Konnichi wa, minna-san!
So... GameSpot's changes have gone through it would seem. Doesn't look too bad, but it's going to take me quite a while to work my way around. Not to mention, most of my friends have now left so I don't know how long I'm going to continue this blog. The reason why I started to write so much was because people actually looked at my blog and commented on it.
But anyway, time to talk about Pokemon. While I wasn't crazy excited initially, the more and more Nintendo revealed, the more and more excited I got. 3D battles, 3D movement, new Fairy type, and Mega evolutions were dispersed at nice intervals to increase my excitement. The last batch of reveals the week before the game came out, along with constant discussions with club members at my university, only made the wait more painful. Finally, Saturday morning rolled around and I finally got my hands on the game. And so far, I'm extremely happy with what we've recieved.
X and Y finally does away with traditonal grid-based movement. It's still there if you're still not used to free movement, but you can put on roller skates and go anywhere you want without having to stick along a predetermined path. So that means we can finally move in 8 directions in a main Pokemon game! It took 15 years for the main games to enter the third dimension, but it does it in style. The 3D models and animations are fantastic and it makes battles a lot more exciting as Pokemon actually move in for attacks and recoil in pain as they are hit. In addition to the great animations, Pokemon games have never looked better from a graphics standpoint. I can no longer see obvious pixelation on the Pokemon and the backgrounds and buildings really pop out. There is some minor framerate problems but they don't happen during the battle animations, and I can hardly complain about that since everything else just looks so good.
Gameplay remains largely unchanged. But it's always the minor tweaks that Pokemon fans recognize. For example, the Exp. All from Red/Blue makes a triumphant return as a beefed-up Exp. Share. When it's turned on, all of the Pokemon in your party earn EXP. This means that you don't have to go through the tedious process of constantly switching Pokemon in and out of battle just to earn EXP. They have also reduced the expereince level for all Pokemon so it's easier to level up. Also, they got rid of that stupid rule from Black/White, where your Pokemon earn less EXP the higher above your opponent they are. If it is still there, it's barely noticeable. The new Fairy type will also drastically change the competitive scene. In recent years, Dragon-types were stupidly powerful and it became common practice to put two or three Dragons on your team. Fairies look to do away with that by making their moves do double damage to Dragons as well as being completely immune to Dragon-type attacks. Fairies also have few weaknesses, only being weak to Poison and Steel-type attacks. We'll see if Fairies will completely throw off the balance of the game or not but on paper, it seems like a good idea.
It's still a little early to call, but this might be the best generation of games since the second. I haven't had this much fun with a Pokemon game since HeartGold/SoulSilver back in 2010 which were remakes of the second generation games. Pokemon is back!
The only unfortunate thing about this situation is that I'm still not done with Rune Factory 4 (as a life sim, it's almost impossible to really "finish" it anyway). Since I reached a good part in Rune Factory 4 right before Pokemon came out, I'm finiding myself playing Rune Factory 4 on one of my 3DS's and Pokemon X/Y on the other.If I really wanted to divide my attention I could devote one 3DS to Rune Factory 4, one to Pokemon X, and one to Pokemon Y but I don't feel like carrying that many 3DS's around with me. 2 is enough for me. Besides, I'm still in school and I've got one heck of a demanding schedule. As time goes on, we'll see how everything turns out. For right now, these two games will be my last purchases until December when I do my own Christmas shopping.
Mata ato de!