Pokemon X and Y

[bojackx]

you know what i want? A new pokemon mystery dungeon, but this time, they remove the personality test, and instead let you pick to play as any basic pokemon, sans legendaries. Wanna be an oddish? be an oddish. wanna be a ralts? be a ralts. Wanna be bidoof, or trubbish? I pity you.
But in all seriousness, thats what they should do. Infact, lets get a new stadium while we are at it.

There is a new one coming out in like a couple of months. "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Mystery_Dungeon:_Gates_to_Infinity

 

[Pero]

I like starters, especially Froakie, but I don't like legendaries though.

 

[Kukakkau]

First thing first, so they had all gone Math equation on us eh (X and Y)? I guess they had took some notes from Adventure Time (mathematical).

Or their aim is more based on chromosomes and having it like male/female version. That's my hunch at least.

I'm interested to see how the systems will work in 3D environments but probably not enough to get a 3DS just for this. Other than that I'm pretty underwhelmed by the pokemon they've shown this far (oshawatt with a cone on it's head, another frog, another fire fox and another freaking deer). Hopefully there's a decent concept for the teams etc in this one like the animal rights of the last one.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Stuff

The problem you're having here is that you're talking about the single player game and he's talking about battling humans.

Yes, SMT is the better single player RPG, and it always will be.

But there is NO game in existence that can match the experience of competitive battling. It IS fast and it IS aggressive, like you wouldn't believe.


If Pokemon were purely single player, all your suggestions would be great. But as it stands, online battling and the metagame it generates is more fun by several magnitudes than anything you'll ever get out of Pokemon alone. And like all drastic PvE overhauls proposed with no mind for the PvP, your ideas would have absolutely ruinous consequences.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

So Pokemon's finally gone full 3D. But the graphics are still kinda outdated. And they're making even more unnecessary Pokemon.

Thoughts?

The graphics look fine. So what if there are new Pokemon? They are new Pokemon, not unnecessary. Every generation has had it's stupid looking Pokemon.

Are there actually any other new pokemon apart from the 3 starters and the two legendaries? Because that footage didn't show any other pokemon apart from them at all. Mind you, if they didn't introduce another 100 I'd be mighty pleased with that. I'm just wondering.

I'd welcome another 100, the more the merrier. All the Pokemon I used in my White version were new Gen 5'ers, and I ended up creating four different teams of six. I off course did that because of all the stupid backlash to the new Pokemon. I'm glad I did it, because those new Pokemon teams could beat my teams from the other gens, hands down. With new editions, Gen 5 actually made a true, full, and balanced bug team possible, and also brought more variety to dragon types.

....but where's the gameplay innovation?

Uh, does there need to be? Answer, no. Really, the core games have been about turn based battling, and of late, random in game mini games, that is it. If you want something different, that is what the fringe Pokemon games are for. I wouldn't care if they kept the same battle style for every generation forever, because if you remove or change what has been the core gameplay from these "version" games, then it won't be a core Pokemon game. It wouldn't be Pokemon.

 

[endtherapture]

Uh, does there need to be? Answer, no. Really, the core games have been about turn based battling, and of late, random in game mini games, that is it. If you want something different, that is what the fringe Pokemon games are for. I wouldn't care if they kept the same battle style for every generation forever, because if you remove or change what has been the core gameplay from these "version" games, then it won't be a core Pokemon game. It wouldn't be Pokemon.

When Zelda went 3D, it did it for a reason and the game for better for it.

If these new Pokemon games just use it as a fancyish-but-no-impact-on-gameplay graphics upgrade then I won't be buying it.

 

[Zouriz]

Snip

No, Pokemon doesn't need to be like SMT. All your ideas in your post change the game too drastically. It isn't even recognizably Pokemon anymore. Add a system that allows you to talk, barter, and convince Pokemon to join your side? That makes no sense in the Pokemon universe. Pokemon can't talk! What can I possible offer them besides food? Pokeballs are a unique system and takes both skill and luck. In SMT you either convince the demon...or you don't. I don't see any merit in changing to that.

Fusing Pokemon? That is just silly. One thing I really don't like about SMT IS the fusing aspect. Demons have a shelf life. You are forced to fuse demons to get stronger. In the original SMT games they couldn't even level up! You can't become attached to any of your demons because you know you will be forced to consistently get rid of them. In Pokemon, you can use ANY Pokemon you want(well almost anyone. See Luvdisc) and keep them through the entire game if you so wish. You can use your starter Pokemon in the final battle if you want and WIN. Can you say the same about Pixie? Pokemon grow and become stronger. Many evolve to become even more powerful. Each one has their own unique set of abilities and moves. This creates a huge depth in strategy. Demons in SMT don't have that level of complexity. Pokemon has always been about collecting and using your favorite Pokemon. Fusing would just ruin that.

 

[iampenguinlord]

I preferred the sprites of the older games. They worked well and the 3D style of X & Y looks quite ugly. It makes me kind of happy that I won't be able to play these ones.

 

[Enlong]

Hahaha, oh my God, I can just see how the development of this game went.

"Alright, so you handful of poor bastards are gonna model, unwrap, texture, rig and skin 650+ individual Pokémon, no matter how crappy the designs are, have fun!"

As for the game itself...
I don't really care. It's still a SMT knock-off (an EXTREMELY geniously marketed knock-off) that has only innovated on the most useless aspects of the series. Add more attack slots? Allow for a combination of multiple passive and active abilities? Implement a fusion mechanism? Hah, what silly ideas! Let's put in a beauty contest instead! And while we're at it, let's release every installment multiple times without any significant differences, cha-ching!

Yeah, I don't have anything against you kiddies having fun, but I'm gonna stick with Atlus.

Oh god, do you have any idea just how much things would change if they added a fifth moveslot? Well, not a WHOLE lot, but things would start to get even more agressive. Pokemon predisposed to being sweepers would have even more space for obscure type-checking moves. Mons that have to choose between one scenario and another since they wat to fill a slot with a move that raises their stats could have their cake and eat it too. Mons that currently fill their entire moveset with the abilities to set up a walling effort would be able to attack at the same time. Not to menion how various new options would bounce off each other in ways I certainly can't predict. Not really sure the game needs to be any more fast-paced and aggressive.

What do you mean by "passive and active"? The Abilities are either constant or triggered by somethhing, if that's what you mean. I kinda like having one Ability to a 'mon, mainly because it gives you a choice o build the guy around. And technically, you can have multiple abiliies, in the form of giving hem a held item.

The legendaries of the last game could fuse, and wha do you call the breeding, if not merging the species of the mother with certain moves from the father?

Sorry in advance for the wall of text.

1)
You're right, it wouldn't be as easy as just adding one extra slot - in fact, it would be outright lazy. They should update the entire battle system, not just the one extra slot thing.

The way I see it, is that they could trade the "one pokémon at a time"-system with an actual "party"-mechanic. And I'm not talking about those occasional 2-vs-2 pokémon battles they have. What about having three pokémon on the frontline at all times (unless you willfully leave one out). Not only would it create an entirely new layer of depth and options in your tactics, it would also allow for a whole new slew of abilities. Having to take in account the multiple elements on the field, having moves that affect either one or multiple targets, combined attacks, DPS/tank/healer setups, etc. Things would also cease to be as on the nose as "Oh, a water type, better switch to electricity - oh, now he switched to rock, better get out my plant."

Even in wild encounters, instead of going up against one creature, you'll go up against a herd of creatures - that may or may not be of the same species. Maybe if you throw a ball at a weakened entity, you also have to make sure he's alone, or the others standing next to him will slap it away. Thusly, certain encounter combination would force you to seriously revise your tactics if you actually plan on capturing a certain rare creature. (I'd say it be a good idea to drop the silly pokéball mechanic entirely in favor of a system where you actually have to talk, barter and convince to enemy to join your ranks - like SMT - but that might be a stretch to far for the kids.)

Also? Fast-paced? Aggressive? Really? I've played PSOne RPGs that were more fast-paced than Pokémon.

2)
Okay, I didn't really understand what you meant at first with having only one ability on a beast, but now I get that the one unique skill every pokémon has, is simply called "ability". Now, when I'm talking about active abilities, I mean the skills you actually have to select and use in battle, in other words, your "attacks". With passive abilities, I mean the ones that work without manually triggering them, in other words, what Pokémon calls "ability".

Imagine that each pokémon would have six or eight slots that can be filled, but they can be filled with both "attacks" and "abilities". So you would have to divide both active and passive skills over one and the same space. Again, this would add a whole new layer of depth and options in both your actions and the growth of your beasts.

And yeah, I guess there is the whole "hold an item thing". No complaints there. It kind of resembles a stripped down equipment system from other traditional RPGs.

3)
Breeding is good and all in the sense of "hey, if you want all pokémon, you'll also have to breed a few". But it doesn't really have any other purpose. In the original Megaten series, there was no evolution (I actually think Pokémon invented that, but I could be wrong) and demons didn't learn new moves when they leveled, only their stats increases. Now, you might think: "Well, wasn't that a great innovation of Pokémon?"

My answer: yes - and no. The concepts themselves are work fine (many other games like Final Fantasy had already proven that), but they cut the whole "fusion" aspect. What does this mean? simply put: that you have literally hundreds of characters, but that you probably won't use more than ten playing through the game. Why? Because you don't need to, you have your party of varied elements trained and primed to your liking. In Megaten, you were constantly forced to recruit new demons and subsequently fuse them to make sure your party is as strong as it can be. Your allies were constantly changing and it added more variety and tactical diversity, since each fusion would bring his own set of abilities to the table and only take a few from its predecessors.

With the whole breeding thing, you end up with a very low-level creature that is not on par with the others in your party. The breeding takes time, walking around with an egg is a drag, the newborn is useless in battle? Unless you already played out the game and are now trying "to catch 'em all", the system offers little to no advantages.

Also, I have no idea how the whole "fusing of legendaries" works. First thing I hear of that, so I can't really comment on that.

1: "Agresive" as in "If this guy can't kill most things except the ones hat specifically checks his build in two turns max, then the metageame doesn't want to hear about him" or "Don't bring anyone with a base Speed stat of less than 100 unless you're building a team around the move that inverts turn order" or "If you bring a Fire, Flying, or Bug type, freaking Stealth Rock will knock off 1/4 to 1/2 of their max health the first time you bring it out".

The way the game is currently run between people who play it competitively (or even just play the in-game tournaments that use stronger strategy than the main story), ridiculously fast kills are sort of the theme. "Momentum" is sort of the word. A "Sweeper" is a popular type of guy who can build up his stats (mostly attack and speed) and wipe out most of the enemy's team in one go. To say nothing of Abilities that can doulbe your Speed under the right weaher onditions.

2: I suppose that would be interesting, if tricky to balance. Most Items are used as a passive ability, like boosting a certai type of attack at the cost of health, or restoring some health each turn, that sort of thing.

3: The main appeal of breeding is getting your ideal version of a certain 'mon. Fathers can pass down certain moves that they've learned, depending on what species the child will be (as determined by the mother), and certain breeding tricks make it ridiculously easy to pass down the starting stats you want to the child. Those Egg Moves and Natures (respectively) are something of a big thing, since in a lot of species, it opens up a lot of options you normally wouldn't have by raising a wild specimen. Of course, breeding a new guy isn't always the bet path, and there are plenty of species who learn all their best moves through level up or TMs. So, Breeding has some real advantages. And while it's not really all that useful in the main storyline (hell, B2 W2 don't open up the Daycare until postgame), it's got some surprisingly deep uses in the larger metagame.

As to fusing legendaries, a big thing in the plot of Black and White 2 was that the two boxart dragons from last time were originally two parts of one giant superdragon, which split into the black one, the white one, and this broken icy one which is basically a shell left behind when the other two left. You eventually get the items needed to merge one or the other boxart dragon onto the icy one to create a bigger, more powerful version of the icy one.

But that's not the kind of fusing you meant at all, just something interesting.

I guess the overall theme of what I'm saying is that there's a metagame for this kind of thing hat's a bit deeper than the game originally appears...I can see where your complaints are coming from, though. It all seems to be along the lines of the fact that a lot of this isn't relevant to the actual story mode of the game, where you're leveling a tem to go through the main campaign, and messing about with breeding and the best items both isn't fun, and isn't really necessary. You don't really need to breed eams with crazy new strategies that you're just dying to try out, or buy all the awesome items that you can use once, unless you're fighting an actual human who uses strategies other than "use Water Gun on the thing", a level of thought that most trainers in the game can't figure out.

However, the metagame seems to be creeping into the games themselves in recent releases. At least in postgame content, anyway. The aforementioned world tourney comes to mind, where you have rematches with Gym Leaders who are still using their favored types, but are now metagaming so hard that something funny happens. Which is actually kind of nice, because now you have an in-game reason to train up the best teams you can think of, and high-level endgame areas to powerlevel guys in a fraction of the time it took when going through the story.

In my opinion, my goal with the games at this stage is less "gotta catch 'em all" and more "I want to be the very best, like no-one ever was"

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Eh, they really ran out of colors...

Yeah, prepare for "they look shit" posts, I'm looking forward to it. Gen 5 went out to be my favorite in terms of Pokemon designs so I'm optimistic.

I liked gen 5 too, including the candle one, but not the ice cream one... but even so, this one still looks pretty shit :S the grass one looks moderately brain damaged, the water one is like an ugly version of polytoad, and the fire one is alright but kinda similar to ninetails.

 

[VoidWanderer]

First thought: Aren't X and Y chromosomes in the body?

Second thought... How have they not fucking announced Pokemon Snap 2 yet. Given how the Wii U pad can be used for Nintendo Game, it is mind-blowing how they haven't revived this yet!!

Third thought... Oh... yay... More Pokemon... it's going to be a pain if they ever develop Pokemon Snap 2...

 

[Fijiman]

Well until Nintendo decides to make a serious upgrade to their handheld's graphics... wait, they're actually calling the games Pokemon X and Y?

 

[Tdoodle]

Also get rid of the bloody overly long tutorials. We are not idiots and can figure out the damn game ourselves.

Someone else covered the rest of it (turn off the battle animations), so I'll just point out that Black 2/White 2 had the quickest tutorial out of any of the games. It was all done about 10 paces outside the first gate. The rest made you go to the next town before they stopped forcing you through stuff.

 

[Detroit]

I always end spoiling myself before playing, gen 4 and 5 only actually. Who else thought of Shadow of the Colussus when they saw the bird ?