Pokémon has moved onto its sixth generation in the new Kalos region, modeled after France, and the Pokémon now have species reaching into the 700s with “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y.” The games’ release was highly anticipated as demonstrated by the throngs of costumed Pokémon fans waiting outside of GameStop a few weeks ago.
The games play pretty much the same as all other Pokémon games: walk around, catch some wild Pokémon, beat the gym leaders and climb all the way to the top by becoming Pokémon League Champion. Of course, a new evil organization is attempting to destroy the world. This time it’s Team Flare. The story is pretty dark for a Pokémon game, but I won’t ruin that here.
The games begin like any other Pokémon game. After character creation, the player goes downstairs to talk with their mom. Instead of receiving your first Pokémon from the professor, players receive their choice of Fennekin, the fire type, Chespin, the grass type and Froakie, the water type, from a group of friends. Normally, a player has one rival, but that changed a few games ago to two rivals and now four. These four play a much more interactive role in the story than in any of the previous games. They travel at the same pace as the player and often go on side adventures with them.
The four ask the player to design a nickname to be called throughout the journey, creating an even closer friendship. Of course, this has turned into a popular Internet sensation in choosing the strangest or funniest names you can make your new friends call you.
The wild Pokémon in these games are abundant. A player can walk onto a route and find more than seven different Pokémon from across every generation. It makes the game more interesting and makes fighting your friends more interesting because usually players don’t see every type of wild Pokémon found on the route.
Now let’s talk about the fairy type: I still don’t understand how to fight a fairy Pokémon. The fairy type is the newest type added to a Pokémon games and seems to be used for three reasons: to offset dragon types’ overwhelming power, give poison types a reason to exist and give players a headache. Many of the older Pokémon have been re-vamped with the new type, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it causes some type conflicts. Fairy psychic types are not weak to dark attacks. I don’t know why this is. The fairy type itself is a welcome change, but the game lacks explanation of it, so looking at a type chart or just fighting usually does the trick.
Finally, there’s Mega Evolution. This is essentially a glorified Digivolve for a Pokémon. It’s a temporary, in-battle evolution that allows certain Pokémon to gain bonus stats, change abilities and, in some cases, change type. A few warnings about it: Only one Pokémon in the party can be mega-evolved per battle, certain opponents can mega-evolve too and the Pokémon must be holding a certain item to mega-evolve. Other than temporary appearance and power-up, the Mega Evolution plays a large role throughout the story.
In addition to the new Pokémon added to this game, there is a new, long-awaited costume change option: You can now customize your avatar. The personal customization begins with the click on the new game option in the main menu. A player inputs gender, skin tone and hair color. Sure, it seems kind of minor, but this is a huge step. In Lumiose City, it is also possible to change haircuts and hair color. These are minor changes compared to the boutiques.
In the boutique, a player can buy new bags, shirts, pants, hats, socks, shoes, purses, dresses and accessories. The boutiques restock every night at midnight, so visit them frequently to see the new items specific to each region of Kalos. The clothing set completion is quickly becoming as popular as the PokéDex completion.
With everything that has been added in this generation’s Pokémon games, it’s easy to see that Pokémon is still alive and well. It promises to stay that way as it remains one of the best-selling role-playing video game series ever. Get a copy. It’s not just for kids; it’s for adults too. Just try turning on your local wireless connection and see how many people around you in the union are playing it too. The number won’t be small.
