Cute Chronicles – Incoherent Thoughts on Pokémon X and Y

Su-per cutesy happy fun catching time!

Nintendo Direct on the 8th of January was a Pokémon Direct, featuring an announcement about those little creatures you either love or hate.

The series is moving away from the colours, since after a decade you would expect that they’ve run out. Someone might suggest that this is the case since they named the most recent ones Black and White, the most basic colours of colours, and the sequel wasn’t even grey. Thank goodness for that though, because there may have been an onslaught of Fifty Shades of Pokémon jokes.

When the news broke that the games are actually being called X and Y, half of the people watching praised the move away from colours by making jokes about the alphabet, chromosomes etc and the other half lamented the move away from colours because of the variety of shades that had gone unseen (vomit-green, etc). Pokémon is ripe for snarking, but it also has this steel-type grip of nostalgia on the hearts of those who grew up with it, further complicated by some of these people loathing the fact that they love Pokémon and are actually growing up, potentially reaching the point where this should be shameful. Others are absolutely head-over-heels in love. My relationship status with Pokémon is complicated. We’ve been in therapy for a while, now. We suffered a blow when a twelve-year-old corrected me when I proudly declared I had Magneton on my tshirt (I didn’t – they were separate Magnemite).

A new journey awaits. Where does this road go? Where’s my map? How long until the next Pokémon Center?

The brief history of Pokémon showed at the beginning of the video was enough to make me weep – Nintendo know just when to throw in an old theme song to kick you in the face. Iwata cheerfully reminisced about using the link cable to trade with friends – I had no other friends who played Pokémon at that time, so I used the link cable from my Gameboy Printer to connect a friend’s old Gameboy and my Gameboy Colour, trading between my own copies of Blue and Silver. Several years later, I foolishly let someone borrow my Blue version, and haven’t seen it since.

I’m excited about a bridge…

After the history lesson came the glimpse of the future – and it looks like better versions of stuff we’ve seen on home console versions of the Pokémon franchise. Not going to lie, I’m pretty excited and seeing the game makes me keen to see more, although that hefty pinch of salt ‘does not represent actual game footage’ comes with those pretty shots of mysterious legendaries. This feels like an evolution at the very least in the look and feel, but I’d be interested in how the 3DS is actually used, including whether viewing the Pokémon in glorious 3D actually makes a difference. Black and White 2 being released on the DS was a disappointment but at least there isn’t too long to wait for the next game. That they’re also being scheduled for a worldwide release in October this year is exciting news! Great too that we’re looking at Generation 6, and not a remake of another Pokémon game. I’m going to hold on to this one, and stay positive, at least for a little while longer. Pokémon forever, indeed.

I do have a couple of questions though, that no doubt will be debated and revealed as time goes on. Is your character customisable? What does the Pokédex look like? What’s the story behind the legendaries? What’s with the flaming… disco? Is that a spiderweb? Can I catch a Munchlax? How many different battle animations are there? And most importantly: WHICH STARTER DO I CHOOSE?


Posted

in

,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply