Pokemon X & Y makes raising Pokemon easier because of the Internet

Pokemon X and Y has introduced ways to make raising your Pokemon a quicker process, something Game Freak's Junichi Masuda attributes to the smartphone generation not having as much time to play.

Ozzie Mejia

October 14, 2013 4:15 PM

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Pokemon X and Y released over the weekend and it's pretty fantastic. It's also become easier and less time-consuming to raise Pokemon than in previous generations. The reason for that, according to Game Freak director Junichi Masuda, is that the smartphone generation simply can't devote as much time to raising Pokemon.

"Nowadays, we have the Internet, smartphones, and more, so I think the time spent playing games has decreased," Masuda told Famitsu magazine (via Siliconera). "For those reasons, we made it much easier to raise your Pokemon that will allow you to play smoother and more comfortably than before."

One way in which raising Pokemon has become easier is through simply catching new ones. Catching Pokemon will now reward XP, a change from previous iterations of the series. Another is through the idea of the game's Horde Encounters, which allow players to scoop up gobs of XP in a single battle.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?