Pokémon X and Y

Pokémon X and Pokémon Y are the games that heralded the arrival of the incredibly short-lived sixth generation of Pokémon. Released for the Nintendo 3DS in late 2013, X and Y had incredible influence over the direction the series would go in future installments: for one, they're the first mainline handheld games to abandon sprite-based artwork in favor of making the leap to full 3D polygonal graphics. They're also responsible for shaking up the Pokémon type chart that had been untouched since Gold and Silver on the Game Boy: along with tweaking Dark and Ghost types they introduced the brand new Fairy type as a way to counter the sheer omnipresence of Dragon types in the Gen 4 and Gen 5 metagames, while also countering Fighting and Dark types while being weak to Poison and Steel.

But as major as that addition was, it paled in comparison to Mega Evolution. This mechanic was groundbreaking and unique among the mechanics introduced in past installments, and allowed certain Pokémon to transform mid-battle into a far more powerful form with a unique appearance, boosted stats, and alternate abilities and even typings to help change the flow of battle. It was also a key focus in the storyline, as detailed below...

You are a teenaged Pokémon trainer living in the Kalos region, a France-inspired region famous for its beauty and historical architecture. Like in other entries, you are given a starter Pokémon courtesy of Professor Sycamore and set out on another Pokémon adventure where you travel with a group of friends, take on the Kalos region's Pokémon Gyms in hopes of conquering its esteemed Pokémon League, and foil the schemes of the nefarious Team Flare, a gang of garishly-dressed fashion snobs with sinister designs for the world at large. And on your adventure, you come to learn about the amazing power of Mega Evolution, and learn just how it ties into the history of Kalos while seeking to make its power your own on your quest to catch 'em all!

In a first, the games were released released worldwide in October 2013, making them the first Nintendo-published retail games to have a simultaneous global release in all key regions. Each released contains all languages on the same cartridge, but you can only choose one at the start of the game.

Tropes used in Pokémon X and Y include:

Action Mom: The mom of the player character is specified to be a retired Pokémon trainer, and she still has her Rhydon around.
Adults Are Useless: As per series tradition, the only people actively fighting against Team Flare's evil schemes are the child-aged protagonist and their equally young friends.
Ambiguously Bi: Thanks to the dialogue being the same no matter if you're playing as a boy or girl, Shauna's interactions with a female player are still just as full of Ship Tease as they are with a male.
Anime Hair: In between Grant, Lysandre, Diantha, ALL of Team Flare, Viola, and so many other characters, X and Y keep up the tradition of Pokémon characters having ridiculous hairstyles.
Annoying Younger Sibling: Bonnie tends to get under Clemont's skin by stealing his pre-battle speeches.
Badass Adorable: The Goomy line are a family of adorable snail-like Dragon Pokemon and the Kalos region's mandatory "Psuedo-legendary" Pokemon. Goodra in particular is just as overwhelmingly powerful as other Dragons are despite being an utter cuddlebug, but its true strength comes in its beefy Special Defense stat, which lets it tank even the most powerful Special Attacks like they're nothing.
Badass Grandpa: Wulfric is the strongest Gym Leader, and his team's levels are on par with a few champions from earlier games. He's also an old man, but still incredibly spry for his age.
Bare Your Midriff: Along with the typical bikini-clad Swimmer girls, Viola, and Malva, you can dress Serena in belly-baring outfits as a series first.
Big Bad: Lysandre, a once-optimistic philanthropist turned into a misanthropic madman leading Team Flare, who seeks to wipe out all life aside from himself and his Team Flare lackeys.
Boss in Mook Clothing: Most of this game's tougher battles aren't with plot important characters, but with otherwise ordinary trainers encountered in the wild. Famous examples include:
- Rising Star Hamish, who has a Kadabra at level 14, which is 2 levels lower than when Abra can actually evolve. Usually a Kadabra spamming Confusion against your team isn't anything to worry about, but when it's this early in game? It's a monster than can and will melt your Pokemon as if they were nothing.
- His fellow BiMC Rising Star Paulette has an Axew at level 19 that doesn't seem out of the ordinary... until it pulls out Dragon Rage, a move that will ALWAYS do 40 damage. And keep in mind that when you fight her, most of your Pokemon's health pools are hovering around the 50's/60's. If you run into her during a Nuzlocke, you better hope you were lucky enough to snag a Fairy type!
- Poke Fan Family Jan and Erin, a.k.a the infamous Furfrou couple hated by many a Nuzlocker. Encountered near Parfum Palace, they fight you in a double battle with two Furfrou. You may scoff at the idea of such frilly looking poodle Pokemon being a threat, but their Fur Coat ability allows them to tank even the most powerful physical moves like they're nothing, and they'll batter your Pokemon with STAB-boosted Headbutts and are usually fast enough to cripple your guys by constantly making them flinch. They're an incredibly nasty surprise for first time players not expecting otherwise goofy Pokefan trainers to have such deadly Pokemon.
- Black Belts and Battle Girls as a whole tend to count as this. While their choice in Pokemon is predictably all Fighting types, all those fighting types hit hard and have surprisingly expansive movepools to trip you up with: sometimes you'll fight one with a Sawk who will pull out a surprise Poison Jab to knock out the Fairy type you're using, other times your Flying type won't quite cut it and will get crushed by Rock Slide or Stone Edge for their trouble.
Boss Rush: Ignoring the usual example in the Elite Four and Champion, at one point you get into three consecutive battles against Shauna, Tierno, and Trevor on a bridge with no warning whatsoever.
Breakout Character: Greninja became the iconic Gen 6 Pokemon after proving to be a popular 'Mon in these games, and would go on to make prominent appearances in the anime as one of Ash's main Pokemon in the Kalos arc, the Detective Pikachu movie, and most importantly Smash Bros where it became a playable character starting in the Wii U and 3DS games.
Bubblegloop Swamp: Routes 14 and 19 are swampy and frequently rainy.
The Bus Came Back: After not making any appearances since Hoenn, the Hex Maniac trainer class makes a comeback... aaaaaaand promptly vanished from the series once again after the next generation games were released.
Call Back: Quite a few to Red and Blue.
- Santalune Forest is a dead ringer for Viridian Forest, complete with having the exact same layout.
- A sleeping Snorlax is blocking your path through the rest of Route 7, and you can't get past it until you find the Poke Flute and play a tune that will wake it up.
- When you reach Lumiose City, Professor Sycamore will let you choose one of Kanto's three starter Pokemon to take with you on your journey.
- Lysandre's hideout is full of floor tiles that will either warp you around the building, or forcibly push you forward much like the tiles in various Team Rocket-associated areas.
Character Customization: In a first for Pokémon games, you can pick the look of your character at the beginning of the game and dress them up.
Character Name Limits: These games saw a permanent shift in the letter limits for trainer and Pokemon names, going from seven and ten letters respectively to twelve for both.
Cheerful Child: Shauna and Bonnie are short younger girls who are unfailingly happy and excitable.
Child Prodigy: One of the new trainer classes are Rising Stars, which are basically grade school-aged Ace Trainers whose Pokemon and strategies are a cut above most of the other early-game trainers.
Cool Old Guy: Ramos, Wulfric, and Drasna are all lovable old folks who are among the Kalos region's strongest trainers thanks to being Gym Leaders and an Elite Four member respectively.
Crutch Character: Farfetch'd can be found really early, and in a twist of fate is actually useful for a bit! Sure, its usefulness falls off a cliff after the first Gym, but it learns Aerial Ace really early on which makes it a big help against Viola and her Bug types.
Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Since these games messed with the long-established type chart, it's not uncommon to fall back on old habits such as trying to have your Steel type tank the Dark and Ghost type moves it used to resist, or sending out a Fighting type against the former Normal type Clefairy, who's been retconned into a Fairy.
Disc One Nuke: One of the things that makes X and Y so easy compared to other games is that they hand these out to you like candy. You get a Mega Lucario for free after beating the third Gym, and can catch competitive powerhouse Snorlax before even taking on the second Gym while past psuedo-legendaries Bagon and Axew can be caught around the same time. You also get the newly-buffed EXP Share a little after beating the first Gym, and as long as its on it distributes half of the EXP your current Pokemon would get to everyone in your team, which will eventually result in your entire team being 5 to 10 levels stronger than everything you're currently fighting.
- Wonder Trade takes this Up to Eleven. It doesn't matter how early you use it: all you have to do is send out a Pokemon over the internet, and you have the very real chance of getting, say a level 65 Dragonite or a level 100 Yveltal BEFORE THE FIRST GYM in return. Even though they usually won't listen to you because of the Gym Badge-related failsafes to keep you from steamrolling the game with super strong traded Pokemon, they can tank tons of hits before obeying and one-shotting your current opponent.
Dug Too Deep: Terminus Cave was a prosperous coal mine that got closed down due to reports of a terrifying monster lurking in its depths. Thankfully, said monster is a benevolent legendary Pokemon named Zygarde that won't go out of its way to hurt you, provided that you're not doing anything to threaten the stability of the environment.
Even Evil Has Standards: Malva is a total psycho who is not at all subtle about wanting to burn the player character alive for ruining Team Flare's plans, but even she thinks Xerosic experimenting on children is going too far.
Evil Is Burning Hot: The evil team of these games is Team Flare, who dress in red suits and sunglasses, have a flame-shaped logo, and in the case of the Grunts, have hair styled like flames. It's a bit downplayed otherwise, since their plans don't have anything to do with fire, and Fire type Pokemon aren't especially prominent in their teams aside from Lysandre's Pyroar and Malva's entire Pokemon team.
- Malva however plays this straight compared to the rest of Team Flare: ignoring her all-Fire type team, she makes it clear that she would love to burn the player to ashes for ruining Team Flare's plans.
The Fair Folk: While a lot of Fairy types are as sugary-sweet and adorable as they look on the surface, a few still have that classical malevolent streak to them. Klefki is a mischievous thief who loves to steal people's keys, and the newly-retconned Mawile will trick opponents with its cute appearance and mannerisms before chomping on them with the monstrous mouth on the back of its head, among others. Also, the new Fairy Tale Girl trainer class is full of seriously weird-looking and creepy little girls, some of which threaten you with death while others make remarks indicating that their adorable Fairy type Pokemon are a lot more sinister than they appear...
Fictional Currency: PokéCoins
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Kalos' starter trio invokes this by design.
- Chespin's evolutionary line is the Fighter, and even becomes part Fighting when it's fully evolved into Chasnaught. The family's stats gear towards high offense and defense at the cost of low speed, and are designed after chivalrous knights.
- Fennekin is the Mage of the trio, with its evolutions Braixen and Delphox resembling witches while it also gains a Psychic subtyping and a few magic-related moves as it grows. It's a powerful special attacker, and even uses a stick as a wand in combat.
- Then there's Froakie, whose evolutions are clear-cut thieves with their high speed, low defenses, ninja designs, and eventual Dark subtyping. Its sneakiness really shines in its hidden ability Protean, where it gains the typing of its most-recently used move which can really turn the tables against an enemy who seems to have the advantage over it.
Gadgeteer Genius: Clemont is younger than Serena and Calem, and a genius who spends his time creating all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. He's also the architect behind Lumiose City's beautiful landmark Prism Tower.
Game Breaking Bug: The Lumiose City Save Glitch, which would break your one and only save if you saved in one of the game's central areas. Fixed in the first patch.
Gasshole: This game marks the debut of Belch, an incredibly powerful Poison move that has the user deal ludicrous damage to the victim after eating a berry and burping in their face.
Guide Dang It: Despite the franchise being a solid contender for having some of the most dissected and data mined code in existence, how the hell style and tipping worked was an enigma till the guides came out.
Hot Mom: As you'd expect, the main character's mom Grace is quite a looker.
Hypocrite: One of Lysandre's reasons for taking the deep dive into misanthropy is his hatred of greed, and is not at all subtle about how he views greedy and selfish people as filth before he's outed as the villain. However, this doesn't stop him from charging a 5,000,000 dollar entrance fee for Team Flare hopefuls, which leaves a bunch of greedy idiots as the sole inheritors of Lysandre's new world.
- Malva hates Xerosic and assists the player in taking him down because him hurting children "sullies the good name of Team Flare". This is the same Malva that wants to burn the teenage player character alive for ruining Lysandre's plans.
Killer App: This game is one of the reasons to go out and buy a Nintendo 3DS and its cousins, like the Nintendo 2DS, Nintendo 3DS XL, or the New Nintendo 3DS.
In Universe Game Clock: As per series tradition.
Meaningful Name: The Holocaster comes this close to sounding like "Holocaust", which is appropriate since its creator is an elitist megalomaniac seeking to wipe all the people he deems inferior off the face of the Earth.
Mon Machine: A Key Stone and a Mega Stone, from X and Y, are used together for Mega Evolution, which allows certain species of Pokémon to assume a stronger form when the Mega Stone they are holding resonates with the Key Stone that their Trainer has. Most accessories that have the Key Stone embedded are a form of jewelry with the name 'Mega'. (e.g. Mega Ring, Mega Glove, Mega Charm, etc.)
Never Mess With Granny: Elite Four member Drasna looks and acts like an affectionate young grandmother, and a powerful opponent who specializes in powerful Dragon type Pokemon.
Never Say "Die": The plot of both games heavily revolves around death, especially Y since Yveltal is essentially the Legendary Pokemon of Death. And yet, the words "death" and "die" are still danced around with terms such as "destruction" and "lives taken" taking their place.
Nice Hat: You can wear plenty of these thanks to the game's customization options.
Nostalgia Level: Santalune Forest is literally just Viridian Forest: it has the exact same layout and along with a few new additions, has the exact same lineup of wild Pokemon.
Not-So-Harmless Villain: Thanks to their garish fashion sense, unwarranted smugness, and ridiculous buffoonery, it's hard to take Team Flare seriously... until it turns out that their master plan is to essentially nuke the world and that they all take sociopathic glee out of being able to wipe the slate clean. They come within a hair's breath of pulling it off, too.
Our Dragons Are Different: The Kalos region introduced some weird Dragon types. To get more specific...
- Dragalge are poisonous leafy seadragon Pokemon that resemble large strands of rotten kelp, and are territorial sea monsters know to sink ships that are unlucky enough to cross paths with them.
- Tyrunt and Tyrantrum are TYRANNOSAURUS DRAGONS. Easily among the coolest Dragon types in existence for that fact alone.
- Noibat and Noivern are draconian fruit bats who fight with sound waves fired from their ears, which look like stereo speakers.
- Goodra, Sliggoo, and Goodra are adorably cuddly snail dragons that are famous for their affectionate personalities. This does not in any way mean that they aren't capable of kicking ass.
- After spending years as merely an honorary Dragon type, Charizard can finally lay claim to Fire/Dragon typing by way of it's X exclusive Mega Evolution. It's the most like a stereotypical western dragon, though thanks to its Tough Claws ability it's better for it to forgo moves like Flamethrower or Dragonbreath in favor of physical brawling attacks like Fire Punch or Outrage.
- Mega Garchomp is even more of a brutal land shark than its base form, and has humongous scythes for hands.
- Mega Ampharos is an electric sheep dragon, whose typing is infamous for baffling non-Japanese fans. Since vanilla Ampharos' Japanese name (Denryuu) has the double meaning of "Electric Current" and "Electric Dragon", its Mega Evolution gained a Dragon subtyping as a play on words.
- And then Zygarde manages to be the weirdest Kalosian dragon of them all, as nothing about its appearance screams "Dragon". The form you catch it in is a huge, bizarre insectoid-looking serpent, while later games and the anime would reveal that this is an incomplete form of the Pokemon, specifically 50% complete. At its basest form Zygarde are tiny harmless green cell-like slugs, 10% Zygarde is a dog, and Zygarde's complete form looks like huge alien mecha that wouldn't be out of place in a Gundam adaptation. It's also a protector of the Earth, and has been known to monitor and annihiliate anything it deems to be a threat to the ecosystem.
Pandaing to the Audience: This game marks the debut of the adorable Fighting type panda Pokemon Pancham, and its more intimidating Dark/Fighting big bro Pangoro. Both are based on Japanese delinquents with Pangoro's thuggish appearance being offset by its hatred of people who bully the innocent.
Scenery Porn: The Kalos region's beauty is hyped up by the lore and locals, and boy does it deliver. Whether it's the calm grassy fields of the early routes, the bustling streets of Lumiose City, the abandoned ruins outside of Laverre City, or the gem-infested Reflection Cave, Kalos is a gorgeous region.
Shorts Over Leggings: Some of the clothes that the avatars can wear are shorts over leggings.
Took a Level In Badass: Any Pokemon that can Mega Evolve does this, but the biggest examples are Pokemon that were originally mediocre. Mawile went from an unremarkable Shitmon to an absolute monster, Kangaskhan went from a decent but overshadowed Pokemon to a competitive nightmare that nearly derailed the meta, and competitive laughingstock Charizard got two Mega Evolutions that are both a force to be reckoned with.
Video Game Caring Potential: IRL Poketrainers can use "Pokemon Amie" to feed their Pokemon poffins and other snacks, pet, and groom them to boost their health and happiness meters.
Virtual Paper Doll: you can get a lot of costumes in the game to personalize your character. There is also a hairdresser that let you change your hair style and color from the one you picked at the beggining.
Zettai Ryouki: Serena wears thigh-high stockings by default, and you can have her wear plenty of different types thanks to the game's extensive customization options.