Pokémon X and Y

• 1. Introduction

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  Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, sold more than four million copies worldwide in one weekend. That made them the fastest-selling games the handheld had ever seen. Game Freak developed the pair, and The Pokémon Company and Nintendo published them. They opened the sixth generation of the main series. They were also the first Pokémon games released worldwide on the same day.

  Those numbers hide a string of risky choices. Why would a franchise built on flat sprites rebuild itself from polygons? Why did the designers look to France for inspiration? And how did a game about collecting creatures acquire a villain with a plan for the whole world? Where does a towering stranger who remembers an ancient war fit into it all?

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• 2. A Region Built on France

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  In 2011, director Junichi Masuda sent a team of developers to France to study the country. Work on the project had begun the year before, in 2010. Masuda had named three themes for the games: beauty, bonds and evolution. Beauty came first, and to him France was the clearest example of it.

  The result was Kalos, a star-shaped region modeled mostly on metropolitan France, with some influence from Europe as a whole. Lumiose City, the main city, takes its cue from Paris. Prism Tower echoes the Eiffel Tower, and the Lumiose Art Museum plays the part of the Louvre. The stones outside Geosenge Town recall the Carnac stones.

  Flowers line many of the routes, something no earlier Pokémon game had done. They were added for looks and also to produce unusual wild Pokémon encounters. European culture shaped the creatures as well. The legendary trio of Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde have their roots in Norse mythology.

  Six composers shared the score: Shota Kageyama, Minako Adachi, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose and Morikazu Aoki. It was the first time a Pokémon game used the sound capabilities of the 3DS, and Masuda said he was delighted with the improvement. Kageyama looked to French music but worried about making it sound too French. Masuda told Famitsu magazine that a Japanese harp replaced the accordion in certain places for that reason. Although he directed the project, Masuda wrote the battle themes himself and chose to add techno.

  The official soundtrack ran to 212 songs and came out on the 13th of November 2013. It debuted at number 12 on the Billboard Japan Top Albums chart. A worldwide digital release followed a week later, reaching number 104 on the Billboard 200 and number 5 on the Billboard soundtracks chart. Destructoid reviewer James Stephanie Sterling called the music "utterly lovely", noting that "the quieter tunes are legitimately beautiful".

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• 3. From Sprites to Polygons

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  More than 500 people worked on X and Y, counting the localization teams. That was a larger crew than any earlier Pokémon game had needed. Their biggest task was replacing flat two-dimensional sprites with three-dimensional polygons.

  Ken Sugimori, the series art director, has designed Pokémon and drawn the official artwork since Red and Green in 1996. The team put special emphasis on keeping his style intact in the new format.

  Masuda asked that the shapes of the letters X and Y serve as the framework for the two boxart legendaries, Xerneas and Yveltal. Sugimori normally designs legendary Pokémon by himself, but this time he needed help from designer Yusuke Ohmura. Finishing the pair took about 18 months, three times longer than usual. Manga artist Hitoshi Ariga was also invited to contribute, and he ended up designing ten species.

  The titles X and Y stand for the x-axis and the y-axis, and they also suggest different ways of thinking. They were chosen early in development. Their simplicity also suited a worldwide release. The designers wanted each Pokémon to keep one name in every country wherever possible. Masuda called this exceptionally difficult, because a name has to fit the creature's appearance and avoid infringing on anyone's rights.

  The new third dimension also gave the designers a reason to invent a kind of battle that happens above the ground.

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• 4. New Rules of Battle

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  The Fairy type was the first new type added to the series since Pokémon Gold and Silver. The developers said they introduced it to balance the Dragon type. It applies to new and old Pokémon alike. It arrived alongside 72 new species, including the starters Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie.

  Mega Evolution lets fully evolved Pokémon, such as Mewtwo and Lucario, change into stronger forms for the length of a battle. The change requires a special item called a Mega Stone. Some Pokémon have more than one possible Mega form.

  Sky Battles pit trainers against each other in the air, and only airborne Pokémon may take part. The developers added them to show off the 3D capabilities and give battling a fresh perspective. Horde Encounters go the other way, setting one Pokémon against five wild ones. They are meant to be harder than an ordinary one-on-one wild battle.

  Pokémon-Amie uses the 3DS touchscreen and camera. Players play with their Pokémon and feed them treats, which strengthens the bond between trainer and creature. That bond ultimately influences how a Pokémon behaves in battle. Super Training offers minigames that build a Pokémon's base stats, and these lead to training bags that help it grow stronger.

  At the start of the game, players pick a gender, skin tone and hair colour for the hero. Outfits and accessories can be earned later to change the look.

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• 5. Connected Players

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  The Player Search System, known as the PSS, sits on the touchscreen and lets players find and keep track of others online, strangers included. From there, starting a battle or trade takes very little effort.

  Wonder Trade sends one of a player's Pokémon to a random person and returns a random one in exchange. The Global Trade System was improved so that players can request Pokémon they have not yet encountered. O-Powers are temporary boosts to stats, and players can swap them with each other. The Holo Caster delivers messages and updates from non-player characters through StreetPass and SpotPass. In-game screenshots can be shared on the Pokémon Global Link website.

  Trading is built into the design. Each game can be played on its own, but certain Pokémon appear in only one of them. Finishing the Pokédex therefore requires swapping between X and Y.

  Pokémon Bank, an optional paid cloud storage service, holds up to 3,000 Pokémon that can be shared among every physical or downloaded copy of the games a player owns. A companion application, Poké Transporter, uploads Pokémon from Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 so they can be imported into X and Y. Both were announced for the 27th of December 2013. Heavy traffic on the Nintendo Network pushed their release back to the 5th of February 2014, and plans exist to use them for future games in the series.

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• 6. Team Flare and AZ

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  Vaniville Town is where the hero arrives with their mother, Grace. Four young trainers soon befriend the newcomer: Shauna, Tierno, Trevor and a rival who is either Calem or Serena. Tierno hands over the starter, Chespin, Fennekin or Froakie. All of them have been called to Lumiose City to meet Professor Augustine Sycamore, the leading professor in Kalos. The first badge comes from beating Viola, the Gym Leader of Santalune City.

  A partial power outage greets the player in Lumiose City. There Sycamore explains Mega Evolution and asks the player to travel across Kalos to uncover its mysteries. He gives them one of the Kanto starters along with its Mega Stone. Before leaving the city, the player meets Lysandre, an imposing man who longs for a more beautiful world.

  Team Flare first looks like a gang that wants to make money from Pokémon. Later encounters expose its real goal, which is to annihilate humanity and return the world to a pristine state. In Shalour City, the Mega Evolution guru Gurkinn and his granddaughter Korrina, the Gym Leader, teach the player to use Mega Evolution. Beating Korrina in a special battle with Lucario earns the player the freedom to use it at will. In the Lumiose Badlands, the player stops Team Flare from stealing energy from the power plant and restores power to the whole city.

  After the seventh Gym Badge, Lysandre speaks to the player and all of Kalos through the Holo Caster. He announces that he leads Team Flare and means to destroy humanity. Beneath a café in Lumiose City lies the team's secret lab, and there the player meets AZ, a man 9 ft tall. He is a king who is 3,000 years old, and he once fired an ultimate weapon, the same device Lysandre now plans to use. It drew on the energy of Xerneas or Yveltal and ended a war in Kalos.

  AZ fired the weapon out of longing for the Pokémon he loved most, a variant of Floette. Floette was disgusted by his choice and left him. That ancient war also set Mega Evolution in motion, because it poured excessive energy into an asteroid.

  Geosenge Town holds Team Flare's second base and the weapon itself. The player goes there with Shauna and either Calem or Serena. At the weapon's core lies a dormant Xerneas or Yveltal, which awakens when the player appears. The player captures it and defeats Lysandre in a final battle. Lysandre then turns the weapon on itself, and the three friends escape before it goes off.

  The eighth Gym Badge opens the way to the Elite Four, the strongest trainers in Kalos, and to Victory Road and the Kalos League. Beating the Elite Four and then the champion Diantha makes the player the new Kalos League Champion. Professor Sycamore organises a parade to celebrate. During it, AZ battles the player and recognises their true strength. His Floette returns to him after the long separation.

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• 7. Launch and Promotion

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  A store in Bournemouth, in the United Kingdom, reportedly began selling the games on the 11th of October 2013, a day early. Several other British retailers followed. Copies were also being sold early at a few places online. Nintendo warned retailers that they would be penalised if they kept breaking the street date.

  The official release came on the 12th of October 2013. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had announced the games through a Nintendo Direct on the 8th of January 2013.

  A special Nintendo 3DS XL showing Xerneas and Yveltal in their Shiny forms reached North America and Europe on the 27th of September 2013. Japan received it on the 12th of October 2013. Japan also got a premium gold version with Xerneas on the front and Yveltal and the three starters on the back, with either X or Y pre-installed.

  On the 2nd of October 2013, Union J, semifinalists on series 9 of The X Factor, revealed through social media that they would be involved in the British release. From the 12th of October 2013 until the 15th of January 2014, players could download a special Torchic with the hidden ability Speed Boost, plus a Blazikenite that let them evolve Blaziken into Mega Blaziken. Between the 1st and the 31st of March 2014, North American Club Nintendo members could claim a free download code for X or Y. They had to register a Nintendo 2DS, 3DS or 3DS XL and one of six qualifying games.

  Mega Mewtwo Y, then known as Awakened Mewtwo, appeared in a special anime episode titled Mewtwo: Prologue to Awakening. It also featured in the film ExtremeSpeed Genesect: Mewtwo Awakens, released in Japan on the 13th of July 2013. The TV special Pokémon Origins retold the original Red and Blue games and surprised viewers with Mega Charizard X. The series Pokémon the Series: XY began airing in Japan on the 17th of October 2013, and North America and Europe got a preview on the 19th of October.

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• 8. Praise, Criticism, Sales

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  Weekly Famitsu gave the games a near-perfect score and its Platinum Award. That made them the magazine's second-highest rated Pokémon titles, behind only the perfect score for Black and White. Metacritic recorded generally favorable reviews, and X and Y ranked as the 15th and 13th highest-rated games on the 3DS. OpenCritic found that 84% of critics recommended them.

  Edge described the visuals as "rich in detail and flavour, from the stately majesty of the affluent areas to a dilapidated, overgrown hotel whose only guests are squatting punks". Simon Parkin of Eurogamer praised the "smooth and natural" move to 3D and declared that "Pokémon X & Y is the finest expression of Satoshi Tajiri's obsessive vision yet." Matt Kamen of The Observer deemed the games "the series' zenith". Jose Otero of IGN called them "a successful transition to a 3D world" and liked that so many Pokémon could be caught within the first hour. Ernest Cavalli of Joystiq called the gameplay "hands-down the best in the series".

  The online features drew some of the loudest applause. Parkin called the integration of online play "masterly". Griffin McElroy of Polygon described a "completely interconnected experience, which is exactly how Pokémon is meant to be played". Otero said the PSS "makes Pokémon X and Y feel dramatically new and more modern". The optional features split opinion. Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer found the Super Training minigames forgettable, while McElroy felt that Pokémon-Amie made the creatures seem more like pets.

  The story fared far worse. Otero found it "pretty disappointing for a predominantly single-player RPG", and McElroy called the campaign "rigidly formulaic". Parkin dismissed it as "thin and melodramatic" and "sometimes jarringly preachy". Edge felt that some of the series' "original magic had been lost across so many iterative updates" and criticised an unsteady framerate in 3D mode. Game Informer concluded that the additions did not "break the mold". Explorers found the layout of Kalos disappointingly straightforward, though newcomers found it inviting.

  The games were nominated for Best RPG and Best Handheld Game at the 2013 VGX Awards. In 2014 they won the Golden Joystick Award for Handheld Game of the Year. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences also nominated them at the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

  Media Create data showed over 1.26 million copies pre-ordered in Japan, not counting 3DS bundles, which made X and Y the most reserved 3DS title in the region at that point. Within three days of release they sold a record 2.09 million retail copies there. By December 2013 they had reached 11.61 million copies worldwide and were the best-selling 3DS titles. They stayed on top through at least 2016, until Mario Kart 7 outsold them in 2017. Their combined total now stands above 16 million, second only to Mario Kart 7 and just ahead of Pokémon Sun and Moon. In the Americas, Sun and Moon eventually took away their record as the fastest-selling 3DS titles.

  A sequel, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, arrived on the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on the 16th of October 2025. It redevelops Lumiose City and takes place five years after the events of X and Y.

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