Tons of Pokemon X/Y details, comments from Masuda
Polygon has put up a huge report on Pokemon X/Y, which covers gameplay between the beginning up to the first gym. You can find a summary of details below – including comments from Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda. Alternatively, you can find Polygon’s full piece here.
– Start off by choosing your gender
– Customize how your character looks next
– Begin the adventure by meeting with 4 neighborhood kids who are also setting out to do the same
– Scene is shown over coffee in a little Parisian-style cafe
– Given your starter Pokemon and Pokedex here from one of these friends
– They explain what X and Y’s professor expects from them
– Need to travel the world and fill up the Pokedex with information on new Pokemon
– Formula of going to the professor, picking a Pokemon, traveling alone and occasionally battling against one main rival was changed in order to heighten focus on the games’ key theme of bonds
– Bonds are between Pokemon and their trainers as well as between trainers and their new in-game friends
– Friends will travel with you as you move through Kalos
“This time we really wanted to make it a journey about you and your friends. When you first meet the kids at the beginning of the game, you don’t actually know them, so you’re meeting them for the first time. But one of the central themes of Pokemon X and Y are bonds — the bonds between people, and the bonds between people and Pokemon, for example. When focusing on this theme, we wanted to make [the game] a journey about meeting these friends and then getting to know them over the course of the adventure.”
– Professor Sycamore is different from the typical professors
– Sycamore is studying Pokemon’s Mega Evolutions
– The professor will often ask favors of people rather than do things himself
– This includes having the friends deliver the Pokemon to players
– Professor also challenges players to a Pokemon battle later in the game
– Pokemon X/Y has all Pokemon from all previous games
– Pokemon introduced in X/Y will not have Mega Evolutions
“Mega Evolution works the way it does is for a variety of reasons. Another main theme of Pokemon X and Y is evolution, and I think the concept of evolution is the defining characteristic of [the Pokemon series]. When we were developing X and Y, we were thinking about what new things we could do with this — I talked with the graphic designers and the battle designers to come up with a good idea. What we came up with was a form of evolution that would only last during battle but would also require the Pokemon to hold the Mega Stone.
“By requiring the Pokemon to hold the Mega Stone, it prevents it from holding any other item in battle that may come in handy or play to a certain strategy. Since you don’t know what your opponent is holding, you kind of have to guess their strategy, especially if it’s a Pokemon that can Mega Evolve. What this does is it adds a strategic depth.
“We felt that temporarily going to this extreme level and then coming back to normal would be more interesting [that it being constant]. Also, from a gameplay perspective, if we just added another level of permanent evolution, the Pokemon would just become too strong and that would destroy the balance of the gameplay.”
– Wasn’t always the plan to have the professor give players the choice of Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle
– After seeing the designers’ ideas for what Mega Evolutions of these three Pokemon would look like, the team knew they just had to include them
“Originally I didn’t plan to put them into the game [as starters], but the Red and Blue starters have always been really important to us. And I knew that I wanted to give them Mega Evolutions, so I gave the direction to the designers. When I saw the designs that they came up with, I thought they were very cool and I wanted to give players the opportunity to get ahold of these Pokemon — and because in Red and Blue you receive the Pokemon from a professor, I felt it would be fitting to receive them from a professor [in X and Y] as well. It also fits well with the story. The professor in X and Y is researching Mega Evolutions, so it all just kind of matched.”
– Pokemon have a real voice rather than squeaks
– Pikachu even says , “Pika pika!”
– Can let your character run
– This was a personal addition
– He wanted players to be able to run after being out-walked by residents while visiting Paris
“I am a fast walker, I was always a fast walker. But in France, I noticed people were walking much faster than me, and it came to mind to make the character movement faster than in previous games.”
– Capturing Pokemon is still the same
– NPC dialogue is still playful and at times unhinged
– UI and bottom screen options have more things
– Can train individual Pokemon in Super Training minigames
– Rub Pokemon’s tummies and feed them in Pokemon Amie
– Find friends online to battle and trade
– All of these options were packed together to cater to the audience’s unique and varying play styles
“We really wanted to design it so people could find their own play style — for example, with Pokemon Amie, we designed it for people who just really want to interact and play with their Pokemon and pet them, and they’ll probably keep the bottom [screen] on the Pokemon Amie screen [at all times]. For others that like to play online, they’ll just leave it at the Player Search System screen. I do think that people stick to a specific play style at specific times.”
– UI development and the different activities were a core focus during development
– A need to pick up the game’s pacing was also important
– Team needed to find a way to let players be able to get short-term enjoyment out of the game while still sticking with their training and battling for the long haul
“In Japan, one thing I really noticed, especially among middle school students, is everyone is really busy. They’re writing blogs, going to real life meetups with friends, using Twitter, Facebook, playing mobile games… They just have a lot of different entertainment options with a variety of media. It just feels like a lot of people these days don’t have a lot of time.
“One of the things we focused on with Pokemon X and Y was to really speed up the pace, up the tempo a bit, and make it more of a brisk-paced adventure and make it easier to raise Pokemon. There are a lot of free games out there, and if you get bored it’s easy to just switch to something else — we really wanted to make it constantly interesting and engaging.”
