"Hot take: if X and Y had been released this year instead of Sw/Sh, they would have been way better received"

I just completed X yesterday, after finishing UM last weekend, and i had a surprisingly pleasant experience. I came to believe that the pokemon series first step into 3d was good. Gen 6 had it’s shortcomings, but it was ultimately going in the right direction.Being the first game in 3d, the fact that it was shorter than the previous titles was well justified, they did mode all the existing pokemon and the new ones in 3d, from scratch. Furthermore the reduced number of new pokemon wasnt detrimental, and it was again justified by having to model everything in 3d.The game’s main issues are the difficulty, and the linearity, but those werent all that bad now that we look back at it. The routes werent hallway style, like the ones in Alola, there were plenty of caves and detours to explore, and a good ammount of backtracking incentive.As for the difficulty, if the player kept the exp share off, ignored the second starter(which was a big fanservice to gen 1 lovers), and the gift Lucario, the game’s just as challenging as your average pokemon. Except of course for the nerfed E4, but that was fine. The exp share was a welcome feature by many as well, so when it comes to difficulty, gen 6 gave the player a great degree of customization.What gen 6 really made right, was mega evolution, and fairy typing, even though i’ve never been into competitive, simply being able to use pokemon that were previously useless, and having another type in the mix, was pure joy. Today in gen 8 we have Dynamaxing, which is a travesty, and which killed mega evolution.X and Y also gave us trainer customization, pokemon riding, all the online services we were already familiar with, roller blades, and a nice new region.Kalos feels pretty packed, when compared to Galar. If it was expanded, like Platinum did with Sinnoh, we might have ended up with one of the best regions. I believe going from X and Y straight to S/M was the first step on the pokemon series downfall. Expanding Kalos, giving us a Z version with a revised story, more megas, and more regions to explore, was the correct course of action.Gen 6’s story is a mess, both plot and characters, but you dont find as many people complaining about Sw/Sh characters and plot, as you find people complaining about everything else. Older fans who are coming back from gen 1/2 in particular could care less for a proper story, so X/Y would be received well enough. So long as we had new pokemon and a region, everyone would be happy enough.Even if X /Y were released with some sort of Dexit, we could overlook it for the fact of it being the leap to 3d. What we cant forgive is Sw/Sh being i a more powerful system, and having pokemon cut, having mega evolution cut.If they had just released a Z version this year, with a wild zone on it, it would have been better than what we got with Sw/Sh. This is just how half assed these games were. And they followed the trend of S/M. If the series keeps going like that, Gen 9 might be an 8 hour long game, with 300 pokemon on it, and an even shittier gimmick. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2Ooac5X