XY&Z

XY-sequels title speculation... part IV?
It's amazing that we're still discussing this and no announcement has been made all year.

However there is some solid hinting towards what might be the actual titles for the sequels now. And it's not any of the guesses I've made in my previous posts.

It's not going to be a single Z-version, a single XYZ-version, a straightforward pair of X2&Y2, a stylish XZ&YZ, and of course neither will it be any Delta Emerald shenanigans.

#1 upcoming Anime season title:

#2 Gamefreak registered the trademark XY&Z

Note, specifically Gamefreak owns the trademark, not Pokémon in general or the Anime companies.

The "&" is so deliberate and curious, that I think it's a safe bet to say now that it'll be Pokémon XY and Pokémon Z as the paired sequels to XY. Simple as that.

How would this work?

Who would be the two mascots?

For Pokemon Z it's easy with the Perfect-Zygarde reveal:

But what about Pokemon XY?

Something has struck me as odd ever since XY came out and we got to know the stats of the new Pokémon:

All counterpart mascot-legendaries so far have had their stats shuffled around to make them differ (Kyogre is a special/physical-swapped Groudon, same with Reshiram/Zekrom, Dialga and Palkia are more complex etc.).

But Xerneas' and Yveltals base stats are identical.

...meanwhile 50%Zygarde does something completely unrelated to their distributions.

Perhaps Xerneas and Yveltal are much more related than we think and they will somehow merge into a single powerful monstrosity that will be equivalent to Zygardes perfect form?

In other news: Junichi Masuda appearing on "Pokénchi"

Masuda revealed via twitter that they finished recording the episode for the 15th of November. This is the new sunday-show that replaced Pokemon-Get on TokyoTV a few weeks ago. So we may find out soon what they're up to.

I expect Corocoro-leaks the week before to have the same information already, and since they've been doing reveals and everything globally, it wouldn't be surprising if they announced the games out of the blue on the official site even before Corocoro manages to leak, and then have the magazine and the show give soemthing more detailed pos-tannouncement information.

Of course the final chapter of the Mega evolution specials is coming up 29th of October (and features Zygardes new forms as its main point), so that might be the time.

Also noteworthy, the date of the special coincides with an investors meeting for Nintendo (like the one that happened a few days before ORAS were revealed).

Pseudo-evolutions?

Apart from all kinds of unique forms, whether just aesthetic variations or diverse interchangeable ones with competitive consequences, or ones activated through special triggers with backstories..

The most recent big twist we've seen are Mega evolutions. Special temporary evolutions that allow Pokémon who have (supposedly) reached the final stage in their evolutionary line, to surpass this limit and become even stronger, with the magical power of friendship or whatever~

(along with Primal Reversion, which is technically Mega evolution with a different prefix and a different "trigger/backstory") And no doubt, we will see more of these in the future.

But could there be another "evolution" concept which would catch everyone by surprise if implemented?

Well...remember the mascot of the franchise? Everyones favourite and/or most disliked Pokémon, Pikachu. What I'm getting at, is that there is one further group of Pokémon that Gamefreak might throw into the spotlight sometime in the future: NFE-Pokemon (not fully evolved).

It could very well be the case, that more fans consider some NFE Pokémon as their favourite, than one would expect.

Let's say a new evolution-twist was to be added, specifically to include (but not necessarily be limited to) NFE-Pokémon, it would then logically follow that these Pokémon would keep the design mostly identical (since the look is the whole point of keeping a Pokémon forever unevolved in the first place).

So, imagine a Pokémon, I'll pick Dragonair as my example. What if, instead of evolving regularly at Lv.55 into a Dragonite, which changes its look quite drastically, you could instead strengthen your friendship bla bla, and have Dragonair undergo a new form of permanent evolution that would make it:

• stronger (say anywhere from +80 to +180 added to their base stats depending on the Pokémon)
• while retaining most of its familiar look (some interesting detail "added", perhaps a colour altered)
• gain a unique and fitting prefix
• get the chance to learn a new signature move
• in some cases have its type changed
• in some cases gaining a different ability.

Continuing my example, a Dragonair could then pseudo-evolve (no idea what the process would actually be called) to... let's call it a "Majestic Dragonair", have the horn become a crown-like detail instead, its colouration become more intense, its stats increase from 

-61-84-65-70-70-70

to

-81-84-85-120-100-90

learn a unique new Dragon-type variation of "Quiver Dance" at Lv.55, and perhaps even become a Dragon/Water type.

The evolution would be permanent and it would never be able to evolve into a Dragonite.

But wait a second... what if they are already implementing this right now? (by now, especially for anyone who is aware of things hackers have found in XY a long time ago, it's obvious what I'll bring up)

Eternal Floette. Also known as AZs Floette, it is a special form of Floette that holds a drastically different flower. We have met it already in the final part of the main-story in XY, as AZs very old Partner-Pokémon.

From datamining, we also know that it is actually programmed into the games as a real Pokémon, and that unlike regular Floette, it has stats as high as a Florges (without being able to evolve into Florges) but distributed quite differently from it. It is also capable of learning a new move called "Light of Ruin" (which is like a special Fairy-type Volt-Tackle) which Florges also cannot learn...and so far there has been no way to actually obtain it.

So it might not be THAT unrealistic if sooner or later, we see a special stronger pseudo-evolution for all kinds of Pokémon like in this group-picture:

And of course the aforementioned Pikachu (if the design is done right, even the one in the Anime could finally cash-in on such a new twist, since it would still be a Pikachu, rather than becoming something else entirely).

While NFE Pokémon could be the focus, it would also be an opportunity for some fully-evolved ones to become a lot more viable than a simple Mega evolution would allow (since stat increase isn't fixed to +100), while at the same time not alienating its fans (since the core design stays the same), but no regular evolutions are in sight, like some examples included in the picture above.