Article: Features revealed in the media's playthrough of the game

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I've looked through a ton of media reviews of the game and found out some interesting things that people might not have known before. Bewear that there are spoilers, but they are divided into three sections (new mechanics, returning mechanic changes, and story spoilers). Let me know what you think and if you see anything else!

So disappointed that Pokemon Refresh can only be used at the end of a battle, because I loved Amie in 6th Gen and it'll be so sad that I won't get to enjoy it the same way.

As for the male trainer's hair options being similar to those in X/Y, I bet that's going to be a bad sign of gender discrimination again, because X/Y's customization handling was more skewed towards females in terms of options and I don't want a repeat of that. I am female and always play as female trainers but I know there are likely going to be way more male players and they don't want to be given the short end of the stick again.

I'm really happy that we get an EXP. Share in the beginning of the game, it makes training much easier.
That the sneaking to Pokémon is removed, I've got double feelings with it. Well, now the Pokémon comes to you in place of running away this would make shiny hunting easier I hope. Not that I'm a shiny hunter, I hunt more for hidden abilities.

colours said:

"gender discrimination" is a strong term and I'd rather we err away from using that until we actually know what kind of clothing options being offered for the male character...

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I get what you mean with "discrimination" sounding too serious and likely offensive, but I think we're getting promised that Game Freak learned from the customization mistakes in X/Y and are trying to equalize the options between gender. Females will still probably have more hair options though.

Meh, I'll probably just turn the Exp. Share off at the start like I did for X/Y. Other features and changes I'm happy with! Pokémon Refresh being available only after a battle is better imo because it feels like it would encourage me to use the feature more? Having it usable at any given time made me kinda forget it was there, if it is prompted after battle then I'll for sure use it a lot more than I did in X and Y.

This will take more time to get max hearts now since you need to do battles, hopefully you get more hearts without doing minigames.

Why is Pokemon refresh available only after battle? Whats the logic behind that?

Yeah, I kinda hate that pokemon refresh is only available after battle, and that there isn't blue hair dye. Lots of people from johto had dyed hair, why can't i?

I like how now Pokemon can just run up to you in tall grass, it adds a surprising element and I think it'll be really cool when I see it in action. I can sort of understand why Pokemon Refresh is only accessible after battles (as it's mainly meant for 'refreshing' your Pokemon) but I'll miss being able to use it at any time like we could with Amie, if ever I got bored I would always go and pet my Pokemon and play around with them and I'll miss being able to do that tbh.

I suppose we kinda knew that HMs were gonna be replaced by PokeRide and I'm so happy Game Freak decided to get rid of them, and have found a really cool replacement. On the other hand, I'm kinda disappointed but not surprised that the EXP Share is the same as Gen 6, I suppose I'll just turn it off and hope that the games themselves are harder.

Pokeride replacing HMs is great news. I was just telling my roommates last night about how that would probably happen. I'm gonna miss sneaking though, that was my favorite feature about ORAS, looks like it'll be ORAS exclusive now though which isn't all bad. Mom getting her own room is funny to me.

MarinoKadame said:

This will take more time to get max hearts now since you need to do battles, hopefully you get more hearts without doing minigames.

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Unless if the affection meter is going to be gone entirely, but I doubt it since Level 2 affection is needed to evolve Eevee into Sylveon. And I do agree about the minigames part because I found that to be Amie's main flaw, since it was annoying having to play said minigames more often than having to pet/feed the Pokemon. Didn't help I suck entirely at Head It, one of those three minigames.

Hikamaru said:

I get what you mean with "discrimination" sounding too serious and likely offensive, but I think we're getting promised that Game Freak learned from the customization mistakes in X/Y and are trying to equalize the options between gender. Females will still probably have more hair options though.

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Yeah they weren't totally able to explore all the options since the players just got to that point - maybe as time goes on you unlock more options or whatever. So I don't think we should be calling "gender discrimination."

Plus, I mean, boys DO have a lot less hairstyles than girls? It's not a gender discrimination thing it's just that... boys tend to have shorter hair and therefore less options in general?

CUTIEFLY!!! said:

Yeah, I kinda hate that pokemon refresh is only available after battle, and that there isn't blue hair dye. Lots of people from johto had dyed hair, why can't i?

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There's no blue hair dye? That's super lame! I love the colour blue and I would have loved to dye my hair blue.

As for Pokemon Refresh being available only after battle, what kind of logic is that? I didn't use Amie much, but I can imagine it being super annoying for Sylveon fans. Although.... didn't the NicoNico stream prove this wrong? Didn't they access it from the menu?

MegaKuriboh said:

There's no blue hair dye? That's super lame! I love the colour blue and I would have loved to dye my hair blue.

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I think Game Freak just want the protagonist to only have natural hair colours, since that's what most people who play Pokemon have in real life and the protagonist is meant to be this blank state whose personality is projected onto by the person who's playing. While we did have more colour options added, they are still sticking to natural colours since I feel the "wild" hair colours are likely following a rule to stick only to important NPCs such as Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Champion, Villianous Team leaders etc.

Hikamaru said:

I think Game Freak just want the protagonist to only have natural hair colours, since that's what most people who play Pokemon have in real life and the protagonist is meant to be this blank state whose personality is projected onto by the person who's playing. While we did have more colour options added, they are still sticking to natural colours since I feel the "wild" hair colours are likely following a rule to stick only to important NPCs such as Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Champion, Villianous Team leaders etc.

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People can dye their hair irl though :/ Oh well, I guess my character will just look terrible!

I really hope pokemon refresh isn't only for battles, I like just taking care of my pokemon every now and then for no reason, having to battle in order to have fun with them would be really disappointing, I hope there's at least some place/house where you can just play refresh casually.

Hikamaru said:

I think Game Freak just want the protagonist to only have natural hair colours, since that's what most people who play Pokemon have in real life and the protagonist is meant to be this blank state whose personality is projected onto by the person who's playing.

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It would have been nice to have blue at least, previous protagonists have had blue hair so it shouldn't be too much of a problem

Hey, I don't recall seeing that there WASN'T blue hair dye? It might be there... somewhere. I wouldn't rule out anything yet!

Hikamaru said:

I think Game Freak just want the protagonist to only have natural hair colours, since that's what most people who play Pokemon have in real life and the protagonist is meant to be this blank state whose personality is projected onto by the person who's playing. While we did have more colour options added, they are still sticking to natural colours since I feel the "wild" hair colours are likely following a rule to stick only to important NPCs such as Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Champion, Villianous Team leaders etc.

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You can dye your hair purple and white though, so why not blue? And plenty of people dye their hair wild colours. Why not give people those options? Why limit it? What if I don't want to play as myself? What if I want to play as an original character?

MegaKuriboh said:

There's no blue hair dye? That's super lame! I love the colour blue and I would have loved to dye my hair blue.

As for Pokemon Refresh being available only after battle, what kind of logic is that? I didn't use Amie much, but I can imagine it being super annoying for Sylveon fans. Although.... didn't the NicoNico stream prove this wrong? Didn't they access it from the menu?

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I'm sure they did access it from the menu. They were in a Pokemon Centre when they accessed it. I remember it pretty clearly because the kept going from one Pokemon to another and I was willing them to leave the centre and do something else. :P

So yeah I don't know where this idea that you can only access Refresh through battles is coming from. Probably somebody who played the game didn't know how to access it in the menu and just assumed the only time you could access it was after battle.

I find myself questioning the reliability of some of these reporters. They don't seem like they've been very accurate.....so I wouldn't take everything they say as gospel.

Sabrewulf238 said:

I'm sure they did access it from the menu. They were in a Pokemon Centre when they accessed it. I remember it pretty clearly because the kept going from one Pokemon to another and I was willing them to leave the centre and do something else. :P

So yeah I don't know where this idea that you can only access Refresh through battles is coming from. Probably somebody who played the game didn't know how to access it in the menu and just assumed the only time you could access it was after battle.

I find myself questioning the reliability of some of these reporters. They don't seem like they've been very accurate.....so I wouldn't take everything they say as gospel.

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I didn't expect people to be taking their words as 100% true, but because some people have been I've added a section to the article saying not to take this too seriously. Especially because this is just their experience from the first part of the game, there could be features disproved later and stuff that works in addition to what they experienced. They didn't get that far, after all.

I just thought it was a bit interesting because some reporters actually have played Pokemon so they seem a bit more credible. Especially with the story-related spoilers, that seemed a bit cool to know. And the fact that your mom has her own room! Seems like a fin little tidbit.