IMPRESSIONS: Pokemon X & Pokemon Y

For those of you who did not know, Nintendo held a Worldwide Nintendo Direct at 3AM PST to announce a new Pokemon experience. After about ten minutes of Iwata talking about Pokemon's history and how it always took advantage of new handheld hardware and how it was always a problem for Nintendo to release the games at the same time worldwide, Iwata unveiled the trailer for the next Pokemon games: Pokemon X & Pokemon Y.

Logos for Pokemon X and Pokemon Y

Pokemon X and Pokemon Y are to be the first games in the sixth generation of Pokemon. This marks Generation V as one of the shortest generations in Pokemon history, only lasting around 2-3 years. Since he was stressing the points earlier, Iwata quickly pointed out two major things about Pokemon X & Pokemon Y. Firstly, the Pokemon games will take full advantage of 3DS capabilities, not only having 3D visual effects, but also being in full 3D renders. This is quite the development, as the Pokemon Franchise has never come out of the 2D world except in spin-off titles, usually on consoles. This will mark the very first Generation of Pokemon where the main series titles have full 3D renders.

Iwata also noted that while it has been a problem for Nintendo/Gamefreak to release Pokemon games simultaneously worldwide, the problem will be addressed with these entries, announcing a worldwide release date of October 2013. I am not sure how I feel about the names of the games, as Pokemon titles have always been associated with colours, metals, or gems, but I guess it isn't the worst they could have named it. Iwata also talked about how in addition to entirely new Pokemon, there will also be some Pokemon from the previous generations. I am hoping by this that he means there will only be some Pokemon from previous generations available in the game, as opposed to only some being compatible, as I am hoping I can import all my Pokemon from the now-obsolete 2D titles into these ones.

Female Protagonist in the game world

While the 3D renderings of the in-game world seem a little bit lackluster compared to other 3DS titles, it is still a giant leap forward for the Pokemon franchise, and I'm sure the gameplay and gigantic world will more than makeup for the blocky 3D world. One thing that should be noted, however, is that the in-game battles are also full 3D and seem to use much higher graphical capacity than the ingame world, seeming extensively less blocky. From the tiny bit of battle footage shown, it seems that battles will be treated the same way, except the animations will obviously be much better.

The new wild Pokemon screen revealing a Pikachu in the grass

We also got a look at the three new starters: Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie. Chespin, the grass starter, seems to be based on a chipmunk. Surprisingly, for the first time since Generation III, Nintendo has designed a grass-starter that actually seems desirable. This cute little woodland creature's face is hard to resist and has already caught my attention. Chespin is also the only one of the starters who's name actually doesn't sound awkward. Fennekin, the fire starter, is a fox-like creature. For the first time since Generation II, I truly believe we will finally have a fire starter who doesn't become Fire/Fighting by it's final form, which makes me super excited. Easily, Fennekin is the most desireable starter to me, simply because it has just as good of a design as Chespin and also has the superior type. It's name, however, seems a little bit extensive. Froakie, the water starter, is quite disappointing. First of all, the name sounds like somebody is choking on a fork. Second, the design is unoriginal, as we already have multiple blue frog Pokemon, and it is also quite ugly. However, I do believe Froakie may have great potential in it's evolutionary stages. Pictures of the three starters are below.

From left to right: Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie

Another thing shown off in the trailer were the two player characters. The female character was only shown in small clips and you never really saw her face, so I can't really say much about her (see her in the second picture on this page). The boy character, however, was shown pretty up close and I will provide a picture after this paragraph. My problem with the player characters is the same as my problem with the world: they seem blocky. However, the blockiness I am willing to look past. The female character, from what it looks like, has quite a good design. Red clothing and a red newsies hat makes her seem like a female version of Red (Gen 1 Protagonist) or Lucas (Gen 4 Protagonist). The boy character, however, is terribly ugly. One thing I really enjoyed about Generation V was that the player characters were no longer 10-12 years old, but rather, 16-17. It seems like they have decided to go back to the 10-12 range with this player character. First of all, his clothes don't match which looks quite awkward. They should have made his hat blue or changed the colour of his clothing depending of the version (red for X and blue for Y). However, I can say that he is an improvement from the horrendous design of the protagonist in Black 2/White 2 who had a terrible hair day. In the end though, it is the Pokemon we are playing the game for, not the player character, so it won't matter much.

The new Male Protagonist

Finally, Nintendo also briefly unveiled the mascots of the games. There were no names or artwork, but they appeared in CGI cutscenes at the end of the trailer, which allowed us to get a glimpse. I am happy to say, that for the first time since Generation 3, our mascots are not dragons. The mascot of Pokemon X seems to be a giant stag with enormous antlers. It is actually designed quite well and it seems very majestic. While they have used deer as Pokemon before, Nintendo has never touched a stag before, which makes this Pokemon all the more unique. The mascot for Pokemon Y is a giant red and black bird. Of course, birds are slightly less original as we not only have a large variety of bird Pokemon, but also quite a handful of bird legendaries. However, Pokemon Y's mascot is so well designed that it seems to be the desirable version. There were no reports on the types of these Pokemon, but one could only guess that Pokemon X's mascot will likely be grass and Pokemon Y's mascot will likely be flying, although I hope there are dual-types as Pokemon Y's mascot would have an obvious advantage over X's in this case. It is also quite cool to notice that the X and Y in the logos resemble the mascots, as Y's mascot is shaped like a Y and X's mascot would probably be shaped like an X if it opened it's legs.

Mascot of Pokemon X

Mascot of Pokemon Y

All in all, I am quite happy with this announcement and have bumped Pokemon X and Pokemon Y to the top of my anticipation chart for this year. I am still debating on which version I will get and which starter I will choose (although I do have 9 months to think about that), but I am certain that these games will be a huge step in the Pokemon franchise and am happy to share my thoughts with all of you.

Giuliano V.