Hello everyone and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe. Time for a game review as a nice way of pulling away from beauty for a bit. I will get to the permanent make up thing next time but decided to give you my thoughts on a game.

I finally finished Pokemon Y Version since my New Year’s Resolution was to finish games I started, which I am on a good roll thus far due to how I finished Black version on New Year’s Day itself. Now it’s onto Y Version and man I liked it better than the older versions and I will tell you why!

Region and Pokemon: Like a lot of newer games and newer stories, this set of games, X and Y, take place in the new Kalos Region which is centered around France, well more like Europe in my opinion due to how you have Stonehenge in one area and a bit of Norway and Switzerland with two of the cities dealing with snow and the Alps when you look at the mountain region heading to the second to last city you need to battle. Also, some Indian principles as well due to how in this region, the legendaries Xernius and Yveltol, have a creation and destruction myth with it and will get to that during the story area. Anyuway, this region is pretty much Europe and it is easy to travel through due to how you not only have the FLY HM for later and getting a bike but you have roller skates on top of it. That is pretty convenient since it does get you to place to place in a lot of the towns, especially Lumios City, which is practically Paris, France and that play with the 3D elements better, which I will mention later.

Let’s talk about Pokemon for a second! Great thing about this game is that it introduces not only newer generation Pokemon such as the starters Chespin, Fennekin, and Froaky but brings the past gen Pokemon as well! Heck, when you first meet Professor Sycamore, this regions Pokemon Professor, you get the Gen 1 starters, only one of them, Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur which is a nice bonus for your team. I did have fun choosing Squirtle but Gondras did trade me his Charmander when he restarted X and boy did having Charizard on my team throughout the game brought so many memories! This was pretty handy to have the previous gens because it gives you better varieties in having different types and training them for the many gyms since you do have to face different Pokemon and that included bug, ground, ice, thunder, and even the newest type, fairy! Yes, they added the newest type as fairy and not only there were new Pokemon created for these types such as Flabebe as an example, but they did add the type to existing Pokemon that didn’t have it before such as Clefairy and Clefable are now considered fairy types and somehow Marill is included, don’t know why but they did that for this game when it is already a water-type. Besides adding this and creating newer Pokemon, there was also a new fairy-type Evee made to add to the already existing Evees, Sylveon! Still trying to get a plushie of it. Anyuway, you also get to go up against this Evee in the Laverre Gym against Valerie. Besides newer Pokemon made for this region, what was great is how you can train the Pokemon easier than the past few games and that was using the newer version of the EXP share! In the last few games you can give it to one Pokemon but this one you can turn it on after receiving it and it levels all your Pokemon at once after each battle. It sounds broken, oh it is, but at the same time very handy because there are times you use some Pokemon that you hardly use before on your team, such as I never used Oddish back in Blue and Red until teaching it cut and able to turn it into Vileplume after training it for certain battles and see how the attacks have changed. Hell, I haven’t used Dugtrio in years when I had to go up against Clemente in Lumios Gym which did help out with training it. Even going up against the Elite Four and the Champion was easier with this EXP Share on hand because it made beating them smoother than the past few games. I did say Black Version’s training system was bad, this beats it. Glad they included it in Salpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, which I am going to be working on Alpha Sapphire.

Besides training, there was a new feature added to this series and that Pokemon and Me which lets you become closer to your Pokemon. It allows you to pet your Pokemon, feed them, and also play mini-games to raise their affection levels so they can like you more. Great thing is that if you pet them in the wrong area, they will notify you such as Pikachu’s cheeks, he will zap you if you try to pet them there. I don’t get why even though in the anime it is a great massage area for them. Once you maxed out their affection levels, they unlock abilities that will help them out in battle and not get affected as much by damage or status ailments as previous games. Hoping this feature is added to more games later, I can imagine with a remake of the Diamond, Pearl and Pearl remakes if they get that far.

Story: Unlike Black, this story has not too much plot even though Black did flow and this one did too, but what made it weird was at some point it dealt with two guys being immortal. This story starts off your character moving to Vandeville Town in Kahlos and you meet, depending on who you choose, either Callom or Serena, Shana, Tierno, and Trevor to of course take on the gym leaders and Elite Four once a starter gets picked for that journey. I started off with Froaky as my starter since I heard about his final evolution being Gruninja. Gondras did choose Fennekin but restarted and traded it to me with his Charmander so I can hold onto them for breeding and he did start with Chespin. If they come out with Z Version, I might think of Fennekin since fire types don’t get muckh love.

Within the story, you get to meet the newest evil team, Flare, who think about spreading beauty and style across the world and destroy humanity to keep the beauty of the world in tact. In order to do that, they collect the Mega Stones, which this game, forgot to mention in the Pokemon section, Mega Evolutions of Pokemon that take on stronger forms and increase their strength except you can use one at a time. Sucks since I do have an Aerodactyl with a Mega Stone. Anyways, besides the mega stones, they build a machine and take the legendary Pokemon of whatever game you play to power it up with their immense power to destroy it. It did confuse me to hear that Lysander was immortal, which the machine that was created was a way to bring back a Pokemon he killed. Oh yeah, that still exists and of course there was a happy ending with another character but don’t want to spoil too much if you haven’t played the games or have someone who wants to play them, which I will get to that later.

With this game, well these games since Gondras has picked it back up not too long ago, has a better story plot than the last few games, well Black and White. Don’t worry, will get to White 2 soon and now about to work on Alpha Sapphire. Reason being is not only there was not too much plot like the last but it didn’t go all over the place. What do I mean by that? I felt it was more linear than waiting until post-game to finish the story with Flare and getting more interactions with the rival and other friends made it more worthwhile. I know with Black and White you got that with the rival and Bianca at certain points but this had more of it, especially when you got to go through some Flare stuff including the Pokeball factory. I did find it funny how when getting the fossil for your own dinosaur and the big nugget, your rival sees the big nugget and goes, “What will I do with this thing?” And still puts it in the bag, which of course like past games it gives you money and seeing that it was bigger it will give you more. Now with the destruction and creation portion of the story. Apparently, this story has folklore that deals with a god of destruction and a god of creation which is dealing with more Hindi folklore due to Xernius as the creation legendary while Yveltol being the destruction, there is a Z legendary but don’t know what he has to do with it, to me it makes it more interesting especially with how Flare gets whatever one you play in either version. As you know I did end up with Yveltol and that thing is a beast! If you played Y and caught this thing, you know when you hear its cry in the game you know you would run, especially with the move set it gains and new attacks along the way when it levels up! It is even awesome as Lugia but darker in a sense due to it being a Dark-Type. I wonder how the card would look if I were to get in a pack like Lugia. Still, back to the legends of these two Pokemon. It says on Bulbapedia that Xernius is known to create forests and to learn the move Geomancy and once it’s at the end of its life it will turn into a tree into a tree and sleep for a thousand years while Yveltol, on the other hand, is known for stealing life energy especially at its life’s end, which it takes the life energy from its surroundings and turns into a cocoon for its thousand year sleep. This big bird is the only one to learn Oblivion Wing and man that thing is powerful and not getting rid of it. Even with younger players, don’t get rid of it when you get this Pokemon. To me, when it comes to mythology, Yveltol reminds me of the Norse Serpent since it does get locked up for a long slumber, I bet it wasn’t happy when Lysander woke it up for his machine.

In the end, I liked the story of this game since it paced very well, the legendaries do have interesting tales with them. I hope there is another game to complete the three because of how everyone loved playing it. Try being surrounded by so many 3DS players with it while at school! Only thing that always got me is how a lot of the story revolved around Lumios City and you had to fly there a lot for certain things like doing jobs, even restoring power to the Northern half of the city with the Lumios Powerplant. Knowing with the third game if there is one, we may run into the same thing. I do like how the city is 3D, which makes it even nicer unlike Castelia City back in Black and White, which that was a navigation nightmare but for my eyes, Lumios is the same way since how you have to deal with it revolving when you go into doors and so on. This game did play nicely with the 3D and liked it. Another part of the battle story itself, is of course the Elite Four! Instead of battling them in order, you can go into whatever order you like and the types this time were different which made it better which were Dragon, Steel, Water, and Fire and then the Champion, like Kanto, had a variety with Flying, Ground, and Fairy! My order with this battle was Steel, Dragon, Fire, and water. I think the hardest was Drasna with the dragons since my Drudegon and Lapras kept on getting hit for so much damage. At least with the Champion battle didn’t have to have Flare interrupt!

Music: I rarely talk about the music in any of the Pokemon games since it was mostly chip tunes being played and sometimes some of the songs get used over and over like in Sinnoh with one or two of them and at least none of them are as creepy as Lavendar Town back in Blue and Red. The music in Y, on the other hand, way better! How so? I kind of feel like they got an actual orchestra to help put together these games, as in you hear trumpets blaring, guitars going, and drums banging in this music. I can see how much work was put into this because each town has its own song that doesn’t sound weird with the chip tunes and don’t want to put you to sleep. Plus, the music for trainers and Pokemon interchange very well, you hear one song for Pokemon which kind of takes me back to the Stadium days in how their battle music sounded and with gym leader battles, on the other hand, gives you an awesome techno song. This techno song kind of gives you a nice anticipation of how the battle will go. What was also awesome, the Elite Four members got metal themes for their battles! Okay Nintendo, you better have put this for the Elite Four for the newer Sapphire and Ruby games because this transition with the music made it better! I think I remembered Roxanne getting the techno treatment when I went up against her months ago on Alpha Sapphire, I will see how that goes. All in all, the music has improved and wishing they keep this up for future remakes!

Overall Thought: These two games are worth playing for the kid in us and any new younger players because not only introduces new generation Pokemon but it looks back at the previous generations as well. With having the previous generation, new players that are young can see what Pokemon we knew and love from the past. I still remembered how my older nephew didn’t know about the past generation Pokemon until he picked up Diamond and Platinum himself like I did when I first got into the Nintendo DS. Plus, this game did play with the 3D a lot better than Black and White ever did, don’t know how well it played in White 2 yet, but Lumios City looked beautiful, the battles were Stadium quality, which you see the Pokemon actually using their attacks in this rendering versus the old version, and of course there were cut scenes that used it too. If you remembered the mansion for the Pokeflute quest, the fireworks scene played it well. I am hoping that a Z Version is made because this story played with Pokemon better than Black and White in my opinion and of course the training was not as hard than the others because of the newer version of the EXP Share. I also liked how I got to use different Pokemon for the many gyms and the Elite Four and able to level up while traveling than waiting to head back to whatever route to train again with another Pokemon that might not faint as easily and no level caps for that area.

My Rating: 5 Paw Prints out of 5!

That is it for this game review! I am going to be working on Alpha Sapphire and might go and work on White 2 since I do have the strategy guide for that. What is next? The beauty controversy over permanent make up in my book at least!