The story is a huge step down from Black and White. While there are interesting concepts, none of the rivals and antagonists are given the development they deserve.
Eh, I think that's giving too much credit to BW. It's story and characterization was decent, but suffered from the standard Pokemon refusal to have many or long cutscenes. XY has the same problem, just more pronounced
The game is actually fairly challenging overall, with smarter movesets on trainers... provided you don't use the Exp Share. Young or new players might find it helpful, but the game really should have warned that turning it on basically turns on "easy mode". Veterans should avoid it or the game will stop being fun fast.
Of course, since the game doesn't have the old Exp Share, this makes levelling weak pokemon a pain in the ass
Seeing as there's a lot of hate for long cutscenes going around the gaming community right about now, Pokemon's refusal to use them might not be a bad thing. BW's plot may not be amazing by other game standards, but it was spectacular by Pokemon standards, to the point it was a very Tough Act to Follow.
I was mainly talking in terms of characters. The rivals, Gym Leaders and villains in Black and White all had actual personalitites. Cheren and Bianca had character development and their own arcs, while X and Y's rivals... Shauna has a few scenes here and there but is still pretty much one-dimensional by the end ("I wanna make memories, yay!") Trevor gets a grand total of ONE significant role in the plot (Frost Cavern) and pretty much vanishes in the postgame, Tierno is an interesting concept by vastly underdeveloped and plays no significant role in the plot AT ALL. (You could give all his lines to another rival and the story wouldn't change any, he only battles you twice.) And then there's Calem/Serena, who have the dubious distinction of pretty much having NEGATIVE character development, getting an inferiority complex from losing to you all the time to the point where they're a much WEAKER character at the end of the plot than they were at the beginning. While this may have worked for jerks like the Gen 1 rival, Calem and Serena were far too nice to deserve this.
As for villains, Lysandre was interesting in concept and probably a better character than Cyrus overall. His plans also had more depth than Ghetsis'. The problem is... his development really suffered from the game trying to "hide" the fact he was the boss of Team Flare until very late. With his design and dialogue, they weren't fooling anyone. Anyone with half a brain would have him pegged as the Team Flare boss immidiately. Had they revealed him earlier, they would have had more time to explain his motives and maybe spread out the battles with him. Like N, who was revealed as part of Team Plasma around the halfway point, and his storyline was much better for it. Or Ghetsis, who was very clearly shown to be with Team Plasma from the start. Ghetsis may have been a far more generic villain, but the plot managed to use him much more effectively than Lysandre, mainly by having N to contrast him to.
That's another issue with Lysandre, he really had no-one to bounce off of. Johto Team Rocket had Lance and the rival. Maxie and Archie confronted eachother, Cyrus had Cynthia and Ghetsis had N, Alder and Cheren. Sycamore or Diantha could have filled this role for Lysandre. With Sycamore's case, it felt really weird that he'd talk about he personally felt responsible for Lysandre ending up the way he did. They why wasn't he there with you when you fought him? As for Diantha... it'd at least mean she'd have enough plot focus to be a more memorable Champion. Her first conversation with Lysandre at the cafe had a lot of promise, but that whole angle was dropped. (Funnily when I first saw that concersation, I thought Team Flare would end up being a Take That to Genwunners, with all the talk about staying young and beautiful forever and the world slowly becoming "ugly". Sadly that wasn't the case.)
"Sadly that wasn't the case"!? Sorry, I just it would've been a terrible idea to create a villain team to deliver a Take That to a group of fans. It's just a terrible idea.
"What's out there? What's waiting for me?"
Seeing as there's a lot of hate for long cutscenes going around the gaming community right about now, Pokemon's refusal to use them might not be a bad thing.
Oh, there's definitely a case for cutting down on cutscenes, the problem is that the Pokemon games have been trying to tell much larger stories than they're giving themselves space for
Funnily when I first saw that concersation, I thought Team Flare would end up being a Take That to Genwunners, with all the talk about staying young and beautiful forever and the world slowly becoming "ugly". Sadly that wasn't the case.
That'd be weirdly hypocritical, given a lot of the game choices
It's more the militant Genwunners who I believe are extremely toxic to the franchise, especially if Game Freak starts listening to them exclusively. Wanting a franchise to remain stuck in the past and never innovate is a very bad idea, which is the main reason I dislike X and Y's approach so much. The fact that Black and White were my favourite games in the series in a long time because they took a new direction didn't realy help matters. These games definately feel like they were made for BW haters, which I'm definately not part of.
And regarding that being weirdly hypocritical, at that point I hadn't fully realised just how "pro-genwunner" these games were, and I said "sadly" because I'd hoped they'd be less like that.
Take Thats to parts of the fanbase can work, though it's usually better if they're played for comedy. Like Francis in Super Paper Mario ("I go on internet forums and complain about games I've never played!")
I still like Pokemon very much but I stopped at Generation 5. For me, Pokemon ends there, I've got everything I can out of the franchise, it's complete for me, so I'm not going to bother with Generation 6. And though I have fond memories of the first generation, and I do believe its anime still remains the best (though I hate the original theme song - I prefer the "Pokemon Johto" song by far), I cannot stand "Genwunners" and their sickening belief that people who play the newer games are clueless bottom-feeders who kiss Nintendo's feet. I find it astounding that all these Genwunners weren't even excited by new Pokemon. When I first saw a picture of Generation 2's Aipom, my favourite Pokemon and first new one I saw, I went "Awwwwww!" and when I saw the other new mons, I was instantly thrilled. Same thing happened when Gens 3 and 4 came out, and to a lesser extent, Gen 5. But Genwunners? "OMG, new Pokemon, look how new and different they are, they all suck because they're new and not the same!" ...Seriously? You guys want 151 Pokemon forever? Bloody hell.
As far as they're being much fewer Pokemon this generation, that wasn't just a choice or a lack of ideas; that was part of integration with the story, which explicitly stated there was a war and an ultimate weapon that killed off many Pokemon in it's use... little wonder there's still so few new pokemon species in Kalos, and a lot more Ghost types
And also, YMMV on the Exp. Share stopping things from being 'fun'
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Good games... but can't be called "new".
I really don't know how to feel about X and Y. On the one hand, the connectivity, graphics and soundtrack are some of the best in the series, and the amount of attention put into each species behavior in Pokemon Amie is just staggering...
On the other, these games are a very clear step away from the new direction Black and White tried to take the series in, and I'm not sure if that's exactly healthy.
Black and White were all about a fresh start to the series. They were some of the first Pokemon games to truly feel "new" in years. Unfortunately, this caused them to cop flack from the Vocal Minority with the Nostalgia Goggles on too hard, as a result X and Y feel like Game Freak "playing it safe" to avoid the wrath of the Genwunners. There are VERY few new Pokemon compared to previous generations. Worse though, the sheer magnitude of old Pokemon in the region utterly swamps them. Only 15% of the Kalos Pokedex consists of new Pokemon, which feels like a very odd move in what should be a "new" generation. The old Pokemon, by contrast, are clearly in the spotlight, which is shown when your first steps into grass trigger a forced encounter with a Pidgey. The use of Gen 1 Pokemon instead of a new one for the player's first wild battle seems a very delibarate choice. Mega Evolutions, the main focus of the game, are given exclusively to old Pokemon, with Gen 1 fan favourites Mewtwo and Charizard getting two each. And Generation 5 gets none. This too, doesn't seem like a coincidence. This game was very clearly meant to pander to the Genwunners, leaving those who want to see new things from the franchise left out.
The story is a huge step down from Black and White. While there are interesting concepts, none of the rivals and antagonists are given the development they deserve. They Gym Leaders are by far the biggest dissapointment though. While BW gave them almost Pokemon Special-esque plot relevance, this batch, apart from Korrina, only exist to speak a few lines before and after battle, and then are never seen again.
The game is actually fairly challenging overall, with smarter movesets on trainers... provided you don't use the Exp Share. Young or new players might find it helpful, but the game really should have warned that turning it on basically turns on "easy mode". Veterans should avoid it or the game will stop being fun fast.