Pokémon Direct thoughts

A new Pokémon Direct happened today! I have thoughts! Excited thoughts!

Pokkén Tournament DX – I’ll be honest, it’s not what I was hoping for, but it’s about what I expected. You can’t fault Nintendo for taking all the big games from a system that nobody owned and re-releasing them on the hot new machine that everybody (who matters) wants.

But I’m at a very tough crossroads with this one. On one hand, I don’t really want to buy Pokkén again. $80 seems like a lot for any fighting game that isn’t Smash. On the other hand, it has become obvious that they’re never releasing the DLC characters for the Wii U version, so this will be my chance to finally play as my beloved Scizor. Plus Decidueye is super cool and will probably be a lot more useful in Pokkén than the actual Pokémon games.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’m absolutely going to buy it again. Pokkén will be an excellent bus game.

Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon – This is not what anyone expected. The whole world was set on getting Pokémon Stars for Switch, not an alternate telling of Sun/Moon on 3DS again. But that’s just the way Game Freak works. They love clinging to the system they’re comfortable on.

Again, I’m a little hesitant to get too excited here. I mean, we really only got a little teaser; I need to know a lot more before I decide how much I care about this one. Pokémon Sun and Moon were wonderful games, and if they craft the UItras as well as they did Black 2 and White 2, I would say we’ve got a definite Buy on our hands here. But that’s going to require at least three things: a convincing new plot, at least one new island to explore, and the return of that sweet movie-making mini-game.

Ohhhhh and new Alolan Forms. Those have to be a thing.

At the very least, the mystery of Necrozma is solved(ish): he becomes armour for Solgaleo and Lunala. Should have been more obvious, since he’s a prism and his ability is Prism Armor. It’s also another parallel to BW2, where Kyurem can fuse with Reshiram and Zekrom.

Pokémon Gold and Silver on 3DS Virtual Console – IMO this should have happened long ago, not in this coming September. Finally, we’ll be able to play a legit version of these games without having to worry about the dreaded battery issue! But seriously, what was the freakin’ holdup?

Actually I think that this is what I’m most excited for out of the three announcements. Though it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering how much I love retro gaming. Gold and Silver are great, though to date I have logged uncountable hours into them and still haven’t completed an English version of either one. I very much look forward to leaving one (or both?) half-finished yet again.

What really boggles my mind is the complete absence of Pokémon Crystal, the GBC-exclusive third version. Its extra features and animated sprites are awesome, but really I want it mostly because it was the first Pokémon game that let you play as a girl.

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