Kalos was a Mistake - A Pokemon X and Y Retrospective

Where hope goes to die.
The XY Files:
/ the-xy-files-the-lost-...
00:00 Introduction
02:08 The Story
03:33 The Region of Kalos
08:59 The Friend Squad
12:49 Tone Deafness
18:58 Gameplay
25:09 Mega Evolution
27:30 Wasted Opportunities
34:01 The XY Files
38:42 Final Thoughts
Twitter: / merrybytes
Patreon: / merrybytes
#Pokemon #MonsterTaming #3DS

[@Skawo]

These games are probably the ones GameFreak had to actually put the most work into: - Modeling all the Pokemon - Animating (however good or bad it is!) all the Pokemon - New engine for 3D - Having to account for (stereoscopic) 3D - The online was the best it ever has been ...and then there's still a fairly competent and complete game on top of that. Like, yeah, it added less new Pokemon than usual, but still a respectable number, especially with Mega Evolutions taken into account. It really is unfortunate there's just a few things wrong.

[@pajamakazama5840]

Another banger from MerryBytes!

[@SuperVini310]

I was expecting Yo-kai Watch to be the next video, becuase of its 10th anniversary. Then again, Pokémon XY's 10 anniversary is in this year too, and so is Puzzle & Dragons Z's, and Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode's. Anyway... time flies, doesn't it? Back in the day, I pre-ordered both X and Y. Now that I have a save editor and a modded 3DS, I'm thinking of revisiting those games, but with a few... bonuses here and there. The only thing I remember is that I thought the post-game was very weak.

[@MrDarksol]

You're not the only one even I thought the post-game was weak and then I started to realize it became weaker in every other generation afterwards.

[@draw4kicks]

Agree with most of what you said, these games were killed by not having a Z version released. Going to replay Y for the first time in around 7 years this week, I'm excited but even I know some of that's just nostalgia.

[@senorsombrero]

Awesome I'll watch this later. Love you no nonsense Pokémon videos

[@Blizzard91]

Hope you cover the other Pokemon games!

[@Onigob]

I like this game, but for some reason the thing I'm most nostalgic for about this game is roller skating 🤔 also loved a lot of the designs of mons in this gen. Great video! Definitely the last time i truly gave pokemon a 'by' just for virtue of it becoming 3D i feel like with every pokemon release i trust GF less and less

[@MerryBytes]

The skates were certainly one of XY's unique aspects. Could have been improved in later games instead of just removed, but oh well. Also, I've said it before, but thank you very much for the Super Thanks. Always brightens my day!

[@TheJH1015]

I slightly disagree with the comment that the level curve only catches up at Victory Road. the 1st Gym's max level is level 12. the 2nd gym's max level is *25* which is over double of the first gym's. Compare this to Roxanne and Brawly in the Hoenn games. Roxanne's (1st gym) highest level is 15 in RSE and 14 in ORAS. Brawly's (2nd gym) highest level is 18/19 in RSE and 16 in ORAS. even in my last playthrough of X in which I had my EXP Share turned on inbetween the first and second gym, but I was still a good 4 levels underleveled when I tried challenging Grant. I still won because of my team composition, but still.

[@MerryBytes]

To be fair, the time between Roxanne and Brawly's Gym is shorter than the time between Viola and Grant's. Still, I had the opposite experience on the Y playthrough I recorded for this video. My entire team was basically overleveled compared to Grant's Pokémon: Lv30 Charmeleon, Lv 31 Pidgeotto, Lv28 Vivillon, Lv26 Absol, Lv23 Aerodactyl and Lv24 Seviper. I didn't grind, but I also didn't rush through the game. I explored the nearby areas and fought all the available trainers before tackling the Gym. The first 3 Pokémon were also with me from the moment I acquired them, so I guess that could also explain the discrepancy here. If I were to shift my party members more often, I'd probably be less overleveled.

[@lottabee]

banger vid as usual

[@MrDarksol]

There's just a lot of wasted potential with these games though I do still say that if other RPGs were able to properly balance how much experience everyone would get at the end of Battle including your active party then gamefreak has no excuse for the miss handling they've been doing the experience share thing. At least with x and y you could turn it off but later games you really can't and they still haven't fixed the balancing issue. Plus the animations have gotten worse to the point where I'm still sad that we're never gonna get anything that's like the stadium games or even the game cube duology games. Lastly this is where we keep going back to square one when it comes to pokemon level stories where the villains are back to being stupid again, none of the characters feel interesting or entertaining at all, your rival will always be a happy person and finally the champion is a total joke. That last part is especially disappointing because how the hell do we go from Cynthia from generation 4 to not being able to fight the champion in part one of Gen. 5 aside from post-game and then we go to fighting the new champion in generation 5 part 2 who's weaker to Gen. 6 onwards every single champion is a total joke? At least generation 6 gave us the hexmaniac who became a fan favorite so I can't be too mad. Still good job discussing generation 6!

[@Shenaldrac]

Oh boy I can't wait to watch this so I can bitch about the writing and story! :D OK, time to bitch about the writing and story! :D So, yeah. If you've read my previous comments about the pokemon franchise, you can probably guess that I find nothing redeeming in gen 6s story. I'm sorry, you don't get to put _literal, actual genocide_ as your antagonist's goal in your cute colorful game that you _insist_ is targeted at very young children, which is why the games also need to be so easy that they present no challenge. You don't get to say it's for kids, and then also shove seriously mature subject matter like war, genocide, and misanthropy into it as core effing themes! And ignoring how entirely inappropriate it is for Pokemon as a whole... it's just so badly written. Lysander used to be nice, but then he didn't bother doing background checks and blindly gave away money and found out that, *gasp!* Some people lied about how badly they needed the money and had taken advantage of him! That means ALL people are irredeemably evil (unless you agree with his world view, funny how that works) and deserve to be wiped from existence so he can make a new world. It's an absurdly childish way of looking at misanthropy, and because it's in the _Pokemon_ universe especially I think it flops even harder. Because the Pokemon world is shown, repeatedly, in pretty much all the games and the anime, to be overall a much chiller, nicer place than the real world. People seem to be much kinder and more understanding on the whole. Sure there's jerks. Sure there's criminals. But way less and of much less severity than real life. So to completely lose sight of the good people are capable of in such a setting just destroys any hope of suspending my belief. It's gen 5 all over again, no one in the setting should be swayed by Team Plasma's stupid speeches but they are. Lysander should see the good in the Pokemon world every day, but he doesn't because the plot needs him to be stupid and jaded even if it makes no sense. I mean, we never _see_ the supposed ~evil, greedy actions~ that people are supposedly taking that will totally ruin the world. Also I guess we're ignoring that Pokemon is very clearly a post-scarcity setting. Because we gotta shove real world issues of natural resource exploitation into this fun escapist "travel the world and befriend cool animals" video game. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate how badly it's executed, but I also hate the very core idea that they're trying to execute. Fuck off, take that shit somewhere that isn't Pokemon. I'm sure some people who read this will scoff. "Shenaldrac!" they'll cry, "you're being far too prescriptive! Who are you to say what is and is not appropriate for a Pokemon game? Do you not enjoy fangames with more mature themes and stories?" First of all, how do you know what pokemon fangames I've played? Have you bugged my apartment? Who are you and who do you work for? But secondly, sure. I am basically saying "this is how pokemon should and should not be." But I'm basing that around Gamefreak's own public interviews and statements about their own franchise. I didn't make them say that pokemon is meant to be for everyone, no matter how young. And while you maybe can do darker, more mature themes in a pokemon game it's clear, and has been for a long time, that _Gamefreak are not equipped to do so._ They lack the writing talent and skill to do so effectively, and it always flops. They are genuinely at their best when writing low-stakes "this is just background stuff while you enjoy your pokemon journey" stuff. Gens 1-3 and 7 show this very well imo. I've talked with plenty of people who played Sun/Moon and their Ultra counterparts, and the general consensus was that as far as the story went it was fun until the end when suddenly Child Abuse and pokemonsters from another dimension and abusive mom hates pokemon actually, and so much stuff that I can only describe as "anime garbage." I'm not going to sit here and tell you that pokemon was only good for 2 generations. It's not. Loads of important improvements have been made as the series has progressed. But I'd argue that those improvements have only been mechanical, and as far as writing, as narrative and dialogue and characters go, pokemon has been falling lower and lower. Of the *four* rivals in gen 6, who among them can stand up as high in your memories as Gary "Dicks" "Mother-fucking" Oak? Or the moody, possibly abusive rival of Gen 2, ??? ? None of them can hold a candle to that. Do you really appreciate the gameplay being interrupted by cutscenes and rival battles over and over again? Because the more in depth stories certainly have the former. And of the latter we hit the nadir in gen 5. t;dr- Pokemon stories by this point are intrusive and take away from the games they're in far, far more than they add to them. Fight me. Actually, you bring up a really good point about how Team Flare recruits. And I can already see how the plot could have been better. What if instead of wanting to commit genocide on all the innocent people in the world for the crime of "not being productive" (hey, when was the last time you actually did any work at your company? How many of those hologram cell phones have you personally built? None? Oh, but the people who put in hard work building them aren't productive I guess you asshat), the whole thing is actually a trap? Lysander advertises his group to the rich and powerful, and makes sure they know what the ultimate goal is. Charges them an arm and a leg to be part of it. Then at the end, big reveal! He's going to exterminate *them.* Those rich, greedy, selfish people who would happily let the rest of the world burn as long as they come out on top. These are the people who embody everything Lysander says he hates, and it is they he ultimately seeks to destroy. Now you actually have some moral complexity! Clearly murder is bad, but these people have all self selected for this group as being total dickwads who actively want to let everyone else be killed. Are they even worth saving? And when Lysander brings up how he's using all the money these rich twats gave as their initiation fee to fund a bunch of publicly benefiting projections that you've seen throughout the game (make sure to include that, ofc) you see that even his taking their money was being put to good use. You still have to stop him, but you see where he's coming from and know he's got a point, and is actually putting his (and their) money where his mouth is. That's what I would do to make the story less dumb.

[@MerryBytes]

I've seen people mention that theory about Lysandre's big plan actually being to gather the truly bad people and to nuke them with the weapon (because his last ditch effort does nothing except blow up the Team Flare HQ), and man I wish it was true rather than just a headcanon moment to try to make sense out of his actions. Then again, "this could have been so much better" basically describes X and Y as a whole.

[@Shenaldrac]

@@MerryBytes Yeeeeah. I wish they'd see how much their attempts at storytelling harm their games. It would genuinely save them time and money to just *not* having a big plot, *and* would make the final product better. And since currently the popular defense of Pokemon's declining quality seems to be "they're forced to make each game in only a year or so to match up with the latest anime and release of pokemon designs! It's not their fault they're forced to work with such an impossible schedule!" you'd think cutting the story to save on development resources would be a no brainer. But nope.Which imo goes to show that it's not _just_ tight deadlines that are responsible for the decline in quality. It's genuinely bad project management, not knowing that certain things need to be cut or scaled back, to not introduce entirely new mechanics every generation, etc. But what do I know, I'm just a butthurt Genwunner.

[@zlyexe1736]

Game freak did XY dirty Dirtier than any other gen the only gen to not have a enhanced or 3rd release

[@AmityvilleFan]

You totaly made that stuff up about the Florette being aken way from the dude. You butchered the myth of the game with this. Ah, you didn't undesrtand the group-dynamic of the kids either.

[@MerryBytes]

How so? The Floette was sent to the war, it died, then AZ was angry and built the machine to revive it. I don't think I butchered anything here. Same with the friends, I think their character arcs were pretty straight forward.

[@AmityvilleFan]

@@MerryBytes The Floette WENT to war. Was not sent. It asked to be released to go to war. And look at once again on the illustrations. Than compare it to eg. Sword and Shield's war-illustrations. You should notice a key difference. Like the lack of humans. Pokemons were not "used as disposable weapons" in the XY's war. It was purely a pokemon-war. Meaning pokemon fought pokemon, without any human involvement. On the sidenote: was AZ angry? Or he got obsessed? Did he catch insanity? Did he tried to solve both problems the same time - the war, and the resurrection of his pokemon? After all, AZ was the legendary king we get a ton of reference within the game through all those gallery-paintings and stuff. --- On the other kids: they are NOT friends. You just moved to the city/village/whatever-type settlement. You literaly first meet them when they bring you to get your pokemon from your ... teacher. You, and all the other kids are just random kids in the summer-school. If you find a friend - good. If not - that never was to point. The point was the lesson. In this universe, the Pokemon Journey. So if Dancing Guy and Small Guy want to be together in a gay relationship, and not interact with the rest of you - that's their business. If the others are equaly not to your liking - who cares, you just have to tolerate them, and maybe find some help from them, as you are put into the same enclosed situation together. They are your classmates - not your friends.

[@MerryBytes]

No, the war DID have human involvement. It's explicitly part of the lore that the war started because a group of greedy people wanted to take control of Kalos, which is mentioned in the Library Room in Lysandre Labs. In fact, you can see human soldiers on the left and right edges of one of the illustrations (the one with both sides facing each other), and Lysandre is even said to be a descendant of AZ's younger brother during the meeting in Lysandre Cafe. You can read this up here: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lysandre_Labs#Library_room Of note: "The war grew so violent and ugly, the king was forced to send his own beloved Pokémon into battle." "It's said that he led a legion of greedy souls who wanted to seize the seize the Kalos region." As for the kids, I'm not sure how you can say that the intention WASN'T for the group to be friends with each other when they're so open and friendly to each other. Trevor is really the only one you could make that point about, but even that can be chalked up him being the most reserved one of the group. Calem/Serena could potentially be like that later on, but that's due to their issues with not being able to beat the player, and ultimately it's resolved with them still being friends as always.

[@Shenaldrac]

@@AmityvilleFan "If the others are equaly not to your liking - who cares, you just have to tolerate them" Well that's a pretty stupid way of having characters in a story. Don't waste development time and resources on stuff that isn't important and doesn't matter. You put shit in your game because you think it matters. It's also very obvious from the writing that the developers intended for you to like and care for these characters. This failed. Please stop trying to headcanon the writing to be better than it is.

[@AmityvilleFan]

@@Shenaldrac Ye, pretty stupid to go to school at all, right? They say such things, as evolution, and globe Earf... Also, nice accusing me with headcanon, while you are only complaining because of YOUR headcanon. You are just toxic. Well, it's pokemon, so what did I expect.