I finally got around to buying X/Y last month. I've been a long time Rom player and with a 3DS Emulator no where in sight, I broke down and bought one. As of now I'm pushing 80 hours played - not bad given I work full time ^^
Overall I think this is a really good generation. It has some negatives, my two biggest being Lumiose City is a PITA to navigate and the Elite Four is a complete joke - but otherwise I enjoyed myself a lot.
Central to this generation is Mega Evolution. New ones are being released on a regular basis and many have all ready leaked from the upcoming Ruby/Sapphire remakes. I'd thought I'd cover what IMO are the Top 5 best and Worst Megas.
Lets start with the bad ones.
Aerodactyl has long been a face palm of a pokemon. He has awesome stats and a pretty unique typing (the only one of his type until Gen 5, iirc). However he always had a major problem - a POS moveset. Why in Arceus' name does a pokemon with Rock Head (the ability that lets you take no recoil damage from recoil moves) not have access to any recoil moves? Okay okay, he can learn double-edge - who the hell cares? Where the hell is Head Smash and Brave Bird?
I've played a hack of Pokemon Black called "Blaze Black" made by a super cool dude named Drayano - he does terrific works making Pokemon games much more challenging. In this said game Aerodactyl can in fact learn both of those moves and he tears apart people like its nobodies business.
But alas, the vanilla version is awful.
So what does Gamefreak do? They give him a Mega, ramp up his stats some more and give him the new ability Tough Claws. Made famous by Charizard X, it increases all physical contact moves by 33% - a pretty badass ability.
But guess what? All of Aerodactyls rock moves - DO NOT MAKE CONTACT!!!! They're physical moves yes, but not a single one he can learn makes contact making this ability 50% useless to him.
Seriously. What. The. Actual. $%^&?
Do I even need to say more? Fix it Nintendo. At least he looks cool, but its not enough.
Next up Mega Khangaskhan, aka argubly the most broken pokemon out there right now. Why is that? Parental Bond and Power up Punch.
Parental Bond is Khangaskhan's new ability after it mega evolves. It allows every move the pokemon uses to hit twice, the first hit doing full power and the second hit doing 50% power. Its basically playing on the parent/child both hitting now that the kid is out of the pouch. This means every attack Khangaskhan uses is automatically 150% power. Very good by itself, but not nessecarily game breaking.
Now add in Power up Punch. The ability that does 40 damage and raises attack by 1. Except Khangaskhan hits twice. So it does 60 damage and raises attack by 2. That's right you read it correctly. You are getting a 60 damage attack ON TOP of a friggen Swords Dance. lolwhut.
When you consider that its stats are all around very good and quite bulky and combined it with the fact that it can learn Sucker Punch, a dark type move that gives priority to Khangaskhan any time someone attacks it and it basically will 1 shot everyone who tries to KO it after a Power Up Punch or two. Not even Ghosts are safe because Sucker Punch is Dark.
The devs have admitted this pokemon needs balancing. Its broken as crap right now.
Here is yet another broken Pokemon. Mega Gengar. It also comes from his ability Shadow Tag - preventing anyone from switching out on the pokemon. This by itself is an enormously powerful ability.
Gengar makes it especially dangerous with 2 movesets, Destiny Bond and Perish Song. The former when uses cause the opposing Pokemon to faint when it kills Gengar. This means Gengar not only is match-up proof (allowing you to take out anyone of the other guys team) but he will always cost you 1 pokemon to beat. Very powerful.
Perish song is where the bs comes in. Pop the ability, both Pokemon faint in 3 turns. The only way to live is to switch out - except you can't fighting Gengar. But he still can. On the last turn Gengar switches out, the other Pokemon dies and Gengar comes back for more.
For people who are not prepared for it, Perish Trap can ruin your team.
And when you consider Gengar's enormous speed and SpA stats, its not like he can't beat you straight up either.
Another Pokemon in need of balancing.
I have a huge love-hate relationship with this Pokemon. On one hand, Gyrados is one of the most badass pokemon around. He has terrific stats and awesome typing, being weak to only 2 types and even better - he destroys both of his weaknesses with a single move - Earthquake.
His long problem has been that he's only ever been able to learn 1 flying move - Bounce. And you can't even teach it to him in Gen 6 (yet) - you have to import it from a Gen 5 game.
Combine with Intimidate and Dragon Dance and you have a very bulky sweeper on your hands. All he needed was a better flying move, damnit.
So instead, they completely change his game play style - for the worse. The dark secondary typing gives him way more weaknesses and guess what? THE ONLY DARK MOVE HE LEARNS IS BITE WTF.
I hate his look too.
The increased stats are nice but ...seriously. Just come on all ready. I'm not even picky, give him damn Aerial Ace or some other mid tier flying move. Ridiculous. Its been over a decade all ready and it took most of that just to get bounce.
So for those of you who don't know, Pokemon tend to be a min/max type deal. If you have a pokemon who is good at attacking, you boost the crap out of his attack and he hits hard. If you have a good defensive pokemon, you raise it defensively - etc.
Typically pokemon that try to do too many things just end up being horribly fail at both and are useless.
Regular Absol is nothing special, but it had a high attack so you knew what it could do. Mega Absol...has quite possibly the most useless stat increase ever. It base attack is 130 and special is 75 - clearly a physical attack. After getting mega evolved it boosts to 150 attack and...115 special.
Seriously? TWICE as much Special boost as physical? When Absol has no business using special attacks in the first place? And its not like his ability makes special attacks any better. so WTF? I don't even know.
Instead of wasting 40 points in a stat Absol will never use, how about some more defenses, since the pokemon can't take a hit at all? Or even more attack and/or speed and make it a glass cannon? Seriously, just stop Nintendo. This Pokemon is so useless your Rival is given one in the X/Y games. Yeah - low.
Anyway, enough crying. Lets get onto the good ones.
I'm gonna say that Nintendo did a fantastic job with all the Kanto Starter Mega's. Each one is very good. I'm starting with Venusaur because its my favorite gen 1 starter and because people sleep on this pokemon a lot. (sort of pun intended)
Mega Venusaur is simply, a tank. His new ability Thick Fat essentially eliminates his weakness to Fire and Ice, leaving him with only 2 weaknesses. He also has terrific defensive stats and a very nice special attack stat. Give him moves like Synthesis, Leech Seed and Giga Drain and this Pokemon not only hits hard, but heals itself while doing so and is just incredibly difficult to take down. And if the Sun is up? Pft. Forget about it. Full HP heals Synthesis = gg.
The look could have been a little better, but I'm not complaining too much.
I'd highly recommend trying this pokemon out on your next play through. He will anchor your team with no problems.
Next up we basically have the poster child of Pokemon. Charizard has always been a fan favorite, be it in games or in the anime or in the mangas. He is badass, and powerful and flexible and there's a lot you can do with him.
I'm including both Megas in this. I'm gonna start by saying I think Charizard X is a little overrated and Y underrated. X is still good mind you, but in most cases I think Y is better. Let's explain.
Normally I am vehemently against trying to change a Pokemon from its intent. Charizard excels as a special attacker and while he can be good at physical attacks, it not what he's best at IMO. Charizarid X solves this with Tough Claws given his contact movies a 33% power boost. His typing and moveset are also fantastic. Charizard X hits hard and can take hits and when he starters Dragon Dancing he's a force to reckon with.
And I mean come on? What pokemon looks cooler than Charizard X? The answer is...basically none.
However, while he is very good, if you're just looking at needy a bulky physical sweeper....Dragonite is basically still superior in every way and he doesn't even have a mega. He has more bulk, better healing and comparable attack - and he can dance. And if you import one...he can have Extreme Speed.
Not gonna hate on it too much though, its a good pokemon.
Y on the other hand, basically does everything right in my opinion. It boosts the stats Charizard is good at and gives him a rad ability - Drought giving him the sun up automatically each time. You do not want to be on the receiving end of a Charizard Y with enormous special attack and the sun up. Not to mention since Lizardon (dat japanese) can learn Solar Beam, Water types under the sun vs Charizard Y is not a good match up. His glaring weakness to rock is also quickly destroyed.
He does look kinda lame though. Especially in comparison. Still, too many people sleep on Charizard Y.
Despite the fact that Venusaur is my favorite starter...Mega Blastoise is my favorite Mega starter. And probably my favorite Mega of all. It just nails absolutely everything in my opinion.
First...the look. I mean can you say CANNONS? I can. Cannons are awesome. Nuff said.
But lets get into it a bit deeper. How about those stats? Blastoise has always been a tank, but he's been a very mediocre offensive Pokemon. No worries - Mega Evolution boosts his Special Attack by a jaw dropping 50 base stat points. And it boosts his defense and special defense too.
Blastoise is now a tank...that hits like a tank destroyer. This Pokemon is just a beast.
And even better, he is given a new Ability that changes his gameplay style - for the better. The Mega Launcher ability boosts all "pulse" moves by 50% base damage and as such he was given new moves this generation. A Blastoise sporting moves like Dragon Pulse, Dark Pulse, Aura Sphere on top of a now uber Water Pulse is a force to be reckon with. It has fantastic coverage and essentially is sporting "stab" versions of all those moves thanks to Mega Launcher.
This Pokemon hits it on every level if you ask me. Fantastic stats, fantastic look, fantastic new gameplay...there's nothing to complain here. I'm in the process of leveling one up right now (fully EV trained) and I'm having ZERO problem destroying Pokemon 10+ levels above me (okay they're wild not trained pokemon, but still)
The fact that a Mega Blastoise ruined Charizard X in the anime, makes it sweeter too. (though why in gods name that idiot taught his Blastoise skull bash and power up punch is beyond me)
I've not yet had the pleasure of using this gem yet but I've seen in action. (My bro got Pokemon first technically and got Y -.-. I got X instead so we could trade n stuff)
This Pokemon is basically like Blastoise again. Heracross has always been good, he has almost no wasted stats and his allocation is fantastic and his Mega builds on that. Heracross is sporting a godly 185 base attack - no one wants to be on the receiving end of his Close Combat *shudder*
His defenses are also way better than average too meaning if you want, you could probably set up a Swords Dance *shudder*
The real backbone of this pokemon is its skill link ability, again changing the gameplay for the better.. It makes all multi-hit moves hit 5 times. Incredible powerful when you teach him moves like Pin Missile and Rock Blast which sport a 125 base power with 5 hits. The latter especially, since it gives Heracross vital coverage. No more does that flying/fire pokemon scare Heracross because neither of them are taking a rock blast and coming out alive.
Overall just another fantastic mega evolution. I wish more were designed with Heracross (and Blastoise) in mind
Last but not least.
Again, I'll probably rustle some jimmies but I've always thought Lucario a tad overrated. Again my problem is that he unnessecarily is high in both Special and Physical Attack. Even worse, its pretty clear his best moves are physical but his signature moves - like Aura Sphere - basically introduced FOR him is a special attack. It was just a mess of a Pokemon IMO. Its true potential was just not realized.
This is still somewhat of a problem with the Mega...but its new ability - Adaptability - makes up for. For those of you who are unware, this is one of the most powerful abilities in the game, bar none.
For you PokeNerds out there, you know about STAB - same type attack bonus. This means any time pokemon uses a move that is the same type as it, the move gets a 50% bonus in power. This is critical when all your moves are hitting 50% just by being the same type.
Adaptibility boosts this bonus from 50%...to 100%. This means the power of said Pokemon is just enormous. Close Combat on Lucario for example has a 240 "base" power with Adaptability. Just enormous.
As such...this Pokemon is just a monster. With priority moves like Bullet Punch and Extreme Speed to over come its mediocre speed and the possibility of setting up Swords Dance...this Pokemon will destroy teams without issue.
I'm still not happy with its stats. It needs to have its special attack dropped and given more defenses or speed, but there's no use in denying its power at least.
And yeah. Lucario has always looked cool.
Anyway. Those are my thoughts on Mega Evolution. Hope you've enjoyed the review. Forgive any grammar mistakes, I did this mostly on a whim at random and I probably screwed up (I just got off work a couple hours ago and am tired as sh%# too)
What are your favorite/least favorite Mega Evos?
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