On this eve of the launch for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, some people may be making their battle plans for competitive battling. In the past, EV training was a core aspect to training Pokémon for competitive battling. EV, or Effort Values, were basically the maximum amount your stats will raise to based on fighting other Pokémon.
Each Pokémon gave a certain EV in a stat and defeating that Pokémon would yield that given stat to your Pokémon that defeated it. For example, let’s say Pikachu gives one EV to Speed. If you want to raise your speed to the maximum allowed for your given Pokémon, you would defeat several Pikachu until you reached your maximum. As you can imagine this was very tedious and most people did not enjoy doing it. It was required for anyone that wanted to battle competitively though, as you would lose almost instantly if you fought an EV trained Pokémon with a non EV trained Pokémon.
This might sound very complicated, which is why X and Y are introducing a new way to train EV called Super Training. Although Base Stats is the name given in this game, the description of base stats seems to be exactly what EV was. It is the rate at which your stats grow. Super training is a mini game where your Pokémon will face off against giant Pokemon-shaped balloons. The object is to shoot balls in the opponent’s goal in a soccer-like game. Based on the screenshots, there is a score you have to reach, so I’m guessing that as long as you reach the limit, you raise your base stats.
There is a limit to how much your base stats can grow by using Super Training, which can be seen on a bar to the right on the main Super Training screen. This leads me to believe that raising them with items and maybe even EV training will still be an option. It is not clear if Super Training gives you control over which stats you want to raise. If there is still an overall limit of how much you can raise your stats and you have no control over which in Super Training, that can cause problems. With the release so close, only hands-on experience will give the answer.
What do you think about this new way to raise stats? Will it replace EV training, or merely be a lesser option for more casual players? Discuss your thoughts in the comments below.
