There exists a ferocious double-standard between Diamond and Pearl and X and Y. Both sets of games feel underbaked and are possessed of quite noticeable flaws and deficiencies. The difference is that one set got a third game to make everyone forget about them, and the other set didn't.

Pokemon Y is too damned easy. Even if one leverages the vast, beautiful freedom Pokemon so often presents, there's so little that one can do to make a late-game gym leader difficult when his team consists only of three bad ice types and one of them doesn't even have a full moveset.

The thing is, I love Kalos. That's just one of my many flaws. I love Yveltal and Xerneas, and I even love Team Flare. They're a cabal of ultra-wealthy hyper-elitist Ayn Rand readers who view everyone but themselves as parasites. They already have more than anyone else, but they think they're entitled to the rest of it and they're willing to kill everyone else in the world to avoid sharing it. I just... is that not interesting to you? Is that level of narcissism not compelling? Team Flare is a great idea failed utterly by poor execution, exemplified perfectly by that one line (you know the one) from Serena/Calem and the insistence on having Flare grunts incessantly spouting lines about "a beautiful world" without selling the sinister subtext of "one without poors like you."

Look, if there's one angle from which I want you to listen to me when I defend X and Y, it's the multiplayer angle. Generation 6 has a proper, honest friends list available at all times on its bottom screen. The PSS is, without contest, the best multiplayer interface that Pokemon has ever had, and I loved living in its ecosystem. I could see when my friends were online and what changes they'd made to their trainers, I could send them little messages and interact with them in other ways. I could battle someone without having to set up a goddamned link code and coordinating with them through some other method. I could trade without having to pray that I don't get randomly matched with some stranger who doesn't have what I want.

There's so much I could say to champion Gen 6, but I so seldom bother to try, because I don't think they're the best of the games and because nobody listens to me anyway. The truth is that I'm tired and it doesn't matter.

Just bring back the megas and super-training.

Reviewed on Jun 08, 2020


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