powers with effects sparkles in battle and a message scrolling through the bottom screen.
– Berry Planting & Growing:
Not long into the game you are given access to a large berry field to grow your berries. To do so you simply grab berries on your journey, plant them here, water them, and protect them on occasions from wandering hungry insect type Pokemon. The more you grow the more mutations you get with different types of berries next to one another.
If you enjoyed berry picking in the Dream World then you shall enjoy it greatly here. It won’t get you a house, but you can still enjoy it. Possibly.
– Pokemon Mounts:
There are a few set areas where you can happily mount specific Pokemon for the fun of it. Lumiose city is one of such. You can ride a Ryhorn, Malmoth, and a Goat type Pokemon happily. The goat type being the funnest because it has the largest area to freely move around in. It is saddening you can’t move them around fully and freely but it is nice that they are even in there.
I do hope this feature gets expanded in the future by riding your own Pokemon.
– Team Flare:
Team Flare is a group similar to Team Rocket, but far sillier. They have the most ridiculous orange get-up thinking they are all so stylish while aiming for simple pure destruction. They want everything destroyed, except for themselves. No mercy, no compassion, and no aiming to obtain the strongest Pokemon for power. They simply want destruction. They are too much of an odd bunch that they whisper secrets to you while speaking to themselves. They’re destructively stupid.
I had a bit of fun fighting the admins, and especially the bosses. The grunts were obviously fodder. Easily dealt with. If they really want to take out trainers they should start swarming as well. I can take them on.
– Loto-ID:
Being based on Paris and being the hub of the map you can do many things. One of those things being the Loto-ID using the GTS Wondertrade and other forms of trading. You get one try per day and can win many things.
– Hotel Jobs:
Again in Lumiose City, you can do jobs for the luxury hotel. You earn cash for how well you do in a timed manner by doing people’s beds and giving them food. It is a nice way to gain money in a renewable manner along with a role-play fashion.
– Scenery:
With Pokemon being based on France and beauty, everything looks gorgeous. It all looks beautiful on this new engine with all sorts of environmental scenery. Everything from typical French European scenery to sea-side areas, semi-fictional areas, mountain areas, snowy zones, autumn Japanese-esque areas, among others. The world is dotted with all sorts of landmarks and scenic areas. It is simply a beautiful region as it was intended to be. I would love to be a tourist in this lovely world if it was real.
– Picture Spots:
This has to be one of the most welcomed feature for me. It makes everything tidy and neat when compared to taking images with my camera. You simply go to an area with a camera touristic sign to hire a photographer and get your picture taken with a semi-manual picture mode. You can choose various options like zoom and options of various sorts while moving your 3DS around to tilt or to view in every direction. It’s quite nice to the point I wish you could take images of everything on the screen instead of just these spots.
Don’t forget to tip the photographer.
– Mega-Evolutions:
A neat idea that you can make Pokemon evolve during battles. To do so you must go through the story a way bit until you reach the top of a tower with at statue of Lucario in it. You shall be gifted an overly-friendly Lucario who will teach you how Mega-Evolutions work in a simple battle using only Lucarios.
To evolve a Pokemon you must be past that check-point in the story and have a wrist-band that triggers the evolution.
As mentioned, it is a neat idea with it being more cosmetic to me. I’m not one for stats so I can’t say if they are truly worth or not because I only play to have quick fun, not stressful number-crunching headaches. I just love to enjoy the game for what it is and I find these mega-evolutions a bit intimidating in appearance, a fun twist to battles, and one to rarely turn the tides in battle.
I stopped playing roughly at the last two gyms being left to be battled. It is a very fun game, just didn’t get that far as everybody else has, thus the lacking Elite 4 and Safari images. I love my Pokemon party because it hasn’t let me down yet.
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– Final Thoughts:
Pokemon Y is such a great game that it brings back the nostalgic memories of when I first played while welcoming the new trainers. It does many great things while taking some slight steps back and many steps forward. It is a fun game that adds both the old and the new while moving happily forward as much as possible. It adds loads of things that it was a fun though simple game to play at times. Maybe a bit too simple at times but still highly fun to play that I gave myself neck issues. The gym battles and the events are fun. I was however surprised with how dark of a turn this game took, if on the light side, with the mention of a Pokemon war.
Loved the battles, loved Pokemon Amie, loved the music, scenery, and everything added. It does many things right that even the PSS feature makes the whole experience fluid. Trading on a whim and battling on a whim is a breeze.
Pokemon Amie has to be the best feature in the game by giving attention to your Pokemon like Nintendogs and similar. It benefits everything both in and outside of that mini-application in a game that it breathes more life into battle. I love using old and new Pokemon in Amie to see their new appearance while seeing how they behave.
Team Flare has to be the most extreme group known in the Pokemon world, or to me at least. Wanting simple destruction while only bringing joy to themselves is something you that would make you hate the organization fully. From one Pokemon War to the next that simply re-opens in this Kalos region.
I give this game my full fox badge of approval. Just buy it if you haven’t! It is indeed a beautiful game as it was striving for.
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– Pros:
– The world is simply beautiful and stunning. Everything has been done as much as possible to to be both beautiful and varied. It appears they went all out as much as possible.
– The Player Search System adds a whole new level to the game. Everything is nice and fluid. Love how you can make your own promotional video.
– Love that the Pokemon are in 3D now, similar to Pokemon Stadium. It brings a nice new addicting element to the game.
– Pokemon that you can mount in specific areas. It is a nice idea that should be expanded on.
– Pokemon Amie is the best feature to be added making Pokemon feel more alive in general and in battles. Pokemon react appropriately making battles more memorable.
– The music is nicely done and awesome to listen to. The farther you go the better it gets, as it usually should go.
– The photo-snapping areas in certain areas. Love how you can take images in preset areas while moving the 3DS around to tilt and take images. Clear images. Needs to be expanded on.
– Player customization is finally in and nicely done. Glad you can purchase outfits on a whim along with hair styles.
– I find it amusing how you can get a job at Lumiose city’s Luxury Hotel by doing beds and getting people’s orders. Nice renewable source of income.
– Pokemon restaurant battles by fighting for certain turns then feasting on your success. Quite amusing.
– Many mini-games and features to keep yourself entertained during and post-game.
– Safari to catch Pokemon far away on your friend’s list. Haven’t played it but I can say it is a nice idea.
– Pokemon Center has itself, a Pokemart, and a change room all mashed into one. It also wishes you a happy birthday on your birthday.
– Cons:
– The EXP.Share, as nice as it is, makes things far to easy. Everything levels up far too quickly making the whole game too easy. Understandable because of the whole “Welcome one and all” invitation.
– Wonder Trade itself being easily abused, but that’s probably on purpose. I just find it abused.
– The #1 cause of sore necks, almost to a paralyzing manner. I overplayed to a point and now hanging back a bit from the over-playing. Not the game’s fault, my fault. But it is highly addicting when reeled in.
– Pokemon Amie’s mini-games get stale very quickly. Becomes more of a chore that only the head-bouncing game on unlimited becomes the best game.
– Pokemon Amie is easily abused with how you can “love up” your Pokemon to 5 hearts quickly. With guides or just told how to you can max out the Pokemon’s affection in 20-60 minutes. Would love it if it had a timer or something to spot “over-affection”.
– Character creation appears to be limited with stores being found in a few areas with limited selections. They do change, just doesn’t seem noticeable enough. I also wanted a Vulpix or Fennekin themed clothing.
– Photography spots being limited to certain areas. Need to be able to take pictures just about anywhere and of anything. I’m spoiled by ACNL on this one.
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I know I should finish the game, as I should, but I wanted to take my time. I may come back and edit this to add more into the pros and cons along with some images. I do hope you found this enjoyable or even still helpful. If you think I forgot something then do let me know and I’ll sneak it in somewhere.
I love this game!