Pokémon X & Y

The sixth generation has been upon us for over a year now, and it seems that this franchise is as popular as in the beginning, therefore making it unlikely it will go extinct any time soon. Pokémon remains a powerful simple to learn, hard to master concept.

With Pokémon Y, the 3D graphics have drastically improved from the previous 2 generations, as character and Pokémon models have all been enhanced by this, including animations and fluent movements.

As always, the multiplayer is robust and seems more connected than ever, and the amount of depth regarding battle strategies provided remains what really keeps me coming back towards the franchise for replay value and competition.

A new type called Fairy is introduced, spicing up the battles a bit more. The EXP. share item, crucial for grinding sessions in previous adventures, has been adjusted so that the whole team gets a 100% of battle experience points regardless of who did the final blow.

This means that the core gameplay of Pokémon Y has largely been streamlined and sped up, lowering the challenge significantly, but to me is a positive development because this means that the overall way of primarily playing for battles has been made more efficient.

What remains dissapointing is the bland and dull conversations of ordinary people, and the main story continues to use the formula of a professor calling you up, an insidious team bent on domination and a rival regularily challenging you.

I don't mind the 8 gym leaders, the elite four and the champion at all, because those are enjoyable traditions since Red and Blue. Perhaps the main stories are always doomed to be repetitive and annoying, but maybe they should attempt to hire different writers for once.

Pokémon Y is anyhow an old recipe of not fixing exactly that what makes Pokémon popular and continues to be promising purely for it's core gameplay alone. Graphics are a huge improvement, the soundtrack is largely a remix celebration and as always, the Pokémon collection keeps growing.

Rating: 8.3