YMMV / Pokémon Xenoverse

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Just how much of Versil/Silver's crusade to destroy the Xenoverse was motivated by the desire to protect his new family, and how much to avenge his father Giovanni's death? Although Versil repeatedly claims it is the former, the memorial near the player character's house in Nova Ranch and the fact Versil/Silver salvaged Mewtwo, Giovanni's most prized Pokémon, allows one to read into the latter.
• Breather Boss: After the absolutely brutal fight with Alter Trey, Sergeant S is a massive breeze. He only has four Pokémon (for reference, Trey had six and the 7th and 8th gym leaders had five) all of which are weak to Ground. Additionally, three quarters of his team have quadruple weaknesses, making it relatively easy to sweep him with a decent mon packing a Ground-type move.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gengar X is introduced hypnotising an entire town to give him their whole berry supply to engorge himself on them, and only grows pettier from there. While he works as the right-hand mon to Dragalisk, he ultimately sides with the player to help destroy it when it becomes Vakuum. A delightfully-petty jerk, Gengar X has become beloved by the playerbase for his escapades. The fact he's able to talk despite being a Pokemon doesn't hurt matters.
• Good Bad Bugs: The fact you're able to skip the final battle against Dragalisk and ???/Vakuum with a Pokedoll is nothing short of hilarious.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This game features a drop mechanic in which the player obtains a wild Pokémon's held item upon defeating it, without needing to steal it during battle. A year after Xenoverse's initial release, the same mechanic debuted in the mainline series games, being one of the core gameplay changes in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
  • One of the most prominent Pokémon original to this game is Pepequeno, a reptilian Fire/Grass-type Pokémon based on a chili pepper. The first Generation IX games, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, also feature a reptilian Fire-type Pokémon based on a chili pepper, Fuecoco, as one of the starters. Even more amusingly, the names of both Pokémon borrow heavily from the Spanish language.
    • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also introduces the first canonical Fire/Grass type in the form of Scovillain, which is not only also based on chili peppers, but is even part of a 2-stage evolution line and has a very similar name to Pepequeno's own evolution, Scovile.
    • Speaking of Fuecoco, a video depicting scrapped designs for Xenoverse included a joke "beta design" for Trishout X in the form of a fat, fiery crocodile that bears a surprising resemblance to a bigger version of Fuecoco.
  • Many trainers around the region are seen riding Vroombug and Skravroom, which that resemble motorcycles. Come Scarlet and Violet, the Pokémon Cyclizar, Koraidon, and Miraidon are introduced as motorcycle-like Pokémon that are also commonly used as rides.
• Narm:
  • Playing as Alice can result in a few moments of unintentional hilarity, particularly when certain characters in the game such as Abraham or Lt. Surge remark on how similar the player character looks to their father Versil. Unlike Kay, Alice looks nothing like either of her parents, which makes one wonder how in the world the aforementioned characters put two and two together to conclude that she's Versil's daughter.
  • Even more hilarious is the fact that Kay shows up anyway as Alice's rival if she's the player character. Just like it would happen if Kay were the player, Alice develops a mutual crush on him. Take that whichever way you will.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Unlike the official games, this game requires you to keep the Starter Pokémon in your party to advance the plot, because it obtains new forms based on story progression. Many players, especially those attempting Monotype runs that don't involve any of the Starters' types, have found themselves displeased with this mechanic, because it doesn't allow them to build a team that is completely in line with their chosen theme.
  • To access their aforementioned new forms, the Starters need to hold the key item that allows them to transform (either the Terrestrial Ring or the Xenoversal Ring). Some players have criticized this mechanic as well, because it leaves the Starters unable to hold stat-boosting or healing items that they would otherwise benefit from (at least until they access their Astral Forms, which they automatically transform into upon entering a battle).
  • A lot of new Pokémon's movepools are arbitrarily stifled, especially with their stat distributions. One of the worst offenders is regional bird Harrowk, who has good Special Attack and abysmal Attack, yet learns a whopping two Special attacks via level-up (one of which is the weak Thunder Shock, and the other is Hurricane, which it doesn't learn until level 52). While the Virtual Move Tutor somewhat offsets this, it's incredibly expensive, especially with money grinding opportunities being few and far between before the postgame.
  • Xenoverse has a similar problem to the Johto games in that roughly half of the Pokédex is confined to the post-game. While very few of the new mons are locked behind the Elite Four (only the true starters and a few X Pokémon are locked behind it), it's still a substantial amount of mons unavailable until the post-game. Especially painful if the Pokémon that you needed to act as glue on your team can't be obtained until then.
  • Speaking of problems shared with the Johto games, the level curve has been criticized by many as being tedious and annoying, with wild Pokémon often being at least 10 levels below the trainers. This can be offset somewhat by enabling "Modern mode", which applies a permanent Exp. Share, but this poses even more issues. First off, any new Pokémon you catch will have trouble catching up, always being a few levels behind your party unless you box the higher-levelled party members. Second, Exp. Share is enabled or disabled permanently from the start unless you go into the game's files and manually change it (and good luck doing that, since the game files are encrypted).
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Team Dimension's battle theme is one to "Around the World" with Agents A and B's battle theme sounding like "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". Given that the team's aesthetics, especially A and B's designs, are heavily inspired by Daft Punk, this is likely deliberate.
  • One to the canon Pokémon games: if you listen closely, the G.E.I.S.T. battle theme takes more than a few cues from Iris's Champion theme.
• That One Boss: Quite a few:
  • The second Gym Leader, Ginger, serves as a particularly brutal warning of the game's difficulty going forward, especially after the Warmup Boss that was Basil (the first Gym Leader). To start with, he specializes in the Fighting-type, after the player has gone through several Ice-themed areas; since Ice-types are weak to Fighting-types, this means that most of the surrounding routes won't be able to provide new team members that could help in the battle. As for his actual Pokémon, he starts off strong by leading with a Passimian, which not only hits hard and has excellent bulk and speed for this point in the game, but has Scrappy, allowing it to use its Fighting-type moves on Ghost-types that would normally No-Sell them. He also uses a Hawlucha, which (while frailer than Passimian) has very high speed for this point in the game, meaning that it's almost always going to be using its powerful moves first. Then there's his ace, Pyukumuku X; while it's fairly frail, its Attack and Speed are insanely high (130 each, at a time when most Pokemon you can get have base stats around 80 at max). It even gets Bulk Up, allowing it to boost its physical Defense to decent levels and its Attack to scarily high levels! Add on that Ginger's Pokémon are all slightly overleveled and that they all know Power-Up Punch, which simultaneously does damage and boosts the user's Attack, and you've got a doozy to deal with.
  • The first time you fight against Rapidash X is quite challenging, mostly due to its nigh invulnerability towards physical attacks with Cotton Guard and Roost, but it's nothing compared when you fight it a second time in its Tempest form. It's Electric/Flying as opposed to pure Flying, it knows the moves Thunder, Hurricane, Discharge and Weather Ball, and thanks to its ability Drizzle, the former two moves will never miss, and the latter one will inflict massive Water damage which will knock out in one hit any Ground-type not named Palossand. If you're unprepared, Rapidash X can easily wipe out your entire team.
  • Alter Trey, whose team is jam-packed with a variety of powerful Pokémon that are likely to be a couple levels above yours. The worst offender is his Sabolt-X, which has stats on-par with pseudo-legendaries as well as impressive bulk on top of Intimidate, making it hard to kill even with a super-effective attack.
• That One Sidequest: The Vintage Dex. What is your reward for completing both the old Regular Pokédex and the new Xenodex? A brand new Pokédex to catalogue the Vintage Pokémon you might encounter in Eldiw because of Dielebi's shrines. You might already have caught a couple of them thanks to the Mystery Gifts codes and the short travel in the Mysterious Town, but that's it. Why? Because in most of circumstances it is more likely to encounter a Shiny Pokémon than a Vintage Pokémon. However, you can raise the chance of encounter to 1/500 by defeating the regular version of that Pokémon 500 times.^note A counter is added in the Pokédex's pages of the Pokémon with a Vintage Form so that the players know how many battles they need to increase the encounter ratio. However, there are some unique Vintage Pokémon who have no match among the Pokémon you can meet in Eldiw, meaning that you must count on the regular 1/4000 chance to meet them. Oh, and there is a chance to meet a Shiny Vintage Pokémon, but the chance for it to happen is 1/67000. Have fun!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Pikachu X is a Ridiculously Cute Critter designed to be the friendly rival's partner Pokémon, but in-game, it's nothing to phone home about. It has a subpar movepool and the same base stats as a regular Pikachu, but it cannot evolve (as made obvious by what Raichu X looks like and how it came to be.) and it doesn't even reap any stat boosts from the Light Ball. Furthermore, you only get one of them right before challenging the game's equivalent of the Elite Four, at a meager level 30, and unlike the rival's can, your own Pikachu X cannot travel on your head. Considering that the game was being overhauled for its current release at the time Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee came out, one must wonder why the Xenoverse version of the official franchise mascot wasn't given a treatment akin to that of the Partner Pikachu—higher base stats than average, an expanded movepool, a few signature moves and the ability for it to walk around with the player in the overworld.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The final Eldiw Gym Leader is none other than an elderly Lt. Surge, confirming that this game is a Stealth Sequel to Pokémon Gold and Silver. His appearance, however, also cements that the game is set in the Pokémon Adventures continuity—because he reveals himself to have once been part of Team Rocket, just as he was in that manga.
  • After Surge's appearance and the revelation that your father Versil is actually Silver it was expected that many other characters from the mainline game series would have shown up eventually. But for sure no one could expect that Youngster Joey was in the game as well.
  • The Apollo Tournament in the post-game has another slew of unexpected cameos. In Pass 3, a much older ex-Champion Lance and Kanto Gym Leader Erika show up - as does an older Gladion, now the Aether President, in Pass 4. Children of Gym Leaders who heavily resemble their parents also show up as guests; in Pass 3 it's Leo, Whitney's son, and in Pass 4 it's Stella, Elesa's daughter.
  • Speaking of the Apollo Tournament, Pass 4 brings one more guest into the fold in the same way that recent main series games have—Arena Tycoon Greta from Emerald. She, however, has lost her memories and looks much younger than she should be at this point in the timeline, which can only mean she has become a Faller like fellow Hoenn Frontier Brain Anabel and Subway Boss Ingo.
• The Un Twist: The player's father "Versil" is actually Silver from Gold and Silver (particularly the manga version of the character). He looks almost identical to his younger self and is even starting to resemble his father Giovanni both in looks and actions. And to top it all off, his alias is just swapping the syllables in his name around. The reveal that he is Team Dimension's leader however was a legitimate surprise.