Pokémon X and Y: The Cons
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(Jenna Pittaway / Neon Tommy)
Pokémon is one of the most successful game series in the history of video games. 17 years and over 245 million copies later, the concept and story plot haven’t changed much: you’re traveling the Pokémon world trying to be the very best trainer.
The latest installment, Pokémon X and Y, brings new graphics and mini-games to the franchise, but at the expense of some of the original challenges that make the game so beloved. It’s hard to feel like the best trainer you can be when it’s just so easy.
If you haven’t purchased Pokémon X or Y, there are a few things to consider before buying the game. If you’ve already bought the game, you might have noticed these while playing. Without further adieu, here is our list of the top 10 things that we don't like about Pokémon X and Y:
1) Leveling up
Leveling up has become extremely easy with the use of the Experience Share and Lucky Egg items. Remember the old days, when you would give your Pokémon experience share to help it level up? Now all you have to do is turn it on at the beginning of the game and all your Pokémon gain experience, not just one.
In addition to Experience Share, you can also use an item called Lucky Egg. If you give a Pokémon Lucky Egg, that Pokémon will gain experience, and if the Pokémon holding Lucky Egg takes part in a battle, then it gains even more experience! These experience items make it really easy for players to level up way too quickly.
2) In-game giveaways
Pokémon X and Y have a lot of in-game giveaways. In the first forest, your friends in the game accompany you, healing your Pokémon throughout the forest and giving you Pokeballs. Every other person you talk to will give you some kind of item! You no longer have to worry about fainting or not having enough items because they’re basically just thrown at you.
3) Tips
You can now tip people throughout the game. Though tipping is speculated to increase your chances of coming into contact with shiny Pokémon, this speculation has not been proven. Though this addition to the game may make human contact more realistic, it’s a bit pointless.
4) Money
While tipping may be pointless, you might as well indulge in this odd and unexplained feature, because if you equip the Amulet Coin, you’ll have a lot of excess money. Even with the new character customization features (exorbitantly priced clothing, hats, etc. for your character), you’ll have more money than you know what to do with. This isn’t necessarily new; money has always been easy to come by, and the Amulet Coin HM is available in other games, but it minimizes the challenge even further by eliminating the need to budget for potions, antidotes and Pokeballs at the store.
5) Save Glitch
A glitch in Lumiose City didn’t affect gameplay, but it disabled players from saving their game.
“There is a huge glitch in one of the cities… if the game is saved in the streets, and then exited, the game will not continue when attempting to continue," said Andrew Wong, a 21-year-old game developer and Pokémon player. "So the biggest city in the game – one with many daily activities – has a glitch that forces one to restart completely, at least until Nintendo patches it.”
On Oct. 25, Nintendo released an update addressing this save bug. Even those affected by the issue will be able to resume playing their game from where they left off after downloading the update. Nintendo encourages all players to update by scanning a QR code on their website.
SEE MORE: Pokémon X And Y: The Pros
6) 3D
There are two kinds of 3D at play in the new game: the 3D rendering of the game itself and the stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS’ dual screens. While the move to 3D gameplay and isometric camera movement is appreciated, the results of the upgrade are underwhelming. Developers didn’t really utilize the user-controlled stereoscopic 3D feature. “The 3D feature has little to no use. It can only be seen in Pokémon battles, and doesn't really visually impress,” says Wong. “It will drop your frame rate at times. So I don't recommend trying to do that. ”
7) Camera Angles
The decision to move to 3D-rendered graphics was a good one. The problem is that other games have been doing this for decades, while this is Pokémon’s first attempt. The experience has drastically improved, but there are still some awkward moments, especially in battle where the camera moves are more ambitious. The camera coverage is sports-arena style with tracking shots and wide aerial views. These aren’t out of place – in fact, the perspective change is welcome. The shots that were jarring were handheld-style shots with some shaky camera action from strange angles. The transitions seem random and cut off mid-shot, which can take attention away from the battle.
8) Post-Game
The game is pretty easy to beat, but sadly there isn’t much to do after you beat the game.
Wong says, “I think having the original Kanto region, like Silver and Gold did, would fill our nostalgia; and make it so that when you beat the original game, you still have a lot of content to go through. It's sad seeing people who beat the game in two days, then drop the game. Sure, they rushed through the game, but it's inevitable for all of the players to beat the (spoiler) Elite Four of the Kalos region. After that, besides actually catching and evolving each and every Pokémon, there isn't much to do. Silver and Gold really brought something awesome to the table when they told the players, ‘You've beaten your home region, but more adventure still awaits!’”
9) Aimee Camera Capture
Pokemon Amie, one of the newest features in Pokemon X and Y, finally allows trainers to interact with their Pokemon, and a lot of people are really enjoying this new addition to the game. You now get to pet, feed, and play with your Pokemon, which can lead to better effectiveness in battle, and possibly an evolution. However, the camera mode on Amie isn’t so effective. In Amie, your Pokemon may sometimes ask you to make facial expressions at them; they can ask you to do things such as tilt your head or smile at them. Though the concept of this feature is great, Nintendo really seemed to fail with the execution.
Wong says, “Your Pokémon will want you to perform certain facial expressions to entertain it, but the camera has issues recognizing that you are doing them. Kind of frustrating, as making your Pokemon happy really benefits you in battles.”
10) Ability to stop a battle
You can now choose to not battle some people, which is a little ridiculous. What happened to the days when you would finish battling someone and then Gary pops up forcing you to battle him? It’s almost impossible to lose a fight in this game already. There isn’t much of a challenge when battling.
Reach Janelle Cabuco here.
