Editorial: How Pokémon X and Y changes the competitive scene

Whenever a new Pokémon game is released, you’ll hear the same old critiques from the same old people. “This is the same game as 15 years ago”, they’ll declare, adding that they think the older Pokémon were better designed and that as a sidenote they can’t understand why kids these days won’t get off their lawns.

It’s an easy topic of conversation, but is it actually true? To a casual observer who only wishes to play through the single player campaign, the experience probably won’t change much, but to anyone interested in the actual star attraction of the Pokémon series, the ability to face off against other human opponents, every generation of Pokémon is a wildly different beast. Much like other competitive strategy games such as Starcraft, the major changes come not from a change-up in visible gameplay, but from important tweaks to the inner workings of the game.

Generation II turned competitive Pokémon on its head with the addition of two new Pokémon types, including Dark, a hard counter to the all-powerful Psychic type which completely dominated Red and Blue. Held items, unique abilities for each species of Pokémon, the introduction of double battles and a split between physical and special-type attacks are some of the other major game changers through the years.

So what has Pokémon X and Y brought to the table? Unlike the Super Smash Bros series, which presumably added anti-competitive mechanics such as tripping solely so that they could make hardcore players sad, Pokémon X and Y is very mindful of the competitive Pokémon scene. Just like in Generation I with Psychic-type, one type of Pokémon was becoming far too powerful – the rare but dangerous Dragon type. So, the Fairy type was born.

Not only are Fairy type attacks super effective against Dragon types, Fairy types are completely immune to Dragon type attacks, and are weak only to two formerly useless offensive types, Poison and Steel. Balancing out this new boost to Steel is the removal of two of Steel’s resistances, Dark and Ghost. These changes have major implications for all types involved, and will probably shuffle around the balance of power considerably.

The next big change is the vaunted “Mega Evolution”. Around 30 older Pokémon now have the ability to hold Mega stones, which change up their stats considerably and in some cases even their type. For some Pokémon, the changes to stats are not enough to offset the power lost by having the Mega Evolution stone replace their held item, but for others, this is a game changer. Of particular note is Mega Gengar, which already was considered a top-tier threat in normal form but has now gained significantly more speed and the ability Shadow Tag, which makes it impossible for the opposing Pokémon to escape or switch to something that can better counter Gengar.

Not only has the competitive scene changed, but Game Freak has significantly lowered the bar to competitive battling. The training of invisible hidden stats (known as EVs or External Values) has been a feature of Pokémon for a few generations now, but it has never been accessible enough  for regular players and has traditionally been a huge pain that only the super-competitive have had the time to bother with. Realizing this, Game Freak has made the EV system completely accessible and visible, creating a new system known as Super Training. This allows anybody to fully train up their Pokémon’s extra stats in about an hour through the use of a few soccer-themed mini-games.

Nobody is sure exactly what will happen to the meta-game now, as sorting out tiers of power requires a few official tournaments to see exactly what will change, but what we do know is that a lot of change is coming. If you’ve never been involved in player versus player Pokémon before, the new level of accessibility means that now is a great time to sharpen your sword Pokémon and get involved in the competitive scene. I hope to see you there.

You can follow Cody on Twitter at @Magicody.