The Pokemon Y variants, for their part, retain their original typing, but gain unique abilities and stat increases of their own. Mega Mewtwo X, meanwhile, gains a unique Psychic/Fighting typing. In Pokemon X, Charizard becomes a Dragon/Fire Pokemon with the ability Tough Claws, which raises its attack whenever it makes physical contact with a foe.
Each version has an exclusive Mega Evolution for Charizard and Mewtwo-two staples of the original Red and Blue. Pokemon X and Y do have one last trick up their sleeves. With that, Pokemon X and Y mostly boils down to whether your prefer a story featuring Xerneas or Yveltal. Since then, Pokemon games have had exclusive monsters and even exclusive gym leaders, but nothing really as far-reaching as Ruby and Sapphire. Emerald would ultimately merge the two storylines and become the "definitive" version, but at the time, it was a neat twist on the usual Pokemon story conventions. Being fire and water-themed, each team has their own unique Pokemon, resulting in some very different boss battles. In Ruby, the villainous Team Magma wants to drain the oceans and leave the earth landlocked in Sapphire, the equally villainous Team Aqua is keen on doing the exact opposite. Ruby and Sapphire not only featured version exclusive Pokemon and legendaries, but unique story elements as well. In fact, you could argue that Ruby and Sapphire were the last games in which version exclusive content really, truly mattered. If you're interested in training up a Skrelp for competitive battle, having immediate access to it in the wild is a little more convenient but we're a long way from the days of Ruby and Sapphire, when finding another person with a copy of the game was much more difficult. Of course, with the Internet being what it is today, it's quite easy to trade for version exclusive Pokemon like Skrelp, which makes the differences almost academic. X has Clauncher (left), Y has Skrelp (right) And with the other two exclusives being Fairy-types that seem to be mirrors of one another, Skrelp is the difference maker. With that in mind, Skrelp and its evolution certainly have the advantage. When you consider that Fairy-types are vulnerable to Poison, it becomes even more interesting. Much more interesting is Skrelp, exclusive to Pokemon Y, which has the potential to become a much more unique Dragon/Poison-type. Pokemon X is home to Clauncher, which evolves into a rather generic mono Water-type. It's in the version-exclusive Pokemon that Y rises over X. Like most legendaries though, both Pokemon are more than capable of doing serious damage against high level trainers in the storyline. Both potentially have interesting applications in a legendary tier with an inordinate number of Psychic and Dragon-types, but being a Flying-type may hurt Yveltal more than help it, since it takes 25 percent damage from Stealth Rock upon switching in while being vulnerable to Kyogre's Ice Beam attack. X has Xerneas (left), Y has Yveltal (right)Īs a matter of personal taste, Xerneas' stag-like appearance is more in line with classical Pokemon, while Yveltal has more of the over-designed look associated with later generations.