>>34829198XY suffered SEVERELY from pacing issues. The region was fine, Serena was fine, Megas were great, character customization was a great thing that I hope sticks, but the pacing and writing were dogshit. It started fine, but after the Rock gym, it all went to shit. I forgot the Grass and Psychic gyms existed, and I need to look up Leader/E4 names half the damn time. I barely remembered Clemont was actually a leader writing this right now. It felt like it rushed you through the region, and I savor backdrops, fighting every trainer I can, doing all events and whatnot. Parfum was a joke. It was a sideline to the adventure forcing you to do shit for a pokeflute to move a snorlax ending in a forced romance between the leader of the fucking suckup triplets. The champion was met like once, and barely talked about, and built up so piss poorly, and don't even get me started on the E4. Wikstrom in a region like Kalos should've worked, Malva being an Ex-Flare member should've worked, even boring-ass chef Siebold could've worked, but no, Gamefreak couldn't be bothered. If Wikstrom had a role in a castle somewhere, possibly as the master of Parfum he could've worked. If you fought Malva as a Flare member, if Siebold owned one of the fucking MILLION restaurants in Lumiose they all could've worked. Drasna worked, since she's a really gentle dragon type user, a contrast to the really intense ones of the past. Last thing I'll touch on: Shauna having a device to magically open the lock at the climax was totally unnecessary. Saying Clemont gave it to her was insulting. This came out of nowhere, did nothing for anybody, and could've been written out entirely.
tl;dr XY was a mess. Not the worst games, but enough that it dampened my replays of the game.
