Nintendo Announces New Pokémon Updates

On August 3, Nintendo did a Pokémon Presents that is available to watch here. They started off with information about the Pokémon championship and then added news about Pokémon Go, Pokémon Unite, Pokémon Masters EX, and Pokémon Café Remix. The majority of the presentation was about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet which is what Pokémon fans have been waiting for news on. There have been a number of leaks but without confirmation, it’s hard to know what to expect or believe. We have a few new ideas now.

Everyone has seen the pictures of the legendary pokémon Koraidon (Scarlet) and Miraidon (Violet) from the game cases. Usually, you wait until the end of the game to battle and then capture the legendary pokémon from each game. This time around, they seem to be your partner for the adventure. This doesn’t mean they are your starter pokémon. Those spots still belong to Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly, (Normally, I start with a fire type pokémon, but this may be my first time starting with a grass type.) The legendaries are your method of transportation in these two games. You can ride them on the ground, go across water with them, fly with them, and (from what the video showed) even scale vertical surfaces with them. Who knows what other roles they may play in the game as well. It’s unclear yet when or if you’ll get to add the legendaries to your team or if there will be other legendaries later on that you’ll be able to catch.


Throughout the video, a number of pokémon, both new and old, were shown. I was glad to see Growlithe and Arcanine (in their original forms), Rockruff, Houndour and Houndoom, Shinx and Luxray, Dragonair and Dragonite, Donphan, and Mudbray. What would really make me happy is seeing Honedge and its evolutions in there. We have yet to see how big the pokédex will be for the game, but there were a lot of pokémon shown in the video. The list below is of other pokémon that I caught in the video. Supposedly, they are doing something different/regional with Mankey and Primeape, but there was nothing about that in the video.

Altaria, Azumarill, Beartic, Cacnea, Cacturne, Clawitzer, Cubchoo, Deerling, Drednaw, Drifblim, Eelektross, Eevee, Eiscue, Flaafy, Fletchling, Gardevoir, Gastly, Girafarig, Golduck, Gyrados, Hariyama, Hatterene, Haunter, Hippowdon, Honchkrow, Hoppip, Hydreigon, Lechonk, Lilligant, Lumineon, Magnemite, Makuhita, Mankey, Mareep, Misdreavus, Mismagius, Murkrow, Noibat, Noivern, Pachirisu, Pelipper, Persian, Pikachu, Pincurchin, Pineco, Polteageist, Psyduck, Raichu, Rotom, Sawsbuck, Scizzor, Sinistea, Skwovet, Slaking, Slowking, Smoliv, Snorunt, Stonejourner, Swablu, Sylveon, Talonflame, Tsareena, Vigoroth


On top of the old pokémon and the new ones that had already been revealed, there were 3 previously unseen pokémon shown in the video. New pokemon Fidough and Cetitan were introduced and we got to see the Paldean form of Wooper which seems will be poison and maybe ground given the description.


When it comes to the pokédex itself, I really liked the way it was handled in <i>Pokémon Legends Arceus</i>. You had to interact with them to build up the information on each species of pokémon to actually consider it researched. They didn’t give any details about the pokédex itself but some of the animation they used is definitely different than either format used before. It looks like you’re actually storing books on a shelf regarding each species which I hope is supposed to reflect extra work done in the research like in <i>Arceus</i>. The image below looks like you have some with research completed, one that has partial research done, and one that has been encountered somehow but not with enough for an actual entry. I’m going to be looking forward to seeing how all this plays out.


A new concept is being introduced in this games called “Terastallize”. It seems like Dynamax from Sword and Shield in that it’s something that can technically happen to any type of pokémon and powers them up. In this case, instead of getting bigger, they look like crystal with some type of extra adornment on top to symbolize a pokémon type that’s being added to them. There are raid areas where you and 3 other trainers can battle a terastallized pokémon and try to catch it like you did with the dynamaxed ones in Sword and Shield. Most pokémon will get a tera type matching one of their current types, but rare pokémon (more common in the raids) will have a different pokémon type as their tera type. They showed Eevees with 2 types different than it’s Normal type and a Pikachu with the Flying tera type that will be a preorder bonus. The crystal forms look interesting, but I hope they don’t keep doing something different along this line each release. It could get too repetitious, being different yet still the same in some ways.


There are a lot of other things going on in the game that seems different. There are going to be three storylines in the game. The first, as usual, is the gym battles and trying to become the champion. This time around, the open world aspect of the game will allow the gyms to be done in any order. I’m not really sure how that is going to work out in terms of the levels of the pokémon you battle, but we’ll have to see. Hopefully this will be a good change and make things more interesting. They didn’t go into much about the other two stories but they mentioned a treasure hunt which I would guess is part of one of them. I’m not sure if the “treasure” is related to the terastallized pokémon or not. I guess they need to keep some secrets for now given the game’s release is still 3 months off. They did show the vehicle below while talking about storylines so we’ll see how that fits in as well. The game will include multiplayer too so you’ll be able to explore the world with friends and not just interact with others in the raids.


When they showed the first trailer, a lot of the gay guys I know seemed really interested in Professor Turo. (I’m betting Violet will end up selling better than Scarlet due to him as well as the futuristic legendary.) With the new presentation, I’ve seen a lot of comments now about the unnamed guy with the mustache and striped shirt. They showed him after listing the supporting cast they revealed the names of so he’s still a mystery for now. There’s definitely enough fan artwork of both Professor Turo and him floating around online though. (You can look those up yourself. I’m keeping this post safe for work.)


There will definitely be a lot to the game this time around so hopefully it will give a long and fun experience. The game releases on November 18, 2022 (a few days before my birthday) so there’s still time for a lot more information to be revealed about it. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more news about it as the date gets closer. I’m really looking forward to the game and seeing what we get this time around.

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