Was XY really that bad?

[Hellomello]

Seeing that every gen since gen III has a "why is this gen so hated" (or some other variation) thread dedicated to it, I thought that it's only appropriate that XY has one of its' own as well.

Joking aside, I've noticed that there is a disproportionate amount of dislike (or at least, indifference) towards the Kalos games. I can't pinpoint specifically where I've seen this dislike though, as it's just a general vibe that I got off of online communities and discussion sources.

The reception towards the XY games seems to be very lukewarm, for starters. I've rarely come across any praise for these games; and to add to that, most of the praise they do get has to do with the graphics, animations and the like - all of these being merely technical aspects of the game.

On the other hand, the storytelling aspects of the game tend to be heavily criticized - the most common complaints being the villain team, awkward implementation of the story, and the "bland/annoying" set of rivals. The difficulty level is also another gripe that a lot of people have with the game; and mega-evolution, despite being viewed as a welcome addition to the franchise for the most part, still remains a rather controversial one among fans. While I haven't seen that much distaste for the Pokémon introduced in this gen, they don't seem to be viewed in an especially praise-worthy light either, as far as I'm concerned.

So what's your opinion on this set of games? Do you agree with most of the common critisms (hence agreeing that these games leave a lot to be desired), or do you think those criticisms are uncalled for?

 

[Wishy-Washy]

Yes, I agree with the common criticisms with Team Flare, the story, the "rivals", the difficulty, and while I like Mega-Evolution as a concept I feel it went to some Pokemon who were already good and didn't need them, and while I have no problems with the Pokemon introduced they aren't very memorable, and thats not just because theirs less than 100 of them.

 

[Silktree]

The Pokemon are just okay. I don't have any real favorite from Kalos, but I guess there isn't any design that bothered me (except for Complete Forme, which was kept for SM).

Likewise for the region - nothing all that memorable, except for Lumiose being annoying. Also, the overworld and chibi models are simply ugly for the most part.

The Mega Evolution trend (overpowered forms with largely forced designs) and poor story/characters are the biggest flaws. The anime capitalized on them, which didn't make matters any better.

 

[Envoy]

I actually liked Kalos quite a lot. I just loved the look and feel of the region, and it has some really great Pokemon designs (Aegislash, Chesnaught, Greninja, Trevenant, etc.)

The story was shit and the rivals were bland tho. That's just true.

BUT I will say that it's not that Kalos was bad so much as it felt incomplete.

 

[Aulos]

I enjoyed playing X much more than I enjoyed playing Sun.

I have no idea why X/Y get the short end of the stick. Sun/Moon were much more disappointing in concrete ways. However, I will say I'm not one for story. I don't play Pokemon games or really any games for story. So there is that.

I loved the region. I'm a bit biased because I just love European culture. Europe is pretty much right at the top of regions I want to see. I'm not saying it was perfect in that regard, but it was still fun. I really like how they did a Palace of Versailles representation, I liked the faux Baroque-style music they used for that area. That's another thing, I really like X/Y's music. The OST stood out to me so much more than any other generation post-Generation III. That remains true with Sun/Moon which I didn't find the music very memorable. I also like how diverse the region was, I loved how the North-central section had the whole autumn aesthetic going on. Overall I just loved the atmosphere of Kalos. I think it all worked very, very well.

I thought there were some great Pokemon designs, too. Not as many as Generation V, and probably about par with Generation VII. Fletchling will always be one of my favorite Pokemon designs. Just so adorable!

I'm not bothered by difficulty. I don't want to be frustrated in games, and I feel like when Gamefreak attempts to make Pokemon games difficult they only end up making them frustrating. I feel like that's exactly what happened with Sun/Moon. I like playing video games to relax. If I wanted a real challenge out of Pokemon games, I'd go competitive. but I don't. I feel like Sun/Moon wanted me to play with the stats of my Pokemon too much, whereas with X/Y it was just standard fare - which is the way I want it.

I understand I'm out of touch because I don't want frustrating games and I don't pay attention to story, but X/Y were good Pokemon games, to me. I'd certainly put them over R/S/E, R/B/Y, D/P/Pt, and Sun/Moon.

 

[NinjutsuSen]

I liked Kalos actually more than BW1 Unova, since it was not as linear and had more routes I enjoyed more (except for route 13).
Pokemon were good, because they were more like the gen 2 and 4 mons. Story was bad, but it had an actual storyline instead of Kanto/Johto's "story". Also postgame wasn't as bad as Kanto and Hoenn. Also my personal favourite soundtrack togetehr with Johto's.

Seriously Kalos is what I would call "Hoenn 2.0". While they have flaws, the are underrated IMO.

 

[Silktree]

A bad storyline is worse than a minimal one. I'll take Crystal's Suicune/Ho-Oh story bits over anything from XY, anyway.

 

[Master Cyrus]

I'd rather replay XY than SM any day because all that unskippable handholding that not even a 5 year old would need to be able to play game can go jump off a cliff.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I don't think X/Y were flat out bad. I do agree with some of the common complaints about the storyline and characters. I thought that the games were pretty lackluster in those departments. That would have been an issue regardless of when the games came out, but I felt like it stood out more when the fifth generation games had really good characters and storylines going for them. I still had fun playing through the games, exploring the Kalos region itself and most of the Pokemon from that generation had good designs. One reason I didn't mind the short amount of Pokemon was simply because most of the designs were pretty solid in my opinion.

I don't think that X/Y would rank high on my list of favorite Pokemon games, but they wouldn't be at the bottom either. At worst, I'd call them lackluster, but still enjoyable to play through in spite of my issues with the story. At the end of the day, I just want to have fun playing video games, so if I enjoy them, that can make up for some problems. It wouldn't get rid of them completely, but that can make some of the problems more tolerable if they still provide some enjoyment for me.

 

[Jaye]

Yeah, they weren't bad but there are two key factors that probably colour people's perception of the them:

1) They were following Black and White, regarded as having the best story/characters
2) They were the first core games on the 3DS

Compared to BW, the execution of XYs story was awkward and a little incoherent. They went from one gen with a story centred around the morality of human's relationship with Pokemon to a gen with a story centred around generic villainy. The legendaries were an afterthought. AZ, while potentially very interesting, wasn't used nearly enough. Meanwhile, none of your companions/rivals undergo any meaningful development in the same way Bianca and Cheren did.

The second point is more technical but as the game that marked the switch from sprites to 3D models, it did not leave a good first impression. The models for the human character in XY are just plain weird looking, nor did they move particularly well. The camera controls were awkward as well. Lumiose City was a travesty in that regard.

Gameplay was its strongest point but I did have issues with Pokemon overcrowding, with lots of old Pokemon making it harder to find the limited number of new Pokemon. I have mixed feelings about Mega Evolution - the concept is cool but its effect on gameplay can tilt things way too far in the player's direction.

 

[Blue Canary]

What was good (great online play, improving the metagame) was really good, and what was bad (story, lack of postgame) was really bad. It's kind of in the middle.

 

[Aulos]

The second point is more technical but as the game that marked the switch from sprites to 3D models, it did not leave a good first impression. The models for the human character in XY are just plain weird looking, nor did they move particularly well.

I can't really argue with the human models. The problem is that Gamefreak has been taking baby-steps toward a full 3D Pokemon game. The models were still very chibi/sprite like, which was awkward.

Even though they greatly expanded the character models in Sun/Moon, they're still taking baby-steps. The lack of camera control, forcing a top-down view a lot still made Sun/Moon feel a little awkward. I'm hoping that for the Switch Pokemon they break free from all of these restrictions and we see a true 3D Pokemon in every sense of the word.

I was super impressed by the 3D models of Pokemon in X/Y, though. I think Gamefreak did a fantastic job. Nintendo had stuck with blocky Stadium-like models for so many years. I mean just go to Super Smash Bros. Brawl and look at the Pokemon in the background of the new Stadium stage, they still were using Stadium 64-like models just with new textures. It was painful.

So much detail was put into the 3D Pokemon models for X/Y and I appreciated that. It helped translate them really well into 3D. If they had been Stadium-like it would have felt sour.

 

[Anime Psyclone]

I understand I'm out of touch because I don't want frustrating games and I don't pay attention to story, but X/Y were good Pokemon games, to me. I'd certainly put them over R/S/E, R/B/Y, D/P/Pt, and Sun/Moon.

Those fighting words.
But I do agree with many of your points. There were several opponents and places in XY that felt hard and challenging with the puzzles they used, like the Power Plant, Olympia’s gym, and Lysandre Labs, and the Battle Masion felt like someplace that you could test teams to use against NPCs in the game, not people who compete in stuff like VGC. XY’s difficulty is consistent, while SM’s difficulty isn’t. At least the story in XY had a much more 3D villain. And XY actually managed a feat: Have 8 elemental puzzles in a region you have to beat before the champion.

 

[Nicolas721]

No, they aren't that bad. The Pokemon distribution is great, in every route there is something new to find and crazy Pokemon routes. Who would've thought we would see Drifloon, Inkay, Zangoose, Seviper and Wingull in the same place? You can have a lot of team combinations without worrying about Pokemon with low chances to be found (with some exceptions).

The cities and routes of Kalos have great graphics and atmosphere, the dungeons have non-generic designs and it's easy to go from one point to another.

I don't need to mention the overall advantages gen VI had that got removed in Gen VII.

The dificulty is a legit complain, the Pokemon die too easily and some of them don't even have items or four moves. But the story, I don't know. The rivals are too friendly and a bit underdeveloped, but you can just spam A and grind on your own. Team Flare lacks appareances and some things weren't resolved with satisfaction, but they have a cohesive theme (compared to Plasma, which was literally Ninja Pirate Knight Zombie PETA Robot) and provide a few interesting reflexions on life and wealth.

They can't be decent or very enjoyable games depending on your priorities, personally I enjoyed them a lot.

 

[SpikOriundo]

My opinion: those R$150 I spent on Y? The worst way of spending money. And I know what is wasting money, I bought Battleborn Digital Deluxe Edition.
I've played twice through it. I kinda enjoyed the first time... Until I got really tired of nothing happening, while they were trying to throw some plot.
The second time wasn't even a little bit enjoyable to me. On every corner, there was a trainer poisoning, paralyzing, putting you to sleep or burning you, forcing me to heal the status every 5 minutes or going back to a Pokémon Center. Various things just dragged on to long.
And I must say, the rivals are pretty useless. Just sometimes appears, text for 2 minutes while rapidly mashing, nothing of interest to say. Sometimes they battle with really bad Pokémon. What even is the point? Serena/Calem are a little bit interesting, the others are just a waste of space.
There's jsut so much I freaking hate about XY that I don't even have enough time to write it all.
The one good thing I like about XY: Friend Safari.

 

[Extroth]

X&Y were the worst core Pokémon games so far. The story pacing was really bad; since the first and second gyms are so far apart there is almost nothing to do for a huge chunk of the game. Rotes are also spread out and really bland with very little in the way of interesting battles. And not much in the way of interesting scenery or things to explore either.

Gyms have no teeth to them and the game knows it. Even with EXP share off anybody who has a basic understanding of type matchup’s can march into those gyms and walk out with a shiny badge for almost no effort. But being easy is only part of the problem, these gym leaders are unmemorable I only remember one of them at any given time. That’s because they have unmemorable Pokémon team, and nothing of interest to say.

The main villainous team was generic and not interesting at all I keep forgetting that team flare exists. Their leader whose name I don’t remember and can’t even be bothered to look up went on and on about his plans. Normally a bad or generic story in Pokémon games don’t bother me so much. But the game would not shut up about its story it went on and on for paragraphs about how odd and philosophical the main villain was trying to destroy everything to create his beautiful world. People always bring up the hand holding while bashing Sun/Moon but what about the un-skippable lectures that team flares leader gives every time his annoying face is on screen.

After all of this the post-game is just uggha, there really isn’t anything. People don’t seem to think Sun and Moon did enough but I think that it’s a firkin miracle it did so much after X&Y showed how little effort they were willing to put into a fun postgame.

And it’s really such a shame too, because despite all this I really love the Pokémon that came out in gen 6. There are only a few that I felt didn’t live up to my standards and the one’s I liked I really, really liked. But it’s such a waste that all these good Pokémon got stuffed into gen 6 since many of them will never be able to live up to their full potential.

 

[Johtohfiller]

Too easy and too barebones, especially the lacking postgame. Like @Envoy said above it feels incomplete.

The Pokemon designs are near the top of my list though (Gen 3 being my overall favorite), I'll give it that.

 

[Esserise]

I quite liked them, myself. I can understand the complaints about the lack of post-game content or side-features (although in the case of the latter, I'd argue that Amie and Super Training are somewhat of a juxtapositioning of "timesink" and "utility" features), as well as the complaints about the games not being very difficult, but those are things that just don't affect me very much. I reset my games and replay them rather than linger around squeezing every last drop from the post-game, and I do this largely for the purpose of casual entertainment rather than seeking a challenge. So, XY were oddly well-suited to my playing style, especially with their absolutely gargantuan roster of Pokémon to choose from.

I would charge them with being painfully routine as far as structure goes (the same old "8/4/1 League and Evil Team circa Badge 7" model, even after BW managed to spice that up by involving the Gym Leaders some more), but I see that as being largely counterbalanced by their innovation and/or progress in other areas, such as the aforementioned Amie and Super Training, as well as Mega Evolution, the PSS, 3D graphics, and considerably more streamlined UI.

Admittedly, the story and character work is rubbish, but that's true of most Pokémon games. I suppose that I at least find XY's thematic concerns to be more interesting than those of DP and RS, for whatever that's worth, and regardless, I really liked the Kalos region itself.

I also find XY to be the most accessible and replay-friendly games out of the three 3DS entries.

All in all I'd say: Slightly underrated games with their inevitable share of flaws, but they helped the series move forward and, at least for me, provided a mostly good experience.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Bad? Not really. It made a lot of interesting improvements to the gameplay. What it is is lacking, there's very little content, very little to explore, and very little detail in the storyline. This is where we really needed a third version or sequel of some sorts, that's where the games really stand out in those areas. XY not getting one makes it stick out like a sore thumb even more.

 

[Almonds]

They messed up the story and left the region rather incomplete.

However, the PSS, the Friend Safari, the O-Powers, Professor Sycamore, Customization overall, Horde battles... the game is really nice to play from time to time.