>>28941170There are superficial gimmicks like Amie, Wonder Trade, PSS and Friend Safari which being on the surface people got hyped over and fell for like a really well made lawyer scam. Its admirable given how rushed the games were so you'd think GF wouldnt have put so much effort into doing so. Id say Megas were along the same lines in terms of a marketing tool but its ingrained in gameplay so its pretty significant. The problem being though is that it only made power creep stronger than ever before.
If you were to remove all the ''''''features'''''' and study the base of the game itself, like a skeleton, you'd see how amateur X and Y really was in comparison to older gens.
The pacing was fucked. The game tricks you into thinking that overly ardous and long, LONG trip from gym 2 to gym 3 is a sign of things to come, but its just fuckawful pacing and youre shoosed through the right side remaining circle of Kalos in a loop of desaturated sights and baffling game design decisions (The badlandd, the mamoswine/rhydon route, that cut rhyhorn race track, that "spooky" shed with the old man).
The difficulty is a slap on the face. NPCs literally carry Pokemon that know 1 to 2 moves. To exacerbate this handholding are your alien '''''friends''''' that bug you every step of the way and hound you, coming off more as creepy and badly written characters than anything Id call a friend. The way they just sort of drag you into their little disneyland chaperone group at the start and elect to nickname you a pet name.
Thats all X and Y is to me really. Just a really bland automated rip to Disneyland. Might as well have had Professor Sycamore on a megaphone detailing all the Kalos landmarks on a golf cart like a fake-happy tourist trap guide.