Back To The Future: Pokemon X and Y Q&A at E3 2013 Recap

At the end of a very long first day of E3 2013, we were lucky to attend a developer roundtable session with two of the biggest people behind the Pokémon franchise.

They are of course, Tsunekazu Ishihara, President & Chief Executive Officer of The Pokémon Company, and Junichi Masuda, Director at Game Freak; whom spent over 90 minutes with fans and media to talk about the history of Pokémon and the future with Pokémon X and Y.

Ishihara started off with the history of Pokémon, showing off Pokémon Red and Blue. He said that ‘while it might seem like yesterday it was in 1998 we first released the games in North America’. Along with a timeline of the game titles was also the number of Pokémon in each. 151, 251, 386, 493 and where we are now at 649.  Ihihara says this number will increase with Pokémon X and Y but will be revealed later, they wouldn’t be giving a number so people can explore the game and find them all for themselves.

The Pokémon games move and advance with every new hardware device that comes along. A demonstration of the original Pokémon games with the Link Cable went up on the screen, it seems so long ago that this happened. With the Gameboy Advance came the Wireless Adapter, with the DS came built-in wireless and even online trading. Pokémon’s core has always been about communication, no matter what form it was in.

Pokémon has always allowed the transfer of data or at least Pokémon from older titles. Even on the Nintendo 3DS with Dream Radar it did this, albeit in an idiosyncratic way. It’s also this idea of bringing everything from the previous titles to Pokémon X and Y which makes the games the ultimate culmination of everything Pokémon.

At this stage it was Junichi Masuda’s showtime, he revealed the opening of the game which most of the content is in the latest trailers we’ve included below. The trailer though, showed new Pokémon bring ridden, the Pokémon-Amie and the new and freely moving bike and roller skates.

Masuda then moved onto the worldwide release date of the game which was confirmed for October 12th. Yes, that’s world wide everywhere – even Korea. It’s no easy feat doing a worldwide release, especially for something like Pokémon. In the Japanese versions of the game, it has 800,000 characters which translates to over 1.4 million words in English. It’s really a dream come true for the team being able to have everyone in the world start their adventure at the same time.

This means that there will be 7 languages on the cartridge at once. So while in the past you might have had to play through the game in Japanese if you bought it early, Masuda now says you can play it in the language you speak.

Onto Pokémon X and Y proper now, the theme of communication is as strong as ever with the latest games. The new PSS or ‘Player Search System’ will be an always-on system that allows you to see Pokémon players where ever you are and wherever they are. The PSS is always connected but also works locally, you can see people sorted in three categories: friends, acquaintances and passerbys. Each of these types of people can challenge you to a battle or even trade with at any time. You don’t have to be 3DS friends with them either, although if you trade or battle with these people enough you will become friends in the game. Masuda demonstrated these new modes in a passerby battle with a Nintendo of America employee.

Masuda lost.

The battle showed off three new Pokémon previously unseen before: a water-type Pokémon, Clauncher, who uses a giant claw to crush opponents with the powerful Water-type move ‘Crabhammer’; a Poison- and Water-type Pokémon, Skrelp, who appears to be nothing more than a rotting piece of kelp, but its not – its actually going to kick your butt; and also an evolved form of the recently announced Fletchling, Talonflame was revealed too.

The new Pokémon and all the old Pokémon though have all been redrawn in 3D. Masuda went through the process of taking the Pokémon from Ken Sugimori’s drawings right through until they’re in the game. They went through and did this process for all 649 plus Pokemon in the game.

Masuda then went through some of the game’s new battle features such as Horde Encounters, where one Pokémon takes on 4-5 Pokémon, not necessarily the same Pokémon though. Only some attacks though can hurt more than one Pokémon at a time. There’s also Sky Battles now with Pokémon that can either levitate or fly only. So if you don’t have any of those Pokemon, no sky battling for you.

It was Q&A time after this demonstration and lots of big questions where asked and a lot were deflected. But here’s some juicy information that came out of the Q&A session;

• The Fairy Pokémon type has been brought in to tame Dragon-types some what. Not to make them weaker but offer more options in terms of balancing the game.
• There is customization in the game, this is so your PSS avatar can look different to everyone else.
• Pokémon mounts are not a new way to get around like the bicycle, but will be used in certain circumstances to get to hard to reach spots.
• No word yet on the new Mewtwo form and how that works, and they’re not talking about if it will be in Smash or not.
• 8-way movement confirmed for the player, Pokémon encounters are still in grids.
• EV and IV information will be more visible for the competitive players. ‘Didn’t Expect’ people to ask about them.
• Don’t ask them about DLC yet!
• Only one save file forever.