Pokémon X and Y (and Another Pokémon Poll)

Note to self; don't click any oj Jay's spoilers for a while.

Spoiler:

Balladeer wrote:

ShopTo you beautiful clever well-endowed bastards.  BRB getting a Froakie and calling it Stu.

If you catch an Absol will you call it Balladeer?

Nope - just thought you were the Froakie-est man on the forum, that's all.  Although you suit its evolution less, I must admit.

Route 8/9 Spoiler:

EDIT: Don't you go changing your comment! I'll call it Balladeer2 or something: my beautiful heroine is named Balladeer, thank you very much.

Winner of the 'Most Frog-Like Forumite of the Year Award' 2013. I feel so special.  

I also feel like I'm missing out here. *goes and plays Animal Crossing*

Buskalilly wrote:

Note to self;  don't click any oj Jay's spoilers for a while.

Nah, I'm not gonna post spoilers, don't worry. I've just been exposed to a lot of new Pokemon and Mega Evolutions and such, so I know a lot of the surprises you guys will get to experience.

Sounds like you've done exactly what I was trying not to do you myself.

Yeah... although the fact I don't have a 3DS (probably will change at Christmas) and thus won't get to play it meant I wasn't exactly avoiding the reveals too actively.

Watching Y download over aforementioned suspected crappy hostel wi-fi is KILLING ME

It took me nearly an hour to download X on my Jap and Y on my usual, I've started Y at the moment and got my Torchic Chespin was my starter for now which I will keep until I find a Gogoat(a).
Went on a bit of a catching binge right off the bat as well

Opening my copy I am dismayed at how lazy the packaging for this is.  Not even an instruction pamphlet, we're down to instruction cards now.  

Picking nits, Athrun.  

Spoiler embargo is down! And the Parfum Palace happens to be the worst place in the game so far, in my humble opinion. There have been a couple of places so far where the game seems to have put the new fancy 3D graphics over sensible gameplay decisions - the Rhyhorn-riding, for example. Could do without that, frankly. The battle scenes are great, though.

And while I'm in a moaney mood, it's not just Tierno. The entire gang of four, shepherding you along and telling you in detail about everything is getting on my wick.

Nits or otherwise I am slightly saddened to see the once robust Pokemon instruction books become a thing of the past.  It was part of my tradition, get new game and then flick through the manual.  

Anyhow, status report.  In the forest, and I think I've caught most of what I can catch in these areas, I'm having a break after catching Pikachu and finding the Global Link server is too busy to sync my game with.  Spent most of my time so far Super Training my Pidgy so it can be the best there ever was. The only thing that's slightly irritating me right now is the lack of a PC box in the first town, which means my Pikachu for the time being is stuck in storage while I have a bunch of boring normal types on my team.

Athrun888 wrote:

Nits or otherwise I am slightly saddened to see the once robust Pokemon instruction books become a thing of the past.  It was part of my tradition, get new game and then flick through the manual.  

Yeah, I'd second that. It was bad enough when they stopped calling them trainer guides but now they've stopped doing them entirely. Weak sauce.

After route... 8, I think it was? There's been a sudden dramatic level jump, meaning that my team are heavily out-levelled by even the wild monsters, let alone the second gym. And it doesn't help that apart from Beemoh the Honedge, my Pokémon have rubbish moves. I've got a psychic-type which doesn't even have Confusion, for crying out loud.  

I've not had time to play, much since Thursday, I'm on route 6 looking for a pokemon flute. But off tomorrow so i will be playing all dayafter I've gone to pick up my Y.

Balladeer wrote:

After route... 8, I think it was?  There's been a sudden dramatic level jump, meaning that my team are heavily out-levelled by even the wild monsters, let alone the second gym.  And it doesn't help that apart from Beemoh the Honedge, my Pokémon have rubbish moves.  I've got a psychic-type which doesn't even have Confusion, for crying out loud.  

Oh dear... I've been training quite well. I just passed Snorlax and my team are just now pushing level 20...

I'm still fluttering around in the first town with the gym training up a few Pokemon to match my starters level. Somehow don't think I'll be evolving Pikachu..

No need to fear, chaps: this generation has a rubbish electric rodent too!  Sigh...  Anyway, beaten the second gym.  Significantly less of a slog than I thought it'd be when I saw the level difference.

Also, can anyone confirm that this generation's Exp. Share doesn't decrease the amount of EXP earned?  And neither in fact does switching out a Pokémon?  Seems a bit cheap to me...

I think you should be fine Busk. Maybe I was just underlevelled.

I haven't noticed my exp gains drop while using exp share.  I don't consider it cheap though, they needed something to balance out the fact exp isn't scaled any more.  Speaking of exp scaling, why oh why did they drop that feature?  It seemed like a really smart move to me and I'm surprised to see it gone.

Oh and update time, I just got my Charmander and Charizardnite Y. I was going to pick Bulbasaur but I realised I'd rather something that gels with my play style of hitting foes as hard as possible as fast as possible. So the current team is a level 12 Fennekin, level 17 Pidgy, level 8 Metapod, level 11 Zigzagoon, level 10 Charmander, and level 10 Pikachu.

But then what when you're grinding up the last few levels on lower-levelled monsters? That was what always bugged me about the scaling system.

Anyway, I've just found what I think is the first truly brilliant design of this generation, much though I love my Honedge. It's found on route 10, but it's rare: you'll only definitely see it in the cave afterwards (owned by a trainer):

Spoiler: