If the fantasy in Pokemon is that we get to travel the world with our trusty monsters by our side, it only makes sense that we'd get to play and pet them too, right? Now, with Pokemon Amie—a new feature in X & Y—we finally do exactly that...and the good people of the internet have been having a blast with the feature.
First, before we dive into the hijinks, a quick recap as to what the mode does:
- You can use the touch screen to pet and play with your favorite 'mon—which makes sense, because "Amie" means friend in French.
- The more you pet/play/feed a Pokemon, the higher their affection will be.
- With high enough affection, not only do you get access to new Pokemon evolutions, your Pokemon gets a 20% boosted XP, 10% evasiveness in battle, a higher critical hit chance, the ability to dodge any stat-lowering status effects, and the ability to deal full damage on affection-based moves.
Personally, since I found the single-player easy enough as it is, I found Amie optional—but these are the sorts of benefits that lots of people like and will work for. And thanks to that, the internet has found all sorts of ridiculous things while playing. Like the fact that petting your Pokemon can get rather inappropriate.
It doesn't help that some Pokemon, like RedSilkThread's Combusken, look like...well, penises.
So it's no surprise that we have comics like this one by Caramel_Thunder on Reddit:
One of the interesting things about the mode is that the game sometimes asks you to make faces at the Pokemon as a quirky way to bond with them—like maybe your Pikachu really, really wants you to wink at it or something. The camera will look at your face and determine whether or not you make the right expression...which, sure, is neat, but also kind of silly!
Pikaboots captures the experience perfectly with this "guide" to playing Amie:
And here's another "guide" by VideoGamerTV that makes fun of the fact that feeding Pokemon makes them happier:
Regardless of how good you think you are at feeding your Pokemon or making winks, unfortunately, as finds kingjames333 on Reddit finds, your best efforts don't always work:
And sometimes, what you look like can prove to be an issue according to adeliea:
Sometimes, even the Pokemon are like, no, man. Don't touch me.
Yup, sometimes it's like trying to feed Ryan Gosling a poffin. It won't work, dude.
And you can expect to drop the treats sometimes—it's quite heartbreaking, really.
Okay, so, there are some hiccups with the new feature. It's still worth trying out, and not just because it can give you lots of in-game bonuses.
You can, for example, high-five Pokemon—as razirune does in this video:
Better yet, you can pet Pokemon you kind of have no business petting. Like say, giving a foot rub to THE FREAKIN' GOD OF DESTRUCTION (also known as the legendary on the cover of Pokemon Y):
Here's some footage that shows what this looks like in action...it's really cute, which doesn't quite fit the Pokemon, but OK!
Mewtwo is another Pokemon that you wouldn't think you should be able to pet, but you can!
Even the fiction suggests that some Pokemon aren't meant for petting, as sliferthewhydidigeta finds:
Or arguably, the fact you're able to do these unexpected things is exactly why Amie is so great. Like Wailord, for example: he's a HUGE Pokemon. Will he even fit on the screen?
Yes! And you can pet him, too. D'aww.
You can't, however, pet Pokemon like Slugma—they'll burn your hands. Observe this video by Pokelover:
Same thing with Pokemon who might freeze your hands. But, y'know, it's cool. The mode is definitely charming, and it gives us stuff like this:
And this:
Where else can you see that? Nowhere else, that's where. So yeah, Amie is pretty cool in both Pokemon X & Y. Just don't be surprised if you look a little silly while playing.