Catching all 151, er, 368, er ... a lot: The Pokemon Infodump Party!

Really? I’ve heard that they’re a good entry point for new fans. Not so?

 

I started with moon and I had a wonderful time, so I’m biased perhaps :3

Mimikyu is my bby girl

 

I fucking loved x and y
They're actually really fun, a good entry point, you can dress your characters up, you can pet ur pokes, there's minigames.
If you're just starting out, they're great, and a lot less Weird than sun or moon

 

I never finished XY because my preferred way of playing RPGs is to explore everything and do everything as it opens and in Pokemon that means catching one of everything as I go, but the way XY's experience gain was balanced, when I did that I ended up so overleveled that the game stopped being fun. It still happened when I turned off XP Share. I put my entire main team in the PC and made a second team at lower level. And then that team got so overleveled that it stopped being fun.

 

They are a decent enough entry point for new fans, that's true. They're the first games to have type matchups indicated, they're also just about the most up to date with the whole thing of fairy type and mega evolution and such. My issue with the games was more that the story, even in comparison to every other main game, was just so lacking and unengaging. I like the idea they had with the concept of travelling mostly parallel to a group of friends and meeting up here and there, but in execution I found them all to be rather annoying and just dreading encountering them, in a way that I really never did about any of the rivals of any other generation. That said you may end up completely disagreeing with me and getting and loving the games. Personally, as much as I adore gen 7, it really is SO different from the other generations that I really have to recommend playing previous generations first. That said, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are even further updated than X and Y and the story of Hoenn is certainly better done than the story of Kalos, even though they are the same generation.

Also, if you do find yourself enjoying Pokemon and want to get more, I would suggest Black and White or Sun and Moon (-1 and +1 generation relative to X and Y respectively). Black and White had bar none the best story of the franchise and you'll be happy to hear that those dark types you love so much are one of the most powerful types in the game. Note: unless you're Really Down for a challenge, DO NOT get Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon. They get legitimately challenging, even for some veteran players. Not necessarily unforgiving nor challenging at every point, but there are a few moments that are designed to go "hey have you prepared for this?".

While it doesn't matter for you because everything is new to you, in the interest of transparency, X and Y also introduced the least new pokemon of any generation (excluding remakes because obviously) which was an issue for me.

 

I think XY is better than Moon for an intro to the series just because Sun and Moon very much breaks from the mold of a traditional Pokemon game. XY is a good entry point. Black and White are too (I... think. It's been awhile. They definitely have a better story than XY). Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire would also be good. Honestly, I think most Pokemon games set themselves up as a good segway into the series for newbies (but it's also the only franchise I've played every game in since I was a tiny baby, so maybe I'm not the best judge).

Let's go Pikachu/Eevee and SunMoon both feel like the Absolute Do Nots for beginners though, because they're both weird and far away from the gameplay of other games, even though I think SunMoon is great.

 

Reiterating because yes this exactly. Even the remakes are pretty exceptional because they're basically just the same game remastered in the appropriate generation's mechanics/style. Pokemon has been and likely almost always will be a series designed for a. the younger crowd and b. getting people who are new to the series a good intro. In fact, this is part of what makes the gen 7 games so wildly new. Gen 7 turned Pokemon on its head in different ways.

In all honesty, I disagree with Charlie a bit about Let's Go being less newbie friendly. It was designed very much so with the mechanics of gen 1, which, while absolutely being a good love letter to the originals, is a huge thing for new people. You get used to the basic mechanics of type matchups, gyms, rivals, etc. while not having to worry about abilities or held items or anything else that might throw a new player off. PLUS. The fact that Let's Go is a gen 1 remake with the physical/special split, unlike Fire Red and Leaf Green, makes it an excellent way to get new people access to the oldest generation, the roots of Pokemon, without having them fumble around confused by the type dictated attacking stat which I think was an absolutely genius move. All that said, I think Let's Go is actually a really great intro to Pokemon with a few exceptions like the exclusive moves that your partner gets because those are just overpowered to the point of being funny and unrealistic for most of the moves that exist.

 

I was already planning on playing as many of the pokemon games as possible in the long run, so I think I’ll stick with Y to start, and then probably the ruby/sapphire remake and sun/moon. Plus definitely the older ones, if any of them work on the 3DS!

I’m going to be honest a big part of XY’s appeal for me is the fact that you get to dress up your avatar

 

The 3DS is backwards compatible with the DS games- Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, the Gold and Silver Remakes, And Black and White 1 and 2. You’ve got a lot of games to look forward to!

 

Looking through Wikipedia it seems like you can play gens 4 and 5 at minimum since apparently the 3DS maintains backward compatibility with all previous incarnations of the DS. Note that gen 4 also had the remakes of gen 2 which I would definitely recommend, gen 2 was great, but you should probably play the gen 1 games first because gen 2 is actually a sequel.

Edit: ninja

 

i was fine with X and Y having the least new pokemon because they're all A+. they also have the largest total number of pokemon in any game - i think there's around 450?

the level scaling is pretty crazy though so my #1 piece of advice is just don't use the EXP share at all.

 

Start with Red and move forward from there * is shot *

 

Also, fair warning
Black and white gets super hard towards the end, so I would /not/ recommend it as a beginner game ever
It does have a good plot and also N, so like. It's good. But also the end fights are frustrating.

 

Yeah. BW functionally has two final bosses back to back with no chance to heal, resupply, or switch your team between them.

 

I got so fed up I dropped the game for like three months, it's rough

 

@vuatson Honestly XY is fun and the avatar aspect in XY is fun so go for it. There are better Pokemon games, but imo there's no main franchise game that isn't fun

@Lebesgue Integreat Regarding Let's Go, it's not that I find it 'not user friendly' persay. It IS user friendly. I just think if it was someone's first Pokemon game every other Pokemon game would be more confusing, or you'd end up annoyed at how every other Pokemon game doesn't have all the convenient features Let's Go has. No breeding, very different system of catching Pokemon, Pikachu can just learn all your HM moves for you... it's like, very much... is something that would give someone weird expectations for the rest of the franchise but that's just a personal opinion. I think it's a great game to sit a kid behind, for example.

But I also wanted to play Persona 2 before I played any other Personas because I knew Persona 2's features would seem more annoying in hindsight lol

 

Hit or miss, I guess they never miss, huh?

 

New games new mons new region

 

The new starters are so dang cute!!! I’m so torn on which i’ll pick.......they’re all good.....

 

Water baby is so cuuuuuute!