Pokemon X & Y (October 2013 on 3DS) - [Now out! Go out and play it already]

[DocAzure]

XY clearly has the weakest post-game, maybe if you exclude Gen 1, but that was the beginning, you can't exactly expect much from that. I mean, aside from the Battle Maison, Looker, and the three post-game legendaries, there's basically nothing there. Maybe I was just spoiled after BW2, but it's massively lacking. I really hope Z/XY2 improves on this, perhaps returning the PWT from BW2? 

[Indigo Rush]

Could you detail me what Black and White 2 had for a post game?

 

Like, really, I am totally unaware of any mechanics introduced in the DS era.

[Big Panda]

Aren't 3DS games capable of getting DLC? X/Y could get more content without releasing a whole new game.

Could you detail me what Black and White 2 had for a post game?

Like, really, I am totally unaware of any mechanics introduced in the DS era.

Black City/White Forest, access to the parts of Unova you could only visit in the original pair (Nuvema Town, Striaton City, ect.) Driftveil Pokemon Tournaments, and post-game legendaries (Kyurem, Reshiram/Zekrom, Regice/rock/steel, Latios/Latias, the Sinnoh lake trio).

[DarkLight]

I've been wanting to say something about this game's story, but couldn't decide if it was popular or unpopular to say here.

 

I didn't think Lysandre was that great of a villain.

 

While his motive was understandable and that they gave reason why he became rather misanthropic (the notes on the table in that one room of Team Flare HQ), I never found him all that sympathetic. Especially when he actually cried at the thought of killing Pokémon with the Ultimate Weapon. Yeah, Pokémon are special and great, but humans can just go fuck off because they're the only ones capable of being selfish or greedy. That just shattered any sort of sorrow I was supposed to feel for this guy and why he felt he needed to do this heinous action. At least with N, he didn't want to kill humans to, what he thought, would make Pokémon happy since his goal had Pokémon in mind. But with Lysandre, that didn't seem to be the case and thought his feelings towards Pokémon came out nowhere for me.

 

Plus, as I've recently thought about and wished I'd realized it sooner.

 

He's a fucking hypocrite.

 

He goes on about people who steal things for themselves are bad and taints what he considers a "beautifully perfect" world. And yet, he's the leader of Team Flare. The same team who have stolen things essential to power the Ultimate Weapon.

 

-Takes power from the Power Plant.

-Pilfers Pokeballs from the Pokeball Factory to catch really strong Pokémon to sacrifice with. That could've been a reason why they were interested in getting Fossils in Glittering Cave.

-I guess leeching the energy from those stones on Route 10 counts as stealing too.

-Draining power from Xerneas/Yvetal while in their 'shell' forms.

 

You can pretty much bet all of that was done by his order. And he seriously thought these guys deserved to flourish in his "perfect" world? What a load. He and them were no better that those he bad-mouthed. It just sours my indifference towards him even further.

 

I also would've also liked if he looked less blatantly like the leader of an evil organization when you first meet him. Since he's supposed to be a descendant of the king's younger brother, I would've liked to see him wearing some slight jewelry, a fancy suit (considering how fancy Kalos is with it's fashion, it makes sense), and have his hair nicely combed down. Only thing I'd keep is the beard. Anything to just give off a gentlemanly vibe that would give you the impression that he's an upstanding guy. It would've make the reveal a lot more shocking, and when you have to go to Team Flare HQ to confront him, he'd already be in his red and black suit with the crazy, frizzled hair. He mostly spoke like gentleman throughout your journey, but he hardly looked the part, thus making every piece of his dialogue more suspiciously "I'M THE BAD GUY OF THIS GAME!"

 

*Sigh* I know I kind of went on about this and while I don't hate Lysandre, I just don't think he's really the best villain of the series. It's probably just because of me re-playing the game, but upon further examining both his dialogue and what he and Team Flare did, it doesn't add up and sort of falls apart for me.

[Salamander]

On the subject of the postgame, the thing is, you have to ask yourself what exactly the point of a "post-game" is.

 

I think it's fair to say that most RPG-like games are not meant to actually get you to level 100 by the end of the game.  (I was in Y, but I was grinding like Hell and the levels of enemies proved it; the only actual 100-level RPG I can think of is The World Ends With You, though I hear the Disgaea games are a bit of a special case.)  For a game not to be terribly drawn-out, it usually takes you to, oh... well, in Pokemon, 50s or 60s, on average?  In more conventional RPGs I've seen it as low as 30s or 40s.  So there is plenty of potential to reach a much higher level - not just in terms of numbers but in terms of skill, and, if you like, craft in what Pokemon and items you have available.  So a postgame is to encourage you to reach that kind of level, or conversely to reward you for it with challenges that are aimed at such players.

 

So okay, fair enough, a postgame is for extra challenges that don't fit into the main game.  So most Pokemon games have stuff like the Battle Frontier, Pokemon World Tournament, what have you - super-hard level-playing-field challenges.  Some of them, especially GSC and BW/B2W2, have extra areas and routes containing a natural challenge progression (although this was somewhat artificial in BW, as you were suddenly meeting toddlers who had Champion-beating levels - and in general, BW's postgame was too big considering how linear its main game was).  But that's all fine.  Belongs in a postgame.  There's also the fact that the game is balanced for the particular range of Pokemon provided, and if you could bring in loads of Pokemon from other regions then that might upset the challenge.  So that's fine, too - lock all that away 'til postgame, it makes sense as a bonus for the devoted.

 

What the problem is is where that sense of what constitutes an "extra challenge" is out of whack.  There's fundamentally no reason, for instance, why the Looker missions in XY had to be postgame.  In fact, I'd say that making them postgame made them actually quite fatiguing as the natural way to play them, and indeed the one presented, is that you play them all in a row one after the other, which is frankly kind of dull.  Whereas if they'd been unlocked over the course of the game, say after each gym - voila, the pacing is instantly improved, you can take or leave them at any time, the game keeps on providing you with new and different things to do with your time.

 

Similarly: Mega Stones.  The game gives you, what... up to four Mega Stones during the main game, though it's really only two, Lucarionite and StarterPokemonite.  Then the rest it locks away until postgame... despite the fact that the game's own progression uses Mega Evolutions as main game challenges!  You fight a Mega Lucario after three gyms, a Mega Gyarados after seven, a Mega Gardevoir with the champion!  What is inconsistent about locking away so many Mega Evolutions from the player when they are equally presented to you as enemies you are capable of defeating?  Alright, with Mega Gyarados and Mega Gardevoir you can argue that there's surprise value - suddenly they Mega Evolve and you don't know where you're standing.  Fine - just lock away those two 'til postgame.  But why not let me have a Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Mawile during the main game?  This is especially stupid as it's one of the game's main new gimmicks, but if you don't play competitively, then by the time you get most Mega Stones, they are completely useless to you as the main story has dried up.

 

And that's what's wrong with the postgame in XY.  Some of it is boring or redundant in a postgame and should have been in the main game, but if you take that away, there's very little left.

 

 

You can pretty much bet all of that was done by his order. And he seriously thought these guys deserved to flourish in his "perfect" world? What a load. He and them were no better that those he bad-mouthed. It just sours my indifference towards him even further.

 

I liked Lysandre a lot, but there was one thing I thought he desperately needed to add to his script which would've made everything he did a lot more... well, not justifiable, but fair: If his plan was secretly also intended to kill all of Team Flare as well.  As his plan stands, if he'd succeeded and killed all Pokemon and all humans except Team Flare... well, not only would some of the worst of humankind have inherited the Earth, give it some thousands of years and eventually they'd have repopulated the planet to the exact same point of unsustainable overpopulation.  Wiping all of them out as well - in much the same way as Cyrus intended to ditch Team Galactic - would've been far more consistent with his stated aim.  In fact... if Lysandre's plan had been to kill all people and Pokemon, with the possible exception of himself, that would also offer a great parallel between himself and his distant uncle, AZ, fated to wander the Earth alone in penance for a crime committed with noble intentions.

[DarkLight]

I would've liked that a lot better as well. True he'd be more like Cyrus with the whole "use 'em then screw 'em" mentality, but at least it would've made him less hypocritical.

[Sean]

I didn't think Lysandre was that great of a villain.

 

I highly doubt anybody thinks he is. He had the subtlety of a fucking Captain Planet villain.

[Salamander]

Is he really any less subtle than the likes of Cyrus and Ghetsis, though?  I guess you'd be correct to argue that he at least hid his connection to Team Flare, but I don't imagine we were intended not to see through this immediately.

 

Actually, this kind of highlights some of the differences in modern-era Pokemon villains for me.  Cyrus was an emotionless sociopath.  Ghetsis was hilariously awful.  Lysandre is something of a Renaissance Man who's also slightly tragic.  None of them are subtle, but they are distinct.  (Giovanni was pretty good as a mob boss - it was the first game, he didn't have to do anything special to stand out - and then GSC basically didn't have a central villain, whilst Archie and Maxie were barely characters.)

[Sean]

I hated every villain after Team Aqua/Magma to be honest. I don't remember a single god damn thing about Cyrus and Ghetis turned out to be generically evil which completely destroys what sympathy the game had tried to build for Team Plasma up to that point. It's like the writers thought, "Hm, we can't figure out a proper counter-argument to Team Plasma's claims that Pokemon should be freed from their trainers, considering they do have a point about how Pokemon are being forced into battle. I know, let's just make the leader a fucking asshole, that'll hopefully make the player forget about what Plasma was trying to do for the entire game!"

 

Meanwhile, Giovanni was just a crime boss who didn't have delusions of taking over the world, while the Aqua and Magma bosses were so adorably moronic I couldn't help but love them. I've hated every other antagonist since, because they take themselves way too fucking seriously.

[DocAzure]

I wouldn't mind if they toned down the villains for the next one, maybe just lower their ambitions. A new Team Rocket if you will, just out to be assholes. I'm kinda getting sick of the "we need to take over/destroy the world" thing, it's wearing thin. Better yet, make a villain that's actually involved in the Pokemon League, someone with power over people through that medium.

[DarkLight]

I somehow got the false impression people liked Lysandre because they thought his goal was so 'easy to feel sorry for' and 'deep' for a Pokémon villain. Things like that just makes me sometimes wish villains who are just assholes and don't have/need a genuine reason for their actions should be played up more instead of always resorting to the cliche "I do X because Y and why you should agree with me."

 

And Team Plasma wasn't even entirely wholesome since some of the members you met in N's Castle in Black/White don't really care about their Pokémon and actually reveal that they basically used abandoned Pokémon to not only for N to play with, but to also build said castle.

 

They were in it more for the false sense of authority than the dedication or actual goal, which even then they were still stupid pawns for Ghetsis.

[Sean]

I definitely did not find Team Plasma sympathetic (hey guys, if you want to convince people to release their Pokemon, don't fucking steal Pokemon you fucking morons), and I hated them even before the reveal about Ghetis. The problem is that people praised the writers for making an evil team that had some supposedly admirable goals for once, and this was the first Pokemon game that attempted to address animal rights, though I think it did it terribly. What good the writers tried to portray with them was ultimately shattered when Ghetis turned out to be another fucking lunatic and all questions pertaining to animal rights were swept under the rug.

 

Seriously, I love me some Pokeymans, but the moment they try to address animal welfare, it just instantly falls apart. There's no way you can justify a culture that is built entirely around capturing wild animals and forcing them to fight each other for entertainment.

[Carbo]

The only reason I liked Team Plasma was because they actually managed to make villains into complete assholes.

Lysandre is pretty fucking pathetic and I like how much of a loser he is.

And getting around to finishing X finally and I'm really enjoying it more than I remember it at first. I haven't gotten to the postgame yet but I think it's one of my favorite Pokeymans.

[Kuzu]

I definitely did not find Team Plasma sympathetic (hey guys, if you want to convince people to release their Pokemon, don't fucking steal Pokemon you fucking morons), and I hated them even before the reveal about Ghetis. The problem is that people praised the writers for making an evil team that had some supposedly admirable goals for once, and this was the first Pokemon game that attempted to address animal rights, though I think it did it terribly. What good the writers tried to portray with them was ultimately shattered when Ghetis turned out to be another fucking lunatic and all questions pertaining to animal rights were swept under the rug.

 

Seriously, I love me some Pokeymans, but the moment they try to address animal welfare, it just instantly falls apart. There's no way you can justify a culture that is built entirely around capturing wild animals and forcing them to fight each other for entertainment.

 

To be fair, most of the sympathy from the fans come from N, who really did try to befriend Pokemon.

 

 

 

People give Ghetesis cred, because he's a fucking lunatic. 

[buba]

To be fair, most of the sympathy from the fans come from N, who really did try to befriend Pokemon.

 

 

 

People give Ghetesis cred, because he's a fucking lunatic. 

 

I fucking hated N.

For four games you learn about how Pokémon and people live happy with each other in many ways from working together to battling, a thing that Pokémon actually enjoy doing. Then out of nowhere comes this dude who keeps going on about how he wants to liberate Pokémon even after seeing multiple examples of people and Pokémon coexisting in harmony.

The fact that he used to be raised by this creatures and actually uses them in battle even if he releases them after (he even mentions that he is willing to let his Pokémon get hurt to fulfill his plan before the Zekrom/Reshiram battle) just makes his intentions even more stupid, since if there is a person who should understand the relation between humans and Pokémon it should be him.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Sounds like I've missed quite a bit since Gen 3.

 

Granted, I have heard about Team Plasma, and I always get in my head that their plain hypocrites, given their use of Pokemon.

[Brad]

You knew Lysandre was the villain from the minute you met him, but that didn't stop him from being a decent one for me. Dat battle theme.

 

Thinking about it, I'd say we haven't really had a fully satisfying villain for my tastes. But the strongest villain story was certainly the Magma/Aqua one for me.

[Kuzu]

I honestly did like Cyrus the most; yea yea, say what you want about him "aiming too high" or "being ridiculous" but unlike his predecessors or even his successors; Cyrus didn't come off as blatantly evil. He was just a man who killed off his emotions and wished to remake the world into one of his choosing. And he's somewhat philosophical with the whole thing.

 

 

But yea, they should probably tone down the villains...or least give them a new motivation; the sympathy card is seriously starting to get overplayed.

[Salamander]

It'd be interesting to see the ruthless, business-minded mentality of Team Rocket (not Team Rocket themselves but an organisation along similar principles) applied to the more usual legendary-centric plot of a more recent game.  Exploiting even a mythical beast for profit would be a fascinating mingling of the grandiose with the grubby.  I would like to see GameFreak pull off a "Just good business" sort of villain now, and I think XY proved that they were still willing to be dark when they wanted to - I certainly wasn't expecting Team Flare's evil plan to boil down to "kill everyone."

 

In addition, one thing I want them to do is an actually non-obvious villain.  Every single villain has obviously been the villain from the moment you set eyes on them.  I'd like to see Pokemon take advantage of its own narrative tropes to trick us.  Have an established champion who turns out to be the villain!  Have an evil team who are actually a group of good and decent people trying to sabotage the villain champion's plans!  If they're actually willing to be clever about it, who would ever guess, given the track record of the series?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I highly doubt anybody thinks he is. He had the subtlety of a fucking Captain Planet villain.

Bad enough, they had him talking like Merlina at some point and put in some ominous music to boot in the same scene team too.

 

That said he does have an outstanding battle theme and heck, I could get a kick out of watching him in action. 'SPecially when he got into those  serious moments. Hell the tune was great, I actually replayed his boss battles! Even got to the point where I wanted to go for drama, and used Mega Charizard Y against his Mega Gyrados and WON!

[DarkLight]

Getting back to Ghetsis and how his whole twist was handled in B/W. I'm honestly surprised nobody seemed to get "I'M THE REAL BAD GUY" vibes from him whenever he showed up onscreen or opened his mouth.

 

If anything, he was more blatant than Lysandre thus, making the "twist" less shocking. Which is probably why I wasn't that infuriated when he basically revealed his "I'm evil and this whole well-intentioned crusade is a hoax" scheme.

[Rusty Spy]

 

I fucking hated N.

For four games you learn about how Pokémon and people live happy with each other in many ways from working together to battling, a thing that Pokémon actually enjoy doing. Then out of nowhere comes this dude who keeps going on about how he wants to liberate Pokémon even after seeing multiple examples of people and Pokémon coexisting in harmony.

The fact that he used to be raised by this creatures and actually uses them in battle even if he releases them after (he even mentions that he is willing to let his Pokémon get hurt to fulfill his plan before the Zekrom/Reshiram battle) just makes his intentions even more stupid, since if there is a person who should understand the relation between humans and Pokémon it should be him.

He's like this because Ghetsis specifically exposed him to Pokemon that were abused by people when he was growing up to make believe all humans were terrible to Pokemon. It was only when he got to meet more people and Pokemon that cared for each other that he started to question his perception on the world.

[Salamander]

Getting back to Ghetsis and how his whole twist was handled in B/W. I'm honestly surprised nobody seemed to get "I'M THE REAL BAD GUY" vibes from him whenever he showed up onscreen or opened his mouth.

 

If anything, he was more blatant than Lysandre thus, making the "twist" less shocking. Which is probably why I wasn't that infuriated when he basically revealed his "I'm evil and this whole well-intentioned crusade is a hoax" scheme.

 

I can't believe that anyone regarded Ghetsis turning out to be evil as a "twist."  Just look at him.

 

 

This is not a person whose design was meant to say "really nice guy."  The whole point of him is to be thoroughly awful, and he succeeds completely.  If there's any "twist," it's the sheer scale and spectacle of Team Plasma's corruption.  They built a giant ridiculous drill-castle underground using abused Pokemon as slave labour!  Ghetsis personally is so horrible, it's hilarious!

[-Mark-]

Random, but does anyone have a Manaphy I could borrow? I'll trade back right away.

 

I own every single Pokémon except Darkrai, Arceus, Meloetta, Genesect. And Manaphy, obviously. So if you need any of those for a trade and trade-back, I could do that.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Does anyone have the respective mega stones of Mawile, Kangaskhan, Garchomp, and Tyrantitar? I'm trying to  get those in so that I can actually use them in the story and not only in the post game.