PAX Prime 2013: Pokemon X & Pokemon Y

After months of anticipation, I finally had the chance to get my hands on the new Pokémon games. What we were able to play was obviously a demo created exclusively to show to public at conventions, but none the less, it was quite impressive.

The demo started with your character in an open area and the ability to battle wild pokémon. You started with a random starter pokémon from the new generation starters, and a Sylveon, Eevee's new fairy type evolution. Here you could capture wild pokémon, or battle another trainer in the field. Moving the character with the 3DS analog stick caused the character to skate around the area on rollerblades, while the d-pad caused the character to walk at a normal pace. There was also a gogoat (one of the several newly announced pokémon) in the area that you could use to ride around on. Other than that, and the ability to move diagonally rather than a simple grid pattern, the over world controls were familiarly pokémon.

Once a battle was entered, the game presented beautifully rendered pokémon in full 3D. The animations were flashy and exciting, which really gave a lot of life to the battles. The camera moved dynamically throughout the fight, emphasizing the actions the pokémon took to complete their selected moves. A nice touch was that the trainers in battle were fully rendered, shown with beautiful animations as they called their pokémon out from their pokeballs, and even showed them using items during battle.

Another nice new feature is the pokemon-amie mini-game. This mode allowed me to use the 3DS stylus to feed my pokémon treats, or pet them. This apparently is used to improve friendship levels, which will help to evolve certain pokémon. While not what I play pokémon for, this was a fun diversion that will be a more enjoyable way to raise friendship as opposed to feeding a pokémon a lemonade once per day.

Finally, at the end of the demo, the professor in the area approaches the player and gives them a mewtwo. This is used in battles to demonstrate the new mega evolution feature. Once selected from the move options, my mewtwo evolved into Mega Mewtwo, and executed his attacks. This raised his stats as well as had an exciting animation showcasing his temporary evolution.

The good news about Pokémon X and Pokémon Y is that the overall formula of gameplay hasn't changed very much. The great news is that the presentation has dramatically changed. The new graphics, animations, and detail in the world really helped to pull me into the game, and made an already great series even better. I'm much more excited now than I ever was to get my hands on the sixth generation of Pokémon games when they come out October 12th.