Hello! If my voice sounded weird in this one it’s cause I’ve had bronchitis. It’s been a struggle. Anyway, what do you think of my analysis? Any differing interpretations? Anything you think I missed? Art interpretation should be treated as a conversation, so, in addition to the questions I posed directly in the video, I've listed some discussion questions below to kick-start analysis beyond what I did in the video! If you have the means, any and all support on Patreon (link in description) means the world to me and really helps me keep this going. Currents perks are just name in credits, early access, Discord server, and update posts. I’m going to rework the Patreon in a few months so I’ll save the stronger pitch til then! 1. It’s pretty obvious that Pokemon Z was originally intended to exist, but what sort of things narratively do you think would have existed in it? 2. I cut a line in the script about “Holo Caster” sounding a lot like “holocaust” because I decided I really hoped that wasn’t intentional. I think drawing that direct a parallel between Lysandre and Hitler would make the both-sidesy centrism lines borderline sinister. What do you think? 3. Rideable Pokemon! What was their deal? 4. Were Dexio and Sina characters worth mentioning in the video? The game seems a bit confused about their purpose and I didn’t really understand the secret superhero thing but I could imagine there being an interesting angle.
One thing I think is notable is that Mega Evolution isn't always depicted as squeaky-clean or benevolent by nature. Scizor, Sharpedo, Tyranitar, Gengar, and a few others' Pokédex entries show that Mega Evolution is a power so great it starts to tear the Pokémon's body apart, and several more describe it as bringing out a viciousness and cruelty not normally in the Pokémon's nature. Indeed, Mega Gyarados is described as a case of both. Mega Evolution is a power associated with life, but then, so is the Ultimate Weapon. And a bond between a person and a Pokémon need not necessarily be a positive one. It may even be a mutual respect and care between two people who are evil. As far as infusing narrative and team-building go, it's no Ghetsis, but I would argue it isn't as thoughtless as it looks from the surface, even if it doesn't get a satisfying amount of focus. Good points on the whole weird at-the-end centrism and not really touching on the responsibility of anyone else in what Team Flare so nearly achieved. I think this might be reading a bit further than intended into it, but adding onto your point about superiority, I think you could argue that refusing to really give anybody else culpability that matters makes something of an implicit statement about the kind of evil he represented, and of evil more as a type of person rather than something for which the capacity exists in all people, which is. Ironically only just shy of what Lysandre's whole evil monologue was all about? Definitely could've been written a lot better on that front. Also, unrelated, but fortunately, I think the Holo Caster's name can probably be safely assumed as an unfortunate coincidence, since its name is derived from the original Japanese name of the Transceiver from Gen V, the Live Caster. It also continues to be used under that name even in later generations without persistent links to Team Flare, making the sinister aspect Team Flare spying through it, rather than something intrinsic to the technology itself or hinted at in the name. Edit: Ack, sorry! Should've waited until the end to voice some of this, turns out you did touch on some of the Mega Evolution stuff. Although I don't *think* it was exactly cut from XY, it does seem like a lot more of the elaboration on it starts with Mega-specific Dex entries in Sun and Moon. Still, many Mega Evolutions are visibly damaged by the process of Mega Evolving, and I think that was meant to be noticed narratively. Plus I could swear it came up in the game, but admittedly I don't remember enough to point anywhere specific.
Or rather, Gyarados represents the type of person who lives under fascist regimes and doesn't fight back against it, because not fighting back benefits its peaceful existence. So, complicit by inaction.
Its ironic that Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire used Mega Evolution more than XY did... Strong trainers like Wally, Maxie, Archie, the Elite Four, and Champion Steven actually use Mega Pokemon during the main story. :(
I mean it makes sense given how the mechanic was written. Wouldn't have made much sense for anyone to even have it (and even then, it's not even written well). ORAS added post game remarches, something XY did not bother doing outside of the battle château (and that is mostly a money/exp farm option, not really meant to be challenging).
I always assumed that the reason Lysandre used Mega Evolution, was because he was brute-forcing it. I figured that was what the weird machinery he wears exclusively for that final fight was meant to do, to force the phenomenon to occur with a less stable bond. The anime also has moments where it shows that Mega Evolution isn't _impossible_ without the power of friendship, but rather, has consequences if used without that bond. Unfortunately, that was not explained in the game's writing, and that _is_ a problem.
That's a problem I've been starting to notice in media at times. There are things that could be interpreted in a way that allows them to make sense where they otherwise wouldn't, but the story itself doesn't give enough indication to arrive at that interpretation organically. It's like they heard the "show don't tell" thing but then failed to actually show the connection. Or tried to "show" something that _actually_ needed to be told instead. So here for example, those machines kind of just... exist. Shauna literally asks what's up with the machines, and no explanation is ever given. How is the average player going to connect that they're to force the Mega Evolution, assuming that was it? Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. It has this giant plot hole where, simplified while suppressing full spoilers, the public lost trust in the court system supposedly due to an incident (called UR-1) where a prosecutor was convicted of murder. Nevermind that in previous games, you've caught no less than _four_ other prosecutors for the same and worse. One of whom was doing so many illegal things that it should have been a giant scandal. It's possible that UR-1 was a "last straw" rather than being supposed to be a "new low", _but the plot gives no indication of it._ All they had to do was have the character explaining UR-1 say something like "after many other prosecutors had already been caught for various crimes, this case was the last straw". But no, the narrative simply goes "a prosecutor being found guilty of murder caused a great upset" in a way that feels like the series forgot its own lore. There's something having a solid explanation, and either giving that explanation outright or implying it well enough that the audience can't miss it. Then there's failing to do the above and, when the audience finally pieces it together, it feeling like either a reach or "the audience making up excuses for the lazy writer".
Your analysis of Team Flare drives home the point for me that Zygarde's absence from XY does the games a great narrative disservice. For me, Zygarde fills in a lot of the gaps in what main plot of the games is trying to do, since it raises a counterpoint to Team Flare's ideology. In terms of gameplay, both Team Flare and the player when using Mega Evolution derive power from scarcity and exclusion: while the games don't make much of it, Team Flare spend most of their appearances trying to create monopolies (on pokeballs, on energy, on pokemon themselves) from which they can derive the power to change Kalos. The games do have an introspective moment in which Lysandre likens this to the player alone wielding Mega Evolution - and denying Serena/Calem the chance to do so, highlighting how your own choices ultimately follow a similar ideology to Team Flare. Where I think Zygarde could have been such an interesting addition to the ideology of scarcity espoused by Team Flare and, to some extent, embodied by the player, is that its power comes from plurality and inclusion. Gameplay-wise, Zygarde is a collection of multiple cells and cores working together: thus in a reversal of Team Flare, Zygarde's power comes from union rather than separation. It is a potential metaphor for community, or environment - again, another kind of beauty that Lysandre fails to understand. Its beauty and its power is its ability to draw together, rather than to separate apart. Moreover, thinking in terms of lore, Zygarde becomes especially interesting when compared with Xerneas and Yveltal, who are natural forces, life and death, made individual as powerful pokemon to be dominated through capture. Where Zygarde differs is that, in Sun and Moon, it can only be assembled through the player collecting its cells: its natural force (whatever that may be: the games are not entirely clear but do classify it as the Order Pokemon which is interesting in and of itself as a trio with Life and Death) comes from union rather than binary separation. Where Xerneas and Yveltal's power have only brought pain to those like AZ and Lysandre, who have both viewed the world through a lens of scarcity and domination, Zygarde's power might represent the potential of the union of which it is a product. Zygarde is what Pokemon's central ideology (at least the one it outwardly espouses) has always been: it is coming together and nature in one - it must be assembled after exploration. Crucially, then, a Pokemon X and Y that integrated Zygarde into their narrative could have at the very least created a lot more space for disruptions of Team Flare's ideology of scarcity, highlighting the alternatives that the original games ignore. Suddenly, I think they become a lot more interesting if the opposition to Team Flare's fascism is Zygarde's plurality and inclusion. If Legends Z-A does use Zygarde, which I am assuming it will, I think it might be able to provide a much more cohesive counterpoint to what XY presents. Either way, thank you for the video - it was very interesting to think about a game I loved as a kid in a new light. Just like Zygarde, maybe your power comes from community - even though you worry your ideas haven't been original, I think that by choosing to share them you have enriched us all! Take care :D
Many details from the XY anime allude to planned story beats in the games involving Zygarde, ones that would go on to be grafted onto Sun and Moon. I think it’s important that Zygarde is an overseer of the ecosystem itself, reconnecting to Pokémon’s essential environmentalist themes. Collecting mega stones throughout XY’s postgame seems like the prototype to SM’s Zygarde cells quest, but maybe that’s more of a coincidence. The 10% form would be interesting to have for a playthrough as well, giving the player the opportunity to have a pretty fast and strong legendary Pokemon on their team alongside two starter Pokemon, Lucario, and a fossil. I really love your thematic analysis of the contrast between Team Flare and Zygarde.
I'm now imagining the version of XY where Zygard was first introduced around when we got mega evolution (albeit vaguely) and we started collecting cells from there on with the reveal of what it really is later, perhaps at the ancient weapon when it's confronted with Xerneas/ Yveltal. Mega evolution not being received until a couple gyms later & actually having an affection requirement would've been nice; The game even gives you the mega stone for the chosen kanto starter out the gate but then unlocks mega evolution just a few levels early to be able to use them, if it was a little later e.g. level 40s then they wouldn't have the need to throw you a lucario you just met to mega evolve.
Something I liked about Pokemon Amie is that you NEEDED to use it in order to get the battle benefits... In later games, they just tied those features directly to the already existing "friendship" system. And because of this, by the end of a playthrough all of your Pokemon would be able to land critical hits and avoid attacks with minimal player input, simply because the friendship stat raises as you use them. It was nice to be rewarded for actually caring for your Pokemon rather than being given it for free.
Apparently in Sw/Sh, friendship is capped at 160 or 180 unless you specifically use friendship-boosting berries or Pokémon Camp, and in-battle effects don't trigger until after that point. So if you never did either of those, you wouldn't see those effects. ...At least according to Bulbapedia. I can't say whether S/V have the same thing, but I know BDSP kinda flubbed it and let friendship go up to 255 again without, say, requiring Poffins.
In S/V and Sw/Sh, Friendship is capped before the affection boosts kick in. You can use Pokemon Camp/Picnics to raise it above the cap. I believe it's capped in BDSP as well, but the cap is stupid and most common friendship raising things still work above the cap.
25:56 Yep, this is really the core problem with almost every Pokémon game's story: because the franchise is unwilling to reflect on its settings beyond it being perfect utopia, it's villains don't really make sense. The whole meme image of AZ saying "it's been 3,000 years" is the entire problem with X/Y's story: instead of grounding Lysandre's thoughts about beauty and humanity in events and people concurrent to the story, the game has to scramble 3,000 years in the past to find the most relevant example. This is why Lysandre as a character feels so flaccid; what is he even talking about? How is what he's saying reflected in the world we inhabit over the course of the game? Gen 8 will make the same mistake, just temporally reversed. Chairman Rose's concerns about an energy crisis in Galar are unfounded, and that's because the game places this so-called "crisis" 1,000 years into the future. This decision conveniently avoids confronting whether the way the Pokémon world is run is unsustainable, and makes Rose look like a irrational radical who can't wait a single day to enact his crazy schemes. Of course, no other character in the game seems all that concerned about an energy crisis. It's a shame you stopped at Sun/Moon, because I'll echo what others have already said in here: Gen 7 probably has the best story in the mainline series. Admittedly, I'm kind of grading on a curve, but I also the think the story is legitimately great in its own right. S/M worries about what happens when the traditions and institutions underpinning our lives alienate and ostracize us, rather than bring us together. Sun/Moon rather boldly tackles the core tenants of the series. Guzma, the leader of Team Skull, builds up his own gang because he feels disillusioned with the Island Challenge, the "Gym" equivalent in Alola that dominates the cultural interest in the region: "Here we are, Kukui... Fellow rejects who never could become captains. We've got all these moldy old traditions in Alola -- the kahunas, the captains, it's about time we cut out all that silly garbage and make something new for ourselves ... Don't get me wrong, though, Kukui. We've got no need for a Pokémon League .... Why even bother with the island challenge? What's the point of it?" Guzma failed the island challenge, and felt useless as a result. That in a world that places such a high value on traditions like the island challenge, to be bad at it represents a fundamental flaw in one's personal character. It is telling that whenever Guzma loses, he yells at himself: "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!" Sun/Moon's also critiques the structures of the Pokémon world in Lillie's storyline about escaping her abusive mother. When we enter Lillie's home in the back half of the game, it's a genuinely disturbing beat. The house is blanketed in a sterile white, and giant iron bars barricade the entrances and stairs. This is not a home, it is a prison. Lillie tries to confront her mother, but she ridicules her instead: "Calling me mother? I don't have any children! Certainly not any wretched children who would run off and reject my love!" A scene later, we see how Lusamine treats her Pokémon; she keeps a storage of cryogenically frozen Pokémon in her basement, what she likes to call her "private collection." And it is here where the game's criticism becomes reflexive. In the climax of the story, Lillie confronts her mother again: Lillie: "I am alive! Cosmog is alive! We are not things for you to collect!" Lusamine: "How am I different from any Pokémon Trainer, like your little "friend" there? What do you do with a Pokémon you can't use? You remove it from your party, as you please." The game never refutes Lusamine's point. Lusamine *does* treat her children like we are asked to treat our Pokémon over the course of the game, objects to be registered in a Pokedex and then tossed away in a PC Storage Box indefinitely whenever we'd rather play with something new. It is disturbing (and rather bold) to see a Pokémon game so plainly compare the main conceit of the franchise to domestic abuse. Of course, Gen 7 is not immune from the problems you've outlined. While the game casts doubt on the efficacy of Training/Battling as a cultural touchstone, it rather uncritically accepts the establishment of the first Pokémon league as a momentous step forward for the region. Kukui points to the tallest mountain in Alola, where the League is being built, and says: "It's time to get our own Elite Four and make our own Pokémon League! To think that, someday, the kiddos in Alola will be able to go from being the island challenge champion to the world Champion! And then, when we have our own Champion, they can show the rest of the world what's so special about Alolan Pokémon and their Trainers, yeah!" The games seek to entrench Alola deeper into the monopoly of Pokémon Leagues and Gym Battles, never taking stock to see that it's discontent with precisely these institutions that created Team Skull -- and in a more abstract sense -- Lusamine's cruel abuse in the first place. Still, Sun/Moon explores the world and characters more richly than I feel the series ever has or will do again. Ever since base Sun/Moon came out, it feels somewhat like the franchise has regretted doing it. Anytime Gen 7 is represented in the wider franchise, it is the Ultra Sun/Moon versions of the characters, which quite frankly butchers the original story by essentially replacing the family drama storyline with a generic, world ending threat, and which makes Lusamine out to be a misunderstood hero who abused her children for the greater good. Meanwhile, the Anime (from the little I've seen) went for a completely different (way less hostile) family dynamic. It is doubtful we will ever see the original Sun/Moon versions of the characters again. Oh, also, this video reminded me that they really did call Lysandre's greatest tech achievement the 'Holo Caster,' which is so genuinely ridiculous lol.
Just gotta point out, the pokemon in your boxes AREN'T just being held in stasis, at least not in Alola. They're in Poke Pelago, having a great time, offscreen.
Bravo, if we also look in gen five there's implications N and cloress would make that has no logical weight. Part of pokemon's primary issue is it never leaves the battle format. you're glued to it, there is no options, there is no secondary way to tell story, you battle, you battle more, and you battle some more after and there's no alternatives to it. The issue is stories about pokemon bond and nature don't work when nature wants to do anything the person wants.. because yes? Isn't it hilariously odd N hates battles actively yet he only resolves his points with them? Isn't it odd we never prove our point to how N see's us to how pokemon dont want to be separated. Why? How so? Why isn't it reflected in the overworld and why is there no way to prove that theory? If battling and the issues it causes are a main point of contention and there's evil in the pokemon world. WHERE IS IT?? Its redundant Imo. When we see evil going on, its subtle in world design, Take R/B/Y Red Rocket. WE CAN see them exploit pokemon for profit, WE KNOW by visual and text information they KILL pokemon and cause problems. But this aspect is lost in later games to the point its confusing how they can use these type of plot points.
@@John-ii6he You missed the point about gen 5's story. The whole point was that the people campaigning for "no pokeballs" were just hypocrites. It was never about the message dude. N was just an indoctrinated kid, and his whole beliefs were backed by his upbringing and his powers.
I actually like the implementation of Rose’s character, especially in contrast to his brother. Rose isn’t a radical he’s a narcissist. The pokemon world is probably going to be fine, in fact we know from other dialogue that these projections basically mean nothing to the status quo and that there are already solutions in the works, but for someone like rose that isn’t enough, he needs to be the savior. Summoning Eternatus is more hero syndrome than radicalism.
My favorite part of gen 6's story is that it is the only one where in one of the two games the evil team leader is shocked to find the wrong box legendary at the apex of his plans.
I want to give some shout outs to Scarlet and Violet in particular for trying to address the problem of "the player is a dragon and everyone else is a carp" - it doesn't ultimately solve the problem because it's kind of fundamental to how Pokémon works, but it at least acknowleges that the problem exists - through the characters of Nemona and Kieran, the primary rivals of the main game and the DLC respectively. Both seem deliberately crafted to address your point about how Serena/Calem can only really express their frustration at never being able to beat you, and not reach a satisfying terminus to their character arcs. Nemona's whole thing is that she's already a Champion (Paldea can have multiple Champions, and losing to someone does not revoke Champion status) but is now facing that problem familiar to the player - once you've climbed to the top of the mountain, where do you go next (one might even say that she's pretty much a player character who has already reached the end of her journey, akin to Red in GSC/HGSS)? Not only can she beat everyone else she faces, she barely has to try. Still, here's this promising new trainer who's just arrived in the region, maybe she can train you up to be a true rival to her. So she builds a new team so she can train alongside you, is happy when she loses to you because she's proud at how far you've come, and when she does eventually lose to you at full strength, it's a massive moment of catharsis for her - finally, Pokémon battling is *fun* again. The contrast with Serena/Calem's frustration couldn't be sharper. She's ultimately my favourite rival (although Gladion's theme *does* go hard). But if Nemona is the anti-Serena/Calem, then Kieran takes all of that frustration and dials it up to 11. Starting out as a shy and wimpy but ultimately friendly kid, he become defined by his frustration at both losing to you and also you winning the heart of the local legendary Pokémon Ogrepon, a 'mon he arguably has a stronger connection to. And that frustration eventually builds into a psychotic break as he becomes obsessed with getting stronger, morphs into the ultimate tryhard, becomes Champion at his school while ushering an oppressive atmosphere - and now you have to take him down a peg or two (I haven't finished the DLC yet so outside of a few spoilers I don't really know the details of how its story ends). I absolutely prefer the Nemona approach myself, but I can see why a lot of people find him a compelling character. I observed the other day that if Gary Oak is the rival we want (a jerk who's always one step ahead of us, but we take great pleasure in taking him down), then Nemona is the rival we need (a kind and supportive person who we still feel good about beating at Pokémon) and Kieran is the rival we deserve (someone so fed up at the player being "the dragon" that they go to extreme lengths to try and become a dragon themselves). As I say, at the end of the day you can still surpass all of them, so the problem is ultimately unsolvable - but I appreciated the attempt to address it.
@@GeorgeDCowley They do sometimes, as it happens. All of Nemona's battles except the last one progress the story even if you lose, and the story progresses if you lose Kieran's first battle (though in the latter case, that's to stop you being locked out of the DLC).
Sorry, but Nemona still just does not work all due to poor gameplay to story integration. Namely, her team is weak outside of the starter. Arven had a stronger team than Nemona. Heck, Leon and Hop have stronger teams. And you never, ever fight her "real" team.
@@PaulPower4 if it's anything, the most money you can get from a trainer battle at once in base game Scarlet/Violet is from beating Nemona in the Academy Ace Tournament, where she can appear as the last trainer (the others are Geeta and Clavell). Maybe it's because her family is rich as hell but generally, stronger trainers tend to give a bit more pocket change, so...
Lysandre being able to Mega-Evolve his Gyarados actually makes perfect sense from a lore perspective, I think. You pointed out himself, he DOES care for his Pokémon. In nearly all conservative movements, more extreme the closer to Fascist you get, the core message is often "Care for your family and nobody else. Everyone else wants to hurt you, the world is a scary place, and people are inherently evil. You, Patriarch, are responsible for stamping out that evil in your own family and caring for them as we say your God intends." As I just alluded to, Fascism also often leads to abuse of the family, "for the greater good," while also stamping into said family that said abuse is "for your own good." Like a Stockholm syndrome kind of situation. That's the vibe I get from Lysandre, his team, and what his ability to Mega Evolve his Gyarados implies: A twisted kinship, an abusive love, a brainwashing. He almost certainly loves his Gyarados and it loves him back, but in the twisted "he only beat me because I was bad" kind of dynamic. That's the implication I got from what you believed to be the paradox between him willingly killing his own pokémon and still being able to mega evolve, anyway.
@@aquarock-fq2lm That's not how Mega Evolution works, if it did, it'd be much more common. Mega Evolution requires a powerful bond... but the bond doesn't have to be pure.
I don’t think that’s really the case here. The video skips it completely but during the scene when Lysandre cries, you can clearly see him saying that he believes Pokémon are wonderful beings and it’s for that reason that Lysandre can’t bear to watch Pokémon being turned into nothing more than tools. I think that line implies that Lysandre truly believes that Pokémon are amazing, beautiful creatures that he truly cares about but also that their natural beauty has been perverted and bastardized for the sake of convenience and commodity. Believing that death would be better for Pokémon instead of watching their beauty slowly be warped and distorted. This also ties in to his main motivation, that unproductive and arrogant people are exploiting the world and it’s natural resources for their own personal gain. Lysandre even crying to show that he is remorseful at the idea of killing so many humans and Pokémon but pushing forward because he genuinely believes that what he’s doing would be the best thing for the world, and it’s beauty, in the long run. This is an aspect of Lysandre’s character that I feel the video sorta skips overs/ignores for the sake of furthering the fascism argument.
Serena saying "If both sides have something to say, maybe it's best to meet halfway..." on Victory Road is genuinely the funniest moral I've ever heard. She literally tells the player that one meme about how we should compromise and let the fascists do a little fascism.
even as a young teenager when this game came out that line made no sense to me. like does your rival actually want a compromise where lysandre gets to kill *some* of the people and pokemon he deems unworthy instead of all of them?
i think that the rival probably meant that lysandre's concerns were valid, even if his methods weren't, and that they should've been addressed before they snowballed into...well, that. definitely a funny way to phrase it though.
If anything is Japan the one who never tips, tipping is not done at all there because they see it like you feel bad for the worker for not getting payed enough.
I agree. Tipping is an evil and no one who is so against fascism (which should be everyone btw) should be pro-obligatory tipping. Anyone defending it either has no idea what the issue is to even talk about it, or they just support borderline slavery. Just remember also that France is not an obligatory tipping country like America, so not tipping people there will not ruin their lives like in America.
I always assumed that it was Lysandre's weird machine is what lets him mimic mega evolution. Like, he's abusing technology to force what should be something sacred.
I thought this was the implication too, kinda the same idea as the Snagem Machine from the gamecube games. It looked like he was trying to forcefully achieve something he couldn't on his own
38:16 If I could share my two cents... In Pokemon XY, Mega Evolution is explicitly stated to be powered by the bond between trainer and Pokemon. HOWEVER in Sun & Moon they added Pokedex entries for every mega form in the Alolan Pokedex. Many of these dex entries share horrifying details about the pain and suffering the Pokemon go through when they Mega Evolve. When I first learned about this, I was FURIOUS! They took something pure and good and made it out to be a horrible torturous thing. To this day I've considered it to be a retcon to spit in the face of Mega Evolution... But thinking about it more, maybe the reason Mega Evolution brings so much pain is because its used improperly. Despite the in-game explanation being "the bond between trainer and Pokemon," you don't NEED to have a bond with your Pokemon to use it. You can literally trade with someone, use a Pokemon you just got for the first time, and it will still allow you to Mega Evolve it. Maybe the Pokemon only feel pain when Mega Evolution is FORCED. Even the anime supports this idea... Because the only time they show Mega Evolution causing pain is in the Volcanion movie, where the villains use some strange device to force more than one Pokemon to Mega Evolve at the same time. They also have an episode where Korrina's Lucario goes out of control when Mega Evolved, and doesn't regain control until Korrina is able to properly bond with it. I don't think its a coincidence that Lysandre's Mega Pokemon happens to be a Gyrados either... Its Pokedex entry says "Mega Evolution also affects its brain, leaving no other function except its destructive instinct to burn everything to cinders." and "Mega Evolution places a burden on its body. The stress causes it to become all the more ferocious." Maybe I'm just crazy, and Mega Evolution is just evil... But in my personal headcanon, Mega Evolution is only as harmful as the trainer's intentions. A Mega Stone and Keystone is all that is required to _use_ it, but a true bond is required to _master_ it.
My thoughts exactly! A lot of the things described in the new dex entries can make sense without making the entire process bad when viewed through that lens. For example, in the cases of Scizor and Metagross, both involve more or less disregarding their own wellbeing for the sake of “winning” at all costs, but would that be the case if they had a trainer who cared about more than just victory? Could Glalie’s jaw breaking only be a possibility for those that aren’t in good physical condition prior to mega evolving? Would a Kangaskhan worry about its baby if it trusted its trainer enough to assume they’re acting in the pair’s best interest? I mean seriously the idea of it being bad isn’t even universal, mega Pinsir is just having a great time being able to fly. On the other side of things, just deciding “mega evolution bad” really takes away from cases where it really IS bad. There’s a whole lot more interesting potential to be found in nuance, but that is lost when edgy folks just decide “it’s all abuse, actually”. A bad guy mega evolving at the expense of their Pokémon has significantly less impact if the good guys are doing that as well. If it isn’t just a wholesale bad thing to do, if it can be done safely and responsibly, the decision to do so in a harmful manner regardless hits harder. Plus, you open up doors for things like inexperienced trainers pushing their Pokémon too hard without realizing until they see the consequences, explorations of toxic relationships between trainers and Pokémon that aren’t necessarily Ghetsis level “these are just tools for me to use”, etc. Come to think of it, the Rainbow Rocket situation becomes a bit more interesting with that in mind given how Giovanni mega evolves Mewtwo; there’s a lot to be done with the idea that the strong relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be love or friendship, but could just be a mutual agreement between a Pokémon and trainer that has nothing to do with really respecting one another so much as “we both get something out of working together”. Maybe the trainer and Pokémon can be likeminded individuals, maybe they’re nothing alike but have goals that align, maybe you have a trainer who wants to win battles and a Pokémon that will help them(for a price of course), or a Pokémon that wants to be stronger and a trainer who sees ways to take advantage of that for their own gain.
I'd like to add the Let's Go Dex entries into this. Not a single Mega Dex entry in the Let's go games are negative. That and the fact that Kalos tended to be stingy about who gets to use Mega Evolution leads me to believe that the people of Alola didn't know how to use Mega Evolution things went south quickly
the way i always thought of mega evolution and the idea of it being a painful process was that it was, in fact, always negative in such ways, but the pokemon would be willing to power through it because of trust and love in their trainer. it would also kinda explain how villains can use it; since the pokemon would probably be harshly punished for NOT mega evolving, they would let themselves suffer, not because they trust their trainer to make sure they're ok, but because they fear their wrath.
This would be interesting if Mega-Evolving a low friendship pokemon lowered its friendship, or did some form of persistent chip damage each turn. Not that these are the only ways. Just, something mechanical which we could point at to create a cohesive narrative surrounding its power and how it's derived.
My personal theory is that Pokemon Z’s apparent cancellation is why most games in the past few generations like post game content. Regions like Sinnoh and Unova were saved by their enhanced versions, but until BDSP highlighted how much sinnoh depends on Platinum to feel finished, the fans had equal nostalgia for them. Looking at Gens 7-9, the base games were more hallow and the “advanced” Ultra games felt more like what Alola was supposed to be from the beginning, and then we moved to DLC (which I consider to be better) so now they don’t even need to complete the story’s narrative anymore. Basically, Pokemon Z not coming out was a sign of Gamefreak running out of time in production faster as the games became more complex, and it caused ripples in their creative choices later down the line.
legends z-a is pretty much the devs revenge on the rushed cycle, its a resurrection of z set to come out 10 years after it was meant to be released and an entire year was given to make it a standalone product rather than a remaster
The ultra games were generally decent but absolutely gutted all the characters in service of the standard "extradimensional threat requires all characters (including the evil ones) to team up in some way to stop it" plot which when you are trying to mold a story utilizing complex family relations which includes abuse into that standardized plot it's hard to do that without breaking the great story that was already there
Wonderful analysis here, and as always pointed out a lot of things I've never noticed before! I tend to enjoy what Sun and Moon tackles specifically, but I also struggle to describe it as challenging the structure of the Pokémon world. It touches on parental abuse and maybe implies there's a problem in Alola with invasive species. However, there is actually a moment in it that you would probably view similarly to Lysandre mega evolving his Gyarados, in that the villain of the story engages you in a traditional Pokémon battle when it clearly looks like it's about to set up something a bit more wild. Nevertheless, despite your admission that you are not super close with the series, I would argue that you have raised some of the most fascinating observations about it. I don't always agree them, but I also think it's really fun to dig into what these games may or may not be trying to say, drowning under all the corporate pressures. Ultimately, as much as I'll probably always love and stick with this franchise, I do wonder if Pokémon really is fated to only let its truly interesting ideas flounder around half-baked. Gen 9 had some of the most conceptually interesting ideas since Gen 5, but I don't really feel like it was able to do anything interesting with them, sans having one of the coolest finales. At their best, they feel like they're fun to chew on, with some characters you occasionally enjoy, as it delivers you to the next Pokémon to catch or battle to partake in. I have surrendered to Pokémon being what it is. Never exceptional, but always comforting: even when it barely runs.
I feel like the games have yet to address the "pokémon as bonds" issue even as of the end of the SV DLCs, but I still think those are the best integrated stories in the entire series despite the broken game they're attached to. Kieran and Carmine's teams are really cool reflections of their personalities, both reflecting their true nature(Kieran's Linoone, Carmine's Morpeko) and things they try to hide (her Sinistcha), and this goes through almost every of their many fights to reflect their current states. Carmine doesn't change much but seems to get more confident and her team starts to make more sense instead of raw power; Kieran's feels corrupted by his jealousy, and by Indigo Disk is almost entirely replaced by fighting machines - except his Hydrapple, who loses its supporting role to gain a Fighting Tera that doesn't fit it. Then, at the final boss of Indigo Disk, he changes his Hydrapple's moveset again to support, because Kieran finally realized no one's strength exists in isolation. Still took a plot armor to get the player to be the one to ask for help, but that small change isn't pointed out while still adding so much. Also, the super underrated feature of inviting the trainers to the Blueberry hub. Everyone has lives apart from the player, be it jobs, interests beyond Pokémon, Raihan trying to get away with murder, and for me that added way more than the extra battles.
@@rkhasentered I managed to butcher Raifort's name and forgot to fix it, I'm sorry to disappoint but if you don't mind, if you have both Jacq and Raifort in the postgame club, she'll try to convince him to be used as a human sacrifice
I would actually argue that Lysander using mega evolution is a case of there’s no bad dogs only bad owners. The fact that Lysander cries about killing all the Pokémon shows he’s disillusioned with humanity and Pokémon are a tragic victim of the remedy. The fact that he can mega evolve his gyarados shows he genuinely loves the thing and it loves him. Yes he’s advocating for genocide. But that gyarados is going to be there with him the whole way.
I wonder if you've heard of the leaked, scrapped plot of XY that was on 4Chan, that was given credit because it partially predicted Alola. If you haven't, give it a read, the scrapped plot is *so* weird and *so* cool.
@@MaryIsHereNow I don't know about the original post, but I learned about it from a TH-cam video years back. I'm sure with some googling you can either find a vid or some archive of the post. Just look up stuff like "4chan XY leak" or "scrapped XY plot"
@@MaryIsHereNowTyranitarTube has a video on it, but I don't think that was the video I originally watched. Other than videos, I'm sure you can find archives of the original chan post.
I love how I originally had a much more in depth reply but it was shadow deleted by TH-cam. Literally what could I have typed that'd trigger the spam filter, that actual bots wouldn't also trigger??
@@erc3338 literally?? I thought I was just blacklisted from typing youtube comments for a while because of how practically every comment, no matter how innocent, got deleted. I think it might be links that are the problem here, though. It's annoying..
It says a lot of how forgettable XY's stories are that it's heavily rumored the stories were rewritten many times. Not to mention, it also has many loose ends which just reek of untapped potential. Will those ever be tackled in Legends: ZA? Only time will tell.
I mean, does it? I think XY are really the average, forgettable pokemon story. Video game stories tend to be rewritten a lot, especially Pokemon games that practically uses it only as a pretense for gameplay before all (even if it means a completely inconsistent story). I don't think that's the problem, and I personally do not like any ideas presented in the allegedly older drafts (mostly nonsensical brainstorming, if even because I really don't belive XYsider was credible at all given their "smash bros" leaks at the time).
Also that Team Flare's whole esthetic of well, flares, is very metaphorical in its relation to fascism, the idea of rebirth, burning the old to let the new ride from its ashes. (It's also my headcanon that the visors that Flare have to conceal identity and the very similar outfits were an attempt to parallel the black and brown shirts from irl)
the flame is still used in far right movements, for example the french "national front" (that was rising in importance during x and y's release) uses it to this day
That's not exclusive to fascists though. The Libertarian party uses the flare of Lady Liberty's torch in at least one of its logos. So does the: Social Democrats Party, Conservative Party of New York State, and even the Tories, the last of whom openly embraced socialism not too long ago.
An excellent video! I do have to say, I actually don't think that the villain being able to use Mega Evolutions is a contradiction or plot hole in any way. From personal experience, it is 100% possible for someone who is incredibly abusive to the point of near death to genuinely love and care about you, and for you to love and care about them. Unfortunately, love is not enough to stop someone from going down a dark path.
I haven't finished the video yet, but the sentence at 21:02 ending with "shoes hovering eerily above the pavement" is a powerful one, and speaks to me as someone who saw their interest in Pokemon wane and eventually fade away.
I'll admit I'm a bit defensive about XY because they were the first Pokemon games I played on actual hardware rather than emulators and so they hold a special place in my heart. But I felt your analysis was fair despite disagreeing with some of your points... Except about Lysander being able to mega evolve. Evil people are not incapable of love, and of being loved back (take how many people in real life who commit heinous crimes that have loved ones that are absolutely shocked they were capable of doing something like that - the belief that these people are simply monsters incapable of love is actually kinda dangerous cause it makes it harder to recognize and accept if someone we know and love does something monstrous). And despite his beliefs Lysander clearly loves Pokemon, he is sad that they must be eliminated, so it's not a stretch that he has a strong bond with his Gyarados. Sure, it's a contradiction, but contradictions are what makes a character feel more real. Another thing I strongly disagree with, and I'm sure I'm misunderstanding your point here cause it makes absolutely no sense to me, is Sycamore being culpable for Lysander's crimes? If your best friend commits a murder and he never mentioned his intentions to you, are you then also to blame for this murder? Of course not. You can blame yourself for not recognizing the signs but you won't be punished for this, which is exactly what Sycamore acknowledges.
"evil" does not mean "lack of any heart." There are characters like frieza that are entirely inhumanly evil just to be evil. Lysander is evil, and wants humanity dead, but its due to a love of nature and the beauty of a world without humans tarnishing it. Which makes sense if XY doubled down on the war plot. There are WAYYY better ways GF coulda done this story, this game, etc. But i dont see why lysander CANT mega evolve when its clear his bond to nature allows his pokemon to mega evolve.
I read more of XY's narrative being about the dichotomy between Generosity vs Selfishness and Status more than outright facism though I do think Lysandre's ultimate conclusions do lead to that. Your friend group is all made up of essentially the proletariat who struggle to get anything done on their journey and turn to you as their friend who is the dragon in the group to help them, even still, they helped during the final confrontation despite their lack of skill and though they may not be dragons, they still are givers rather than takers. Lysandre's tears indicate that his hatred for people outweighs his love for pokemon, explaining why he's able to mega evolve his gyarados and that he views ridding the world of pokemon as necessary only because people will abuse their power afforded to them by pokemon which doesn't really work with the kalos internarrative but does apply to the greater pokemon metanarrative with the most recent villain, Ghetsis being the polar opposite. Viewing pokemon as only tools and having no care for them but believing only he should have access to them. To answer your question about the rest of the series, I am particularly fond of Scarlet/Violet's story for how it manages to make a cast of friends who actually weaves your ability to battle well into their stories and doesn't leave their arcs incomplete because you always win against them no matter what due to them having other goals in life. It's actually my favorite cast of characters in the series. This was a really good video! I don't normally trust most video essayists with pokemon since I find they often tend to miss the forest for the trees and only examine the text when analyzing the story or only viewing things separately instead of how they intertwine together and even if I don't agree with some of your points I do appreciate your holistic view of the game. I do think the music was a little too loud at times though. Keep up the good work.
Lysandre is one of my favorite villains because of just how much potential he had as a villain. In the past Lysandre was known as an incredible man and an incredible inventor, creating all kinds of devices and products to try and improve the world, he traveled the world to give his inventions and money to others, but when he saw that the only thing that happened was just people asking him for more and more, he believed that people were greedy and destructive, always wanting more until it's too late. At his core, Lysandre was a man who loved too much. He loved the world and Pokemon, but he physically couldn't stand the thought of things ruining this beautiful world that he loves so much. Pokemon Generations and Evolutions sheds some further light onto his character, stating that "Everything that is beautiful should stay that way forever" and "I can't stand the thought of the world becoming uglier". Lysandre hates change, and in order to fight it, he gathers up all the people he believes are worthy of keeping the world as he thinks it's meant to be. He loves Pokemon so much that he begins to weep openly about the fact that Pokemon cannot exist, as the ugly will only use them to cause more pain. It brings him pain to do so, but it's what must be done to ensure his world never changes. Of course some might say "but team flare is full of those "ugly" people, men and women who steal, extort, lie and cheat for their own personal gain, why would the fee to join team flare be such a high price? That could be interpreted as another part of Lysandre's plan. You can see he has no care for Team Flare at all, he uses it to gather all of the "ugliest" people he can think of in one place, they were never intended to be a part of his beautiful world, he was going to dispose of them all. He travels the region personally asking people he deems worthy to join him, while all the greedy and wealthy pay to join him, a sign of failure in his eyes. This contrasts with Professor Sycamore, the Player and their friends, who constantly show to Lysandre that there are other options, that his plan isn't the only way to save the world, that his vision of an ugly world might not even happen. But Lysandre is so far gone that he just can't see it, he even thanks them for trying to change his mind, but stays steadfast to his plan. And with no options left, the legendary pokemon of life/death taken from the machine, he decides to spread his belief to Sycamore's pupils, by turning the weapon onto them, so he can "give them the pain of endlessly waiting for a beautiful world to be built" giving them immortality so they can watch as his vision of an ugly world becomes reality. This action ultimately takes his own life in the process, and it's unknown if he even succeeded in giving the characters their "enternal life". "Pokemon Trainers, listen well. The future isn't decided, you can't be sure each day will be like the one before. You have the potential to change the world. Help build a brighter tomorrow." -Lysandre
I'd like to comment on Lysandre's use of mega Gyarados, as I believe it does actually make sense. It is not that he does not care for Pokemon (especially his own), but rather that he has no way of separating humans and Pokemon when using the ultimate weapons for his ultimate goal. He believes the sacrifice of Pokemon is worth it, if it means the people he perceives as filth shall be eliminated. It is for this reason that he cries, he believes he has to sacrifice the innocent Pokemon he likes so much, to reach his ultimate goal. Also, I think most of your problems with the story fall under ludonarrative dissonance. Look it up if you haven't heard of it before.
Thank you for being willing to discuss Pokémon as a series created and designed by real people and not just a monolithic corporation where its faceless mass churns out games that don’t matter. It’s sadly kind of rare to see people talk about this gigantic franchise in that light and not just a playthrough, challenge run, shiny hunt, or “all of Pokémon is bad now/was always bad.” Granted, you did state Pokémon as a whole doesn’t really care about stories, just approachable power fantasies, but I also acknowledge that you don’t consider yourself someone deeply invested in the series. As other people have probably mentioned, games like Sun and Moon and Scarlet and Violet actively do more to make a compelling story (I think Sword and Shield have interesting themes that aren’t executed entirely well, though most people think it barely has a narrative at all but I digress). And to your one point, Scarlet and Violet (and even Sword and Shield) do address the natural structure of Pokémon games where the player character is sort of destined to win (Scarlet and Violet’s is in its DLC storyline, for reference). I’ve always been very interested in discussing Pokémon from a narrative perspective, and I think my takes are a bit more generous than yours because I’m a little less interested in the meta narrative/unintentional implications of the series and more interested in seeing how it executes what it sets out to do and how GameFreak spins the formula each generation. I think, since Gen 7, it’s taken measures to put more of a focus on developing its own narrative and environmental concepts. It’s when I really started getting invested in engaging with the series, even though I’ve been playing since Gen 5 and went back to play Gen 4 as a kid. The games captured my heart more as I grew up, which tends to be the opposite for most people, including yourself. Some day, I really want to make videos on my own where I can talk about the content I’d want to see and share and hopefully inspire people like you have with me at this moment. I make threads and essays on Twitter for different series, but video-making feels more professional and easily digestible. For Pokémon-related topics, I’ve dreamed of making ones about why Project Voltage (the several month-long collaboration between Pokémon and Vocaloid) captures the essence of Pokémon and about Scarlet and Violet’s themes of passion and obsession. Maybe that will happen some day, but right now, that’s so much effort maaaaannnn. Anyways, thank you for making this video, and my apologies for almost completely bypassing your discussion questions to talk about what I wanted to say.
Honestly I think z moves do a surprisingly good job of reaffirming sun and moons themes of supporting each other and working together to overcome challenges by having them distinctly involve the trainer visually sharing their power through the dance to activate them, the trainer even being visually exhausted when performing especially powerful ones like light that burns the sky
I think I have satisfying answers for questions 1 and 4 you posited at the end of the video. Scarlet and Violet spend a lot of time doing anything but explaining the phenomenon of Terastalisation until the final hour, but that final hour is genuinely the best piece of writing and amalgamation of the game's themes in the entire series. This is accompanied by some genuinely really good dialogue between the game's rival characters (without spoiling much, the three rivals barely know each other outside their shared relation to you when you gather them all for the final quest, and the game does a really good job of rounding out their characters in their conversation). As for Monster Collector games that establish good writing and themes, I will never miss a chance to promote Bytten Studio's Cassette Beasts. The creature designs, like Pokemon, are based off of a mix of real/mystical creatures and more abstract human concepts. But Cassette Beasts decides to dig a layer further into the world these creatures exist, and within the story (again not trying to spoil) the biggest, heaviest and potentially most destructive human concepts become the biggest threats and therefore bosses. This alongside a cast of characters who have more far more charm than basically every Pokemon NPC (save again for the newest games, who Cassette Beasts still has beat but deserve a distinction about the earlier entries).
XY was fantastic as my first Pokémon game, even as a college-age adult at the time. The traditional but full-featured mechanics made me feel like I was getting the definitive Pokémon experience I had been missing out on. I found the region charming, and couldn’t help but enjoy the more over the top moments in the world and story. It fits with their pattern of doing a more traditional game first on each console, then a more experimental game second.
As someone who is really invested in the stories of the pokemon games I think its really great to finally see people like you engaging with them critically. I think this sort of analysis is sorely missing especially when the new games have just come out. I hope this won't be the last Pokémon video we see from you (I would be personally be interested to see your analysis of sword and shield, which heavily relies on framing pokemon battles as a nationwide celebration of sports and history). Regardless I'm really excited to see what other perspectives you can share with whatever game interests you next, keep up the good work!
For fangame reccs, I highly recommend Pokémon Gaia or Unbound. They're considered top tier and they really feel like the developers thought of the perfect game they wanted to make from soup and nuts to story.
Also, semi-ironically, pokemon clover. It's really well made, has a bunch of unique features, some really interesting fakemon pokedex entries and is just generally super polished... but it is also very clearly made by people on 4chan. Incredible dedication and skill, talent even, but also a lot of dumb jokes and deliberate mild-to-moderate offensiveness. Genuinely fun though, if you don't mind the unique "flavor".
This is a great video. It's honestly a breath of fresh air to see a video doing a fair discussion of XY that isn't just 20 min of "Haha game easy, haha boring 3d models, bad story lol" this is a good retrospective that takes XY for what it is. An 'Almost there' game, A game that feels like the definition of "What could have been"
I do think it's a bit sad how you tabbed out RIGHT before Sun and Moon, which imo has one of the, if not THE best story in Pokemon. If I had to recommend you one more Pokemon game, it'd either be that or Gen9 along with the DLC. Even with all the flaws of Gen9, I DO genuinly think the story and writting ESPECIALLY the characters are really good there.
I agree, in particular Kieran and Nemona as rival characters and how they differ from how rivals have been used in the past. Nemona as someone who has been there and done that and has no baggage tied up in being better, she's just happy to meet someone as excited about battle as she is. And Kieran, who is on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum...
Wholly agree. Scarlet and Violet seems to have an even heavier emphasis on human relationships and pulls it off almost masterfully, in my opinion. I genuinely felt like I was hanging out with a group of friends I cared about by the end.
I mean, I disagree. The deepest character was Arven with his parental trauma and his dog but the actual themes of the game as a whole are pretty muddled. Nemona is okay, albeit a bit annoying. The gimmick of her handicapping herself to battle you is a fun character quirk for a rival but she doesn't really grow all that much. Penny has a pretty flat arc with the team star stuff boiling down to "I want to have friends but I'm awkward, they'd never accept me" and they accept her. All of the main three stories don't really go anywhere besides pretty standard and formulaic story beats. There's brief glimmers of character growth in the crater when Nemona talks about having a lot of expectations on her coming from a rich family and of course Arvens whole thing, but they don't really explore those things. Especially Nemona's, she's let out to dry a lot of the time. The gameplay also doesn't really compliment the story any more than the rest of the story. The terrastialisation gimmick is pretty boring, the open world doesn't have much of a function outside of a selling point on the box, the base raiding is pretty one note, and the new gym challenges are a slog. None of which compliment the themes of community and exploration all that well. There's not a lot of side quests, the map is barren of landmarks and cultural sites, and the story elements are pretty arcadey in a Pokepark 2 kind of way. I will never forget how flabbergasted I was at the Psychic Gym. I wouldn't even say gen 7 had the best story, more it had the most story. It was very streamlined and almost played out like a kids anime which was charming. Not necessarily deep outside of Lusamine and her family, somewhat remedied by the Ultra games, but it never reached the highs of gen 5s story for me. Besides the gameplay didn't do much to help the story, it was more or less the same thing with some shake ups like Totem battles to better suit the setting. It was a refreshing change of pace with a world building aspect but that's about it. I'm not trying to be a hater, im really not, I just see this sentiment that gen 9's story was really good and i legitimately don't get it. I want to get it, I want to like gen 9 even a little bit, but all I see is a dice cup of anime character tropes tossed into a half baked open map, unrefined gimmicks, and a standard yet terribly optimized pokemon game. If you like it that's of course fine, it's subjective, but I just don't get it
@@nateroo1486 I mean I'm not going to pretend Pokemon is a bastion of stellar writing, especially compared to a lot of other games I've played. Notice the qualifier of the best writing of any *pokemon game.* It's just refreshing that they're trying to do something different from the standard at all and having characters with slightly deeper arcs and motivations.
@@delta7115 well that's the thing, they're not really doing anything new. Nemona is about as deep as Bianca and Arven is of a similar caliber to Silver. The only differences being that you actually see Biancas team come together in a meaningful way while seeing her dad insult her rather direcly and Silver actually has a character arc around Giovanni instead of just being the "good misunderstood guy". The only thing that's new is that there's more cutscenes to explain the story rather than just text boxes but the emotional depth, story beats, and extent to where the stories go with their themes haven't really evolved since gen 4 and 5. If anything they've gotten more one note for me, especially with Gen 8 and 9. The chages they introduce arent meaningful, more superficial i guess is my main issue.
Megas were supposed to make you feel special, but they just made me feel like a loser for using an ovetpowered mechanic against piss easy opponents and for abandoning my beloved Pokémon for one of the 5% of all pokemon that can megaevolve instead.
not even a third of the og dex in R/B/Y even have a mega form. Mega is a horribly executed gimmick, overly loved by fans who dont actually think about it aside from nostalgia appeal. Mega is trash, and its cool. There's nothing wrong with that. But it needed far more that GF didn't give it. Even in comp this mechanic felt weightless to its idea of giving weaker mons spotlight but yet strong mons got megas that dominated X/Y's meta scene and did so to oppressive degrees. I will NEVER like mega for how it was executed, but X/Y is a game i want reimagined because it deserves better and a second shot.
Its dogwater execution is a shame. They are so afraid of letting NPCs be somewhat powerful. Like, for real, all it did was give you a Pokemon with stats equivalent to legendaries to run over the entire game with (with NO grinding, unlike what raids were. Yes idiot, you going through raids and using all those exp candies is grinding).
Lysandre using the word "filth" to describe "people who take" is just one or two steps off from calling people degenerates. As many issues as the game has, that's a good touch, and the game could've really used more details like that.
Especially since "people who take" could just refer to groups who are in need. The homeless, hungry, people without family or friends, are all people who "take". Lysandre hating them for simply not having the ability to fulfill their needs and just writing them off as degenerates is pretty accurate to openly fascist belief systems!
referring to the chapter about Lysandre being able to use a Mega Evo; a """Potential""" narrative answer that came up in my head is that- "Is the game trying to tell me that even with all the not-fascim, that Pokemon bond still exists? Do his Pokemon... *agree* with him???" Strictly speaking from the position that the narrative *should* be reinforced by the gameplay, and with the truth that the creators of the game obviously wouldn't want players to come to the conclusion of "Oh, they didn't tie the narrative to the gameplay properly, its just to show off the new gimmick", are we supposed to forcibly tie the narrative to the gameplay ourselves?? Is that what we're supposed to realize in this story, along with all the implications it comes with??? Clearly this is an insane conclusion to come to, but genuinely what else is to be expected when you try to make your player base have the belief/understanding that the narratives are intrinsically linked to gameplay *all the time* , but couldn't follow through that ideal, for one reason or another? Making an insane and even more ridiculous narrative answer for why gameplay is a certain wayTM, is something I genuinely don't like, but the other choices are to come to the conclusions of "Yeah, this doesn't make any sense and they did it just for drama/show" or "This doesn't make any sense, they must not have put much thought into this part of the narrative"
"Is the game trying to tell me that even with all the not-fascim, that Pokemon bond still exists? Do his Pokemon... agree with him???" i mean. yeah. this is a common theme with pokemon villains. there's a reason why cyrus has a crobat, a friendship evolution.
@@CrystalGeny I mean, Lysandre shows genuine care for his Pokemon tho. Mega Gyarados makes a lot of sense for Lysandre to use in gameplay, it is the legend carp and the dragon coming full circle (a rampaging dragon that uses its power wrongly will become nothing more than a flying snake, hence the dark type to reinforce it even more). Gyarados wouldn't agree with Lysandre, in the sense that it fully grasps and understands what is actually going on or attributing human values to it. It doesn't mean that this Pokemon is agreeing to an ideology, it just means that it is fully trusting of its trainer. But again, the human - Pokemon bond is always terribly portrayed in pokemon and always betrayed. Team Rocket, Galactic and Plasma in particular mention using stolen Pokemon (i.e, Pokemon that have no reason to listen to them and actually should be frighten or angry at them) never even rebel, go out of their pokeball on their own and run away (as this was shown several times in the series, Pokeballs don't exactly confine a Pokémon as they can leave whenever they feel like it) or even show it through obedience. That's why I don't take the ludo narrative of pokemon battles too seriously, it's way too much of a mess to coherently present gameplay so it is abstracted.
Also, as far as your questions at the end of the video, I'm not sure I have an answer about any of the other questions other than the mechanics interacting with narratives. I don't remember much about Sun and Moon, but I do remember that it had extradimensional creatures akin to Legendaries called Ultra Beasts, and a lot of the story involved tracking them down through wormholes, going to the other dimension, and using specialized "Beast Balls" to capture them, as well as the main villainess being obsessed with them to the point of opening a wormhole and fusing with one of them. Additionally, the Dynamax mechanic is weaved into the story of Sword and Shield. Despite most of it happening offscreen, the story involved Dynamax Pokemon (essentially giant Pokemon) rampaging around the region and needing to be subdued by the Champion. Typically, Pokemon can only Dynamax in particular areas, but these were somehow doing so outside those areas, with an ongoing mystery being "How?" The Gyms of the region are conveniently around those spots for the audience to enjoy the spectacle of watching giant Pokemon battle. Additionally, the one single Gym leader who does not have a gym at a Dynamax-available location does so for story reasons and therefore has very little funding, no audience, and is just in like... a room, rather than the grand sports stadium-like arenas they often have.
Gen 3 is based on a regional political conflict from the that lasted from the 1980s all the way into 2008 called the Isahaya Bay reclamation project. The land vs sea story in Ruby/Sapphire is meant to be a direct representation of the two political sides of the issue with team aqua representing the environmentalists and local protestors and magma the bureaucrats and industrialists in favor of the project. Ruby/Sapphire takes on what is basically a centrist approach to the issue with both teams as bad guys but it is the most overtly political the series has ever been, much more so than gen 5 or 6.
We now have confirmation that the plot of XY had major overhauls (from the Teraleak), originally AZ was the big bad and wanted to kill off everyone who wasn't from his bloodline, from the very little we know it sounds like it was a genuinely pretty good plot. Also XY had a MASSIVE amount of cut content compared to other Pokemon games.
I think the Gyarados mega is unfortunate, because (while I don’t know if they’d ever intend a meta reading like this) there *could* be a point to it : fascists love to idolise struggle, to talk about picking yourself by the bootstraps, to talk about how you could be a dragon too if all these carps weren’t clogging the waterfall. Making his ace and mega a pokemon based on rewards for struggle, especially if Lysandre was someone who’d never known this kind of struggle, could be a very good point… but this is XY, and no points are made. Really, really great video ! It feels very cathartic to see someone understand these games so well.
The anime actually unintentionally made the Lysandre-Gyarados connection even more interesting by making it shiny. More than likely, it was just to match the color scheme, but his Gyarados being shiny implies he selected it specifically. Why? Does he see its rare, immutable quality as something beautiful in this world, like he acts towards Diantha? Does he see a kindred spirit in that his Gyarados is a dot of red in a sea of blue, much like how he is a dot of enlightenment in a world of “filth”? Perhaps it’s a meta-commentary on the struggle thing like you mentioned, given that the red Gyarados is the easiest shiny to obtain in the games. He gets to act like he accomplished this rare feat without any of the effort. Much like an actual fascist, he gets to appear like one of the common folk who had to fight for his rewards but in reality never needed to try. Unfortunately, the most likely explanation is that the anime team just thought it looked cool. Which, to be fair, it did.
I think my personal favorite narrative harmony in the games after Gen 5 is something you actually touched on in this video, battles as sports! Sword and Shield try to explore a fascinating facet of the pokemon world that expands on this concept. It presents a world of spectacle and entertainment enhanced by dynamax and gives your character the chance to compete with several other trainers! At the same time it hints at some aspects of the structure of said world that could be classified as the “political side” by going somewhat into who’s in charge in this region or maybe more accurately the “capitalist side” with a city that serves as a gym but doesn’t get the funding for a proper stadium and several instances of chairman rose doing sketchy ceo things. Unfortunately the very end of the story fumbles the ball and things go off the rails and it’s definitely under explored but I think the ideas and cohesion between those ideas are there! I find it fascinating yet undercooked, the potential deliciousness of your favorite kind of bread not allowed enough time in the oven so there’s a small taste of what makes it great but it just didn’t get enough attention. That’s my thought at least, I wish sword and shield got to have the refinement treatment so their story could shine bc I truly think it had the foundation to do so. Great video Skyhoppers! Love your work!
Here's a small bite of each game where I think it would be beneficial to you (with zero to minor spoilers): PSA: This is going to be mostly in order except for Legends Arceus which is gonna be last because it's most similar to the kind of game that you have been asking for to my understanding. That is to say it's a game that ties its narrative into the gameplay itself. Sun and Moon's Z-Moves work somewhat well mechanically with their lore because their supposed to be only achievable through connection to your pokemon (similar to megas in XY) but in SM, you have to complete trials and fight the island kahunas to get them (Some of which are genuinely tough fights) so you have to understand your pokemon's strengths to even get access to the big flashy mechanics (for the most part). Some of the Z-Crystals are just sorta found around the world (though they are in optional areas you have to return to after unlocking HMs or Pokerides in SM). The actual story of Sun and Moon is actually rather compelling personally since it delves into the themes of nature in a more satisfying way than RSE or XY do. It talks about how nature can be disrupted and/or helped by outside forces. We see it immediately with the alolan rattata and yungoos rivalry (Two pokemon caught on Route 1 who are both alien species to Alola), and we see it with the Aether foundation's activities. It also deals with parental abuse in a rather touching way honestly. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon narratively destroy everything Sun and Moon had going for it to focus harder on Ultra Space and the big alien monsters you find in Post Game sun and moon. The game, however, is EXTREMELY satisfying gameplay wise. Genuinely contains some of the toughest battles in the entire series. I wiped out several times while playing which RARELY happens in any other pokemon game. It's a TOUGH cookie. On the opposite end, Sword and Shield do a good job with showing off dynamax in gym battles and basically nowhere else depsite the game telling you there are huge dynamax dudes destroying things, you're told to ignore it and move on with the gym challenge. You do not interact with the rampaging pokemon. You do not see them. You don't even get to see their impacts. Just a pic of a news paper saying Leon (the champion) is so epic and awesome for solving the crisis. The actual story in Sword and Shield is laughable and forgettable almost to the extent of XY but SwSh is probably more memorable because it's written SO badly, I don't think I've seen ANYONE defend the writing of the entire story as a whole (I have seen valid defenses of specific moments and characters though but just about everyone seems to actively hate SOMETHING about SwSh's story). These games can also be trivialized on complete accident if you engage with the dynamax raids a lot. I did not do that very often at all so my playthrough was Scarlet and Violet try to tell several stories at once through the open-world design and basically takes the mult-rival concept from XY and fleshes it out more to give them each their own chapter of gameplay. Nemona follows the typical gym route and is super simple but most people tend to agree she's perfect that way (She REALLY loves to battle). Penny is a bit anti-social and got bullied a bunch so she ties into Team Star who I can't talk much more about without spoilers. Arven's story turns back to child abuse eerily similar to Sun and Moon but it takes a COMPLETELY different turn (poor guy). I have not played the DLCs personally because the game runs SO BAD I couldn't go back to it after beating it the first time. If the next Nintendo system is more powerful and backwards compatible then I'll get to that. FINALLY, Legends Arceus takes place in a time where people and pokemon did not get along very often so people are shown to be afraid of pokemon and it's your job to help people understand them. The game changes the pokedex mechanic to require you to actually interact with pokemon in order to complete their pokedex pages. Jubilife Village (The home base of the game does actually grow and evolve after completing side-quests for the people in the town. You get to gift different people some pokemon that are actually visible in town from that point forward. They maintain all visible aspects (size, shininess, etc). It's honestly super cool. Unfortunately, the story you're actually forced to progress is much less appealing and is kinda lame tbh. The game overall kinda feels like a good tech demo rather than a full complete game. However, despite all of that, if you want something genuinely NEW and INTERESTING from pokemon, PLA is the way to go.
Honestly I still don't know how USUM narratively destroyed Sun and Moon I mean if anything it had characters like Lillie Lusamine and Hau develop more really.
@@Jdudec367 That is true but they tried to make lusamine less crazy but all the background craziness is still there (frozen pokemon, experimenting on cosmog, treating lillie like shit, etc). These things go somewhere in sun and moon when you go to nihiligo's dimension but in USUM, they go nowhere. Lillie's development is janky at best. It's mainly that they rushed the story out so they could get it done for the yearly release schedule. The ideas are cool though. Hau is about the only character that benefits from all the changes (He SUCKED in SM). His new arc is a lot better and makes him much more likeable as a character.
@@null921 Lusamine is still pretty evil though clearly and that's intentional. Eh...no in USUM they still go somewhere but with a different result with Lusamine being forced to confront her own failure when she loses to Necrozma and realizing how she messed up and she slowly changes and improves as a person after that. No Lillie's development is still good too and she grows as a person like she did before sure she didn't tell her mom off this time but she still matured and was willing to go against her too and stand up for herself and she even becomes a trainer in USUM too if anything she has more development in USUM really. They really didn't rush the story out though, like it shouldn't take that long really it's not like they were making a entirely new game. I disagree most characters benefitted from all the changes really (eh he didn't suck but he is much better in USUM clearly). I thought he was already likable tbh.
@@Jdudec367 Honestly fair interpretations there. If you liked it more, I think that's fantastic because it allows you to play through with better gameplay and be satisfied narratively. I think what really happened is in restructuring the story, they felt they didn't have room for two separate climaxes and chose to turn a lot of Lillie and Gladion's arcs into background growth rather than the forefront of the game like in SM. I'm just a fan of more personal stories with personal stakes rather than world-ending ones. So it felt like the parts of the story I was more invested in were kinda stripped away or covered in favor of oh no big bag necrozma. Necrozma's theme and battle are pretty awesome though and I did enjoy seeing Lillie become a trainer and being able to battle with her in the battle tree (even if she lowkey sucked bc clefairy and comfey aren't very good on an NPC). (P.S: I was intending to say Lusamine is still pretty evil clearly and that seemed UNintentional but that part's irrelevant to everything else so it's not a big deal.)
@@null921 Yeah that's pretty much what happened, I still like that they managed to get it all in there even if it's not all forefront. I get that really. I disagree though I thought both existed fairly at the same time really. (true at the battle tree those Pokemon aren't great BUT it is still pretty fun to actually have her as a battle partner). (Really? I thought her being evil was intentional as she was like the secondary antagonist of USUM really.)
While not the most compelling narrative, sword and shield turned pokemon into an actual spectator sport, every gym is a massive stadium and every single gym leader uses the generation gimmick of dynamaxing where the pokemon becoming massive while a few get a unique form on top of it, I enjoyed that aspect of it a lot, also the gym leader music slapped.
To further add to how Mega Evolution feels underutilized in the hands of opponents, how about we also take note of the fact the ONLY Pokemon from Kalos that can Mega Evolve is Diance, which is a Pokemon tied to events only. No other native Kalos Pokemon Mega Evolves, even the starters. What's up with that?
So happy you’re revisiting XY, I’ve been waiting for someone to really dig into the themes and ideas of these games beyond “Wow 3D huh!” and listing off other features of the game… the experience of Pokémon at this point was becoming, for lack of a better word, globalized, and that’s easy to take for granted in a world that exists after Pokemon Go and over a decade of simultaneous worldwide release. XY contained a lot of new ideas in its debut but seems to be a lot more conscious about trends and features of the series as a whole, echoing a lot of older gens. It’s hard not to say environmental themes aren’t present in a game that makes the backgrounds points of interaction in battles with moves you could use, new terrain and types of foliage you could find Pokemon in (flower colors having their own unique encounter tables), and the contrast between the urbanized core of the region versus the suburban and rural periphery.
I don't see how XY is exactly "more of the same" or how Gen 5 was more ambitious, it had a greater story (for Pokemon standards anyways) but in terms of mechanical stuff...ffrom the jump to 3D, to Mega Evolution, to the fairy type, amie, a giant Pokedex variety, it's a lot really. Like while it has nostalgia pandering obviously it doesn't really feel like more of the same like it feels familiar but also distinct in a way. And I don't think putting the player character above everyone else undercuts the themee of community, there will always be a strongest trainer in Pokemon after all. Really it just shows who works the hardest to get things that are more rare (which yeah...goes back to Lysandre and rare resources) and how even with a community there will still be conflict like that. And I mean...you the player prove to be the strongest of your group and has fought Team Flare a bunch too at that point so you do seem worthy of using Mega Evolution arguably. And I don't think Mega Evolution breaks the story either it really doesn't. Lysandre is basically resetting the world so that it's population can use it's resources easier and with no issue. The reason he can use Mega evolution? Why can the evil Faccist use it? Well as we especially see here Lysandre does genuinely care about Pokemon and he wants what he believes is best for them even if it pains him so he would clearly care about and love his own Pokemon too. So I wouldn't say there is a dissonance there tbh, it makes perfect sense that avery powerful and influencal person who genuinely loves his Pokemon would have and use Mega Evolution. So I disagree that Lysandre's Gyrarados disobeying him would be cool or cohesive, quite the opposite. Lysandre like Ghetsis is a horrible person and will evil...but unlike Ghetsis shows genuien and real concern for pokemon and that he does care about them unlike Ghetsis who mistreats and abuses his. (although even for Ghetsis his Pokemon never disobey him but his Hydreigon does know frustration.) And if everyone else is a carp then there wouldn't be other strong trainers in Kalos even if the player becomes the strongest one. I don't see how theme of community or selflessness really gets discarded I mean in the end that is what prevails and what stops Lysandre and his group. Serena can still get stronger and complete her arc and goal and Serena does eventually get access to mega evolution herself in the post game so there's that goal complete and even if you are the strongest it doesn't mean you are the only one who has access to those very valueable things. And her still becoming strong on her own even if she can't beat you is her resolution like she doesn't need to beat the player to be strong or impressive I mean she got access to Mega Evolution without doing that after all. Hell I would argue that kind of exactly shows why Lysandre was so wrong, even if people will fight and there will be conflict they can still help each other out and make each other stronger like with Serena and you as rivals and you inspiring her to get stronger too and how she eventually got mega evolution after getting stronger, that and with how Lysandre wanted a ideal world with selfless people he was kinda being used with how his grunts were often (but not always) selfish greedy people who only think about themselves. I don't see how it says that some people are superior....I mean that is what a lot of the Team Flare grunts think and you stop them yourself, having mega evolution on your own doesn't make you superior to anyone you need a strong bond with your partner Pokemon to use it well after all. At least with Malva she does change and in the post game even helps out a bit with Xerosic so I get why she may keep her position as a elite 4 member. And I don't see how Sycamore is complicent when well...he never knew about Lysandre being part of Team Flare or ever praised them really. Him being friends with him alone doesn't make him involved in what Lysandre was secretly up to the entire time. So I think he'd survive any trial just fine, Malva would be more questionable but nothing really indicates that Sycamore knew who was leading Team Flare. I think AZ finally having a Pokemon battle would lead to him showing more humanity and actually interacting with others and his partner Pokemon he does have more...that and him smiling and finally being able to move on now shows Floette that he has genuinely changed.
I always had a very different take on Lysander. Yes, hsi crying showing a sincere belief in what he espouses was part of it, but it mostly came from dialogue from when ... I think its the first time you meet him after learning hes the leader of Team Flare. Though its been awhile i might be wrong. He had said something about, before forming the team, he went around trying to give peoole the solution to their problems but he was always turned down. His frustration is what led to him forming this team. And basically, I took the message to be that not everyone who claims to know the solution actually has it. And being so set on your solutions in the face of being told you sont underatand leads to more harm. I didnt share all this to say that your wrong. Your take that Lysander is a facist makes a lot more sense to me in fact. However, i think there is room in the writing for my interpretation too. And if they really were intentionally writing a facist ... thats a really bad sign. That is not a subject you want to tackle and leave room for interpretation with.
Yeah, I think so many people get caught up on the "they're filth" line that they kind of disregard the rest of his backstory (though to be fair, it's not like Game Freak gives it much attention, either). So most people end up taking Flare as being representative of one the political systems that most openly displays disdain for its opposition.
I’ve only recently found this channel and have been lucky enough to find it the day before this video came out. I just wanna say amazing work on your videos I enjoy each full dive into the artistic medium of video games. Looking forward to your continued work and thank you for for the time you put into this craft! :)
I can't believe this is the first video on X and Y I've watched that points out the themes of team Flare connecting to facism. I feel ashamed that this went over my head. I remember playing the games when they came out; the common opinion in the youtube pokemon community was that the story was lame and the villians made no sense. But now that you mentioned facism and, of course, their contradicting beliefs, it makes a lot more sense. Of course, GameFreak still dropped the ball on the story in the end, just as they did with Black & White. The same thing happened with Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald's story - everyone thought Aqua and Magma were over the top and stupid, and the never ending memes about "too much water". It wasn' until Tama made her video on the games and actually did the research, where we learn that the two teams were based on real-life politics happening in Japan (though you can argue this didn't translate very well to an international audience, other than it's messaging being very pro nature and looking after the environment). It's so frustrating to see so many video game """essays""" or "retrospectives" basically devolve into reading the game's wiki, give a puddle-deep overview of the game's story, and tell the audience how they felt about the game (mostly saying it's bad, mid, or good) and then the video ends. Young men with no media analysis skills trying to talk about a game that they like (or hate), and struggling to grasp the story's themes. I find that video game essays done by a woman is way more engaging simply by the fact that it's written from a different perspective. Thank you for making this video, it's rare to find channels that make the effort to do media analysis on video games and actually engage with the story, no matter how simple or silly they may appear on the surface.
Uhm...no. Just because a video labels it as facism...doesnt mean it makes anymore sense. Lysandre is still nonsensical due to poor character development and an unfocused narrative in general.
XY introduce 72 original Pokemon, but around 40ish mega evolutions which push the number of new designs toward the typical 100ish that are introduced every gen. Gen 6 might lean on old designs, but Pokemon availability is not static across the series, and making Pokemon like Houndour, Axew, Croagunk, or Ducklett available earlier rather than later allows Gamefreak to revisit not just the designs themselves as images but how these Pokemon are used for teambuilding, training, and novelty early on. XY made the pivot from anemic and restricted regional pokedexes to having a wide expanse of available Pokemon, and it doesn’t get credit for that. Pokemon is better with a more diverse pool of selection for players so that they can role-play their experience. Opposing trainer encounters tend to be way less repetitive compared to anything before, and every environment in the game looks to have diverse and unique encounters. XY is interested in weaving in older aspects of the series, less out of nostalgia in my opinion and more in the pursuit of what can be done to enhance the play experience for people who are less familiar with new Pokemon or Pokemon at all. I don’t think it’s coincidental that players in XY encounter and receive lots of gifts and special pokemon like the two starters, a fossil pokemon that is immediately revivable, a mega lucario, a mega stone for one starter, snorlax, and lapras.
The underwhelming story of XY was always something I had felt in my playthroughs of it, but you did a really great job of explaining exactly why felt that way even moreso than games before in a way I never considered! The game’s locations rlly do feel quite disconnected and grand after Lumiose because so much focus was put onto that shining Eiffel Tower trailer moment. I always felt that Mega Evolution was underutilized in how you obtain and how the characters interact with it, but the bit about its thematic significance was something I never really thought about. I think Z-moves from Sun/Moon do a much better job of tying in with the themes with the region and story, it’s a shame you won’t be covering it but your note at the end of the cooldown felt very inspiring to explore themes of the games you didn’t cover ourselves, and that rlly reached out to me as I’m sure you can tell by this long-winded comment haha! Your voice is very pleasant and your thoughts were analytical but not judgmental, I gained an appreciation for a lot of aspects of this game that I enjoyed despite its issues. Very excited to check out some of your other stuff ^^
Even this insistent "need" to make Mega Evolution rare and exclusive within the story isn't as set in stone as it tries to be; in the postgame, Calem/Serena finally gets their own Mega Ring and it's never explained where it came from. If they were gonna give Calem/Serena a Mega Ring in the end anyway, I'd have preferred they had had it since the main story. The only thing not giving them one sooner accomplishes is allow a dialogue during the Lysandre confrontation where Calem/Serena admits you fought them for the Mega Ring and Lysandre uses this to validate his own belief that people will always fight over resources.
My first introduction to the story of X and Y actually was not from the games or even the anime but rather from the pokemon special manga. Honestly I love the storytelling in the manga more than in both the games and anime. I've always found the stories to be more captivating and deep. And they tend to dive further into the grittier parts of pokemon's themes. It's been a while since I've read the X and Y ones but recently i reread the Black/White ones. And honestly my favorite pokemon games are the Black/White and Black/White 2 games and the Black/White manga is to this day my favorite Pokemon manga hands down. They dive deeper into the moral dilemma of pokemon battling and capturing. And in the X/Y manga I feel like the story is a lot more comprehensive and the characters are much more interesting and complex. If you haven't read them yet, I would suggest you do! They have amazing stories and reading from Volume 1 to whatever the most recent volume is (I can't remember) is an amazing experience.
I disagree that the rivals don't have problems. I mean let's be honest, they were pretty poorly handled, but they do have some potential. When she joins us in the Team Flare base during the climax of the game, Shauna says "I'm sorry… I know… I'm just going to slow you down." This line implies that, because she isn't really interested in battling like literally everyone else in this world is, it makes her feel inadequate and like she's a burden, and her bubbly attitude is a mask. And honestly, it makes sense. It seems to be a pattern in the Pokémon world that the people who aren't interested in Pokémon battles are kinda ostracized and considered weird. It's a similar situation with Chloe in the Pokémon Journeys anime for example. Well Chloe's writing and development is flawed (like everything in Journeys), but she had a very good premise and I really enjoyed her character in the beginning. As for Trevor, he's a pretty typical introverted character and lacks confidence. It's not much, but it's a problem he has technically. I mean him not being confident, not him being an introvert. During the climax, he, Tierno, Dexio and Sina were freeing the Pokémon attached to the stones of Route 10 by Team Flare to drain their Life Force. This could have been a great character moment for Trevor as he must have fought against plenty of Flare grunts in order to save the Pokémon. And in this moment, despite his hesitation, maybe he realized that he was with people who had his back no matter what and managed to gather the strength to do what he believed was right. To save these Pokémon. It would have been great... *IF THEY SHOWED IT* instead of telling us through text that most players skipped. But I guess they didn't want to risk their E-rating by actually showing the Pokémon attached to the stones screaming in pain as their Life Force is being drained from their bodies, and so they couldn't show Trevor, Tierno, Dexio and Sina saving them either. We know that it's what happens since the dialogue of one of the Flare grunts that blocks Route 10 during the climax indicates that he's desperatly trying to ignore their cries of pain. As for Tierno, yes he doesn't really have problems, but I feel like it could be good. He's good friends with Trevor especially, and he could be there to support him with his endless positive attitide to push him forward and become more confident. Especially with their role on Route 10 during the climax that I just explained. Tierno was there too, and he could have been the push that Trevor needed to overcome his fear and doubts in that moment. As for Calem/Serena, we know their parents are great trainers, so maybe their problem could be that they have trouble fulfilling their parents' expectations, only to realize throughout their journey that they don't have to fulfill anybody's expectations if they don't feel comfortable with it. So overall, good potential but missed potential at the same time, and bad execution.
@@natalimoina Ash is a horribly annoying Mary Sue in it. That alone is bad. Chloe's indecisiveness could have led her to become something different and new. But despite not caring about training Pokémon in the usual sense at the beginning, she got Eevee and became a trainer anyway. Disappointing. There's also the complaint of not enough Galar, which doesn't come from me but is legitimate. And I know there are many other flaws but I don't feel like looking all of them up right now. Now tell me, what makes you think Journeys was so good ?
Trevor is extremely poorly handled, because you can find his home in Lumiose in the post-game and learn that his parents just abandoned their children to go off on their own adventure. Maybe they were going to do more with that in a Z version? Otherwise, it's just a random bit of character development that never gets followed up on. You don't even learn it from Trevor himself, you learn it second hand from his sister.
@@Oceane1803 It's off of Jaune Plaza, on the path that leads to North Boulevard. You'll know it if you see a scientist inside who asks about Eerie Impulse. Trevor's sister is further in.
My girlfriend sent me this video and a month later I finally watched it. I really like how focused each of the sections were. You weren't trying to make The Ultimate X and Y review, you knew your talking points and stuck to them. There was much more analysis than summary, which makes it a lot more digestible. Format and content was good. Great work
I feel bad for X and Y. It had so much potential with the way it's history informs its worldbuilding, its themes of beauty, life and death, megas showing the bonds of pokemon and trainer, it could have been outstanding. But it's so obvious it was screwed over by the negative reactions to gen5 and the fact that GF used it as the generation to fully embrace the franchising and advertising to move pokemon into the mainstream. The end result is a game that uses all the tropes but doesn't really understand them beyond them being there and relies on nostalgia and spectacle over any attempt at interesting storytelling. Add to that no third game to properly flesh out the story and it's all a sad state of affairs. I don't know if this is an odd opinion but I hesitate to call Lysandre a fascist, not because he's at all a good or reasonable person, he certainly displays characteristics of such individuals, but because his disregard for other people is so vague i.e. the writing doesn't convey what informs his weird world view. Like at least Cyrus in Platinum was shown to just hate people in general, but Lysandre's words are worded in a way that informs he thinks SOME people are stains on the planet yet his evil team full of people who favour glamour and privilege are somehow the one group he wants to keep around. And he's willing to kill ALL others including people and pokemon. Look I'm not asking the genocidal maniac to be reasonable, I'm asking he be consistent, fascists tend to leverage specific demographics for their ridiculous rhetoric to sway public opinion and delude themselves into thinking they're actual problems, but Lysandre just...hates people for...general, unspecific bad things they do to the world of pokemon, you know the utopian society where the only problems seems to come from the evil teams. Idk, maybe I'm thinking about it weird, but I think it's a testament to X and Y's writing that it just doesn't engage with any of it's subject matter in any meaningful way, and I think Serenaa's bizarre 'both sides were wrong' mentality further adds to my point. As far as future generations, I'd say they are better at storytelling and thematic elements (well not SwSh but that's a whole other rant) but the same conflict between gameplay and story is present. The most recent example is in Gen 9's DLC. I'll keep things vague but TLDR a character becomes a bitter rival of yours through circumstances that are interesting on paper but the problem is they only reach that point because the game doesn't give you the option to tell them the ONE thing that led them down that point so it feels super contrived. In general it comes down to the franchise refusing to take risks, even 'formula-braking' games like Legends Arceus end up being shackled by the same story problems because the games continue to stick to their roots. I hope in ZA they are more ambitious and really take the time to allow the story and gameplay to work in tandem. Anyway, love seeing you talk about these games in the way that you do, really offers a fresh perspective and a critical eye that's changed my outlook on them. I look forward to what other analyses you have in the future.
"But it's so obvious it was screwed over by the negative reactions to gen5 and the fact that GF used it as the generation to fully embrace the franchising and advertising to move pokemon into the mainstream." ??? How does incomplete story AND ingame areas = screwed over by negative reactions from gen 5? That doesnt even make sense. And....huh?? Pokemon was mainstream since gen 1 dude..
I can't remember if the story makes it incredibly clear, but you can find his journal in the labs which reveals that he more or less considers the poor to be "those who take" due to prior experiences and it's overall implied that Lysandre measures people's worth in terms of how rich or famous they are (some NPCs mention Team Flare's entry fee being massive). The irony is that Lysandre focuses entirely on what "those who deserve to be saved" have rather than who they actually are as people, hence his team being made up of people you'd think he'd see as the problem.
I love this video so much, the part 2 intro went fucking insane and yet you were able to entirely justify it. You have not only my respect but my abject admiration. You have done an excellent job with this video. Being slightly younger than yourself, my interest in Pokemon survived one more generation than yours, so I am sad to see that someone of your talent won't be dissecting the themes (if they even exist...) of the Generation VII games but I am nonetheless overjoyed to have followed your personal and highly information dissections of Generations V and VI. Thank you, Skye, for reinventing this little trip down memory lane for me.
It’s been a while since then, but my (rather late) introduction to the Pokémon franchise was through Sun and Moon, providing me with a lot of first experience bias towards it. But even in my hazy memory, and after reading another comment that brought back more memories, I think Alola was very consistent with its gimmick. The Z-Moves and Z-Crystals were exclusive to people, but really only by choice. You had to put in the effort to do the trials and pass them before gaining the power of a Z-Crystal. The point that stuck out to me immediately was they way Guzma is able to use Z-Moves. I don’t remember if he passed his Island Challenge, but he wound up with the bug type Z-Crystal anyways. But Z-Crystals were built up to be something that could be fully unleashed when the Trainer and Pokémon were in sync with one another and trusted one another. Guzma had a past with Gloisiopod and they grew up together. They trusted one another. It was very fitting. But however exclusive Z-Moves were, it’s nothing like the mega band. Our rival gets to use them (Hau is just a silly little guy, I love him so much), the Kahunas use them, I think the Trial Captains use them?, and it might have just been in USUM, but Totems might have too. Aside from the last one, the Z-Move gimmick interacted very well with the need for trust and relationships with your Pokémon. (You didn’t actually need the hearts you could earn, which is a shame, but eh). The only problem is I cannot remember for the life of me whether Lusamine used Z-Moves. I mean she has to have, disappointingly, but I cannot remember. But I think she is a nice thematic opposite to the trust ideal that is set up. Lusamine chases perfection, but relationships and trust can NEVER be perfect, part of the reason we defeat her (beyond, yanno, it being a kids game). But those are just my thoughts, please let me know if I got anything wrong :)
The trials were, at best, fetch quests or quizzes. Not much effort to get one. And half the time, you wouldnt get to see them because you just blow through the ONE pokemon in each of those important battles that holds the Z crystal. And because they use the Z move at random. Also, Guzma has Z moves because he took every single one of Alola's bug z crystals as part of his alliance with Lusamine lol. It was really cool to discover.
Pokemon X/Y will always have a special place in my heart. This has been one of the best videos regarding the issues with the game I think I have ever seen on TH-cam. Your own format of storytelling is very entertaining to watch. Thank you for making me see this game for what it is, and lets hope Pokemon Z-A can do better!!
X was my first pokémon game, being a birthday gift of my friend’s x cartridge from when she was a kid. i just finished it a couple months ago, and i have to say i still feel…underwhelmed. after transferring all my pokémon to alpha sapphire to continue the series, i keep finding myself wanting to return to x for some reason. some of it is a fondness for my initial introduction to the franchise, but a lot of it is because i just feel empty. like i missed something. i don’t really feel like i completed a game? i feel as if i still need to go back and fight some more battles, finish the storyline, do SOMETHING. i feel like something is still supposed to happen. another issue i had was how bland and samey the towns were. i rarely felt like i had ventured to a cool new place, with the exception of shalour city, but a lot of that was the music. (i love the shalour city music to death. it’s a beautiful piece of music in its own right.) i did really appreciate the trainer customization, however. my sparkly tank top and ripped jeans with leggings are something im really missing in alpha sapphire so far.
No I believe that was for siphoning Xerneas/Yveltal's power (and possibly for remotely controlling the Ultimate Weapon?). The anime gives it more functions though.
You asked at the end how the mechanics of later gens match up with the narratives they're trying to tell, and I realized something interesting. Much like how this game plays it safer than gen 5 to appease fans, sun and moon also have a sort of reactionary element to them. You mentioned how X and Y mostly use the setting of France as a piece of marketing, but Sun and Moon swing pretty wildly in the opposite direction and seem to (at least on the surface) have a LOT more reverence for the real-world region they were based on. The island challenge places a lot more emphasis on the exploration and general feelings of awe and wonder that the region just naturally has, with minimal man-made involvement. And when human interactions with the natural world are included, they are much more focused on tradition and respect for nature. Nobody is building massive arenas for gym battles like in sword and shield, instead the big battles mostly take place within ritualistic ceremonies against trainers held in high regard for how they contribute to and coexist with nature. Z-moves are about learning to appreciate and revere Alola's rich culture and to utilize it in your own life instead of ignoring it or destroying it, and kinda serve as a metaphor for how literally powerful that idea can be. Oh, and then the whole thing with the Aether Foundation and ultra beasts is kinda commentary on white colonialism in the area, at least on paper. When you see Lusamine's indoor garden area, iirc she brags about how beautiful and diverse it is, but it's all so sterile. It feels like a zoo, not like nature. So the twist of the Aether Foundation being the bad guys is pretty obvioius when viewed from that lens, but the twist is still important because it can demonstrate how white colonials can seem like they have excellent intentions at first, only to gentrify and homogenize any bit of life and culture from whatever area they seem to care so much about. Ultra beasts, then, are a very thematically messy version of what colonizers view foreign wildlife as. When a Nihilego shows up for the first time, it's treated as this weird and scary threat, but at the end of the day, they're just normal pokemon that happen to look different than you'd expect. Obviously, they push the boundaries on that concept by including literal extradimensional life with crazy designs that push the envelope of what can be considered a pokemon, but like... imagine white people discovering Australia for the first time. There's all kinds of weird shit there, but at the end of the day, they're just animals. The regional inspiration isn't flawlessly implemented, especially when it comes to Kukui forming the region's first pokemon league and how all of that doesn't fit with the rest of the theming, but I do think it's handled better than in any other generation with a strong regional emphasis.
My biggest gripe with these games is not even about Megas or even the plot being kinda weak. It is that only X makes any sense. The ultimate weapon was a machine of revival and eternal life that was refunctioned to be a machine of mass destruction, justifying why Team Flare gets Xernias to power it, the thing runs on life energy. Team Flare's plan makes sense for them to obtain eternal, pure life because they logically try to be the last survivors after getting rid of everyone, justifying why Xernias is involved. Lysandre's fate is left ambiguous if he died or just trapped himself forever, which depends on Xernias. I have only seen Y a couple of times, but as far as I could tell they just straight up 1:1 swapped these references that only work with Xernias into being Yveltal's omegadeath. And you just cannot do that with this plot. Other Gens are interchangable enough between legendaries and versions, but this is a story that is so clearly written for Xernias and Yveltal is shoehorned in because they have an internal mandate to always make double releases.
I'd argue it doesn't make sense with X either, because when Lysandre states the consequence of him firing the ultimate weapon with Xernas fueling it, it would curse those in the blast radius with eternal life (I think). Which is... still bad, since thats taking away from people's bodily autonomy, but it doesn't have the same visceral impact of essentially nuking a whole section of Kalos like with Yveltal. X and Y sorely needed a third version to make any sense, being split into two games didn't do it many favors.
@@dustrose8101 Yeah, I must have forgotten him saying that after years since playing. Because what is bro talking about? 😂Lysandre, that makes no sense.
I finally played through the game this year after dropping it twice using the Eternal X mod and found it pretty fun. While not expecting much from the story some of the locales and especially the OST clicked. And I gotta say increasing the difficulty does wonders making the game more engaging allowing for more memorable moments. Early game was rough until you assemble a team. I ran into a shiny Sandile. The 2 admins in the pokeball factory had you going up against a wopping twelve mons. There was that time Brelloom managed to clutch a win against Lysander's dragon dance boosted Gyrados. The Elite 4 has a cool twist that had me scrambling to adapt strategies. Or the battle with Essentia where it came down to my regular Scizor against her Mega Scizor. Honestly the series has a lot of potential to create cool stories on gameplay scenarios alone and it´s a shame it can't seem to capitalize on it.
Something I don't understand about pokémon in general when it comes to capturing legendaries is When the story allows it, why not have the capturing be after the battle, and by choice of the pokémon? Like in this game, why don't have the battle be the legendary testing your worth and then after the battle having a cinematic of the legendary letting you capture it by their own will
Interesting vid, I never gave too much thought to the story of XY. I've played the games multiple times, but they have always been more of a brain off choice for me in terms of Pokemon games. It always felt to me that the games had a lot of dialogue but really had nothing to say. You pointing out the contradictions in the story helped give me an idea on part of why I felt that way. On a related note, I am looking forward to if you ever cover SuMo, especially if you include Ultra SuMo as well. I found SuMo to be my favorite in terms of its themes and characters. The idea of all the different types of families both good, bad, familial, and found was a concept I liked. I think it did rather well for the most part. However, I still will not forgive Ultra SuMo for the changes to Lusamine. Would be interesting to hear you cover topics on these games as I feel there is a lot that can be discussed.
Although not a complex story, I loved the harmony in the final cyrus fight in platinum. The overall vibe is get is insane cult leader, which works so well with the insane music and insane distortion world location. I also like the way cynthia talks about Cyrus, barely even a human, more like a bomb that we are trying to defuse. Also works well with the fact he’s literally trying to work with the devil, and even giratina isn’t up for his nonsense lol. And then the creepy ending of him just staying in the distortion world, an insane man in an insane dimension. Imagine what it would be like to see him 6 months later there? How unhinged he would be. The ending of it doesn’t even feel that happy, just relieving and uneasy. Great video and thanks for the question at the end I had loads of fun writing this!
I'm not sure I agree with your analysis on why it makes no sense for Lysandre to be able to megaevolve, from a story perspective I think megaevolutions parallel perfectly the use of the ancient weapon, only few have access to it and it can be used for the greater good/life (as the player does) or for selfish reasons/to take away/death (as lysandre does). It's a gift that comes from a deep understanding of pokemon and nature, of the cycle of life and death. Lysandre understands it deeply but ends up using it for evil because even if he understands the "death of beauty" he simply can't accept it (on the contrary Diana is the opposite and is quite welcoming of her coming to an older age, which shows her being virtuos). And even then I think that it's more of something that is bound behind knowledge than being a "chosen one", even if the fact that nobody beside 4 people in the whole region can use megas (which I absolutely agree is such a missed opportunity, both for gameplay but thematic reasons too). To bring it back to the flute with the two palaces the player is the more modest palace, that adoperates themselves for the better of the people, and Lysandre is the castle of gold that only wants to take for himself and accumulate beauty. I think the main message of the story isn't just that "we should all contribute to our community and respect nature", but that there're also special people, those who have a big power capable of changing the world (mega evolution in pokemon, and political leaders irl) and especially those must use their powers for good and be stopped once they step over the line. At the end of the day there will usually be some people who have more power than others on their hands, but this doesn't mean that they're free to do what they want. Maybe it's a bit oversimplistic and changes the meaning of your analysis too much, but I could see this being the message that lysandre as a character and the story more broadly are about
added this to my list of favorite video essays. growing up i was never quite focused on the story of the games because i was more interested on the pokemon themselves(which is why my favorite games from the franchise are actually stuff like mystery dungeon & pokepark) but this video has singlehandlely got me a bit more captivated by what story the main games have to tell
On a note about what you said at the end. I love these videos, so seeing more is obviously what I personally would want. But I understand if the idea of research would taint your routine of how you play the games and make it difficult to write these videos. Essentially, I hope you do decide to do the other games (either 1-4 or 7+) but if you don't feel you can then don't. I only really watch for the Pokemon stuff because I have a familiarity with the series and I like seeing new meanings in my old experiences. So I get that you may not feel geared towards the other entries
galar was a much-needed expansion on the themes of kalos, if loosely. it's such a startling exploration of monopoly and capitalism, and the commercialization of hobbies and lifestyles. there's logos EVERYWHERE on EVERYTHING, a lot of items have brand names, galar's gym league is the most modern-sports-like it's ever been portrayed as and it all feels startlingly fake the entire time. which is an accomplishment with how alola's megamarts manage to make my skin crawl every time i walk into them. towns and cities are reduced to storybook vignettes in their scale which feels more like an incidental intersection of maximum memory space and theming. and the story is a second, stronger exploration of "delusional rich guy tries to create national disaster to solve some non-problem he's been obsessing over for the past decade"
Your videos have helped me realize why I always lacked the interest to play the Pokemon games myself and play with Pokemon cards ‘the right way’ as a child. It makes these creatures and the worlds they inhabit feel so mechanical and shallow, because mechanics ARE put first along with marketability. I now know that I always liked the anime and the mangas based on the games better because everything, not just the ‘main’ ‘important’ trainers got explored in more depth. We got to see the history, the development, and the evolution of so many Pokemon and their trainers, their everyday lives and the problems they regularly go through. Getting to see all this expressed in all sorts of ways with all sorts of people and Pokemon is what drew me in when I was younger to the series. It made the Pokemon world not only as real as mine but unique and fun in its own unique ways rather then supplementary tools. Not to mention the fleshing out of the overall general world and showed how people interact with Pokemon in ways more then battling ( i.e. coordinations, performances, egg raising, grooming, photography, teaching, etc.)
40:40 THANK GOD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO HAD THIS REACTION TO THE (RIVAL) CHARACTERE VICTORY ROAD SPEECH. LYSANDRE TRIED KILLING EVERYONE HOW WAS HE SORTA RIGHT ????
I was worried going into this video because I really like X and Y and am frustrated by everyone constantly complaining about it, but I really appreciated how fair and balanced you were in your criticisms, even though I don’t agree with all of it. I would love to see X and Y remakes that take the games I love and expand it to all that it could be.
Couple of issues I have with this video - Mega-Evolution being painful doesn't fit at all with X&Y's treatment of it, it's broadly assumed that it was retconned in S&M to ease audiences into giving it up for gen 8 but later backpedaled on for Let's Go because they figured they could still milk it through Pokémon Go even if they abandon it as a main series mechanic (and bc Let's Go is much more cutesy and kiddy than S&M). - "Lyssandre being able to mega-evolve doesn't make any sense". Nah, it does. Him crying at the thought of extinguishing life is him caring for stuff, as is him being Sycamore's friend. There's no reason for them not to have a "bond" (the word these games constantly throw around regarding megas). Hell, the main character managed to Mega-Evolve Korina's lucario seconds after being given it, the requirements for Mega-Evolution are clearly laxer than you're implying. - "We're all carp, all the time"? We all *start* as carp, and then some may transform into dragons through hard work and perseverance. That is the general understanding of the Chinese legend, and while dragons *were* associated with the Emperor of China, gyarados wasn't born a gyarados. I fundamentally and vividly disagree with your (political?) statement. The fact that some dragons were born that way (a.k.a. the Emperor, a.k.a. Lyssandre) doesn't take away the ability for us carp to change our stars and fly among them. Dragons aren't always dragons by blood; not in Chinese legend and not in gyarados' case. Even Lyssandre praises Diantha's *efforts* to bring beauty into the world. Her being "chosen" to be a movie star is her "dedicating her life" to achieve excellent acting to move the multitudes with. "If only everyone were like her" = "if only everyone dedicated their life to make people happy", explicitly. You are "chosen", and so is Diantha, through conviction, which he praises and is right to. It doesn't make us "inherently" superior, as you said, nor does it make us ontologically superior, but it's something we do have over other people. Pretending everyone is exactly of the same character is dumb. - "These games are about fascism" Eeehh. Idk. I'd rather say it *seems* like they're going to be about fascism but through having a thoroughly nonsensical plot and villain they end up not being about anything cohesive. It does include heavy fascistic rethoric tho so this is not a hard disagree. I do like your mechanical analysis tho, reminds me a lot of Matthewmatosis'. And the idea of Mega Evolution only being available after you reach a certain Happiness threshold is so fitting I'm shocked I didn't think of it first. It slides right in. I also share your frustration with "it's not that deep, bro" type comments. Analysis is fun for some people gosh darn it! Let us pick fuckin Cocomelon apart if we feel like it!
really good analysis and very entertaining video! the visual editing is also on point, especially when transitioning from one topic to the next. not to plug my current favorite game, but i feel like cassette beasts (another monster taming game released last year) synchronizes its story and gameplay elements in very interesting ways. while it is still very much player-centric, its commitment to having every battle be a double battle with another partner character always by your side strengthens the theme of community. the main hub of the game, harbortown, also strengthens it as well. i feel like it's just a better example of themes of nature and connection, plus a very inspiring message about the human spirit to top it off. i highly recommend it. (it's also just a very fun game, and if you find the gameplay of pokemon to be lacking these days, i suggest giving it a try!)
Just a quick note - pretty much everyone expected the French far right to do much better than they did. They were pretty much stopped at the last minute by the center-left and far-left parties essentially cooperating to keep the bigger threat out. Not super relevant to the video, but just saying, your prediction was just as accurate as every major news station’s was lol
I was introduced to you via Adam Millard The Architect of Ganes for something completely different. You making videos one of the biggest franchises of my life is just a bonus. Your analyses are great and what I’m here for and I’m always looking forward to more.
I have several thoughts in regards to this discussion. The 1st focused on how when I'm underwhelmed with mainline pokemon's narrative problems, I generally have good experiences with the manga adaptations of Pokemon. Namely the Pokemon Special/Adventures series and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure. The Adventures series in particular does a great job at making the Player Characters + Rival all feel distinct and more often then not, serve the story by connecting to Pokemon in ways outside of battling. The Yellow chapter starring the character of the same name is a great starting point in particular for these types of story themes. Another side of the franchise that I think strongly excels at Gameplay-Story integration is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series which uses the in-game abilities, skills, and moves to foreshadow and compliment the story instead of feeling quarantined off from it. Thanks for the great video.
If your looking for a really good indie game that is inspired by Pokemon and accomplishes something new and intriguing. I can not recommend Cassette Beasts enough genuinely love that game
The X & Y OST really is underrated, and I think the credits' song / poem Kiseki really shines a light on the thesis of the video. Fascism is the ultimate conditioning of othering & exclusivism. "If you're not us, you're nothing." So how do you _ fight_ it? *_Coming together._* (this comment gets _very_ lengthy from here on.) In the X & Y credits, a poem is displayed on the bottom screen, with each line in a different language. The poem's whole message is to come together, cherish life and treat one another kindly. To elaborate on what is said in the video, the game broadly treats as if the "important man" theory is correct and is in the player's favour. "All great men are born in fire, and it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame." Lysander & Team Flare are treated as wrong simply because they're getting rid of all the 'carp', lesser men. Not because they genuinely believe in dragons, 'greater men' (ignoring that in Pokémon "dragons" are reptiles, not just "mythological 'beast', but with scales not fur" like in real life). If the waterfall is not made with bloodlines, it is made with cash or the "hard effort that everyone can do to get it" an ableist approach. So, to fight othering by being as (linguistically) accessible to as many people as possible, the poem is written through multiple languages. There are still some problems, (mainly that as a video game, X & Y is tied to technology which in turn is tied to economic privilege). But a big one is, how do Pokémon tie into this? Well, GameFreak already had the answer in a way many in the west don't realize, and perhaps they may have forgotten themselves. Everyone knows at this point that "pokegods" are real in the Pokémon universe. It could be argued, though, that it's not gods as the descendants of European culture know it. In Shintoism and many other indigenous beliefs, spirits gods occupy many aspects of the world (that's why we have Honedge and others like Klinklang, Geodude, Dusclops & Klefki). A lot of western media portray this as an ignorant view of nature, but these beliefs (or stories that are conflated as being beliefs) help societies maintain the land and prevent the over extraction of resources that, to a post-industrial western mindset, are 'limitless'. While not everything maybe living organisms, it's the respect for nature from the belief of beings of the natural world as people in their own right that made land management as seamless as it was to the outside eye. As if there was no one there. Where I think X & Y could've really shined if it said: "_Yeah, we as trainers from all cultures and walks of life need to come together as members of humanity. But Pokémon need to show up on their own accord. When they do, we, not as trainers, but as humans, who share this world & limited resources with them. AIDE them. NOT command them. If they ask for direction, then we can fight together. As trainer and Pokémon._" The idea being to think of Pokémon not as tools, or animals, but beings in their own right. This to me feels like the natural conclusion of Gen V's story, been a good way to would've really tie into the box legendaries AND demonstrated the need to consider individuals of nature as a people, not corporations. Apologies for the ranty mini essay on an essay. To conclude this TH-cam comment on a children's video game, here are some things I think you'll enjoy. Listening to Princessmagic's multilingual cover of Kiseki, learn to plant a carrot in your nearest community garden, have a wonderful day and bring kinder times. (‾◡◝)
It's a bit sad that you didn't finish moon. Despite the hand holding of the gameplay, it had my favorite story of the series. I didn't make it through ultra moon though. They changed the story to make it less impactful and I didn't even get to the new content because the rest of the game was so uninteresting. I stopped playing pokemon after that.
I love the way you create these video essays! Even though these games were a huge part of my childhood you always analyse them so well and point out stuff I never noticed myself. You're great at doing these kinds of metaphorical analysis', amazing work!
23:42 Thankfully, the fascist were pushed away from the prime minister's office, however, they still hold far too much power in France, mostly due to people like Vincent Bollore owning many medias and using those to spread far right ideas.
That bit of ludonarrative dissonance about mega evolution being a symbol of the bond between their trainer and Lysandre having access to it (which tbh I have seen some good explanations for elsewhere in the comments) reminds me of another issue: the games' narrative kinda takes it as an article of faith that your player character is the paragon of a good and caring pokemon trainer, ignoring your actual gameplay decisions. And admittedly the games don't give you much room to be an asshole to your pokemon - the most you can really do is... let them repeatedly faint and rely on herbal medicine to heal them (which usually isn't even available until at least a third of the way through any given game), maybe just releasing pokemon a lot, but that's about it. I kinda realized this during a playthrough of Pokemon SoulSilver where I was following a self-imposed challenge ruleset inspired by Pyre, where I was releasing my highest-level pokemon after each gym to mirror Pyre's progression loop, where every time you reach a liberation rite (its equivalent of a boss battle - or perhaps a championship match in the season mode of a sports game might be apt) you have to pick from your highest-level party members which one will earn their freedom from the purgatory realm you're all trapped in - and thus leave the party - if you win. Though I guess this also comes down to the scope of the series, especially with the accusations of the series promoting animal abuse. A fan game or a monster-collecting game aimed at even a slightly older audience may be able to get away with actually exploring what it means to treat your creature companions poorly (or just... use it for edgy shock value in the case of Palworld - but even that is using the mechanics to explore ideas that Pokemon wouldn't touch on, even if it's doing so towards an end that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths), but an official Pokemon game really can't. But at the same time... imagine a game that takes a branching story structure and ties it to the happiness mechanic. What if actually maintaining a certain baseline happiness was harder, but more rewarding. Hell, what if there were actual mechanical advantages and disadvantages to *low* happiness - e.g. level-based evolutions happening earlier at the cost of your creature companions being disobedient. What if the way NPCs reacted to your trainer actually depended on the average happiness of your party?
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Hello! If my voice sounded weird in this one it’s cause I’ve had bronchitis. It’s been a struggle. Anyway, what do you think of my analysis? Any differing interpretations? Anything you think I missed? Art interpretation should be treated as a conversation, so, in addition to the questions I posed directly in the video, I've listed some discussion questions below to kick-start analysis beyond what I did in the video! If you have the means, any and all support on Patreon (link in description) means the world to me and really helps me keep this going. Currents perks are just name in credits, early access, Discord server, and update posts. I’m going to rework the Patreon in a few months so I’ll save the stronger pitch til then!
1. It’s pretty obvious that Pokemon Z was originally intended to exist, but what sort of things narratively do you think would have existed in it?
2. I cut a line in the script about “Holo Caster” sounding a lot like “holocaust” because I decided I really hoped that wasn’t intentional. I think drawing that direct a parallel between Lysandre and Hitler would make the both-sidesy centrism lines borderline sinister. What do you think?
3. Rideable Pokemon! What was their deal?
4. Were Dexio and Sina characters worth mentioning in the video? The game seems a bit confused about their purpose and I didn’t really understand the secret superhero thing but I could imagine there being an interesting angle.
Where are the questions owo?
@@Arcanist_Theoh shit what? How did i do that?
edit: fixed it!
One thing I think is notable is that Mega Evolution isn't always depicted as squeaky-clean or benevolent by nature. Scizor, Sharpedo, Tyranitar, Gengar, and a few others' Pokédex entries show that Mega Evolution is a power so great it starts to tear the Pokémon's body apart, and several more describe it as bringing out a viciousness and cruelty not normally in the Pokémon's nature. Indeed, Mega Gyarados is described as a case of both. Mega Evolution is a power associated with life, but then, so is the Ultimate Weapon. And a bond between a person and a Pokémon need not necessarily be a positive one. It may even be a mutual respect and care between two people who are evil. As far as infusing narrative and team-building go, it's no Ghetsis, but I would argue it isn't as thoughtless as it looks from the surface, even if it doesn't get a satisfying amount of focus.
Good points on the whole weird at-the-end centrism and not really touching on the responsibility of anyone else in what Team Flare so nearly achieved. I think this might be reading a bit further than intended into it, but adding onto your point about superiority, I think you could argue that refusing to really give anybody else culpability that matters makes something of an implicit statement about the kind of evil he represented, and of evil more as a type of person rather than something for which the capacity exists in all people, which is. Ironically only just shy of what Lysandre's whole evil monologue was all about? Definitely could've been written a lot better on that front.
Also, unrelated, but fortunately, I think the Holo Caster's name can probably be safely assumed as an unfortunate coincidence, since its name is derived from the original Japanese name of the Transceiver from Gen V, the Live Caster. It also continues to be used under that name even in later generations without persistent links to Team Flare, making the sinister aspect Team Flare spying through it, rather than something intrinsic to the technology itself or hinted at in the name.
Edit: Ack, sorry! Should've waited until the end to voice some of this, turns out you did touch on some of the Mega Evolution stuff. Although I don't *think* it was exactly cut from XY, it does seem like a lot more of the elaboration on it starts with Mega-specific Dex entries in Sun and Moon. Still, many Mega Evolutions are visibly damaged by the process of Mega Evolving, and I think that was meant to be noticed narratively. Plus I could swear it came up in the game, but admittedly I don't remember enough to point anywhere specific.
Do you like Napoleon (1927)? No way the intro is a coincidence.
3. I think the rideable pokemon were simply beta testing for the next gen's ride feature
i think the obvious answer to "why can lysandre's gyrados mega-evolve?" is that the gyrados is also a fascist
It’s like asking how does Cyrus have a Crobat
Gohan: "no! You're supposed to have a pure heart to become a super saiyan".
Vegeta: "oh, my heart IS pure... Pure evil"
@@gameinsane4718 He bought it in a trade on the black market.
Gaslighting @@gameinsane4718
Or rather, Gyarados represents the type of person who lives under fascist regimes and doesn't fight back against it, because not fighting back benefits its peaceful existence. So, complicit by inaction.
Its ironic that Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire used Mega Evolution more than XY did... Strong trainers like Wally, Maxie, Archie, the Elite Four, and Champion Steven actually use Mega Pokemon during the main story. :(
I mean it makes sense given how the mechanic was written.
Wouldn't have made much sense for anyone to even have it (and even then, it's not even written well).
ORAS added post game remarches, something XY did not bother doing outside of the battle château (and that is mostly a money/exp farm option, not really meant to be challenging).
...maybe PokeFrench just aren't good or strong enough people?
Im, like 99% certain the hoen E4 dont use megas until the rematches so its really only slightly more prominent
@@finnvaneekelen7740 You're right. My mistake... Its been a good few years since I last played ORAS, so my memory was a little shaky.
@@lasercraft32 fair enough. I remeber thinking it for a while also till i replayed oras
Gyrados didn’t know voting for the Pyroars eating faces party would get his face eaten by Pyroars.
I always assumed that the reason Lysandre used Mega Evolution, was because he was brute-forcing it. I figured that was what the weird machinery he wears exclusively for that final fight was meant to do, to force the phenomenon to occur with a less stable bond. The anime also has moments where it shows that Mega Evolution isn't _impossible_ without the power of friendship, but rather, has consequences if used without that bond.
Unfortunately, that was not explained in the game's writing, and that _is_ a problem.
That's a problem I've been starting to notice in media at times. There are things that could be interpreted in a way that allows them to make sense where they otherwise wouldn't, but the story itself doesn't give enough indication to arrive at that interpretation organically.
It's like they heard the "show don't tell" thing but then failed to actually show the connection. Or tried to "show" something that _actually_ needed to be told instead.
So here for example, those machines kind of just... exist. Shauna literally asks what's up with the machines, and no explanation is ever given. How is the average player going to connect that they're to force the Mega Evolution, assuming that was it?
Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. It has this giant plot hole where, simplified while suppressing full spoilers, the public lost trust in the court system supposedly due to an incident (called UR-1) where a prosecutor was convicted of murder. Nevermind that in previous games, you've caught no less than _four_ other prosecutors for the same and worse. One of whom was doing so many illegal things that it should have been a giant scandal.
It's possible that UR-1 was a "last straw" rather than being supposed to be a "new low", _but the plot gives no indication of it._ All they had to do was have the character explaining UR-1 say something like "after many other prosecutors had already been caught for various crimes, this case was the last straw". But no, the narrative simply goes "a prosecutor being found guilty of murder caused a great upset" in a way that feels like the series forgot its own lore.
There's something having a solid explanation, and either giving that explanation outright or implying it well enough that the audience can't miss it. Then there's failing to do the above and, when the audience finally pieces it together, it feeling like either a reach or "the audience making up excuses for the lazy writer".
maybe they didn't tell you because you're ten and they didn't want you trying
@@ilexdiapason This here explains pokemon's entire flaw group in one sentence lol.
Anime Lysandre brute forced it with help from Ash Greninja. Game Lysandre sincerely loved his Gyarados.
Yea a plot about forcing friendship or beauty could be a really cool analogy for controlling people kids can relate to and look out for
Your analysis of Team Flare drives home the point for me that Zygarde's absence from XY does the games a great narrative disservice. For me, Zygarde fills in a lot of the gaps in what main plot of the games is trying to do, since it raises a counterpoint to Team Flare's ideology. In terms of gameplay, both Team Flare and the player when using Mega Evolution derive power from scarcity and exclusion: while the games don't make much of it, Team Flare spend most of their appearances trying to create monopolies (on pokeballs, on energy, on pokemon themselves) from which they can derive the power to change Kalos. The games do have an introspective moment in which Lysandre likens this to the player alone wielding Mega Evolution - and denying Serena/Calem the chance to do so, highlighting how your own choices ultimately follow a similar ideology to Team Flare. Where I think Zygarde could have been such an interesting addition to the ideology of scarcity espoused by Team Flare and, to some extent, embodied by the player, is that its power comes from plurality and inclusion.
Gameplay-wise, Zygarde is a collection of multiple cells and cores working together: thus in a reversal of Team Flare, Zygarde's power comes from union rather than separation. It is a potential metaphor for community, or environment - again, another kind of beauty that Lysandre fails to understand. Its beauty and its power is its ability to draw together, rather than to separate apart. Moreover, thinking in terms of lore, Zygarde becomes especially interesting when compared with Xerneas and Yveltal, who are natural forces, life and death, made individual as powerful pokemon to be dominated through capture. Where Zygarde differs is that, in Sun and Moon, it can only be assembled through the player collecting its cells: its natural force (whatever that may be: the games are not entirely clear but do classify it as the Order Pokemon which is interesting in and of itself as a trio with Life and Death) comes from union rather than binary separation. Where Xerneas and Yveltal's power have only brought pain to those like AZ and Lysandre, who have both viewed the world through a lens of scarcity and domination, Zygarde's power might represent the potential of the union of which it is a product. Zygarde is what Pokemon's central ideology (at least the one it outwardly espouses) has always been: it is coming together and nature in one - it must be assembled after exploration.
Crucially, then, a Pokemon X and Y that integrated Zygarde into their narrative could have at the very least created a lot more space for disruptions of Team Flare's ideology of scarcity, highlighting the alternatives that the original games ignore. Suddenly, I think they become a lot more interesting if the opposition to Team Flare's fascism is Zygarde's plurality and inclusion. If Legends Z-A does use Zygarde, which I am assuming it will, I think it might be able to provide a much more cohesive counterpoint to what XY presents.
Either way, thank you for the video - it was very interesting to think about a game I loved as a kid in a new light. Just like Zygarde, maybe your power comes from community - even though you worry your ideas haven't been original, I think that by choosing to share them you have enriched us all! Take care :D
Many details from the XY anime allude to planned story beats in the games involving Zygarde, ones that would go on to be grafted onto Sun and Moon. I think it’s important that Zygarde is an overseer of the ecosystem itself, reconnecting to Pokémon’s essential environmentalist themes. Collecting mega stones throughout XY’s postgame seems like the prototype to SM’s Zygarde cells quest, but maybe that’s more of a coincidence. The 10% form would be interesting to have for a playthrough as well, giving the player the opportunity to have a pretty fast and strong legendary Pokemon on their team alongside two starter Pokemon, Lucario, and a fossil. I really love your thematic analysis of the contrast between Team Flare and Zygarde.
AND zygarde is just so cool man
Wow, beautifully put.
They coulda just done it ala Ruby and Sapphire. It was clearly unfinished.
I'm now imagining the version of XY where Zygard was first introduced around when we got mega evolution (albeit vaguely) and we started collecting cells from there on with the reveal of what it really is later, perhaps at the ancient weapon when it's confronted with Xerneas/ Yveltal. Mega evolution not being received until a couple gyms later & actually having an affection requirement would've been nice; The game even gives you the mega stone for the chosen kanto starter out the gate but then unlocks mega evolution just a few levels early to be able to use them, if it was a little later e.g. level 40s then they wouldn't have the need to throw you a lucario you just met to mega evolve.
Something I liked about Pokemon Amie is that you NEEDED to use it in order to get the battle benefits... In later games, they just tied those features directly to the already existing "friendship" system. And because of this, by the end of a playthrough all of your Pokemon would be able to land critical hits and avoid attacks with minimal player input, simply because the friendship stat raises as you use them.
It was nice to be rewarded for actually caring for your Pokemon rather than being given it for free.
Wait what they did that? I never played past gen 7 so I didn't now they made the games even easier....huh.
Oh so thats why my Zoroark always landed crits.
Apparently in Sw/Sh, friendship is capped at 160 or 180 unless you specifically use friendship-boosting berries or Pokémon Camp, and in-battle effects don't trigger until after that point. So if you never did either of those, you wouldn't see those effects. ...At least according to Bulbapedia.
I can't say whether S/V have the same thing, but I know BDSP kinda flubbed it and let friendship go up to 255 again without, say, requiring Poffins.
@@Namadu7 Ah I see... So its just BDSP that sucks.. XD
In S/V and Sw/Sh, Friendship is capped before the affection boosts kick in. You can use Pokemon Camp/Picnics to raise it above the cap.
I believe it's capped in BDSP as well, but the cap is stupid and most common friendship raising things still work above the cap.
25:56 Yep, this is really the core problem with almost every Pokémon game's story: because the franchise is unwilling to reflect on its settings beyond it being perfect utopia, it's villains don't really make sense. The whole meme image of AZ saying "it's been 3,000 years" is the entire problem with X/Y's story: instead of grounding Lysandre's thoughts about beauty and humanity in events and people concurrent to the story, the game has to scramble 3,000 years in the past to find the most relevant example. This is why Lysandre as a character feels so flaccid; what is he even talking about? How is what he's saying reflected in the world we inhabit over the course of the game? Gen 8 will make the same mistake, just temporally reversed. Chairman Rose's concerns about an energy crisis in Galar are unfounded, and that's because the game places this so-called "crisis" 1,000 years into the future. This decision conveniently avoids confronting whether the way the Pokémon world is run is unsustainable, and makes Rose look like a irrational radical who can't wait a single day to enact his crazy schemes. Of course, no other character in the game seems all that concerned about an energy crisis.
It's a shame you stopped at Sun/Moon, because I'll echo what others have already said in here: Gen 7 probably has the best story in the mainline series. Admittedly, I'm kind of grading on a curve, but I also the think the story is legitimately great in its own right. S/M worries about what happens when the traditions and institutions underpinning our lives alienate and ostracize us, rather than bring us together. Sun/Moon rather boldly tackles the core tenants of the series. Guzma, the leader of Team Skull, builds up his own gang because he feels disillusioned with the Island Challenge, the "Gym" equivalent in Alola that dominates the cultural interest in the region:
"Here we are, Kukui... Fellow rejects who never could become captains. We've got all these moldy old traditions in Alola -- the kahunas, the captains, it's about time we cut out all that silly garbage and make something new for ourselves ... Don't get me wrong, though, Kukui. We've got no need for a Pokémon League .... Why even bother with the island challenge? What's the point of it?" Guzma failed the island challenge, and felt useless as a result. That in a world that places such a high value on traditions like the island challenge, to be bad at it represents a fundamental flaw in one's personal character. It is telling that whenever Guzma loses, he yells at himself: "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!"
Sun/Moon's also critiques the structures of the Pokémon world in Lillie's storyline about escaping her abusive mother. When we enter Lillie's home in the back half of the game, it's a genuinely disturbing beat. The house is blanketed in a sterile white, and giant iron bars barricade the entrances and stairs. This is not a home, it is a prison. Lillie tries to confront her mother, but she ridicules her instead: "Calling me mother? I don't have any children! Certainly not any wretched children who would run off and reject my love!" A scene later, we see how Lusamine treats her Pokémon; she keeps a storage of cryogenically frozen Pokémon in her basement, what she likes to call her "private collection." And it is here where the game's criticism becomes reflexive. In the climax of the story, Lillie confronts her mother again:
Lillie: "I am alive! Cosmog is alive! We are not things for you to collect!"
Lusamine: "How am I different from any Pokémon Trainer, like your little "friend" there? What do you do with a Pokémon you can't use? You remove it from your party, as you please."
The game never refutes Lusamine's point. Lusamine *does* treat her children like we are asked to treat our Pokémon over the course of the game, objects to be registered in a Pokedex and then tossed away in a PC Storage Box indefinitely whenever we'd rather play with something new. It is disturbing (and rather bold) to see a Pokémon game so plainly compare the main conceit of the franchise to domestic abuse.
Of course, Gen 7 is not immune from the problems you've outlined. While the game casts doubt on the efficacy of Training/Battling as a cultural touchstone, it rather uncritically accepts the establishment of the first Pokémon league as a momentous step forward for the region. Kukui points to the tallest mountain in Alola, where the League is being built, and says: "It's time to get our own Elite Four and make our own Pokémon League! To think that, someday, the kiddos in Alola will be able to go from being the island challenge champion to the world Champion! And then, when we have our own Champion, they can show the rest of the world what's so special about Alolan Pokémon and their Trainers, yeah!"
The games seek to entrench Alola deeper into the monopoly of Pokémon Leagues and Gym Battles, never taking stock to see that it's discontent with precisely these institutions that created Team Skull -- and in a more abstract sense -- Lusamine's cruel abuse in the first place. Still, Sun/Moon explores the world and characters more richly than I feel the series ever has or will do again. Ever since base Sun/Moon came out, it feels somewhat like the franchise has regretted doing it. Anytime Gen 7 is represented in the wider franchise, it is the Ultra Sun/Moon versions of the characters, which quite frankly butchers the original story by essentially replacing the family drama storyline with a generic, world ending threat, and which makes Lusamine out to be a misunderstood hero who abused her children for the greater good. Meanwhile, the Anime (from the little I've seen) went for a completely different (way less hostile) family dynamic. It is doubtful we will ever see the original Sun/Moon versions of the characters again.
Oh, also, this video reminded me that they really did call Lysandre's greatest tech achievement the 'Holo Caster,' which is so genuinely ridiculous lol.
Shoot I don't know what to say right now, but take my like. So much I didn't notice on my S/M playthrough.
Just gotta point out, the pokemon in your boxes AREN'T just being held in stasis, at least not in Alola. They're in Poke Pelago, having a great time, offscreen.
Bravo, if we also look in gen five there's implications N and cloress would make that has no logical weight. Part of pokemon's primary issue is it never leaves the battle format. you're glued to it, there is no options, there is no secondary way to tell story, you battle, you battle more, and you battle some more after and there's no alternatives to it.
The issue is stories about pokemon bond and nature don't work when nature wants to do anything the person wants.. because yes? Isn't it hilariously odd N hates battles actively yet he only resolves his points with them? Isn't it odd we never prove our point to how N see's us to how pokemon dont want to be separated. Why? How so? Why isn't it reflected in the overworld and why is there no way to prove that theory? If battling and the issues it causes are a main point of contention and there's evil in the pokemon world. WHERE IS IT?? Its redundant Imo. When we see evil going on, its subtle in world design, Take R/B/Y Red Rocket. WE CAN see them exploit pokemon for profit, WE KNOW by visual and text information they KILL pokemon and cause problems. But this aspect is lost in later games to the point its confusing how they can use these type of plot points.
@@John-ii6he You missed the point about gen 5's story. The whole point was that the people campaigning for "no pokeballs" were just hypocrites. It was never about the message dude. N was just an indoctrinated kid, and his whole beliefs were backed by his upbringing and his powers.
I actually like the implementation of Rose’s character, especially in contrast to his brother. Rose isn’t a radical he’s a narcissist. The pokemon world is probably going to be fine, in fact we know from other dialogue that these projections basically mean nothing to the status quo and that there are already solutions in the works, but for someone like rose that isn’t enough, he needs to be the savior. Summoning Eternatus is more hero syndrome than radicalism.
My favorite part of gen 6's story is that it is the only one where in one of the two games the evil team leader is shocked to find the wrong box legendary at the apex of his plans.
Bro bought the wrong version
Wait which game version lol? I'm guessing X? Cuz like yea using the pokemon who GIVES life to destroy it would be wack
I want to give some shout outs to Scarlet and Violet in particular for trying to address the problem of "the player is a dragon and everyone else is a carp" - it doesn't ultimately solve the problem because it's kind of fundamental to how Pokémon works, but it at least acknowleges that the problem exists - through the characters of Nemona and Kieran, the primary rivals of the main game and the DLC respectively. Both seem deliberately crafted to address your point about how Serena/Calem can only really express their frustration at never being able to beat you, and not reach a satisfying terminus to their character arcs.
Nemona's whole thing is that she's already a Champion (Paldea can have multiple Champions, and losing to someone does not revoke Champion status) but is now facing that problem familiar to the player - once you've climbed to the top of the mountain, where do you go next (one might even say that she's pretty much a player character who has already reached the end of her journey, akin to Red in GSC/HGSS)? Not only can she beat everyone else she faces, she barely has to try. Still, here's this promising new trainer who's just arrived in the region, maybe she can train you up to be a true rival to her. So she builds a new team so she can train alongside you, is happy when she loses to you because she's proud at how far you've come, and when she does eventually lose to you at full strength, it's a massive moment of catharsis for her - finally, Pokémon battling is *fun* again. The contrast with Serena/Calem's frustration couldn't be sharper. She's ultimately my favourite rival (although Gladion's theme *does* go hard).
But if Nemona is the anti-Serena/Calem, then Kieran takes all of that frustration and dials it up to 11. Starting out as a shy and wimpy but ultimately friendly kid, he become defined by his frustration at both losing to you and also you winning the heart of the local legendary Pokémon Ogrepon, a 'mon he arguably has a stronger connection to. And that frustration eventually builds into a psychotic break as he becomes obsessed with getting stronger, morphs into the ultimate tryhard, becomes Champion at his school while ushering an oppressive atmosphere - and now you have to take him down a peg or two (I haven't finished the DLC yet so outside of a few spoilers I don't really know the details of how its story ends). I absolutely prefer the Nemona approach myself, but I can see why a lot of people find him a compelling character.
I observed the other day that if Gary Oak is the rival we want (a jerk who's always one step ahead of us, but we take great pleasure in taking him down), then Nemona is the rival we need (a kind and supportive person who we still feel good about beating at Pokémon) and Kieran is the rival we deserve (someone so fed up at the player being "the dragon" that they go to extreme lengths to try and become a dragon themselves). As I say, at the end of the day you can still surpass all of them, so the problem is ultimately unsolvable - but I appreciated the attempt to address it.
To be fair, they could have the story progress if you lose to them (Blue does this a tiny bit in Yellow, with his choice of Eeveelution).
@@GeorgeDCowley They do sometimes, as it happens. All of Nemona's battles except the last one progress the story even if you lose, and the story progresses if you lose Kieran's first battle (though in the latter case, that's to stop you being locked out of the DLC).
Sorry, but Nemona still just does not work all due to poor gameplay to story integration. Namely, her team is weak outside of the starter. Arven had a stronger team than Nemona. Heck, Leon and Hop have stronger teams.
And you never, ever fight her "real" team.
@@JayceCH. I mean, I nearly lost to her twice. Might say more about me than her, but I had a tougher time against her than any other trainer.
@@PaulPower4 if it's anything, the most money you can get from a trainer battle at once in base game Scarlet/Violet is from beating Nemona in the Academy Ace Tournament, where she can appear as the last trainer (the others are Geeta and Clavell). Maybe it's because her family is rich as hell but generally, stronger trainers tend to give a bit more pocket change, so...
Lysandre being able to Mega-Evolve his Gyarados actually makes perfect sense from a lore perspective, I think. You pointed out himself, he DOES care for his Pokémon. In nearly all conservative movements, more extreme the closer to Fascist you get, the core message is often "Care for your family and nobody else. Everyone else wants to hurt you, the world is a scary place, and people are inherently evil. You, Patriarch, are responsible for stamping out that evil in your own family and caring for them as we say your God intends." As I just alluded to, Fascism also often leads to abuse of the family, "for the greater good," while also stamping into said family that said abuse is "for your own good." Like a Stockholm syndrome kind of situation. That's the vibe I get from Lysandre, his team, and what his ability to Mega Evolve his Gyarados implies: A twisted kinship, an abusive love, a brainwashing. He almost certainly loves his Gyarados and it loves him back, but in the twisted "he only beat me because I was bad" kind of dynamic. That's the implication I got from what you believed to be the paradox between him willingly killing his own pokémon and still being able to mega evolve, anyway.
Dang, you said that way better than I could have
When Gyarados mega evolves it's just following orders...
@@aquarock-fq2lm That's not how Mega Evolution works, if it did, it'd be much more common. Mega Evolution requires a powerful bond... but the bond doesn't have to be pure.
@@Makoto0729he was making a joke about train drivers just following orders when they took their passengers to their last stop...
I don’t think that’s really the case here. The video skips it completely but during the scene when Lysandre cries, you can clearly see him saying that he believes Pokémon are wonderful beings and it’s for that reason that Lysandre can’t bear to watch Pokémon being turned into nothing more than tools. I think that line implies that Lysandre truly believes that Pokémon are amazing, beautiful creatures that he truly cares about but also that their natural beauty has been perverted and bastardized for the sake of convenience and commodity. Believing that death would be better for Pokémon instead of watching their beauty slowly be warped and distorted. This also ties in to his main motivation, that unproductive and arrogant people are exploiting the world and it’s natural resources for their own personal gain. Lysandre even crying to show that he is remorseful at the idea of killing so many humans and Pokémon but pushing forward because he genuinely believes that what he’s doing would be the best thing for the world, and it’s beauty, in the long run. This is an aspect of Lysandre’s character that I feel the video sorta skips overs/ignores for the sake of furthering the fascism argument.
Serena saying "If both sides have something to say, maybe it's best to meet halfway..." on Victory Road is genuinely the funniest moral I've ever heard. She literally tells the player that one meme about how we should compromise and let the fascists do a little fascism.
even as a young teenager when this game came out that line made no sense to me. like does your rival actually want a compromise where lysandre gets to kill *some* of the people and pokemon he deems unworthy instead of all of them?
Like yeah that’s literally how wwii happened
Team Flare: We want to kill everyone!
Protagonist: We won't let you do that!
Serena: Compromise?
i think that the rival probably meant that lysandre's concerns were valid, even if his methods weren't, and that they should've been addressed before they snowballed into...well, that. definitely a funny way to phrase it though.
@@wyawardclownYeah, true, probably! ^^ That's a good point!
30:22 Gotta love the implication that tipping is a way of solving inequality, instead of blaming the employers for not paying a living wage
It's not like employers have money pouring out the wazoo. Not to mention there's external factors to consider, like taxes.
@@SirBlackReeds If they can't afford to pay wages, they can't afford to do business. Just like any other place.
If anything is Japan the one who never tips, tipping is not done at all there because they see it like you feel bad for the worker for not getting payed enough.
@@SirBlackReedshot take apparently: if you can’t afford to pay your employees reasonable wages, you shouldn’t be running anything
I agree. Tipping is an evil and no one who is so against fascism (which should be everyone btw) should be pro-obligatory tipping. Anyone defending it either has no idea what the issue is to even talk about it, or they just support borderline slavery.
Just remember also that France is not an obligatory tipping country like America, so not tipping people there will not ruin their lives like in America.
I always assumed that it was Lysandre's weird machine is what lets him mimic mega evolution. Like, he's abusing technology to force what should be something sacred.
I thought this was the implication too, kinda the same idea as the Snagem Machine from the gamecube games. It looked like he was trying to forcefully achieve something he couldn't on his own
38:16 If I could share my two cents... In Pokemon XY, Mega Evolution is explicitly stated to be powered by the bond between trainer and Pokemon. HOWEVER in Sun & Moon they added Pokedex entries for every mega form in the Alolan Pokedex. Many of these dex entries share horrifying details about the pain and suffering the Pokemon go through when they Mega Evolve.
When I first learned about this, I was FURIOUS! They took something pure and good and made it out to be a horrible torturous thing. To this day I've considered it to be a retcon to spit in the face of Mega Evolution...
But thinking about it more, maybe the reason Mega Evolution brings so much pain is because its used improperly. Despite the in-game explanation being "the bond between trainer and Pokemon," you don't NEED to have a bond with your Pokemon to use it. You can literally trade with someone, use a Pokemon you just got for the first time, and it will still allow you to Mega Evolve it.
Maybe the Pokemon only feel pain when Mega Evolution is FORCED. Even the anime supports this idea... Because the only time they show Mega Evolution causing pain is in the Volcanion movie, where the villains use some strange device to force more than one Pokemon to Mega Evolve at the same time. They also have an episode where Korrina's Lucario goes out of control when Mega Evolved, and doesn't regain control until Korrina is able to properly bond with it.
I don't think its a coincidence that Lysandre's Mega Pokemon happens to be a Gyrados either... Its Pokedex entry says "Mega Evolution also affects its brain, leaving no other function except its destructive instinct to burn everything to cinders." and "Mega Evolution places a burden on its body. The stress causes it to become all the more ferocious."
Maybe I'm just crazy, and Mega Evolution is just evil... But in my personal headcanon, Mega Evolution is only as harmful as the trainer's intentions. A Mega Stone and Keystone is all that is required to _use_ it, but a true bond is required to _master_ it.
My thoughts exactly! A lot of the things described in the new dex entries can make sense without making the entire process bad when viewed through that lens. For example, in the cases of Scizor and Metagross, both involve more or less disregarding their own wellbeing for the sake of “winning” at all costs, but would that be the case if they had a trainer who cared about more than just victory? Could Glalie’s jaw breaking only be a possibility for those that aren’t in good physical condition prior to mega evolving? Would a Kangaskhan worry about its baby if it trusted its trainer enough to assume they’re acting in the pair’s best interest? I mean seriously the idea of it being bad isn’t even universal, mega Pinsir is just having a great time being able to fly.
On the other side of things, just deciding “mega evolution bad” really takes away from cases where it really IS bad. There’s a whole lot more interesting potential to be found in nuance, but that is lost when edgy folks just decide “it’s all abuse, actually”. A bad guy mega evolving at the expense of their Pokémon has significantly less impact if the good guys are doing that as well. If it isn’t just a wholesale bad thing to do, if it can be done safely and responsibly, the decision to do so in a harmful manner regardless hits harder. Plus, you open up doors for things like inexperienced trainers pushing their Pokémon too hard without realizing until they see the consequences, explorations of toxic relationships between trainers and Pokémon that aren’t necessarily Ghetsis level “these are just tools for me to use”, etc.
Come to think of it, the Rainbow Rocket situation becomes a bit more interesting with that in mind given how Giovanni mega evolves Mewtwo; there’s a lot to be done with the idea that the strong relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be love or friendship, but could just be a mutual agreement between a Pokémon and trainer that has nothing to do with really respecting one another so much as “we both get something out of working together”. Maybe the trainer and Pokémon can be likeminded individuals, maybe they’re nothing alike but have goals that align, maybe you have a trainer who wants to win battles and a Pokémon that will help them(for a price of course), or a Pokémon that wants to be stronger and a trainer who sees ways to take advantage of that for their own gain.
@@avanelletheclockfriend2515 Well said.
I'd like to add the Let's Go Dex entries into this.
Not a single Mega Dex entry in the Let's go games are negative. That and the fact that Kalos tended to be stingy about who gets to use Mega Evolution leads me to believe that the people of Alola didn't know how to use Mega Evolution things went south quickly
the way i always thought of mega evolution and the idea of it being a painful process was that it was, in fact, always negative in such ways, but the pokemon would be willing to power through it because of trust and love in their trainer. it would also kinda explain how villains can use it; since the pokemon would probably be harshly punished for NOT mega evolving, they would let themselves suffer, not because they trust their trainer to make sure they're ok, but because they fear their wrath.
This would be interesting if Mega-Evolving a low friendship pokemon lowered its friendship, or did some form of persistent chip damage each turn. Not that these are the only ways. Just, something mechanical which we could point at to create a cohesive narrative surrounding its power and how it's derived.
My personal theory is that Pokemon Z’s apparent cancellation is why most games in the past few generations like post game content. Regions like Sinnoh and Unova were saved by their enhanced versions, but until BDSP highlighted how much sinnoh depends on Platinum to feel finished, the fans had equal nostalgia for them. Looking at Gens 7-9, the base games were more hallow and the “advanced” Ultra games felt more like what Alola was supposed to be from the beginning, and then we moved to DLC (which I consider to be better) so now they don’t even need to complete the story’s narrative anymore.
Basically, Pokemon Z not coming out was a sign of Gamefreak running out of time in production faster as the games became more complex, and it caused ripples in their creative choices later down the line.
legends z-a is pretty much the devs revenge on the rushed cycle, its a resurrection of z set to come out 10 years after it was meant to be released and an entire year was given to make it a standalone product rather than a remaster
The ultra games were generally decent but absolutely gutted all the characters in service of the standard "extradimensional threat requires all characters (including the evil ones) to team up in some way to stop it" plot which when you are trying to mold a story utilizing complex family relations which includes abuse into that standardized plot it's hard to do that without breaking the great story that was already there
Wonderful analysis here, and as always pointed out a lot of things I've never noticed before!
I tend to enjoy what Sun and Moon tackles specifically, but I also struggle to describe it as challenging the structure of the Pokémon world. It touches on parental abuse and maybe implies there's a problem in Alola with invasive species. However, there is actually a moment in it that you would probably view similarly to Lysandre mega evolving his Gyarados, in that the villain of the story engages you in a traditional Pokémon battle when it clearly looks like it's about to set up something a bit more wild.
Nevertheless, despite your admission that you are not super close with the series, I would argue that you have raised some of the most fascinating observations about it. I don't always agree them, but I also think it's really fun to dig into what these games may or may not be trying to say, drowning under all the corporate pressures.
Ultimately, as much as I'll probably always love and stick with this franchise, I do wonder if Pokémon really is fated to only let its truly interesting ideas flounder around half-baked. Gen 9 had some of the most conceptually interesting ideas since Gen 5, but I don't really feel like it was able to do anything interesting with them, sans having one of the coolest finales. At their best, they feel like they're fun to chew on, with some characters you occasionally enjoy, as it delivers you to the next Pokémon to catch or battle to partake in.
I have surrendered to Pokémon being what it is. Never exceptional, but always comforting: even when it barely runs.
I feel like the games have yet to address the "pokémon as bonds" issue even as of the end of the SV DLCs, but I still think those are the best integrated stories in the entire series despite the broken game they're attached to.
Kieran and Carmine's teams are really cool reflections of their personalities, both reflecting their true nature(Kieran's Linoone, Carmine's Morpeko) and things they try to hide (her Sinistcha), and this goes through almost every of their many fights to reflect their current states. Carmine doesn't change much but seems to get more confident and her team starts to make more sense instead of raw power; Kieran's feels corrupted by his jealousy, and by Indigo Disk is almost entirely replaced by fighting machines - except his Hydrapple, who loses its supporting role to gain a Fighting Tera that doesn't fit it.
Then, at the final boss of Indigo Disk, he changes his Hydrapple's moveset again to support, because Kieran finally realized no one's strength exists in isolation. Still took a plot armor to get the player to be the one to ask for help, but that small change isn't pointed out while still adding so much.
Also, the super underrated feature of inviting the trainers to the Blueberry hub. Everyone has lives apart from the player, be it jobs, interests beyond Pokémon, Raihan trying to get away with murder, and for me that added way more than the extra battles.
could you please elaborate on raihan trying to get away with murder i'm very intrigued now
@@rkhasentered I managed to butcher Raifort's name and forgot to fix it, I'm sorry to disappoint
but if you don't mind, if you have both Jacq and Raifort in the postgame club, she'll try to convince him to be used as a human sacrifice
I would actually argue that Lysander using mega evolution is a case of there’s no bad dogs only bad owners. The fact that Lysander cries about killing all the Pokémon shows he’s disillusioned with humanity and Pokémon are a tragic victim of the remedy. The fact that he can mega evolve his gyarados shows he genuinely loves the thing and it loves him. Yes he’s advocating for genocide. But that gyarados is going to be there with him the whole way.
I wonder if you've heard of the leaked, scrapped plot of XY that was on 4Chan, that was given credit because it partially predicted Alola. If you haven't, give it a read, the scrapped plot is *so* weird and *so* cool.
Where can I find it?
@@MaryIsHereNow I don't know about the original post, but I learned about it from a TH-cam video years back. I'm sure with some googling you can either find a vid or some archive of the post. Just look up stuff like "4chan XY leak" or "scrapped XY plot"
@@MaryIsHereNowTyranitarTube has a video on it, but I don't think that was the video I originally watched. Other than videos, I'm sure you can find archives of the original chan post.
I love how I originally had a much more in depth reply but it was shadow deleted by TH-cam. Literally what could I have typed that'd trigger the spam filter, that actual bots wouldn't also trigger??
@@erc3338 literally?? I thought I was just blacklisted from typing youtube comments for a while because of how practically every comment, no matter how innocent, got deleted. I think it might be links that are the problem here, though. It's annoying..
It says a lot of how forgettable XY's stories are that it's heavily rumored the stories were rewritten many times.
Not to mention, it also has many loose ends which just reek of untapped potential. Will those ever be tackled in Legends: ZA? Only time will tell.
Wait did Skye actually talk about the 4Chan leak?
Probably not. How will GF sell remakes for these games in 15 or so years if they give you everything in ZA?
@@c0mpu73rguy because ZA doesn't play like an average pokemon game
I mean, does it?
I think XY are really the average, forgettable pokemon story.
Video game stories tend to be rewritten a lot, especially Pokemon games that practically uses it only as a pretense for gameplay before all (even if it means a completely inconsistent story).
I don't think that's the problem, and I personally do not like any ideas presented in the allegedly older drafts (mostly nonsensical brainstorming, if even because I really don't belive XYsider was credible at all given their "smash bros" leaks at the time).
@@erc3338got a screenshot of it?
Also that Team Flare's whole esthetic of well, flares, is very metaphorical in its relation to fascism, the idea of rebirth, burning the old to let the new ride from its ashes.
(It's also my headcanon that the visors that Flare have to conceal identity and the very similar outfits were an attempt to parallel the black and brown shirts from irl)
the flame is still used in far right movements, for example the french "national front" (that was rising in importance during x and y's release) uses it to this day
That's not exclusive to fascists though. The Libertarian party uses the flare of Lady Liberty's torch in at least one of its logos. So does the: Social Democrats Party, Conservative Party of New York State, and even the Tories, the last of whom openly embraced socialism not too long ago.
@@SirBlackReeds we're talking about france here
An excellent video! I do have to say, I actually don't think that the villain being able to use Mega Evolutions is a contradiction or plot hole in any way. From personal experience, it is 100% possible for someone who is incredibly abusive to the point of near death to genuinely love and care about you, and for you to love and care about them. Unfortunately, love is not enough to stop someone from going down a dark path.
I haven't finished the video yet, but the sentence at 21:02 ending with "shoes hovering eerily above the pavement" is a powerful one, and speaks to me as someone who saw their interest in Pokemon wane and eventually fade away.
I'll admit I'm a bit defensive about XY because they were the first Pokemon games I played on actual hardware rather than emulators and so they hold a special place in my heart. But I felt your analysis was fair despite disagreeing with some of your points... Except about Lysander being able to mega evolve. Evil people are not incapable of love, and of being loved back (take how many people in real life who commit heinous crimes that have loved ones that are absolutely shocked they were capable of doing something like that - the belief that these people are simply monsters incapable of love is actually kinda dangerous cause it makes it harder to recognize and accept if someone we know and love does something monstrous). And despite his beliefs Lysander clearly loves Pokemon, he is sad that they must be eliminated, so it's not a stretch that he has a strong bond with his Gyarados. Sure, it's a contradiction, but contradictions are what makes a character feel more real. Another thing I strongly disagree with, and I'm sure I'm misunderstanding your point here cause it makes absolutely no sense to me, is Sycamore being culpable for Lysander's crimes? If your best friend commits a murder and he never mentioned his intentions to you, are you then also to blame for this murder? Of course not. You can blame yourself for not recognizing the signs but you won't be punished for this, which is exactly what Sycamore acknowledges.
"evil" does not mean "lack of any heart." There are characters like frieza that are entirely inhumanly evil just to be evil.
Lysander is evil, and wants humanity dead, but its due to a love of nature and the beauty of a world without humans tarnishing it. Which makes sense if XY doubled down on the war plot. There are WAYYY better ways GF coulda done this story, this game, etc.
But i dont see why lysander CANT mega evolve when its clear his bond to nature allows his pokemon to mega evolve.
On actual hardware, the 3ds games dropped frames worse than ScV, ugh.
Also pretty hard on the eyes.
I read more of XY's narrative being about the dichotomy between Generosity vs Selfishness and Status more than outright facism though I do think Lysandre's ultimate conclusions do lead to that. Your friend group is all made up of essentially the proletariat who struggle to get anything done on their journey and turn to you as their friend who is the dragon in the group to help them, even still, they helped during the final confrontation despite their lack of skill and though they may not be dragons, they still are givers rather than takers.
Lysandre's tears indicate that his hatred for people outweighs his love for pokemon, explaining why he's able to mega evolve his gyarados and that he views ridding the world of pokemon as necessary only because people will abuse their power afforded to them by pokemon which doesn't really work with the kalos internarrative but does apply to the greater pokemon metanarrative with the most recent villain, Ghetsis being the polar opposite. Viewing pokemon as only tools and having no care for them but believing only he should have access to them.
To answer your question about the rest of the series, I am particularly fond of Scarlet/Violet's story for how it manages to make a cast of friends who actually weaves your ability to battle well into their stories and doesn't leave their arcs incomplete because you always win against them no matter what due to them having other goals in life. It's actually my favorite cast of characters in the series.
This was a really good video! I don't normally trust most video essayists with pokemon since I find they often tend to miss the forest for the trees and only examine the text when analyzing the story or only viewing things separately instead of how they intertwine together and even if I don't agree with some of your points I do appreciate your holistic view of the game. I do think the music was a little too loud at times though. Keep up the good work.
Lysandre is one of my favorite villains because of just how much potential he had as a villain.
In the past Lysandre was known as an incredible man and an incredible inventor, creating all kinds of devices and products to try and improve the world, he traveled the world to give his inventions and money to others, but when he saw that the only thing that happened was just people asking him for more and more, he believed that people were greedy and destructive, always wanting more until it's too late.
At his core, Lysandre was a man who loved too much. He loved the world and Pokemon, but he physically couldn't stand the thought of things ruining this beautiful world that he loves so much. Pokemon Generations and Evolutions sheds some further light onto his character, stating that "Everything that is beautiful should stay that way forever" and "I can't stand the thought of the world becoming uglier". Lysandre hates change, and in order to fight it, he gathers up all the people he believes are worthy of keeping the world as he thinks it's meant to be. He loves Pokemon so much that he begins to weep openly about the fact that Pokemon cannot exist, as the ugly will only use them to cause more pain. It brings him pain to do so, but it's what must be done to ensure his world never changes.
Of course some might say "but team flare is full of those "ugly" people, men and women who steal, extort, lie and cheat for their own personal gain, why would the fee to join team flare be such a high price? That could be interpreted as another part of Lysandre's plan. You can see he has no care for Team Flare at all, he uses it to gather all of the "ugliest" people he can think of in one place, they were never intended to be a part of his beautiful world, he was going to dispose of them all. He travels the region personally asking people he deems worthy to join him, while all the greedy and wealthy pay to join him, a sign of failure in his eyes.
This contrasts with Professor Sycamore, the Player and their friends, who constantly show to Lysandre that there are other options, that his plan isn't the only way to save the world, that his vision of an ugly world might not even happen. But Lysandre is so far gone that he just can't see it, he even thanks them for trying to change his mind, but stays steadfast to his plan. And with no options left, the legendary pokemon of life/death taken from the machine, he decides to spread his belief to Sycamore's pupils, by turning the weapon onto them, so he can "give them the pain of endlessly waiting for a beautiful world to be built" giving them immortality so they can watch as his vision of an ugly world becomes reality. This action ultimately takes his own life in the process, and it's unknown if he even succeeded in giving the characters their "enternal life".
"Pokemon Trainers, listen well. The future isn't decided, you can't be sure each day will be like the one before. You have the potential to change the world. Help build a brighter tomorrow."
-Lysandre
I'd like to comment on Lysandre's use of mega Gyarados, as I believe it does actually make sense.
It is not that he does not care for Pokemon (especially his own), but rather that he has no way of separating humans and Pokemon when using the ultimate weapons for his ultimate goal.
He believes the sacrifice of Pokemon is worth it, if it means the people he perceives as filth shall be eliminated.
It is for this reason that he cries, he believes he has to sacrifice the innocent Pokemon he likes so much, to reach his ultimate goal.
Also, I think most of your problems with the story fall under ludonarrative dissonance.
Look it up if you haven't heard of it before.
I mean, I did use the money-, EXP-boost and egg hatching O-Power alot tbh.
Same! I wonder if Skye knew that you could use O-Powers on yourself. They're super handy if you do.
@@Namadu7It's bonding time!
Thank you for being willing to discuss Pokémon as a series created and designed by real people and not just a monolithic corporation where its faceless mass churns out games that don’t matter. It’s sadly kind of rare to see people talk about this gigantic franchise in that light and not just a playthrough, challenge run, shiny hunt, or “all of Pokémon is bad now/was always bad.” Granted, you did state Pokémon as a whole doesn’t really care about stories, just approachable power fantasies, but I also acknowledge that you don’t consider yourself someone deeply invested in the series. As other people have probably mentioned, games like Sun and Moon and Scarlet and Violet actively do more to make a compelling story (I think Sword and Shield have interesting themes that aren’t executed entirely well, though most people think it barely has a narrative at all but I digress). And to your one point, Scarlet and Violet (and even Sword and Shield) do address the natural structure of Pokémon games where the player character is sort of destined to win (Scarlet and Violet’s is in its DLC storyline, for reference).
I’ve always been very interested in discussing Pokémon from a narrative perspective, and I think my takes are a bit more generous than yours because I’m a little less interested in the meta narrative/unintentional implications of the series and more interested in seeing how it executes what it sets out to do and how GameFreak spins the formula each generation. I think, since Gen 7, it’s taken measures to put more of a focus on developing its own narrative and environmental concepts. It’s when I really started getting invested in engaging with the series, even though I’ve been playing since Gen 5 and went back to play Gen 4 as a kid. The games captured my heart more as I grew up, which tends to be the opposite for most people, including yourself.
Some day, I really want to make videos on my own where I can talk about the content I’d want to see and share and hopefully inspire people like you have with me at this moment. I make threads and essays on Twitter for different series, but video-making feels more professional and easily digestible. For Pokémon-related topics, I’ve dreamed of making ones about why Project Voltage (the several month-long collaboration between Pokémon and Vocaloid) captures the essence of Pokémon and about Scarlet and Violet’s themes of passion and obsession. Maybe that will happen some day, but right now, that’s so much effort maaaaannnn. Anyways, thank you for making this video, and my apologies for almost completely bypassing your discussion questions to talk about what I wanted to say.
17:45 bro dropped the hardest fascism edit and thought we wouldn't notice 💀
I WAS GOING TO COMMENT THIS EXACT THING!!
FRRR its so good
You really left me guessing with that "Rebonjour" chapter title for a while.
Honestly I think z moves do a surprisingly good job of reaffirming sun and moons themes of supporting each other and working together to overcome challenges by having them distinctly involve the trainer visually sharing their power through the dance to activate them, the trainer even being visually exhausted when performing especially powerful ones like light that burns the sky
I think I have satisfying answers for questions 1 and 4 you posited at the end of the video. Scarlet and Violet spend a lot of time doing anything but explaining the phenomenon of Terastalisation until the final hour, but that final hour is genuinely the best piece of writing and amalgamation of the game's themes in the entire series. This is accompanied by some genuinely really good dialogue between the game's rival characters (without spoiling much, the three rivals barely know each other outside their shared relation to you when you gather them all for the final quest, and the game does a really good job of rounding out their characters in their conversation).
As for Monster Collector games that establish good writing and themes, I will never miss a chance to promote Bytten Studio's Cassette Beasts. The creature designs, like Pokemon, are based off of a mix of real/mystical creatures and more abstract human concepts. But Cassette Beasts decides to dig a layer further into the world these creatures exist, and within the story (again not trying to spoil) the biggest, heaviest and potentially most destructive human concepts become the biggest threats and therefore bosses. This alongside a cast of characters who have more far more charm than basically every Pokemon NPC (save again for the newest games, who Cassette Beasts still has beat but deserve a distinction about the earlier entries).
my girlfriend swears by the characters of scarlet and violet i get why people dont like the games but they have something to offer.
XY was fantastic as my first Pokémon game, even as a college-age adult at the time. The traditional but full-featured mechanics made me feel like I was getting the definitive Pokémon experience I had been missing out on. I found the region charming, and couldn’t help but enjoy the more over the top moments in the world and story.
It fits with their pattern of doing a more traditional game first on each console, then a more experimental game second.
As someone who is really invested in the stories of the pokemon games I think its really great to finally see people like you engaging with them critically. I think this sort of analysis is sorely missing especially when the new games have just come out. I hope this won't be the last Pokémon video we see from you (I would be personally be interested to see your analysis of sword and shield, which heavily relies on framing pokemon battles as a nationwide celebration of sports and history). Regardless I'm really excited to see what other perspectives you can share with whatever game interests you next, keep up the good work!
For fangame reccs, I highly recommend Pokémon Gaia or Unbound. They're considered top tier and they really feel like the developers thought of the perfect game they wanted to make from soup and nuts to story.
Also, semi-ironically, pokemon clover. It's really well made, has a bunch of unique features, some really interesting fakemon pokedex entries and is just generally super polished... but it is also very clearly made by people on 4chan. Incredible dedication and skill, talent even, but also a lot of dumb jokes and deliberate mild-to-moderate offensiveness. Genuinely fun though, if you don't mind the unique "flavor".
This is a great video. It's honestly a breath of fresh air to see a video doing a fair discussion of XY that isn't just 20 min of "Haha game easy, haha boring 3d models, bad story lol" this is a good retrospective that takes XY for what it is. An 'Almost there' game, A game that feels like the definition of "What could have been"
I do think it's a bit sad how you tabbed out RIGHT before Sun and Moon, which imo has one of the, if not THE best story in Pokemon. If I had to recommend you one more Pokemon game, it'd either be that or Gen9 along with the DLC. Even with all the flaws of Gen9, I DO genuinly think the story and writting ESPECIALLY the characters are really good there.
I agree, in particular Kieran and Nemona as rival characters and how they differ from how rivals have been used in the past. Nemona as someone who has been there and done that and has no baggage tied up in being better, she's just happy to meet someone as excited about battle as she is. And Kieran, who is on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum...
Wholly agree. Scarlet and Violet seems to have an even heavier emphasis on human relationships and pulls it off almost masterfully, in my opinion. I genuinely felt like I was hanging out with a group of friends I cared about by the end.
I mean, I disagree. The deepest character was Arven with his parental trauma and his dog but the actual themes of the game as a whole are pretty muddled. Nemona is okay, albeit a bit annoying. The gimmick of her handicapping herself to battle you is a fun character quirk for a rival but she doesn't really grow all that much. Penny has a pretty flat arc with the team star stuff boiling down to "I want to have friends but I'm awkward, they'd never accept me" and they accept her. All of the main three stories don't really go anywhere besides pretty standard and formulaic story beats. There's brief glimmers of character growth in the crater when Nemona talks about having a lot of expectations on her coming from a rich family and of course Arvens whole thing, but they don't really explore those things. Especially Nemona's, she's let out to dry a lot of the time.
The gameplay also doesn't really compliment the story any more than the rest of the story. The terrastialisation gimmick is pretty boring, the open world doesn't have much of a function outside of a selling point on the box, the base raiding is pretty one note, and the new gym challenges are a slog. None of which compliment the themes of community and exploration all that well. There's not a lot of side quests, the map is barren of landmarks and cultural sites, and the story elements are pretty arcadey in a Pokepark 2 kind of way. I will never forget how flabbergasted I was at the Psychic Gym.
I wouldn't even say gen 7 had the best story, more it had the most story. It was very streamlined and almost played out like a kids anime which was charming. Not necessarily deep outside of Lusamine and her family, somewhat remedied by the Ultra games, but it never reached the highs of gen 5s story for me. Besides the gameplay didn't do much to help the story, it was more or less the same thing with some shake ups like Totem battles to better suit the setting. It was a refreshing change of pace with a world building aspect but that's about it.
I'm not trying to be a hater, im really not, I just see this sentiment that gen 9's story was really good and i legitimately don't get it. I want to get it, I want to like gen 9 even a little bit, but all I see is a dice cup of anime character tropes tossed into a half baked open map, unrefined gimmicks, and a standard yet terribly optimized pokemon game. If you like it that's of course fine, it's subjective, but I just don't get it
@@nateroo1486 I mean I'm not going to pretend Pokemon is a bastion of stellar writing, especially compared to a lot of other games I've played. Notice the qualifier of the best writing of any *pokemon game.* It's just refreshing that they're trying to do something different from the standard at all and having characters with slightly deeper arcs and motivations.
@@delta7115 well that's the thing, they're not really doing anything new. Nemona is about as deep as Bianca and Arven is of a similar caliber to Silver. The only differences being that you actually see Biancas team come together in a meaningful way while seeing her dad insult her rather direcly and Silver actually has a character arc around Giovanni instead of just being the "good misunderstood guy". The only thing that's new is that there's more cutscenes to explain the story rather than just text boxes but the emotional depth, story beats, and extent to where the stories go with their themes haven't really evolved since gen 4 and 5. If anything they've gotten more one note for me, especially with Gen 8 and 9. The chages they introduce arent meaningful, more superficial i guess is my main issue.
Megas were supposed to make you feel special, but they just made me feel like a loser for using an ovetpowered mechanic against piss easy opponents and for abandoning my beloved Pokémon for one of the 5% of all pokemon that can megaevolve instead.
not even a third of the og dex in R/B/Y even have a mega form. Mega is a horribly executed gimmick, overly loved by fans who dont actually think about it aside from nostalgia appeal. Mega is trash, and its cool. There's nothing wrong with that. But it needed far more that GF didn't give it.
Even in comp this mechanic felt weightless to its idea of giving weaker mons spotlight but yet strong mons got megas that dominated X/Y's meta scene and did so to oppressive degrees. I will NEVER like mega for how it was executed, but X/Y is a game i want reimagined because it deserves better and a second shot.
Its dogwater execution is a shame. They are so afraid of letting NPCs be somewhat powerful.
Like, for real, all it did was give you a Pokemon with stats equivalent to legendaries to run over the entire game with (with NO grinding, unlike what raids were. Yes idiot, you going through raids and using all those exp candies is grinding).
Lysandre using the word "filth" to describe "people who take" is just one or two steps off from calling people degenerates. As many issues as the game has, that's a good touch, and the game could've really used more details like that.
Especially since "people who take" could just refer to groups who are in need. The homeless, hungry, people without family or friends, are all people who "take". Lysandre hating them for simply not having the ability to fulfill their needs and just writing them off as degenerates is pretty accurate to openly fascist belief systems!
referring to the chapter about Lysandre being able to use a Mega Evo; a """Potential""" narrative answer that came up in my head is that- "Is the game trying to tell me that even with all the not-fascim, that Pokemon bond still exists? Do his Pokemon... *agree* with him???"
Strictly speaking from the position that the narrative *should* be reinforced by the gameplay, and with the truth that the creators of the game obviously wouldn't want players to come to the conclusion of "Oh, they didn't tie the narrative to the gameplay properly, its just to show off the new gimmick", are we supposed to forcibly tie the narrative to the gameplay ourselves?? Is that what we're supposed to realize in this story, along with all the implications it comes with???
Clearly this is an insane conclusion to come to, but genuinely what else is to be expected when you try to make your player base have the belief/understanding that the narratives are intrinsically linked to gameplay *all the time* , but couldn't follow through that ideal, for one reason or another? Making an insane and even more ridiculous narrative answer for why gameplay is a certain wayTM, is something I genuinely don't like, but the other choices are to come to the conclusions of "Yeah, this doesn't make any sense and they did it just for drama/show" or "This doesn't make any sense, they must not have put much thought into this part of the narrative"
"Is the game trying to tell me that even with all the not-fascim, that Pokemon bond still exists? Do his Pokemon... agree with him???"
i mean. yeah. this is a common theme with pokemon villains. there's a reason why cyrus has a crobat, a friendship evolution.
@@CrystalGeny I mean, Lysandre shows genuine care for his Pokemon tho.
Mega Gyarados makes a lot of sense for Lysandre to use in gameplay, it is the legend carp and the dragon coming full circle (a rampaging dragon that uses its power wrongly will become nothing more than a flying snake, hence the dark type to reinforce it even more).
Gyarados wouldn't agree with Lysandre, in the sense that it fully grasps and understands what is actually going on or attributing human values to it.
It doesn't mean that this Pokemon is agreeing to an ideology, it just means that it is fully trusting of its trainer.
But again, the human - Pokemon bond is always terribly portrayed in pokemon and always betrayed.
Team Rocket, Galactic and Plasma in particular mention using stolen Pokemon (i.e, Pokemon that have no reason to listen to them and actually should be frighten or angry at them) never even rebel, go out of their pokeball on their own and run away (as this was shown several times in the series, Pokeballs don't exactly confine a Pokémon as they can leave whenever they feel like it) or even show it through obedience.
That's why I don't take the ludo narrative of pokemon battles too seriously, it's way too much of a mess to coherently present gameplay so it is abstracted.
Also, as far as your questions at the end of the video, I'm not sure I have an answer about any of the other questions other than the mechanics interacting with narratives. I don't remember much about Sun and Moon, but I do remember that it had extradimensional creatures akin to Legendaries called Ultra Beasts, and a lot of the story involved tracking them down through wormholes, going to the other dimension, and using specialized "Beast Balls" to capture them, as well as the main villainess being obsessed with them to the point of opening a wormhole and fusing with one of them. Additionally, the Dynamax mechanic is weaved into the story of Sword and Shield. Despite most of it happening offscreen, the story involved Dynamax Pokemon (essentially giant Pokemon) rampaging around the region and needing to be subdued by the Champion. Typically, Pokemon can only Dynamax in particular areas, but these were somehow doing so outside those areas, with an ongoing mystery being "How?" The Gyms of the region are conveniently around those spots for the audience to enjoy the spectacle of watching giant Pokemon battle. Additionally, the one single Gym leader who does not have a gym at a Dynamax-available location does so for story reasons and therefore has very little funding, no audience, and is just in like... a room, rather than the grand sports stadium-like arenas they often have.
Gen 3 is based on a regional political conflict from the that lasted from the 1980s all the way into 2008 called the Isahaya Bay reclamation project. The land vs sea story in Ruby/Sapphire is meant to be a direct representation of the two political sides of the issue with team aqua representing the environmentalists and local protestors and magma the bureaucrats and industrialists in favor of the project. Ruby/Sapphire takes on what is basically a centrist approach to the issue with both teams as bad guys but it is the most overtly political the series has ever been, much more so than gen 5 or 6.
Using Emolga in Sky Battles is totally cheating, like if you agree
Emolga and areodactyle are both busted
Like this if you disagree
I used a Vivillon...it was a pain
But then I discovered that her Hidden Power was Rock type
You should get an Old Amber and revive Aerodactyl, just to get an even more broken mon in sky battles.
We now have confirmation that the plot of XY had major overhauls (from the Teraleak), originally AZ was the big bad and wanted to kill off everyone who wasn't from his bloodline, from the very little we know it sounds like it was a genuinely pretty good plot. Also XY had a MASSIVE amount of cut content compared to other Pokemon games.
I'm still amazed by that Twist. I wonder how we end up at the Floette Scene. Or if it was intended that Floette Join us to help take down AZ.
Black and White doing only new Pokemon was based and made me think that that was normal at the time. More gens should do that
I think the Gyarados mega is unfortunate, because (while I don’t know if they’d ever intend a meta reading like this) there *could* be a point to it : fascists love to idolise struggle, to talk about picking yourself by the bootstraps, to talk about how you could be a dragon too if all these carps weren’t clogging the waterfall. Making his ace and mega a pokemon based on rewards for struggle, especially if Lysandre was someone who’d never known this kind of struggle, could be a very good point… but this is XY, and no points are made. Really, really great video ! It feels very cathartic to see someone understand these games so well.
The anime actually unintentionally made the Lysandre-Gyarados connection even more interesting by making it shiny.
More than likely, it was just to match the color scheme, but his Gyarados being shiny implies he selected it specifically. Why? Does he see its rare, immutable quality as something beautiful in this world, like he acts towards Diantha? Does he see a kindred spirit in that his Gyarados is a dot of red in a sea of blue, much like how he is a dot of enlightenment in a world of “filth”?
Perhaps it’s a meta-commentary on the struggle thing like you mentioned, given that the red Gyarados is the easiest shiny to obtain in the games. He gets to act like he accomplished this rare feat without any of the effort. Much like an actual fascist, he gets to appear like one of the common folk who had to fight for his rewards but in reality never needed to try.
Unfortunately, the most likely explanation is that the anime team just thought it looked cool. Which, to be fair, it did.
I think my personal favorite narrative harmony in the games after Gen 5 is something you actually touched on in this video, battles as sports!
Sword and Shield try to explore a fascinating facet of the pokemon world that expands on this concept. It presents a world of spectacle and entertainment enhanced by dynamax and gives your character the chance to compete with several other trainers! At the same time it hints at some aspects of the structure of said world that could be classified as the “political side” by going somewhat into who’s in charge in this region or maybe more accurately the “capitalist side” with a city that serves as a gym but doesn’t get the funding for a proper stadium and several instances of chairman rose doing sketchy ceo things. Unfortunately the very end of the story fumbles the ball and things go off the rails and it’s definitely under explored but I think the ideas and cohesion between those ideas are there! I find it fascinating yet undercooked, the potential deliciousness of your favorite kind of bread not allowed enough time in the oven so there’s a small taste of what makes it great but it just didn’t get enough attention.
That’s my thought at least, I wish sword and shield got to have the refinement treatment so their story could shine bc I truly think it had the foundation to do so.
Great video Skyhoppers! Love your work!
Here's a small bite of each game where I think it would be beneficial to you (with zero to minor spoilers):
PSA: This is going to be mostly in order except for Legends Arceus which is gonna be last because it's most similar to the kind of game that you have been asking for to my understanding. That is to say it's a game that ties its narrative into the gameplay itself.
Sun and Moon's Z-Moves work somewhat well mechanically with their lore because their supposed to be only achievable through connection to your pokemon (similar to megas in XY) but in SM, you have to complete trials and fight the island kahunas to get them (Some of which are genuinely tough fights) so you have to understand your pokemon's strengths to even get access to the big flashy mechanics (for the most part). Some of the Z-Crystals are just sorta found around the world (though they are in optional areas you have to return to after unlocking HMs or Pokerides in SM).
The actual story of Sun and Moon is actually rather compelling personally since it delves into the themes of nature in a more satisfying way than RSE or XY do. It talks about how nature can be disrupted and/or helped by outside forces. We see it immediately with the alolan rattata and yungoos rivalry (Two pokemon caught on Route 1 who are both alien species to Alola), and we see it with the Aether foundation's activities. It also deals with parental abuse in a rather touching way honestly.
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon narratively destroy everything Sun and Moon had going for it to focus harder on Ultra Space and the big alien monsters you find in Post Game sun and moon. The game, however, is EXTREMELY satisfying gameplay wise. Genuinely contains some of the toughest battles in the entire series. I wiped out several times while playing which RARELY happens in any other pokemon game. It's a TOUGH cookie.
On the opposite end, Sword and Shield do a good job with showing off dynamax in gym battles and basically nowhere else depsite the game telling you there are huge dynamax dudes destroying things, you're told to ignore it and move on with the gym challenge. You do not interact with the rampaging pokemon. You do not see them. You don't even get to see their impacts. Just a pic of a news paper saying Leon (the champion) is so epic and awesome for solving the crisis. The actual story in Sword and Shield is laughable and forgettable almost to the extent of XY but SwSh is probably more memorable because it's written SO badly, I don't think I've seen ANYONE defend the writing of the entire story as a whole (I have seen valid defenses of specific moments and characters though but just about everyone seems to actively hate SOMETHING about SwSh's story). These games can also be trivialized on complete accident if you engage with the dynamax raids a lot. I did not do that very often at all so my playthrough was
Scarlet and Violet try to tell several stories at once through the open-world design and basically takes the mult-rival concept from XY and fleshes it out more to give them each their own chapter of gameplay. Nemona follows the typical gym route and is super simple but most people tend to agree she's perfect that way (She REALLY loves to battle). Penny is a bit anti-social and got bullied a bunch so she ties into Team Star who I can't talk much more about without spoilers. Arven's story turns back to child abuse eerily similar to Sun and Moon but it takes a COMPLETELY different turn (poor guy). I have not played the DLCs personally because the game runs SO BAD I couldn't go back to it after beating it the first time. If the next Nintendo system is more powerful and backwards compatible then I'll get to that.
FINALLY, Legends Arceus takes place in a time where people and pokemon did not get along very often so people are shown to be afraid of pokemon and it's your job to help people understand them. The game changes the pokedex mechanic to require you to actually interact with pokemon in order to complete their pokedex pages. Jubilife Village (The home base of the game does actually grow and evolve after completing side-quests for the people in the town. You get to gift different people some pokemon that are actually visible in town from that point forward. They maintain all visible aspects (size, shininess, etc). It's honestly super cool. Unfortunately, the story you're actually forced to progress is much less appealing and is kinda lame tbh. The game overall kinda feels like a good tech demo rather than a full complete game. However, despite all of that, if you want something genuinely NEW and INTERESTING from pokemon, PLA is the way to go.
Honestly I still don't know how USUM narratively destroyed Sun and Moon I mean if anything it had characters like Lillie Lusamine and Hau develop more really.
@@Jdudec367 That is true but they tried to make lusamine less crazy but all the background craziness is still there (frozen pokemon, experimenting on cosmog, treating lillie like shit, etc). These things go somewhere in sun and moon when you go to nihiligo's dimension but in USUM, they go nowhere. Lillie's development is janky at best. It's mainly that they rushed the story out so they could get it done for the yearly release schedule. The ideas are cool though. Hau is about the only character that benefits from all the changes (He SUCKED in SM). His new arc is a lot better and makes him much more likeable as a character.
@@null921 Lusamine is still pretty evil though clearly and that's intentional. Eh...no in USUM they still go somewhere but with a different result with Lusamine being forced to confront her own failure when she loses to Necrozma and realizing how she messed up and she slowly changes and improves as a person after that. No Lillie's development is still good too and she grows as a person like she did before sure she didn't tell her mom off this time but she still matured and was willing to go against her too and stand up for herself and she even becomes a trainer in USUM too if anything she has more development in USUM really. They really didn't rush the story out though, like it shouldn't take that long really it's not like they were making a entirely new game. I disagree most characters benefitted from all the changes really (eh he didn't suck but he is much better in USUM clearly).
I thought he was already likable tbh.
@@Jdudec367 Honestly fair interpretations there. If you liked it more, I think that's fantastic because it allows you to play through with better gameplay and be satisfied narratively. I think what really happened is in restructuring the story, they felt they didn't have room for two separate climaxes and chose to turn a lot of Lillie and Gladion's arcs into background growth rather than the forefront of the game like in SM.
I'm just a fan of more personal stories with personal stakes rather than world-ending ones. So it felt like the parts of the story I was more invested in were kinda stripped away or covered in favor of oh no big bag necrozma. Necrozma's theme and battle are pretty awesome though and I did enjoy seeing Lillie become a trainer and being able to battle with her in the battle tree (even if she lowkey sucked bc clefairy and comfey aren't very good on an NPC).
(P.S: I was intending to say Lusamine is still pretty evil clearly and that seemed UNintentional but that part's irrelevant to everything else so it's not a big deal.)
@@null921 Yeah that's pretty much what happened, I still like that they managed to get it all in there even if it's not all forefront.
I get that really. I disagree though I thought both existed fairly at the same time really. (true at the battle tree those Pokemon aren't great BUT it is still pretty fun to actually have her as a battle partner).
(Really? I thought her being evil was intentional as she was like the secondary antagonist of USUM really.)
While not the most compelling narrative, sword and shield turned pokemon into an actual spectator sport, every gym is a massive stadium and every single gym leader uses the generation gimmick of dynamaxing where the pokemon becoming massive while a few get a unique form on top of it, I enjoyed that aspect of it a lot, also the gym leader music slapped.
To further add to how Mega Evolution feels underutilized in the hands of opponents, how about we also take note of the fact the ONLY Pokemon from Kalos that can Mega Evolve is Diance, which is a Pokemon tied to events only. No other native Kalos Pokemon Mega Evolves, even the starters. What's up with that?
So happy you’re revisiting XY, I’ve been waiting for someone to really dig into the themes and ideas of these games beyond “Wow 3D huh!” and listing off other features of the game… the experience of Pokémon at this point was becoming, for lack of a better word, globalized, and that’s easy to take for granted in a world that exists after Pokemon Go and over a decade of simultaneous worldwide release. XY contained a lot of new ideas in its debut but seems to be a lot more conscious about trends and features of the series as a whole, echoing a lot of older gens. It’s hard not to say environmental themes aren’t present in a game that makes the backgrounds points of interaction in battles with moves you could use, new terrain and types of foliage you could find Pokemon in (flower colors having their own unique encounter tables), and the contrast between the urbanized core of the region versus the suburban and rural periphery.
I don't see how XY is exactly "more of the same" or how Gen 5 was more ambitious, it had a greater story (for Pokemon standards anyways) but in terms of mechanical stuff...ffrom the jump to 3D, to Mega Evolution, to the fairy type, amie, a giant Pokedex variety, it's a lot really. Like while it has nostalgia pandering obviously it doesn't really feel like more of the same like it feels familiar but also distinct in a way.
And I don't think putting the player character above everyone else undercuts the themee of community, there will always be a strongest trainer in Pokemon after all. Really it just shows who works the hardest to get things that are more rare (which yeah...goes back to Lysandre and rare resources) and how even with a community there will still be conflict like that. And I mean...you the player prove to be the strongest of your group and has fought Team Flare a bunch too at that point so you do seem worthy of using Mega Evolution arguably.
And I don't think Mega Evolution breaks the story either it really doesn't. Lysandre is basically resetting the world so that it's population can use it's resources easier and with no issue.
The reason he can use Mega evolution? Why can the evil Faccist use it? Well as we especially see here Lysandre does genuinely care about Pokemon and he wants what he believes is best for them even if it pains him so he would clearly care about and love his own Pokemon too.
So I wouldn't say there is a dissonance there tbh, it makes perfect sense that avery powerful and influencal person who genuinely loves his Pokemon would have and use Mega Evolution.
So I disagree that Lysandre's Gyrarados disobeying him would be cool or cohesive, quite the opposite. Lysandre like Ghetsis is a horrible person and will evil...but unlike Ghetsis shows genuien and real concern for pokemon and that he does care about them unlike Ghetsis who mistreats and abuses his. (although even for Ghetsis his Pokemon never disobey him but his Hydreigon does know frustration.)
And if everyone else is a carp then there wouldn't be other strong trainers in Kalos even if the player becomes the strongest one.
I don't see how theme of community or selflessness really gets discarded I mean in the end that is what prevails and what stops Lysandre and his group.
Serena can still get stronger and complete her arc and goal and Serena does eventually get access to mega evolution herself in the post game so there's that goal complete and even if you are the strongest it doesn't mean you are the only one who has access to those very valueable things. And her still becoming strong on her own even if she can't beat you is her resolution like she doesn't need to beat the player to be strong or impressive I mean she got access to Mega Evolution without doing that after all.
Hell I would argue that kind of exactly shows why Lysandre was so wrong, even if people will fight and there will be conflict they can still help each other out and make each other stronger like with Serena and you as rivals and you inspiring her to get stronger too and how she eventually got mega evolution after getting stronger, that and with how Lysandre wanted a ideal world with selfless people he was kinda being used with how his grunts were often (but not always) selfish greedy people who only think about themselves.
I don't see how it says that some people are superior....I mean that is what a lot of the Team Flare grunts think and you stop them yourself, having mega evolution on your own doesn't make you superior to anyone you need a strong bond with your partner Pokemon to use it well after all.
At least with Malva she does change and in the post game even helps out a bit with Xerosic so I get why she may keep her position as a elite 4 member.
And I don't see how Sycamore is complicent when well...he never knew about Lysandre being part of Team Flare or ever praised them really.
Him being friends with him alone doesn't make him involved in what Lysandre was secretly up to the entire time.
So I think he'd survive any trial just fine, Malva would be more questionable but nothing really indicates that Sycamore knew who was leading Team Flare.
I think AZ finally having a Pokemon battle would lead to him showing more humanity and actually interacting with others and his partner Pokemon he does have more...that and him smiling and finally being able to move on now shows Floette that he has genuinely changed.
I always had a very different take on Lysander. Yes, hsi crying showing a sincere belief in what he espouses was part of it, but it mostly came from dialogue from when ... I think its the first time you meet him after learning hes the leader of Team Flare. Though its been awhile i might be wrong. He had said something about, before forming the team, he went around trying to give peoole the solution to their problems but he was always turned down. His frustration is what led to him forming this team. And basically, I took the message to be that not everyone who claims to know the solution actually has it. And being so set on your solutions in the face of being told you sont underatand leads to more harm.
I didnt share all this to say that your wrong. Your take that Lysander is a facist makes a lot more sense to me in fact. However, i think there is room in the writing for my interpretation too. And if they really were intentionally writing a facist ... thats a really bad sign.
That is not a subject you want to tackle and leave room for interpretation with.
Yeah, I think so many people get caught up on the "they're filth" line that they kind of disregard the rest of his backstory (though to be fair, it's not like Game Freak gives it much attention, either). So most people end up taking Flare as being representative of one the political systems that most openly displays disdain for its opposition.
I’ve only recently found this channel and have been lucky enough to find it the day before this video came out. I just wanna say amazing work on your videos I enjoy each full dive into the artistic medium of video games. Looking forward to your continued work and thank you for for the time you put into this craft! :)
I can't believe this is the first video on X and Y I've watched that points out the themes of team Flare connecting to facism.
I feel ashamed that this went over my head. I remember playing the games when they came out; the common opinion in the youtube pokemon community was that the story was lame and the villians made no sense. But now that you mentioned facism and, of course, their contradicting beliefs, it makes a lot more sense. Of course, GameFreak still dropped the ball on the story in the end, just as they did with Black & White.
The same thing happened with Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald's story - everyone thought Aqua and Magma were over the top and stupid, and the never ending memes about "too much water". It wasn' until Tama made her video on the games and actually did the research, where we learn that the two teams were based on real-life politics happening in Japan (though you can argue this didn't translate very well to an international audience, other than it's messaging being very pro nature and looking after the environment).
It's so frustrating to see so many video game """essays""" or "retrospectives" basically devolve into reading the game's wiki, give a puddle-deep overview of the game's story, and tell the audience how they felt about the game (mostly saying it's bad, mid, or good) and then the video ends. Young men with no media analysis skills trying to talk about a game that they like (or hate), and struggling to grasp the story's themes. I find that video game essays done by a woman is way more engaging simply by the fact that it's written from a different perspective.
Thank you for making this video, it's rare to find channels that make the effort to do media analysis on video games and actually engage with the story, no matter how simple or silly they may appear on the surface.
Uhm...no. Just because a video labels it as facism...doesnt mean it makes anymore sense. Lysandre is still nonsensical due to poor character development and an unfocused narrative in general.
XY introduce 72 original Pokemon, but around 40ish mega evolutions which push the number of new designs toward the typical 100ish that are introduced every gen. Gen 6 might lean on old designs, but Pokemon availability is not static across the series, and making Pokemon like Houndour, Axew, Croagunk, or Ducklett available earlier rather than later allows Gamefreak to revisit not just the designs themselves as images but how these Pokemon are used for teambuilding, training, and novelty early on. XY made the pivot from anemic and restricted regional pokedexes to having a wide expanse of available Pokemon, and it doesn’t get credit for that. Pokemon is better with a more diverse pool of selection for players so that they can role-play their experience. Opposing trainer encounters tend to be way less repetitive compared to anything before, and every environment in the game looks to have diverse and unique encounters. XY is interested in weaving in older aspects of the series, less out of nostalgia in my opinion and more in the pursuit of what can be done to enhance the play experience for people who are less familiar with new Pokemon or Pokemon at all. I don’t think it’s coincidental that players in XY encounter and receive lots of gifts and special pokemon like the two starters, a fossil pokemon that is immediately revivable, a mega lucario, a mega stone for one starter, snorlax, and lapras.
The underwhelming story of XY was always something I had felt in my playthroughs of it, but you did a really great job of explaining exactly why felt that way even moreso than games before in a way I never considered! The game’s locations rlly do feel quite disconnected and grand after Lumiose because so much focus was put onto that shining Eiffel Tower trailer moment. I always felt that Mega Evolution was underutilized in how you obtain and how the characters interact with it, but the bit about its thematic significance was something I never really thought about. I think Z-moves from Sun/Moon do a much better job of tying in with the themes with the region and story, it’s a shame you won’t be covering it but your note at the end of the cooldown felt very inspiring to explore themes of the games you didn’t cover ourselves, and that rlly reached out to me as I’m sure you can tell by this long-winded comment haha! Your voice is very pleasant and your thoughts were analytical but not judgmental, I gained an appreciation for a lot of aspects of this game that I enjoyed despite its issues. Very excited to check out some of your other stuff ^^
Even this insistent "need" to make Mega Evolution rare and exclusive within the story isn't as set in stone as it tries to be; in the postgame, Calem/Serena finally gets their own Mega Ring and it's never explained where it came from.
If they were gonna give Calem/Serena a Mega Ring in the end anyway, I'd have preferred they had had it since the main story. The only thing not giving them one sooner accomplishes is allow a dialogue during the Lysandre confrontation where Calem/Serena admits you fought them for the Mega Ring and Lysandre uses this to validate his own belief that people will always fight over resources.
Nah, that would actually mean developing characters you put into the story.
My first introduction to the story of X and Y actually was not from the games or even the anime but rather from the pokemon special manga. Honestly I love the storytelling in the manga more than in both the games and anime. I've always found the stories to be more captivating and deep. And they tend to dive further into the grittier parts of pokemon's themes. It's been a while since I've read the X and Y ones but recently i reread the Black/White ones. And honestly my favorite pokemon games are the Black/White and Black/White 2 games and the Black/White manga is to this day my favorite Pokemon manga hands down. They dive deeper into the moral dilemma of pokemon battling and capturing. And in the X/Y manga I feel like the story is a lot more comprehensive and the characters are much more interesting and complex.
If you haven't read them yet, I would suggest you do! They have amazing stories and reading from Volume 1 to whatever the most recent volume is (I can't remember) is an amazing experience.
I disagree that the rivals don't have problems. I mean let's be honest, they were pretty poorly handled, but they do have some potential.
When she joins us in the Team Flare base during the climax of the game, Shauna says "I'm sorry… I know… I'm just going to slow you down."
This line implies that, because she isn't really interested in battling like literally everyone else in this world is, it makes her feel inadequate and like she's a burden, and her bubbly attitude is a mask.
And honestly, it makes sense. It seems to be a pattern in the Pokémon world that the people who aren't interested in Pokémon battles are kinda ostracized and considered weird.
It's a similar situation with Chloe in the Pokémon Journeys anime for example. Well Chloe's writing and development is flawed (like everything in Journeys), but she had a very good premise and I really enjoyed her character in the beginning.
As for Trevor, he's a pretty typical introverted character and lacks confidence. It's not much, but it's a problem he has technically. I mean him not being confident, not him being an introvert.
During the climax, he, Tierno, Dexio and Sina were freeing the Pokémon attached to the stones of Route 10 by Team Flare to drain their Life Force.
This could have been a great character moment for Trevor as he must have fought against plenty of Flare grunts in order to save the Pokémon.
And in this moment, despite his hesitation, maybe he realized that he was with people who had his back no matter what and managed to gather the strength to do what he believed was right. To save these Pokémon.
It would have been great... *IF THEY SHOWED IT* instead of telling us through text that most players skipped.
But I guess they didn't want to risk their E-rating by actually showing the Pokémon attached to the stones screaming in pain as their Life Force is being drained from their bodies, and so they couldn't show Trevor, Tierno, Dexio and Sina saving them either.
We know that it's what happens since the dialogue of one of the Flare grunts that blocks Route 10 during the climax indicates that he's desperatly trying to ignore their cries of pain.
As for Tierno, yes he doesn't really have problems, but I feel like it could be good. He's good friends with Trevor especially, and he could be there to support him with his endless positive attitide to push him forward and become more confident.
Especially with their role on Route 10 during the climax that I just explained. Tierno was there too, and he could have been the push that Trevor needed to overcome his fear and doubts in that moment.
As for Calem/Serena, we know their parents are great trainers, so maybe their problem could be that they have trouble fulfilling their parents' expectations, only to realize throughout their journey that they don't have to fulfill anybody's expectations if they don't feel comfortable with it.
So overall, good potential but missed potential at the same time, and bad execution.
Chloe's character and all of Journeys was extremely well handled and written
@@natalimoina Ash is a horribly annoying Mary Sue in it. That alone is bad.
Chloe's indecisiveness could have led her to become something different and new. But despite not caring about training Pokémon in the usual sense at the beginning, she got Eevee and became a trainer anyway. Disappointing.
There's also the complaint of not enough Galar, which doesn't come from me but is legitimate. And I know there are many other flaws but I don't feel like looking all of them up right now.
Now tell me, what makes you think Journeys was so good ?
Trevor is extremely poorly handled, because you can find his home in Lumiose in the post-game and learn that his parents just abandoned their children to go off on their own adventure.
Maybe they were going to do more with that in a Z version? Otherwise, it's just a random bit of character development that never gets followed up on. You don't even learn it from Trevor himself, you learn it second hand from his sister.
@@ThatGuy-tc6uv Wait for real ? Can you tell me where his home is exactly ? I need to go see that.
@@Oceane1803 It's off of Jaune Plaza, on the path that leads to North Boulevard.
You'll know it if you see a scientist inside who asks about Eerie Impulse. Trevor's sister is further in.
My girlfriend sent me this video and a month later I finally watched it. I really like how focused each of the sections were. You weren't trying to make The Ultimate X and Y review, you knew your talking points and stuck to them. There was much more analysis than summary, which makes it a lot more digestible. Format and content was good. Great work
I feel bad for X and Y. It had so much potential with the way it's history informs its worldbuilding, its themes of beauty, life and death, megas showing the bonds of pokemon and trainer, it could have been outstanding. But it's so obvious it was screwed over by the negative reactions to gen5 and the fact that GF used it as the generation to fully embrace the franchising and advertising to move pokemon into the mainstream. The end result is a game that uses all the tropes but doesn't really understand them beyond them being there and relies on nostalgia and spectacle over any attempt at interesting storytelling. Add to that no third game to properly flesh out the story and it's all a sad state of affairs.
I don't know if this is an odd opinion but I hesitate to call Lysandre a fascist, not because he's at all a good or reasonable person, he certainly displays characteristics of such individuals, but because his disregard for other people is so vague i.e. the writing doesn't convey what informs his weird world view. Like at least Cyrus in Platinum was shown to just hate people in general, but Lysandre's words are worded in a way that informs he thinks SOME people are stains on the planet yet his evil team full of people who favour glamour and privilege are somehow the one group he wants to keep around. And he's willing to kill ALL others including people and pokemon. Look I'm not asking the genocidal maniac to be reasonable, I'm asking he be consistent, fascists tend to leverage specific demographics for their ridiculous rhetoric to sway public opinion and delude themselves into thinking they're actual problems, but Lysandre just...hates people for...general, unspecific bad things they do to the world of pokemon, you know the utopian society where the only problems seems to come from the evil teams. Idk, maybe I'm thinking about it weird, but I think it's a testament to X and Y's writing that it just doesn't engage with any of it's subject matter in any meaningful way, and I think Serenaa's bizarre 'both sides were wrong' mentality further adds to my point.
As far as future generations, I'd say they are better at storytelling and thematic elements (well not SwSh but that's a whole other rant) but the same conflict between gameplay and story is present. The most recent example is in Gen 9's DLC. I'll keep things vague but TLDR a character becomes a bitter rival of yours through circumstances that are interesting on paper but the problem is they only reach that point because the game doesn't give you the option to tell them the ONE thing that led them down that point so it feels super contrived. In general it comes down to the franchise refusing to take risks, even 'formula-braking' games like Legends Arceus end up being shackled by the same story problems because the games continue to stick to their roots. I hope in ZA they are more ambitious and really take the time to allow the story and gameplay to work in tandem.
Anyway, love seeing you talk about these games in the way that you do, really offers a fresh perspective and a critical eye that's changed my outlook on them. I look forward to what other analyses you have in the future.
"But it's so obvious it was screwed over by the negative reactions to gen5 and the fact that GF used it as the generation to fully embrace the franchising and advertising to move pokemon into the mainstream."
???
How does incomplete story AND ingame areas = screwed over by negative reactions from gen 5? That doesnt even make sense. And....huh?? Pokemon was mainstream since gen 1 dude..
I can't remember if the story makes it incredibly clear, but you can find his journal in the labs which reveals that he more or less considers the poor to be "those who take" due to prior experiences and it's overall implied that Lysandre measures people's worth in terms of how rich or famous they are (some NPCs mention Team Flare's entry fee being massive).
The irony is that Lysandre focuses entirely on what "those who deserve to be saved" have rather than who they actually are as people, hence his team being made up of people you'd think he'd see as the problem.
I love this video so much, the part 2 intro went fucking insane and yet you were able to entirely justify it. You have not only my respect but my abject admiration. You have done an excellent job with this video. Being slightly younger than yourself, my interest in Pokemon survived one more generation than yours, so I am sad to see that someone of your talent won't be dissecting the themes (if they even exist...) of the Generation VII games but I am nonetheless overjoyed to have followed your personal and highly information dissections of Generations V and VI.
Thank you, Skye, for reinventing this little trip down memory lane for me.
It’s been a while since then, but my (rather late) introduction to the Pokémon franchise was through Sun and Moon, providing me with a lot of first experience bias towards it. But even in my hazy memory, and after reading another comment that brought back more memories, I think Alola was very consistent with its gimmick. The Z-Moves and Z-Crystals were exclusive to people, but really only by choice. You had to put in the effort to do the trials and pass them before gaining the power of a Z-Crystal.
The point that stuck out to me immediately was they way Guzma is able to use Z-Moves. I don’t remember if he passed his Island Challenge, but he wound up with the bug type Z-Crystal anyways. But Z-Crystals were built up to be something that could be fully unleashed when the Trainer and Pokémon were in sync with one another and trusted one another. Guzma had a past with Gloisiopod and they grew up together. They trusted one another. It was very fitting.
But however exclusive Z-Moves were, it’s nothing like the mega band. Our rival gets to use them (Hau is just a silly little guy, I love him so much), the Kahunas use them, I think the Trial Captains use them?, and it might have just been in USUM, but Totems might have too. Aside from the last one, the Z-Move gimmick interacted very well with the need for trust and relationships with your Pokémon. (You didn’t actually need the hearts you could earn, which is a shame, but eh).
The only problem is I cannot remember for the life of me whether Lusamine used Z-Moves. I mean she has to have, disappointingly, but I cannot remember. But I think she is a nice thematic opposite to the trust ideal that is set up. Lusamine chases perfection, but relationships and trust can NEVER be perfect, part of the reason we defeat her (beyond, yanno, it being a kids game).
But those are just my thoughts, please let me know if I got anything wrong :)
The trials were, at best, fetch quests or quizzes. Not much effort to get one. And half the time, you wouldnt get to see them because you just blow through the ONE pokemon in each of those important battles that holds the Z crystal. And because they use the Z move at random.
Also, Guzma has Z moves because he took every single one of Alola's bug z crystals as part of his alliance with Lusamine lol. It was really cool to discover.
"because I was born in the 1900s" caused me to age excessively
I like the plot on XY, specifically because it's all about the villain trying to extinct French people
Pokemon X/Y will always have a special place in my heart. This has been one of the best videos regarding the issues with the game I think I have ever seen on TH-cam. Your own format of storytelling is very entertaining to watch. Thank you for making me see this game for what it is, and lets hope Pokemon Z-A can do better!!
X and Y had THE BEST music, in my opinion.
X was my first pokémon game, being a birthday gift of my friend’s x cartridge from when she was a kid. i just finished it a couple months ago, and i have to say i still feel…underwhelmed. after transferring all my pokémon to alpha sapphire to continue the series, i keep finding myself wanting to return to x for some reason. some of it is a fondness for my initial introduction to the franchise, but a lot of it is because i just feel empty. like i missed something. i don’t really feel like i completed a game? i feel as if i still need to go back and fight some more battles, finish the storyline, do SOMETHING. i feel like something is still supposed to happen. another issue i had was how bland and samey the towns were. i rarely felt like i had ventured to a cool new place, with the exception of shalour city, but a lot of that was the music. (i love the shalour city music to death. it’s a beautiful piece of music in its own right.) i did really appreciate the trainer customization, however. my sparkly tank top and ripped jeans with leggings are something im really missing in alpha sapphire so far.
Isn't the weird machine Lysandre js wearing the reason he used mega evolution?
No I believe that was for siphoning Xerneas/Yveltal's power (and possibly for remotely controlling the Ultimate Weapon?). The anime gives it more functions though.
Maybe fascists can be friends between them
You asked at the end how the mechanics of later gens match up with the narratives they're trying to tell, and I realized something interesting. Much like how this game plays it safer than gen 5 to appease fans, sun and moon also have a sort of reactionary element to them. You mentioned how X and Y mostly use the setting of France as a piece of marketing, but Sun and Moon swing pretty wildly in the opposite direction and seem to (at least on the surface) have a LOT more reverence for the real-world region they were based on. The island challenge places a lot more emphasis on the exploration and general feelings of awe and wonder that the region just naturally has, with minimal man-made involvement. And when human interactions with the natural world are included, they are much more focused on tradition and respect for nature. Nobody is building massive arenas for gym battles like in sword and shield, instead the big battles mostly take place within ritualistic ceremonies against trainers held in high regard for how they contribute to and coexist with nature. Z-moves are about learning to appreciate and revere Alola's rich culture and to utilize it in your own life instead of ignoring it or destroying it, and kinda serve as a metaphor for how literally powerful that idea can be.
Oh, and then the whole thing with the Aether Foundation and ultra beasts is kinda commentary on white colonialism in the area, at least on paper. When you see Lusamine's indoor garden area, iirc she brags about how beautiful and diverse it is, but it's all so sterile. It feels like a zoo, not like nature. So the twist of the Aether Foundation being the bad guys is pretty obvioius when viewed from that lens, but the twist is still important because it can demonstrate how white colonials can seem like they have excellent intentions at first, only to gentrify and homogenize any bit of life and culture from whatever area they seem to care so much about. Ultra beasts, then, are a very thematically messy version of what colonizers view foreign wildlife as. When a Nihilego shows up for the first time, it's treated as this weird and scary threat, but at the end of the day, they're just normal pokemon that happen to look different than you'd expect. Obviously, they push the boundaries on that concept by including literal extradimensional life with crazy designs that push the envelope of what can be considered a pokemon, but like... imagine white people discovering Australia for the first time. There's all kinds of weird shit there, but at the end of the day, they're just animals.
The regional inspiration isn't flawlessly implemented, especially when it comes to Kukui forming the region's first pokemon league and how all of that doesn't fit with the rest of the theming, but I do think it's handled better than in any other generation with a strong regional emphasis.
My biggest gripe with these games is not even about Megas or even the plot being kinda weak. It is that only X makes any sense. The ultimate weapon was a machine of revival and eternal life that was refunctioned to be a machine of mass destruction, justifying why Team Flare gets Xernias to power it, the thing runs on life energy. Team Flare's plan makes sense for them to obtain eternal, pure life because they logically try to be the last survivors after getting rid of everyone, justifying why Xernias is involved. Lysandre's fate is left ambiguous if he died or just trapped himself forever, which depends on Xernias.
I have only seen Y a couple of times, but as far as I could tell they just straight up 1:1 swapped these references that only work with Xernias into being Yveltal's omegadeath. And you just cannot do that with this plot. Other Gens are interchangable enough between legendaries and versions, but this is a story that is so clearly written for Xernias and Yveltal is shoehorned in because they have an internal mandate to always make double releases.
I think both legendaries work. While Xerneas produces life energy to power the weapon, Yveltal takes it from other beings.
I'd argue it doesn't make sense with X either, because when Lysandre states the consequence of him firing the ultimate weapon with Xernas fueling it, it would curse those in the blast radius with eternal life (I think). Which is... still bad, since thats taking away from people's bodily autonomy, but it doesn't have the same visceral impact of essentially nuking a whole section of Kalos like with Yveltal. X and Y sorely needed a third version to make any sense, being split into two games didn't do it many favors.
@@dustrose8101 Yeah, I must have forgotten him saying that after years since playing. Because what is bro talking about? 😂Lysandre, that makes no sense.
Ngl, when I saw ‘Can Pokemon say anything?’ I legit thought the video would be about Pokemon talking
With the backlash that gen 5 got, TPC wanted to go back and undo every step gen 5 had taken.
Narratively gen 6 is the consequence of fan backlash
I finally played through the game this year after dropping it twice using the Eternal X mod and found it pretty fun. While not expecting much from the story some of the locales and especially the OST clicked.
And I gotta say increasing the difficulty does wonders making the game more engaging allowing for more memorable moments. Early game was rough until you assemble a team. I ran into a shiny Sandile. The 2 admins in the pokeball factory had you going up against a wopping twelve mons. There was that time Brelloom managed to clutch a win against Lysander's dragon dance boosted Gyrados. The Elite 4 has a cool twist that had me scrambling to adapt strategies. Or the battle with Essentia where it came down to my regular Scizor against her Mega Scizor.
Honestly the series has a lot of potential to create cool stories on gameplay scenarios alone and it´s a shame it can't seem to capitalize on it.
Something I don't understand about pokémon in general when it comes to capturing legendaries is
When the story allows it, why not have the capturing be after the battle, and by choice of the pokémon?
Like in this game, why don't have the battle be the legendary testing your worth and then after the battle having a cinematic of the legendary letting you capture it by their own will
Interesting vid, I never gave too much thought to the story of XY. I've played the games multiple times, but they have always been more of a brain off choice for me in terms of Pokemon games. It always felt to me that the games had a lot of dialogue but really had nothing to say. You pointing out the contradictions in the story helped give me an idea on part of why I felt that way.
On a related note, I am looking forward to if you ever cover SuMo, especially if you include Ultra SuMo as well. I found SuMo to be my favorite in terms of its themes and characters. The idea of all the different types of families both good, bad, familial, and found was a concept I liked. I think it did rather well for the most part. However, I still will not forgive Ultra SuMo for the changes to Lusamine. Would be interesting to hear you cover topics on these games as I feel there is a lot that can be discussed.
Although not a complex story, I loved the harmony in the final cyrus fight in platinum.
The overall vibe is get is insane cult leader, which works so well with the insane music and insane distortion world location.
I also like the way cynthia talks about Cyrus, barely even a human, more like a bomb that we are trying to defuse.
Also works well with the fact he’s literally trying to work with the devil, and even giratina isn’t up for his nonsense lol.
And then the creepy ending of him just staying in the distortion world, an insane man in an insane dimension.
Imagine what it would be like to see him 6 months later there? How unhinged he would be. The ending of it doesn’t even feel that happy, just relieving and uneasy.
Great video and thanks for the question at the end I had loads of fun writing this!
I'm not sure I agree with your analysis on why it makes no sense for Lysandre to be able to megaevolve, from a story perspective I think megaevolutions parallel perfectly the use of the ancient weapon, only few have access to it and it can be used for the greater good/life (as the player does) or for selfish reasons/to take away/death (as lysandre does).
It's a gift that comes from a deep understanding of pokemon and nature, of the cycle of life and death. Lysandre understands it deeply but ends up using it for evil because even if he understands the "death of beauty" he simply can't accept it (on the contrary Diana is the opposite and is quite welcoming of her coming to an older age, which shows her being virtuos). And even then I think that it's more of something that is bound behind knowledge than being a "chosen one", even if the fact that nobody beside 4 people in the whole region can use megas (which I absolutely agree is such a missed opportunity, both for gameplay but thematic reasons too).
To bring it back to the flute with the two palaces the player is the more modest palace, that adoperates themselves for the better of the people, and Lysandre is the castle of gold that only wants to take for himself and accumulate beauty.
I think the main message of the story isn't just that "we should all contribute to our community and respect nature", but that there're also special people, those who have a big power capable of changing the world (mega evolution in pokemon, and political leaders irl) and especially those must use their powers for good and be stopped once they step over the line. At the end of the day there will usually be some people who have more power than others on their hands, but this doesn't mean that they're free to do what they want.
Maybe it's a bit oversimplistic and changes the meaning of your analysis too much, but I could see this being the message that lysandre as a character and the story more broadly are about
added this to my list of favorite video essays. growing up i was never quite focused on the story of the games because i was more interested on the pokemon themselves(which is why my favorite games from the franchise are actually stuff like mystery dungeon & pokepark) but this video has singlehandlely got me a bit more captivated by what story the main games have to tell
On a note about what you said at the end. I love these videos, so seeing more is obviously what I personally would want. But I understand if the idea of research would taint your routine of how you play the games and make it difficult to write these videos.
Essentially, I hope you do decide to do the other games (either 1-4 or 7+) but if you don't feel you can then don't.
I only really watch for the Pokemon stuff because I have a familiarity with the series and I like seeing new meanings in my old experiences. So I get that you may not feel geared towards the other entries
The anime did a great job explaining why villains can use mega evolution through harming their Pokémon
galar was a much-needed expansion on the themes of kalos, if loosely. it's such a startling exploration of monopoly and capitalism, and the commercialization of hobbies and lifestyles. there's logos EVERYWHERE on EVERYTHING, a lot of items have brand names, galar's gym league is the most modern-sports-like it's ever been portrayed as and it all feels startlingly fake the entire time. which is an accomplishment with how alola's megamarts manage to make my skin crawl every time i walk into them. towns and cities are reduced to storybook vignettes in their scale which feels more like an incidental intersection of maximum memory space and theming. and the story is a second, stronger exploration of "delusional rich guy tries to create national disaster to solve some non-problem he's been obsessing over for the past decade"
Your videos have helped me realize why I always lacked the interest to play the Pokemon games myself and play with Pokemon cards ‘the right way’ as a child. It makes these creatures and the worlds they inhabit feel so mechanical and shallow, because mechanics ARE put first along with marketability. I now know that I always liked the anime and the mangas based on the games better because everything, not just the ‘main’ ‘important’ trainers got explored in more depth. We got to see the history, the development, and the evolution of so many Pokemon and their trainers, their everyday lives and the problems they regularly go through. Getting to see all this expressed in all sorts of ways with all sorts of people and Pokemon is what drew me in when I was younger to the series. It made the Pokemon world not only as real as mine but unique and fun in its own unique ways rather then supplementary tools. Not to mention the fleshing out of the overall general world and showed how people interact with Pokemon in ways more then battling ( i.e. coordinations, performances, egg raising, grooming, photography, teaching, etc.)
40:40 THANK GOD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO HAD THIS REACTION TO THE (RIVAL) CHARACTERE VICTORY ROAD SPEECH. LYSANDRE TRIED KILLING EVERYONE HOW WAS HE SORTA RIGHT ????
I was worried going into this video because I really like X and Y and am frustrated by everyone constantly complaining about it, but I really appreciated how fair and balanced you were in your criticisms, even though I don’t agree with all of it. I would love to see X and Y remakes that take the games I love and expand it to all that it could be.
Couple of issues I have with this video
- Mega-Evolution being painful doesn't fit at all with X&Y's treatment of it, it's broadly assumed that it was retconned in S&M to ease audiences into giving it up for gen 8 but later backpedaled on for Let's Go because they figured they could still milk it through Pokémon Go even if they abandon it as a main series mechanic (and bc Let's Go is much more cutesy and kiddy than S&M).
- "Lyssandre being able to mega-evolve doesn't make any sense". Nah, it does. Him crying at the thought of extinguishing life is him caring for stuff, as is him being Sycamore's friend. There's no reason for them not to have a "bond" (the word these games constantly throw around regarding megas). Hell, the main character managed to Mega-Evolve Korina's lucario seconds after being given it, the requirements for Mega-Evolution are clearly laxer than you're implying.
- "We're all carp, all the time"? We all *start* as carp, and then some may transform into dragons through hard work and perseverance. That is the general understanding of the Chinese legend, and while dragons *were* associated with the Emperor of China, gyarados wasn't born a gyarados. I fundamentally and vividly disagree with your (political?) statement. The fact that some dragons were born that way (a.k.a. the Emperor, a.k.a. Lyssandre) doesn't take away the ability for us carp to change our stars and fly among them. Dragons aren't always dragons by blood; not in Chinese legend and not in gyarados' case. Even Lyssandre praises Diantha's *efforts* to bring beauty into the world. Her being "chosen" to be a movie star is her "dedicating her life" to achieve excellent acting to move the multitudes with. "If only everyone were like her" = "if only everyone dedicated their life to make people happy", explicitly.
You are "chosen", and so is Diantha, through conviction, which he praises and is right to. It doesn't make us "inherently" superior, as you said, nor does it make us ontologically superior, but it's something we do have over other people. Pretending everyone is exactly of the same character is dumb.
- "These games are about fascism"
Eeehh. Idk. I'd rather say it *seems* like they're going to be about fascism but through having a thoroughly nonsensical plot and villain they end up not being about anything cohesive. It does include heavy fascistic rethoric tho so this is not a hard disagree.
I do like your mechanical analysis tho, reminds me a lot of Matthewmatosis'. And the idea of Mega Evolution only being available after you reach a certain Happiness threshold is so fitting I'm shocked I didn't think of it first. It slides right in.
I also share your frustration with "it's not that deep, bro" type comments. Analysis is fun for some people gosh darn it! Let us pick fuckin Cocomelon apart if we feel like it!
All of your "issues" simply contribute to the thesis of the video, in that the game narrative is inconsistent baloney.
ESPECIALLY the Pokedex lol.
really good analysis and very entertaining video! the visual editing is also on point, especially when transitioning from one topic to the next.
not to plug my current favorite game, but i feel like cassette beasts (another monster taming game released last year) synchronizes its story and gameplay elements in very interesting ways.
while it is still very much player-centric, its commitment to having every battle be a double battle with another partner character always by your side strengthens the theme of community. the main hub of the game, harbortown, also strengthens it as well. i feel like it's just a better example of themes of nature and connection, plus a very inspiring message about the human spirit to top it off. i highly recommend it. (it's also just a very fun game, and if you find the gameplay of pokemon to be lacking these days, i suggest giving it a try!)
Just a quick note - pretty much everyone expected the French far right to do much better than they did. They were pretty much stopped at the last minute by the center-left and far-left parties essentially cooperating to keep the bigger threat out. Not super relevant to the video, but just saying, your prediction was just as accurate as every major news station’s was lol
I was introduced to you via Adam Millard The Architect of Ganes for something completely different. You making videos one of the biggest franchises of my life is just a bonus. Your analyses are great and what I’m here for and I’m always looking forward to more.
5:14 feel personally called out here lmao
I have several thoughts in regards to this discussion.
The 1st focused on how when I'm underwhelmed with mainline pokemon's narrative problems, I generally have good experiences with the manga adaptations of Pokemon. Namely the Pokemon Special/Adventures series and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure. The Adventures series in particular does a great job at making the Player Characters + Rival all feel distinct and more often then not, serve the story by connecting to Pokemon in ways outside of battling. The Yellow chapter starring the character of the same name is a great starting point in particular for these types of story themes.
Another side of the franchise that I think strongly excels at Gameplay-Story integration is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series which uses the in-game abilities, skills, and moves to foreshadow and compliment the story instead of feeling quarantined off from it.
Thanks for the great video.
If your looking for a really good indie game that is inspired by Pokemon and accomplishes something new and intriguing. I can not recommend Cassette Beasts enough genuinely love that game
The X & Y OST really is underrated, and I think the credits' song / poem Kiseki really shines a light on the thesis of the video.
Fascism is the ultimate conditioning of othering & exclusivism. "If you're not us, you're nothing." So how do you _ fight_ it?
*_Coming together._* (this comment gets _very_ lengthy from here on.)
In the X & Y credits, a poem is displayed on the bottom screen, with each line in a different language. The poem's whole message is to come together, cherish life and treat one another kindly.
To elaborate on what is said in the video, the game broadly treats as if the "important man" theory is correct and is in the player's favour. "All great men are born in fire, and it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame." Lysander & Team Flare are treated as wrong simply because they're getting rid of all the 'carp', lesser men. Not because they genuinely believe in dragons, 'greater men' (ignoring that in Pokémon "dragons" are reptiles, not just "mythological 'beast', but with scales not fur" like in real life). If the waterfall is not made with bloodlines, it is made with cash or the "hard effort that everyone can do to get it" an ableist approach. So, to fight othering by being as (linguistically) accessible to as many people as possible, the poem is written through multiple languages. There are still some problems, (mainly that as a video game, X & Y is tied to technology which in turn is tied to economic privilege). But a big one is, how do Pokémon tie into this? Well, GameFreak already had the answer in a way many in the west don't realize, and perhaps they may have forgotten themselves.
Everyone knows at this point that "pokegods" are real in the Pokémon universe. It could be argued, though, that it's not gods as the descendants of European culture know it. In Shintoism and many other indigenous beliefs, spirits gods occupy many aspects of the world (that's why we have Honedge and others like Klinklang, Geodude, Dusclops & Klefki). A lot of western media portray this as an ignorant view of nature, but these beliefs (or stories that are conflated as being beliefs) help societies maintain the land and prevent the over extraction of resources that, to a post-industrial western mindset, are 'limitless'. While not everything maybe living organisms, it's the respect for nature from the belief of beings of the natural world as people in their own right that made land management as seamless as it was to the outside eye. As if there was no one there.
Where I think X & Y could've really shined if it said: "_Yeah, we as trainers from all cultures and walks of life need to come together as members of humanity. But Pokémon need to show up on their own accord. When they do, we, not as trainers, but as humans, who share this world & limited resources with them. AIDE them. NOT command them. If they ask for direction, then we can fight together. As trainer and Pokémon._"
The idea being to think of Pokémon not as tools, or animals, but beings in their own right. This to me feels like the natural conclusion of Gen V's story, been a good way to would've really tie into the box legendaries AND demonstrated the need to consider individuals of nature as a people, not corporations.
Apologies for the ranty mini essay on an essay. To conclude this TH-cam comment on a children's video game, here are some things I think you'll enjoy. Listening to Princessmagic's multilingual cover of Kiseki, learn to plant a carrot in your nearest community garden, have a wonderful day and bring kinder times. (‾◡◝)
It's a bit sad that you didn't finish moon. Despite the hand holding of the gameplay, it had my favorite story of the series. I didn't make it through ultra moon though. They changed the story to make it less impactful and I didn't even get to the new content because the rest of the game was so uninteresting. I stopped playing pokemon after that.
I love the way you create these video essays! Even though these games were a huge part of my childhood you always analyse them so well and point out stuff I never noticed myself. You're great at doing these kinds of metaphorical analysis', amazing work!
23:42 Thankfully, the fascist were pushed away from the prime minister's office, however, they still hold far too much power in France, mostly due to people like Vincent Bollore owning many medias and using those to spread far right ideas.
That bit of ludonarrative dissonance about mega evolution being a symbol of the bond between their trainer and Lysandre having access to it (which tbh I have seen some good explanations for elsewhere in the comments) reminds me of another issue: the games' narrative kinda takes it as an article of faith that your player character is the paragon of a good and caring pokemon trainer, ignoring your actual gameplay decisions.
And admittedly the games don't give you much room to be an asshole to your pokemon - the most you can really do is... let them repeatedly faint and rely on herbal medicine to heal them (which usually isn't even available until at least a third of the way through any given game), maybe just releasing pokemon a lot, but that's about it.
I kinda realized this during a playthrough of Pokemon SoulSilver where I was following a self-imposed challenge ruleset inspired by Pyre, where I was releasing my highest-level pokemon after each gym to mirror Pyre's progression loop, where every time you reach a liberation rite (its equivalent of a boss battle - or perhaps a championship match in the season mode of a sports game might be apt) you have to pick from your highest-level party members which one will earn their freedom from the purgatory realm you're all trapped in - and thus leave the party - if you win.
Though I guess this also comes down to the scope of the series, especially with the accusations of the series promoting animal abuse. A fan game or a monster-collecting game aimed at even a slightly older audience may be able to get away with actually exploring what it means to treat your creature companions poorly (or just... use it for edgy shock value in the case of Palworld - but even that is using the mechanics to explore ideas that Pokemon wouldn't touch on, even if it's doing so towards an end that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths), but an official Pokemon game really can't.
But at the same time... imagine a game that takes a branching story structure and ties it to the happiness mechanic. What if actually maintaining a certain baseline happiness was harder, but more rewarding. Hell, what if there were actual mechanical advantages and disadvantages to *low* happiness - e.g. level-based evolutions happening earlier at the cost of your creature companions being disobedient. What if the way NPCs reacted to your trainer actually depended on the average happiness of your party?