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.