

Future iterations of the game will be hard pressed to top it. It's certainly a curious goal and, without spoilers, their plot is a lot more ambitious than any Pokémon villains to date.

Of course, no Pokémon game would be complete without a nefarious team of ne'er-do-wells with a secret plot to ruin Pokémon for everyone so, while you're out and about collecting badges, you'll also run into members of Team Flare and their leader, Lysandre, who all claim to just want to make the world beautiful. The aim is to travel around to all the Pokémon gyms in the Kalos region to receive the eight gym badges and become a Pokémon master - something that seems to be a bit of a rite of passage in the Pokémon universe (and which leaves the small children standing by the roadside waiting to battle passers-by something of a mystery).

You play a young man or lady embarking on your Pokémon quest after receiving your first Pokémon. The Pokémon stock-in-trade storyline remains in place. I've invested over 72 hours in Pokémon X, and, while I'm reaching the end of the main storyline, I feel I've only scratched the surface of what the game has to offer. That core gameplay, so engrossing in and of itself, has expanded to include a game that has something for pretty much everyone.
