Quick Look: Pokémon X

Let's just name this for what it is. A pokemon game. If you weren't into Pokemon games before, you won't be now. It's still a Pokemon game and that's what I like about it.

I would also prefer if some of that extra fat got trimmed (mainly needless text) though. I did manage to stop the 'rain continues to fall' text that happened each turn in rain battles and such by just making it rain all the time. That's good. They didn't fix most of the other needless text though.

But besides that, I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's a great game.

@jeff Thought you might like to know there is a new pokemon named Hawlucha. It is a Luchador bird. Its fighting animation a dive bomb. It has moves like Encore.

...It is glorious.

Also, you can walk around at any time by using the D-Pad. And you can move commands around the menus by click and dragging on the touch pad.

Depends when you last played it I guess. A lot has changed in the game over the past 10 years but most of it is the detailed workings usually only affect competitive players.

Okay, so pokemon games don't really change much, but the changes here make it look like its a lot easier to level up your pokemons. I noticed that you get XP for catching pokemon and not knocking them out. Which is nuuuuuuuuuuutz!!!

How come the Pokemon still don't touch each other during battle? Like, if my Pokemon uses Tail Whip, I want to see it run over and whip the other Pokemon with its tail. Doing a vertical jump and tail whipping into nothingness only to have the other Pokemon magically get affected feels dumb.

That was Red, the player character from Red/Blue. The games and anime are completely separate canons.

I was totally on-board with this new Pokemon game until they got to the Play with your Pokemon feature... Uggghhhhhh.

this is absolutely terrible advice

"Do you think Pikachu eat their own feces?"

I love you Brad.

D pad to not skate.

Y to bring up the quick menu of registered items.

Battles will drag if you don't use moves that are super effective.

Professor wants you to leave your house so he can bang your mom.

After five hours with Y it's probably the first and last pokemon game I'll ever play.

I wanna challenge the Bombcrew to learn how deep is the pokémon meta-game and try to breed a competitive team of pokémon.

Yeah I'm kinda mixed on the exp share, it just gives too much exp I think, because when I use it my pokemon level up so fast that I just never use some of them. It's probably just a personal problem with me though, because ever since like gen 2 (and I've played them all) I've adopted this system of using one pokemon until it goes up 2 levels, then cycling through my whole team and just ignoring type disadvantages. It would probably be a lot better if I actually switched out, so I'm probably just set in my ways lol.

But you can turn it off so there's no reason for anyone to be too upset about it, in fact they seem to have balanced the game around it being on all the time, so I turn it on to catch up and turn it off when I do, which the speed you can catch up is amazing, it really does negate that grind. So I like it and dislike it at the same time.

Damn it. I wish they never showed the option to turn off the combat animation. I kind of want to do it. I feel bad for it, but it's so much damn quicker.

My favourite part of this whole thing was Vinny singing some Beastie Boys.

Maybe but I played every game up till Crystal and played a little of Ruby and Black 1 and I have to say that in the singleplayer context I have always gotten rid of shit like Tail Whip and Growl they are fucking useless your normally going to take damage and give your enemy a leg up wasting turns, the higher level debuffs can be really useful but the status debuffs on early pokemon Blow.

Oh god this looks boring. Definitely for kids. Battles take forever. The plot is so flat. There's so much unexplained jargon. Yuck.

Pokemon is a game you can grow up with. I played Red when I was relatively young and didn't really get into the tactics of battle. I put the dudes I thought looked cool on my team and used the move that seemed to do the most damage over and over again until I beat the game. When the second generation came out, I was older and willing to think about things more. I started designing teams based on type match up, and using moves accordingly. This added a whole new layer of strategy. With each generation I dug deeper into the games mechanics and it became more and more fun despite all the games being as similar as they are.

I would compare Pokemon games to fighting games. To someone whose not really into the fighting game scene, Street Fighter 2 might look a lot like Street Fighter 3, but the small changes are what make a big difference in each iteration. And that's why people like me continue buying them, despite being grown ass men and women.

Just finished X this afternoon. It was alright.

Jesus dude. A lot of people like the new Pokemon, I don't get why that's problematic to you. Yeah it isn't perfectly streamlined and hasn't changed enough to your liking, but that doesn't mean you have to rage about it.

Red was the first and last Pokemon I ever played. I don't know why I never went back to the franchise, because I loved the heck out of that game.

I'm more interested than ever to take another dip into the franchise, though this kinda looks a little too familiar despite how much time has passed. I really don't know if I would like playing this.

Giant Bomb's coverage of Pokemon is always the best. Thanks for every Pokemon Quick Look ever.

Things not being obvious is not an argument.

Fletchling sounds like felching. Just saying.

Well, to be fair, the d pad is the only option to walk. And Ryan was the pokemon expert, until he went off and started writing his God Of War review.

Ni No Kuni did it right.

Why do people give a shit about EXP Share? I very distinctly remember an item in Red/Blue called EXP All that did pretty much the exact same thing.

Ni no Kuni was a good, but I hope Pokemon never goes in that direction.

Yeaaa this was kinda painful to watch. If its a game that the Giantbomb crew doesn't have a inherent interest in to begin with, then they'll put next to no effort into learning about whats new or understanding the game or talking about how it's changed. This goes for things like Endless Ocean, Gran Turismo, etc.

I am specifically referring to basic things like using the D-Pad to walk, pressing Y and using D-Pad to quick select registered items, being able to touch-and-drag menu and move options around on the lower screen, etc.

Of course I sound like some kind of fanboy but it just seems cruel. I'm fine with a person saying the game is not for them or they don't like the grind. But it's unfair to say the game is simplistic and dumb when you don't know much about the game. Then there is the highly complex end of it for more mature players who are looking at the competitive scene. I personally have no interest in that stuff but a ton of people do apparently. And clearly the game is designed for a young audience, thus the interface systems, story, text feedback etc may feel simplistic or overly informative.

Them discussing the Pokemon games never having a story, when in Black/White and Black 2/White 2 actually did have one.

Is it weird that I'm watching this while playing Pokemon X? Yes?

I was thinking more of the rap game when I wrote that post, but I'm glad that you (and apparently another user) enjoyed it regardless of that detail.

Because you don't remember very well. The EXP Share did as the name says and takes 50% off the experience off the winning battle and gives it to the one pokémon holding the item. 50%/50% share.

In this generation, the EXP Share is now the EXP All, which gives free EXP to every pokémon that wasn't in the battle. 100%/50%/50%/50%/50%/50% share for a minimum of 350% EXP per victory in total. Also coupled with the fact the EXP no longer split when using multiple pokémons in the same fight, and the new EXP boosts from things like affection, gaining EXP is easier than ever.

Brad and Vinny are asking Pokemon Expert Jeff Gerstmann all of the right questions.

The combat system wasn't perfect but it's example of how Pokemon can be, mainly your pokemon making physical contact and running around and such.

I remember perfectly, you described exactly what I said. It's just like EXP All, which has existed since the very first game. I don't get what the big deal is.

Screaming for Jeff to use the D-pad.

no, the difference is that in red/blue it divided that remaining 50% into 5, whereas here the 5 EACH get 50%.

@ravelle: Yeah, Pokemon could go in that direction, but I don't want them to. I hope the main series always stays turn-based.

Pokemon Red/Blue did in fact have Exp All.

http://www.serebii.net/itemdex/exp.all.shtml

I hope @brad dose a write up, even if it isnt a full review for pokemon, because seeing this from fresh eyes is kind of interesting.

Brad has never played a pokemon game? lol

It kind of isn't. The only Pokemon game I skipped is Black/White 2 and I've barely ever used moves that do not do direct damage. There is no point. Unless you skip trainer fights and use repels all the time, your pokemon will be strong enough to kill any pokemon in 2 or 3 hits. If you use a move to boost damage, lower their defense, or whatever; it will, at its best, take an equal number of moves to take it out. Most of the time more.

Just don't use types that aren't effective against the one you're fighting and you never have to use those moves. Direct damage moves that also come with status effects on the other hand are great.

Grinding out levels through copy-paste battles has never rated high for me on a list of video game experiences. I do (unfortunately) enjoy the process of completing a collection. XP sharing seems like a good way to finally get me to play a Pokemon game. Except for those terrible mini-games and the part where you molest your Pokemon, I like the presentation of this game.

Then again, maybe a lot of what I like is coming from Jeff, Vinny, and Brad because this was a terrific Quick Look. In better universe, this would have been just another episode of a new Endurance Run.

http://poliwager.net/rby/expall.shtml

"The Exp. All gives half of the experience gained in a battle to any of the Pokémon that took part in the battle, then the other half is split between every Pokémon in the party, even the ones that didn't battle. So, for example, if I had 6 Pokémon in my party and battled a Pokémon that gave out 1,200 experience using two of them, the two Pokémon that battled would each receive 300 experience, which added up totals 600, or half of the original 1,200 experience. The rest of the 600 experience gets shared between the 6 in the party. So every Pokémon would then get 100 experience, and the two that battled would receive a total of 400 experience. I personally recommend only having two or three Pokémon in your party so the experience gets more evenly distributed throughout the ones you're training. "

The 1200 experience is split. 400+400+100+100+100+100.

In this game, the EXP would be 1200+1200+600+600+600+600. That's the difference.

"your" not "you're" in that sentence.

Very much this. Also the question he were asking were golden.

"Can you sell them?"

@zevvion said:

You can definitely get through the main game just using direct attack moves, simply because the game isn't that hard, but that doesn't mean they're not effective. Using something like Sword's Dance twice pretty much allows you to sweep a whole team with a single Pokemon. Or burn, which not only hurts them every turn, but also significantly reduces their attack, which gives you a notable advantage.

I completely ignored them until like Gen 4 or something, but I use them now if only to make battles a little more interesting.

Now I have to watch this instead of actually playing the game.

You do not. Exp all did not grant as much exp in blue/red/yellow as it does in X/Y since it was divided among them, not added. Also, you got Exp All pretty late in those games, where you get it here within the first hour of playing. Also, Exp All hasn't existed since blue/red/yellow.

It's basically a much better version than existed in the first generation of games and it hasn't been around ever since then. That's why people give a shit.

@k9 Damn, you have lightning fast reaction skills. I already noticed and changed that error within 2 seconds of posting.

Okay, so it works a bit differently, I still don't understand why it matters. If you don't like it, don't use it. I don't understand the outrage. Are you upset that other people may be able to enjoy the game without having to suffer through the monotonous grind of leveling their pokemon?

The majority of modern RPGs have background leveling as a standard feature without the need for an item, and in most instances the background leveling is much more than 50% (and this only applies to your party, so it isn't even really background leveling at all). I think it's a good thing that Gamefreak are actually rethinking some of the design decisions from 15 years ago that they never bothered changing, even if the majority of the game strictly adheres to the classic mechanics.