And The Fandom Rejoiced / Pokémon X and Y

As the first 3D main games in the Pokémon series, Pokémon X and Y were huge hype machines back in 2013.

• The games were simultaneously released worldwide, and the starters' English, French, and German names were revealed at the same time as the Japanese names.
• The games use full 3D models instead of sprites, making for a huge visual leap, especially in battle scenes.
• Some of the new Pokémon have been very well received by fans:
  • The starters themselves are well-liked by the fanbase, especially Fennekin.
    • The Kalos starter Pokémon start off with a STAB move (a move that shares the same elemental type as the user)! Less painful slogging through the early game with Tackle!
  • Similar to Generation V's Reshiram and Zekrom, the cover legendaries (Xerneas and Yveltal) are considered to be very cool and well-designed, and more importantly, represent the long-awaited themes of life and death.
  • After many generations, we finally get the long-awaited Ghost/Steel type Pokémon! And it's a possessed floating sword to boot. (though some people wanted it to be a haunted suit of armor). It also can learn Sacred Sword, which was previously the Swords of Justice's Secret Art.
  • A Psychic/Dark type has just been announced? Well, let's just get a good look at this so called "Malamar" and...Is that a Cthulhu Pokémon?! Who can have Contrary and Superpower? And has a new move that reverses all stat changes on the target (Topsy-Turvy)? And gets Swagger and Foul Play?!
  • It has finally arrived... the Tyrannosaurus rex Pokémon (a real one to. Not the mock one you get from Tyranitar), ROCK/DRAGON FOR THE WIN! POKÉRASSIC PARK IS NOW COMPLETE!
  • Our other Fossil Pokémon... A sauropod that's Rock/Ice and whose ability makes Normal-type attacks Ice-type instead, and powers them up!
    • It also learns a move called Freeze Dry...which is an Ice-type move that is super effective against Water-type Pokémon! Water/Flying, Water/Ground, Water/Dragon, and Water/Grass Pokémon (which were all really solid as far as typings go) have their days numbered. Even better, some old Pokémon such as Lapras and Articuno can also learn it.
  • Fans have dreamed about a Fighting/Flying type for years, and now that dream has finally come true in the form of Hawlucha, a Masked Luchador hawk. Combined with the Togepi line's retcon to Fairy, this means Flying has now been paired with every type in the series. It also has the very first dual-typed attack in the form of Flying Press, a Fighting/Flying type-move.
  • Some fans have been wanting a Pokémon based on a giant panda for a long time. Enter Pancham and Pangoro. (Who are, amusingly enough, Fighting types.)
• The Pokédex has about 150 Pokémon for each part, leading to a bit over 450 Pokémon total or more than 1 and a half of New Unova's Pokédex, the second largest listing as of October 2013. It also has some of the best selection of Pokémon in the series:
  • After being absent in the Unova games, Series Mascot Pikachu returns once again! With voice acting from the anime!
  • Much in the same vein as Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Eevee gets a new Eeveelution named Sylveon!
• Some old Pokémon were given some much wanted changes:
  • Many Pokémon from Generations I to V are having their cries updated.
  • The minisprites are redesigned for lots of old Pokémon (from Kanto to Unova). Some look really great◊.
  • The Clefable line and Granbull line are now pure/monotype Fairy-types, because how odd (and disappointing) would it sound if they didn't get changed to Fairy-types despite Pokémon like Marill and Jigglypuff doing the same (with Clefairy having "fairy" in its name, and Snubbull/Granbull being identified as the "Fairy Pokémon" species in the National Pokédex)?
  • The Togepi line has been changed from Normal-type to Fairy-type. This causes Togekiss (now Fairy/Flying) to be immune to Garchomp's STABs. Combined with Hawlucha's introduction, this means Flying has been paired with every other typing in the game!
  • Finally, several old Pokémon are having their stats updated.
• Some of the new features have cause much rejoicing:
  • Sitting. You can sit in Pokémon games now. What's next, lying down on beds?^note Actually, yes!
  • Instead of being restricted to one language per game cart or country, you can actually choose the language you play in at the beginning of the game!
  • You can fully customize your character! From their hair and skin color, to the clothes they wear, the sheer variety of customization means you're unlikely to see two trainers that are identical. Except you must always wear a hat.
  • For the first time in the main series, you can walk diagonally.
  • You can run from the very start of the game! If that wasn't good enough, you get roller skates near the very start that make you move even faster! To top it all off, the bike is obtained right before the second gym for free!
  • After Generation V required you to connect online/go to the Dream Land to grow Berries, you can grow them in-game now. And they mutate!
    • It gets better. Now more berries grow per tree meaning you don't have to jump through hoops just to get more than 1 Lum Berry per harvest.
  • HMs are less mandatory as ever now. Useful HMs such as Surf and Fly (and depending on your tastes, Strength) can be considered convenient in battle as well, but HMs like Cut and Rock Smash aren't even given to you in the main plot, you have to go out and find those yourselves, showing that they're 100% optional and that they're only needed if you're trying to search for hidden items.
  • Rock Smash still remains a TM, meaning that if you wanted to, you could replace a TM move of your Pokémon (be careful not to replace a useful move that you'd have to go to the Relearner to though) with Rock Smash, smash any rocks, then give the Pokemon back its rightful TM move.
  • The "IV checker"/Stats Judge returns, and tells you if you have any bad IVs, to! This is an Arceussend for those breeding for Trick Room, where a low Speed IV is extremely desirable.
  • You can use Gogoat, a new Pokémon, as a mount. You can also ride Rhyhorn to traverse rocky terrain, Mamoswine to plow through snowy terrain, and Gogoat's pre-evo Skiddo to jump over ledges.^* You can only do this in one area, but it's still pretty cathartic considering how often those ledges taunted you.
  • The Pokémon Global Link's attractions allow you to win the EV reducing berries and evolution items, including the ones where only one exists in the game like the Deep Sea Scale and Deep Sea Tooth. It also allows you to win evolution items that can only be bought in the Battle Maison like the Magmarizer and Electirizer. All for just 100 PokéMiles each.
• The return of well-beloved features have caused some fans to rejoice:
  • Pokémon Centers/Marts in one building are back again, returning from Pokémon Black and White and Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 and allaying fears that the two facilities would be split apart once again come X and Y.
  • The time-saving feature from Generation V (since Black 2 and White 2) that lets you automatically use a Repel in the field (without having to navigate to the Bag's menu) is back!
• New type for the first time in 12 years: Fairy. And it's supereffective on Dragon. Also, a new form of bonding with Pokémon, as a Tamagotchi-ish game.
  • To add to this, the Fairy type means one more option compared to Ice (which is fragile and hard to find a decent mon of that type) or risk using its own type knowing it has a weakness to. Dragon mons who neutralized their ice weakness might be in trouble.
  • Type chart has been revealed - among that, Fairy-type being weak to and resisted by Poison-type, which really needed help.
  • According to the developers, the Fairy-type's whole existence owes itself to (finally) balancing the game-breaking Dragon-types. So Game Freak does care about competitive balance after all.
• There are two new battle types, both of them optional:
  • Sky Battles, which are exclusive to Pokémon that are Flying-type or have the ability Levitate (and are actually flying in their animation).
  • Horde encounters, which allow you to fight five Pokémon at once. When used in conjunction with the Power items, this allows one to fully train a Pokémon's stat in just ten battles. This makes EV training much faster than in previous generations.
• While details are still incoming, this video confirms a Pokémon that, at the least, bears a strong resemblance to Mewtwo.
  • Resemblance, nothing — it's a new form for Mewtwo. The fandom lost it.
  • And it's a Mega Evolution for Mewtwo, as if to make it even more ridiculously powerful.
  • AND IT HAS TWO: one for each version. Y is the one we have seen before, while the X version is more closely designed to its original form.
• The latest Coro Coro scan brings the craziest change you can imagine - namely, the so-called Mega Evolutions (come up with your own Digimon jokes whenever you want), a mix between proper evolutions and new forms. The first six Pokémon revealed include Mewtwo (therefore solving the mystery about his new form), Blaziken, Ampharos, Mawile, Absol and Lucario. Most notably, apparently "Mega Mawile" becomes a Steel/Fairy (as well as the normal one) type, while "Mega Ampharos" is Electric/Dragon type. Wow.
  • You can get the event Torchic with the Blazikenite and Speed Boost at launch. Awesome? You bet it is.
  • A boatload of new Mega Evolutions has been revealed: Pinsir (which gains a Flying typing and an Ability that turns Normal moves into Flying-type ones), Banette, Medicham, Heracross (which gains Skill Link), Alakazam, Houndoom, Manectric, Aerodactyl, Scizor, Gyarados (which exchanges the Flying half of its typing for Dark, lessening its weakness to Electric attacks from 4x to 2x), and Gardevoir (which gains a Fairy-type version of the aforementioned Mega Pinsir's Ability).
• Mega Evolution for Charizard! Many are rejoicing already!
  • It has the ability Drought to — the ability that was exclusive to Groudon and singlehandedly made Ninetales OU.
  • To quote a site: "it's only fitting that the best starters get the best mega evolutions". You heard that right: all the first generation starters are getting one. Even better, just when you thought Blastoise couldn't get any more badass, his mega evolution has one cannon on the back and one shielded cannon on each arm. Even better, apparently the first generation starters are obtainable early into the game!
  • That's not all! Like Mewtwo, Charizard has ANOTHER Mega Evolution. It's only on the X version, and has an awesome black-and-blue color scheme complete with bright blue flames. The best part? It has Fire/Dragon as its typing which not only gives it Reshiram's typing ^note and Zekrom's palette but also turns its 4x Rock weakness into a 2x one.
  • You have the option to choose one of the Kanto starters, which is nothing new. However, unlike previous games, where this only became an option in the postgame, Professor Sycamore will give one to you right after you beat the first gym. And as if that wasn't awesome enough, they come with their respective Mega Stones, meaning you'll have instant access to their Mega Evolution once they're fully-evolved (unless, of course, you did an insane amount of grinding prior to the third gym, after which is when the player is given access to the feature).
  Professor Sycamore: It'd be fantastic if you took another Pokémon with you!
• The EV system has become much more manageable than in previous games:
  • The Effort Value (EV) cap per stat has finally been changed to the more logical 252 Effort Points, rather than the 255-point maximum from past generations. Since the games had previously only used the first 252 out of 255 Effort Points anyway, this quirk meant that you could potentially waste up to 3 Effort Points while EV training (255-point maximum per stat, and no more than 510 points per Pokémon, meaning that 2 stats could be maxed out, potentially giving a 1 stat point bonus to any non-maxed stat) if you were not paying attention.
  • A new mini game called Super Training lets you EV train outside of battles. Its other functions include tracking your Pokémon's Effort Values and, thank Arceus, the ability to reset all of the EVs if you mess up (or prefer to use the Pokemon in the main game so you can reset it after getting a bunch of junk EVs during regular gameplay).
• The soundtrack from the games was released on iTunes, all two hundred and twelve of them. Shh, you hear that? That's the sound of the fandom going crazy.
• Many fans' rejoicing was turned into a Mass "Oh, Crap!" when they realized the last time a pair of games brought so many changes was when Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire came out, and we all know that such a massive overhaul in the database came at a high price. Well, guess what, Technology Marches On, and it is glorious.
  • An online Pokémon Bank. It's not meant for in-game money. It's meant for stored Pokémon. Up to a whopping three thousand. (The fact it has a yearly fee does little to reduce the hype.) It helps that this yearly fee is only $5/500 yen, which is less than your average lunch.
  • For those who download and access Pokemon Bank before 9/30/2014, a very nice surprise gift will be in store: a Celebi! And since the Celebi has your OT and ID, you can nickname it via the Name Rater.
  • Unlike most of the 3DS's software, Pokémon Bank is region free, meaning it's compatible with every copy of Pokémon X and Y, even if the game isn't from the same region as the 3DS it's on.
  • If a Pokémon from Generation III or IV is transferred to Pokémon Bank and isn't nicknamed, its name will be corrected so it isn't all caps anymore.
• In honor of Pokémon X and Y, the "Gotta catch 'em all!" slogan made a triumphant return after ten years of retirement (mostly last seen in the prerelease days of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire), with a nifty song, website, and sweepstakes, to boot!
• The official website has been redesigned with a sleeker, more hipster-friendly interface, replacing the outdated stereotypical kids' website interface that it used up to Gen V. A lot of fans do dig the new look.
• After 11 years of fans clamoring for a "Pokémon Z"... they finally got their wish with the announcement of Pokémon Legends Z-A complete with the long-awaited return of Mega Evolution to the main series, which also acts as a follow-up to the beloved Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Fans were ecstatic, especially considering that the expectation was for a new Johto or Unova game and that another Kalos game had long been held as a fandom pipe dream.

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