X and Y might come near the end of the alphabet, but they’re the start to something brand new for the Nintendo 3DS.
New year, new Pokémon. But not just the typical repurposing of graphical assets and battle mechanics that Nintendo has used for better or worse up till recently – hardly. With the series finally moving to the Nintendo 3DS in October, major changes are coming.
During a Pokémon-themed Nintendo Direct in the wee hours of the morning here in the US, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed the next generation – generation six, if you’ve been keeping count – to their worldwide RPG-hit staring Pikachu and his cutesy band of collectable monsters called Pokémon X and Y.
Nintendo and Pokémon series developer Game Freak have ditched the conventional color-branding of its past titles (knowing that they pretty much scrapped the bottom of the barrel on that naming front, that isn’t too surprising really) this go around, but the differences as I alluded to up top don’t stop just there either. Hint, hint: the picture coming up.
For the first time in it’s long history, X and Y moves away from traditional 2D sprites – they will be sadly missed – and will use fully 3D polygons for almost every part of the game: environments, characters, battle animations, and the Pokémon themselves. No doubt there’ll be some glasses-free 3D shenanigans thrown into game, as well.
Nintendo hasn’t forgotten the core gameplay, though. While they didn’t mention specifics, Iwata did subtly emphasized something about bonding with your Pokémon as being a way to help make them grow stronger. How exactly? I guess we’ll learn at a later date. While we’re on the topic, what about them starter Pokémon? Nintendo managed to introduce three cuddly new monsters in the reveal trailer posted below; their names, Fire-type Fennekin, Water-type Froakie, and Grass-type Chespin.
They even threw in computer-animated glimpses of rare Pokémon – a bird-like and deer-like Pokémon that look vaguely similar to the letters represented in each game’s title (X and Y obviously) – which weren’t named, but in usual Game Freak monster-creating style, look mighty cool.
Pokémon X and Y will launch globally this October for the Nintendo 3DS; another great welcomed change that’s a first for the series. As for other changes Nintendo has up its collective sleeve, we’ll see those hopefully in the upcoming months along with our own regular geek-centric posts like Steam PC consoles and Game of Thrones’ flags here on Walyou.
