6th Gen Friend Safari

The Friend Safari was a Safari in the X/Y games that took the people from your 3DS friend codes, and created a Safari from it. The type of Pokemon in each of people's friend safaris differed. There were only 3 Pokemon in each person's safari as well. Two people could also have the same type of safari, but not the same Pokemon. Since it takes friend codes from your 3DS, some of the Safaris will be of people who might not even have a copy of the game.

Anyway, what did you think of the Friend Safari, and what was in yours? I think mine was a Fire Safari, and had Charmeleon, Growlithe, and one other Pokemon that I forget? I'd have to ask someone.

I absolutely HATED this feature, it was infuriatingly arbitrary. We've already had the whole "play and trade with friends!" aspect forced on us with two versions every single time a new gen starts, we don't need to have it rammed down our throats even further. But we got it. Lucky us. This is especially jarring after Gen VI featured the best online connectivity we've ever seen in Pokemon titles with the PSS. That was amazing. This was awful.

What made this system so awful was the fact that it was fixed, though. Three RANDOM Pokemon of the same type, no way to change them without a complete restart of your game, no way to expand your selection, just three Pokemon of the same type you had no say over, take it or leave it. How painfully short-sighted and restrictive. I realise that Game Freak probably thought that doing it this way would encourage players to seek out other players with the Pokemon they wanted, but what they haven't realised yet is that forcing people to do something is likely going to have the exact opposite effect, because it is not fun and just resorts in a lot of frustration when you can't find what you want. It's a horribly designed, counter-intuitive clusterfuck. In other words, it's classic Game Freak having no idea how to properly design a feature in their games. A nice idea with the worst possible execution imaginable.

I had a Grass type Safari, I think. I honestly don't remember, because I steered clear of the feature and just used other methods to fill my dex.

I never finished gen 6 so good thing I never "missed out" on FS.

Not a fan of friend safari because how limited amount of pokemon you would catch if you didnt add as many friends to expand its diversity moreover you just ended up with the same pokemon as your previous friends in your friend list if you happen to add some with the same pokemon as their friend safari.

I think it was figthing, but I cant remember what type was.

I don't even remember which type of Pokemon my own Friend Safari had, but I loved the feature anyway since it was a convenient way of catching rare Pokemon. I registered a lot of friends in my Friend Safari since I used to trade often back then, so the feature was helpful to me.

not a fan.

i get the angle of what Game Freak was going for. it's basically forced interaction if you wanted a specific pokemon that was locked behind a friend safari, and one of the cornerstones of pokemon gaming is to interact with fellow new pokemon fans whilst you trade friend codes for the friend safari. i think this mostly backfired though because in all actuality people's FC lists just started being cluttered by randoms who only really added each other for friend safari types and that was it. it really became an unnecessary mess.

When I first played through X I spent hours in the Friend Safari shiny hunting. I probably got about 3 boxes worth, and clocked well over 200 hours in there alone. At the time it was alright, but looking back, it's really nothing more than an easy way to get yourself into IV breeding.

I did lots of shiny hunting in friend safari. I love the increased shinyrate. I had a few first encounter shinies, 1 back to back shiny. Sometimes it could be tedius, when I hunted for a Wooper I found 6 Diggersby and 2 Marowak. But it definitely made it more joyous when I found it. My longest fs hunt was for a Dusclops, 2,020 encounters. My safari had Seviper, Venomoth and Muk.

I get that The Friend Safari have some troublesome mechanics including getting the friend code for the Friend Safari you need and needing to be on the same time as your friend for the third Pokemon to appear but I actually liked the Friend Safari for what it have to offer including getting the Hidden Ability Pokemon and the IVs to inherit. They includes Pokemon that have really good Hidden Abilities that makes them worth using including Protein Frogadier and those that weren't really obtained in the 5th gen games (least for the West) including Lightingrod Pikachu. You are also spared from the Safari Zone mechanics which would get in the way of getting the Pokemon you need including the limited steps and the pure luck on trying to catch them (such as using rocks or food). As for getting the Friend Safari you want, I use this Reddit where you can offer or request for a Friend Safari, making it the rare occasions where I use Reddit which I would otherwise stay away from.

So The Friend Safari can be troublesome yes but it's worth it.

I believe my Friend Safari is a Ground type with Dugtrio.

Personally, I actually enjoyed the friend safari. I had a fire one with Charmeleon and Magmar If I recall correctly. Forceful interaction, yes, especially since Pokébank wasn't out get at that point, but for me, I actually managed to interact with people and establish relationships that have lasted with me to this very day. I reckon that's just my bias though.

I enjoyed this feature, but I got 3DS and Y in 2015 when most people were already playing ORAS, so I didn't spend that much time in there. I caught few shinies and only returned there to finish Dex. But I still have a text file on my desktop, where (among other things) I saved what type of Safari I have and what Pokémon are in it. I had Grass with Sunkern, Sawbuck and Quilladin.

Hey guys so I know this thread is a little old but does anyone want to exchange friend codes for the friend safari?

I thought Friend Safari was cute and had some point to it since you could get version exclusive and hidden ability pokemon + the odds of encountering a shiny pokemon were so high-- once in a fire safari I ran into a shiny Ponyta purely by accident as I stepped on the first tile of grass.

The dexnav in Oras objectively is a better, more advanced version of Friend Safari because it has all off the same perks of friend safari, but way more pokemon, and the pokemon there could also carry egg moves you would normally have to breed for, and potentially appear at much higher levels than the set level 30 of Friend Safari. However, I still liked Friend Safari because of it's randomness-- it's fun and mysterious not knowing what pokemon are going to be there. It's also really easy to use. Whereas you can accidentally break a chain with the poke radar or the dexnav, you never have to worry about that with Friend Safari. You just walk around in the grass until you see what you are looking for. I caught a lot of nice shiny pokemon this way like Trapinch for a flygon, a Swirlix who is now a Slurpuff, Dedenne, Pikachu, Butterfree and a Pyroar. So I really appreciated the friend safari feature as a player with fledgling skills.

You do have to have a lot of different friends to make it worthwhile since there are only 3 Pokemon in every safari, and only 2 can be unlocked If your friend hasn't beaten the game or is not online at the same time you are playing. I didn't really mind the part of only being able to get a set few pokemon from someone else's safari though because I have many friends fortunately. I happen to really like trading and meeting new people, so there were a ton of safaris ready and waiting for me to explore when I first tried it. You also do get somewhat of a break since not every friend has to have traded or battled with you or even needs a Pokemon game, any friend registered was good.

I also think that if Friend Safari contained many more Pokemon it would just be too easy. It would give you less incentive to keep trading with different people, and decrease the rarity of finding a really prized pokemon because your odds would just be higher of running into it the more species of Pokemon live in one safari. It makes getting a safari with a Pokemon you really like not as special. One other advantage of having only 2-3 Pokemon is that you could target faster the Pokemon you entered to get compared to say a wild area where a dozen different mons might live.

The only thing that annoys me about Friend Safari is that you have to coordinate to be online at the same time with your friend just to unlock the third pokemon species and the hidden abilities, that's unnecessarily burdensome.

Also it is possible for friends to have not only the same type of safari, but the exact same set of pokemon on the safari. I had two friends on my 3ds who both had the exact same 3 ghost Pokemon on their safari, and others that had 1 or 2 of the same pokemon. it's disappointing when that happens, because you're not being offered much or anything new despite them being different people, but all and all I do think Friend Safari is kinda cool, and I would love to see this feature revamped and made better than before in a Pokemon XY remake.

I probably enjoyed this feature more than I disliked it, but that was definitely due to my circumstances when XY were released. I guess the games could sort of be seen as another 'reboot' of the franchise, and the hype behind 3D Pokemon games on the new 3DS got a lot of my friends interested, so when X and Y were relevant I actually had a load of friend safaris to explore.

Shiny hunting was pretty fun in them as well, I remember I got a shiny Macargo within like 30 minutes once, so I wasn't too unhappy with the feature when the games were first around. That being said, I can definitely understand people's frustration around having Pokemon locked behind it and stuff!