Upon reaching the 3DS era of Pokemon, I feel like I am close to reaching the end goal of the past generation Pokemon games that I haven't played at all, and I have been enjoying the ride through this franchise. But now as I entered the first half of gen 6, my thoughts on X and Y are mixed.

This game back then was when I was in the phase of not caring about Pokemon at all in high school, zoomer moment. But I did admit that the jump to 3D looked amazing for a handheld back then, which the models in future games are reused from X and Y.

In terms of what I thought the game really excelled with, was the Pokemon designs as I think these look really nice to me, even if I think other generations have better designs. Yeah sure, you have some stinkers like Klefki, Barbaracle, and Diggersby, but most of the new mons are unique and incredible to look at like Aegislash, Malamar, Dragalge, and Goodra whom I used later on in the team as it's my favourite dragon type in the franchise. And speaking of which, we got a brand new type added in this game being the Fairy type which would become another mainstay. It seems to be that when Pokemon adds a new type, they end up being overpowered, and that's what the Fairy type is in this game...and the next...and the next...and the next. A lot of old Pokemon were converted to pure fairy type or half fairy like Jigglypuff, Whimsicott, Clefairy, Gardevoir, but most of the new mons are also fairy type, with the mascot being a brand new Eeveelution, Sylveon. Just a shame that there are only 72 new mons this time, the lowest any game has gone being a max total of 721 mons at that time.

What I didn't expect from this game, was that the region of Kalos had some underrated music in several areas like the battles against the gym leaders, Team Flare, champion, and the legendaries, Victory Road, Lumiose City, Snowbelle City, and even Santalune City. Plus, the region itself having a huge design basis from France was stunning with what the designs of each area and town looked like, with Lumiose City being the biggest area in the game; having 3 sections you can head through plus a gym you fight at later on. This area is mainly the hub of Kalos and has a lot of areas and shops interconnected with it, with routes divulging in every direction. Cannot wait to explore this in Legends Z-A coming out.

Now the negatives...I really did not find the story to be engaging. Now the story formula is the same as usual, you get the picture already, but now they make you have 4 friends that journey with you. You got your neighbouring rival Serena or Calem, Shauna, the dex fanatic Trevor and the worst character Tierno. The story really wants you to like these characters but they come across as boring and annoying especially with the last two. Team Flare felt like a weak villain organisation, wanting to rule the world after firing a weapon some king made 3000 years and be the only ones left to live...yeah great plan. And do not get me started on the post game, holy hell this is so lame. You have a 2 hour long mission with Looker in Lumiose, and you can get the new mega stones, plus 2 returning legendaries and that's it. SO WEAK!!!

One new thing added in this generation was the birth of the 'gimmicks' seen nowadays in Pokemon, with the first one being Mega Evolutions. Megas are essentially new forms specific Pokemon can take in battle that grant them a huge boost in their stats and sometimes can even change their typing like Mega Gyarados for instance. While these were really cool, these immediately made the game a cakewalk since your attack stats would go stupidly high with these. And that brings me to my next point...this game was very easy to overlevel in.
They changed the exp share feature from being a held item into a key item this time, like in modern games, but they made this incredibly busted as you can easily go over levelled if not careful. You can turn it off and be like classic Pokemon, but I didn't and wanted to switch Pokemon if I felt too high levelled.

Overall, X and Y are not bad, but they aren't good either. While I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Kalos and loved seeing the pretty areas of the game, the low amount of new Pokemon was rather disappointing for me, the story was extremely dull and lame, and the exp share made the game way too easy at times. But the megas were a really cool addition, and I'm honestly surprised to see them return again. Here's hoping they nerf them then. X and Y are pretty low in terms of wanting to play them again, but they are fun if you just don't focus on the story and want a shorter Pokemon game on the side.

Gonna be real honest with you, Pokemon Black 2 is probably the best Pokemon game in the franchise and the best 2D Pokemon game as well. I don't understand why this generation was hated back in 2011-2012, as I really enjoyed my time with the previous game and the sequel. One thing I forgot to mention with gen 5 is that the sprite work is some of the best sprites we have ever seen in this franchise, by far. The Pokemon just pop out so much more in this game, it's great!

So where do I begin with the final DS Pokemon title? The plot of course. To give a brief summary, two years have passed since Black and White, and you control either Nate or Rosa (aka the best protag design fight me). You are sent off on your Pokemon journey with your rival, Hugh, who is...something else. He's a shounen character through and through, very hot headed, and very cringey with his dialogue at certain moments, but be warned cuz "he's about to release his rage". He's not the worst rival by far, but we'll get to them later in the franchise. Among your travels, you will encounter Team Plasma once again, led by Ghetsis who still desires to rule Unova in an icy winter, with a captive Pokemon under his control for power; Kyurem. But what's cool is that you'll meet former Plasma members who have their minds changed after what N went through, but I wish they played more on that part with the plot. Oh and N? Yeah, N is not a prominent character in this game, just serves a role against Kyurem, and in the post game, and that's it.

So with the plot being not a big part of this game compared to the first game, what's the gameplay like? Well, it is literally just the same as it was but with a few tweaks in there. Obviously, you're catching Pokemon, beating the gym leaders, and becoming the Champion, but there's a few more things you can do in this game, and boy...Unova sure has a lot of things to do, and some features return which I forgot to mention from my Black review. In terms of battles first, you still have your bread and butter formula of how battles work, but you also have the odd Triple/Rotational Battles every now and then. Again, I kinda wanted to see these more in the game, but they are more prevelant in the post game with the Black City & White Forest returning. Pokemon can now have hidden abilities introduced this generation, and are more accessible with this game's Hidden Grottos, scattered around Unova, but back in the day, you could possibly get those with the web browser, Pokemon Dream World. Unfortunately, the servers shut down about 12 years ago so I couldn't try it out, but you can also use Pokemon Dream Radar on 3DS, a side game where you capture Pokemon inside dream orbs to then transfer into gen 5.

What I found really cool with players returning from the first game is the Unova Link feature, a method where players can transfer their Pokemon from Black/White into Black 2/White 2 via the infrared technology on the cartridges, but they can also view cutscenes of certain events between the two years which is just flavour text, and even trade keys which give you more difficulty choices, transfer the Black City and White Forest, etc. In terms of post-game and side content, there's so much more to do. What I didn't talk about in the first game was the Musical Festival, and this mode was okay. It replaces the pokemon contests where you can dress up your mon and partake in a musical to earn items. You could also do the Battle Subway in Nimbasa City where it is treated as a battle frontier in a way, fighting strong trainers and even Ingo and Emmet.

New to the post game is the Black City/White Forest I keep mentioning where this is this game's battle hall but is exclusively tied to triple and rotational battles. Climbing higher and higher earns items, money, and when you reach the top, a free Shiny Pokemon which is most definitely worth it. You can explore the starting areas of Unova from the first game now all souped up in levels, you can collect medals new to the series where any tasks you do net you collectible medals like trophies or achievements, although you can't do all of them now as some of them required Dream World, and the GTS to trade Pokemon over the internet.

The three big features that I think of immediately in terms of side content for this game are Pokestar Studios, the Join Avenue, and the Pokemon World Tournament. The Join Avenue you experience early on, where you can make NPCs join your avenue and become merchants, and even request other NPCs to make the wares more popular. But what was really cool is that you can net more NPCs over through the C-Gear with other players, gaining more popularity with your shops. To me, this is basically the only DS game to have a StreetPass function in a way, especially since this game released a year in the 3DS's life, which was really cool, but now in 2024, you are definitely not gonna be getting many at all.
Next is the Pokestar Studios, a movie studio where you and your Pokemon are sent in to make movies for the big screen, netting you items (and medals) based on how well your movie went. You film with rental Pokemon at first, but you can also use your team if you do more films, and you are tasked with following the script in order to make a good ending. But you can also change it up and go for a strange ending if you wanted and see what results you got. While some of the movies are...interesting to make, looking at you giant lady with rope, the rest of this feature can get a little tedious and even boring at times.
But the best one, is the Pokemon World Tournament. You do a tiny portion of this during the story, but in the post game, there are so many battle options you can do. It is essentially a tourney mode against trainers with your team, and you choose who to use in the battles, you are locked at lvl 25 throughout; locking at lvl 50 later on, you can't heal mid fight, and you also gain BP this way outside the Battle Subway. While it is a cool mode, what really makes it shine is the fact that you can fight the Unova Leaders again in their own tournament, and even some gym leaders you don't fight in the story like Lenora, Brycen, and Cilan. But after you beat those, you also unlock the tourneys against Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh gym leaders all with their original teams and remixed music! Plus after that, you can fight the Champions across all regions to see who is the ultimate champion, and this is what made me fall in love with the battle scheme in Pokemon again. I loved the double battle feature in gen 3, but the battle mechanics entirely in Black 2 at this point clicked with me that point on.

Do I recommend this game? Hell yes I do, if you have the money of course as this is also pricey. But is it also necessary with playing the first game before this game? Honestly no, not at all. The Pokemon are all the same, only except the available Pokemon found in the regional dex is a mix of all regions now rather than exclusively Unovan mons, the story loosely calls back to the first game until the end a tiny bit, and the Unova region is the exact same layout wise. But this game is up there now in my top 3 Pokemon games.