Dear fellow Pokefans, here comes my ultimate X&Y run of the Pokemon 2020 Summer Season! Mind you, that run was an inch away from not existing: my initial choice was to cruise with the Dark cat in its home region, thus getting sweet revenge at long last after my aborted Black Liepard run. However, I finally decided to roll with Gen VI for both aesthetic and strategic reasons. On the aesthetic side, I was really fond of Purrloin's revamped model, which gives him a faux cartoon spy air; on the strategic side, I really wanted to exploit Liepard's revamped learnset, which includes Play Rough — a Move I missed during my Delcatty OR run.
My little Velours didn't have the easiest start in life: with pitiful defensive stats and solely the weakest of the weak Scratch at his disposal, the early stages were rocky. Not only that, but those early stages kinda overstayed their welcome: the next three offensive Moves Liepard can learn naturally, i.e. Fury Swipes, Pursuit and Fake Out, are nothing to brag to Professor Sycamore about. The only thing working in his favour was his amazing Limber Ability, which saved me from my single most hated status effect in Pokemon. Can more 'Mons be so deliciously immune to Paralyzis — pretty please? Fortunately, things took a turn for the better after I snatched Return in Lumiose, Thief in Camphrier, Rock Smash in Ambrette and Shadow Claw in the Glittering Cave; by the time I hit Cyllage and the Rock Gym, I was more than ready to take down Grant and his foils.
My Move pool didn't change much after that. Aerial Ace made a welcome cameo right in time for Shalour's Fighting Gym, quickly followed by the awesome and much-awaited Play Rough; Night Slash came to replace Thief, while the highly serviceable Return and Shadow Claw stayed firmly in place all the way to the Elite Four and beyond. With half of my Moves under 80 Power and none of them super-effective against said Elite Four bar Drasna and Diantha, I expected a kinda struggly final showdown — and that's what I got allright. I fainted a couple of times against Siebold, Malva and Wikstrom, but finally managed to take them down with a subtle mix of strategizing, luck and Black Glasses. After that, Drasna and Diantha were the expected cakewalk: I even indulged in the luxury of submitting all of Diantha's 'Mons bar Amaura with a super-effective Move.
I kept my eyes peeled for interesting details, and was rewarded by the uncovering of X&Y's subtle, blink-and-you-miss it rivalvry dynamics. I used to think that X&Y's pair of rivals were bland pushovers, the less antagonistic of all Pokemon rivals; however, they're actually anything but. Calem and Selena ooze a potent mix of jealousy, bitterness and desire for revenge, barely concealed under a thin frosting of cold politeness. It starts with them wondering how Professor Sycamore knows you despite your recent arrival, keeps going with them disparagingly calling you "neighbor" instead of using your nickname, and culminates with them bemoaning their reliance on you. It's basically the Blue story all over again: they should have been the leader of the pack, anointed by the resident Pokemon expert in person — until you popped up at the last minute and completely stole their thunder. Unlike Blue though, they finally submit to your awesomeness and end up respecting you in earnest. All in all, this is a really deep and subtle rivalvry — maybe a bit too much for its own good, because it's all too easy to miss it entirely.
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| Meet my new kink: to pimp up my Trainer with the same colours as my 'Mon. |
At any rate, my annual revisitation of Kalos comes to an end with that run. There will probably be more Pokemon goodness before I'm fully done with the Pokemon 2020 Summer Season, though — and nevermind that it's actually autumn now! Until the next run report, dear fellow gamers — keep playing and take care!
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