The Pokémon Company reveals their plans for the 25th anniversary with a 20-minute Pokémon Presents.
Pokémon Red and Green first released in Japan 1996. Since then, it became the world’s largest media franchise spawning several sequels, TV shows, cards, and a myriad of spin-offs. To celebrate this event, the Pokémon company revealed three major projects and a virtual concert to featuring Post Malone on Feb 27.
New Pokémon Snap
New Pokémon Snap will release on April 30, 2021 for the Nintendo Switch. In the meantime, many new features of this game have been showed off for the Presents. Being the sequel to the Pokémon Snap on the Nintendo 64, NPS follows the same general gameplay. The player will ride around in their vehicle and take photos of Pokémon they see along the way. The better the photo the higher the score. The game will track things like the size of the Pokémon, framing, pose, etc.
Using an Illumination Orb changed Scorbunny’s flame
Game Freak reveals many new features. NPS will feature underwater sections for the first time. The player will have the option of throwing food to lure a Pokémon or just to feed them. There is also a new item which will allow the player to make them glow and change certain attributes. What has been removed were the smoke bombs.
Online features showed that players will be able to share their photos online and have them rated. Unfortunately, it is unknown if the player will be able to bring their game to a Block Buster and print out their photos in real life.
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Remakes
Remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl have been revealed as Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. BD&SP will release during late 2021 in time for their 15 year anniversary.
New art style
Developed by ILCA, INC., BD&SP were made with the intention of keeping the games as faithful to the originals as possible. As such these games will return to the 2D style top-down adventure. The game maintains the original scale of the world and the new art style really fits the characters and the world. Junichi Masuda returns to direct these games along with ILCA’s Yuichi Ueda.
Diamond and Pearl Prequels
Many players were disappointed with the remakes. They felt that it was a lazy move to not have the games remade in the style of Sword and Shield. Releasing in 2022, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the answer to this issue. Taking place in the Sinnoh region hundreds of years before the events of the D&P. This game is a full 3D open world adventure. Quite a step away from how previous Pokémon games have played.
Rather than the traditional starter Pokémon, the player will have access to starters from various regions: Cyndaquil, Rowlet, and Oshawatt. The main look of this game seems like the wild area from Pokémon Sword and Shield however, it appears the entire game will follow be like this, not just one area. While traditional battles are still in the game, catching Pokémon is different. The player has the option to throw a Pokéball at the Pokémon in the overworld bypassing the need to battle it.
While only the first reveals, Game Freak and the Pokémon Company will most likely reveal more over the course of this year.
Ohhhh I can’t wait to see more of Pokémon Legends: Arceus !