Hey, it’s Generation VI!
The French one!
One of the shorter Generations
and the first for the Nintendo 3DS and the game that saw the serious finally
jump into full polygonal (not Porygonal) 3D. Set in Kalos (Paris) (I actually played
it for the first time over the 5 days I was on holiday in France which was
just great), this was the generation of Pokémon X & Y, the games introduced
one of the staples of these reviews if not (sadly), the Pokémon franchise as a whole
– the temporary state Mega Evolution. which acted as a powered up form and a
special attack and for me one of the funnest things the series has done,
becoming a ridiculous form and unleashing massive amounts of power on poor
Magikarp. They also introduced the nice virtual pet element Pokémon-Amie buuuut
they did other things: they were the start of the series streamlining gameplay
and making the core titles easier, they introduced the smallest number of new Pokémon
so far, thier story and character were far shallower than Gen V and it improved
and simplified breeding and IV training (making really good Pokémon for competitive
play) which should have been an plus but annoyed hardcore competitive players
and that’s not going into issues with weather effects, Pokémon Bank, Poké
Transporter, the Global Trading Station and Global Link and the 3DS Clock.
Luckily the even worse
reception that Generations VII and VIII got and the sheer amount changes they
made have, plus the pandering to the Generation 1 fans, have caused X & Y’s
stock to rise with the fandom, and it does very much feel like the last ‘classic-style’
Pokémon game before started frigging with things. And this was the generation of
Hoenn Confirmed. Sheer fan demand prompted Game Freak to produce a set of excellent
remakes of Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire – Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
– and these did not have the issues of X & Y, vastly improving the old
games to the point that even I, a man thoroughly lukewarm on Gen 3, loved them.
I mean they weren’t perfect and people still had issues but they were better.
And then there was no Pokémon
Z, no third version or sequels to fix up X & Y – instead a whole new
Generation was announced – Generation VII, Pokémon Sun & Moon aaaannd we’ll
get to that. I enjoyed X & Y but honestly felt that I didn’t leave as much of an impression as Generations 1 through
5, I felt like I breezed through it and the whole thing was nice but not that substantial,
basically the Milky Way of Pokémon Games. I thought ORAS was great.
As for the Pokémon themselves?
I remember it being a very definite case of quality over quantity with a
shitload of really strong designs and really likeable ‘mons but few that immediately
jumped into my all-time favourites list. I expect a lot of 5 and Gold 5 scores.
While veering just a little
into the digital world stylistically if you get my drift, I do like where this
line ends up, Chesnaught is a damn cool final stage for a Pokémon with a wise
old warrior way about it (maybe it’s the beard). It brings balance to the
line’s colour scheme, manages to have a segmented armour without becoming too
busy or cluttered, has ginormous spikes and recalls one of my favourite
prehistoric animals – the glyptodon – plus I’m really pleased for it because it
finally grows elbows. It’s also a fairly original way of doing an armoured
warrior, instead of a stereotypical ‘It’s Just a Flesh Wound’ knight or Conan barbarian
we end with a kind of holy crusader vibe and that’s nice. The rest of the line
kind of sucks though.
Chespin, while clearly
having had some thought put into it, just ends up looking generic to me, it’s
just a generic cute mammal with some generic plant looking green bits because
it’s a Grass type and some generic ‘real animals wouldn’t have these’ markings,
it’s almost fakemon levels of boring. It’s allegedly a hedgehog mixed with a
chestnut shoot –this line does ‘bloom’ like a lot of other grass starters, from
shoot to chestnut to split chestnut, it’s just a bit more subtle than usual – but
it just looks so…yeah, generic is the best word. Quilladin is a fucking mess
and shout not only have gone back to the design phase but been set fire to as
it went. It’s both one of those designs where I think nothing works and one of
those designs where the ‘mon looks derpy in the extreme, the colour scheme is
awful – seriously those colours should never sit next to each other like that
ever – the markings are just slapped on, the eyes upset me in my soul area,
it’s a pile of shit.
You can see what I mean
about the elbows thing, right?
