Pokemon Presents are Always... Interesting? (Short thoughts on Pokemon Presents 2/27)

     Hey friends! How many of you are Pokemon fans? I'm going to assume that at least the majority of you have heard of the series at this point, considering it's the most profitable media franchise of all time (let that sink in for a moment), and February 27 is considered "Pokemon Day" since it's the day that the original games, Pokemon Red and Green Versions came out in Japan all of those years ago. In celebration, the last few years have always come with some sort of presentation, with a few announcements here and there, always fairly low key stuff with maybe one or two big announcements tucked into the ending of the show. This will not be a terribly long post, but I just thought it would be good to talk a little bit about what was announced today, not that it's a very long list.

Mostly Mobile Games!

    I feel like it's just a given at this point that every Pokemon stream has to begin with updates to the myriad mobile games that the franchise has put out. This time, however, began with a very brief announcement that Tera Raids are coming to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, starring the final forms of the original starters, Blastoise, Venusaur, and Charizard. Pokemon Go is doing a collaboration event with Pokemon Horizons, the current anime series and putting out a special Pikachu wearing a hat (from that show I guess). They're also adding Ceruledge, Charcadet, and Armarouge to the game. Pokemon Sleep announced the legendary dogs are coming to the game, with Raikou being the first to be added. In Pokemon Masters EX, they're adding Silver and Geeta, along with a bunch of other information that they clearly didn't care about you seeing because of how fast these announcements popped up. Pokemon Cafe Remix is adding... something? I honestly went back to rewatch this portion of the direct and I can't figure out what is new other than them adding Gimmighoul and some new Bingo system to let you get Miraidon and Koraidon for your team. Pokemon Unite added Miraidon today (February 27) with the promise of Falinks and Ceruledge coming sometime later this year.

    The biggest announcements came in the later portion of the presentation, beginning with a new app for the Pokemon Trading Card Game. It's called Pokemon TCG Pocket, and will essentially act the same as far as I can tell, but they're allowing the player to get two free digital packs of cards per day through the app, instead of having to buy so many cards. I honestly don't know a ton about the old app, so I could be wrong, but it looks like it could be a cool addition, especially for people who are really into Pokemon cards. The actual biggest announcement came in the form of a new Pokemon Legends game, Pokemon Legends Z-A! It's not coming until next year, so we didn't see any actual footage, but the concept of another "Pokemon Legends" game at all seems pretty exciting, this one looks to take place in the Kalos region, and if it's anything like Pokemon Legends Arceus, we'll see the region in the past while they're developing the beautiful metropolis that would become Lumiose City. I'm excited to have another Pokemon game that I'm actually excited for. The rumors swirling around this direct were going fast and furious between a "Let's Go" style remake of the second generation or a full remake of Generation 5's titles, so I'm much happier with what was actually announced.

    As you can see, there wasn't a ton that was announced, but I thought I'd do my part to help some Pokemon fans to keep up with the news, even though I don't really consider myself among that number. I just enjoy getting basically any kind of news about new games, even when I'm not particularly excited about them myself. I hope that Pokemon fans are happy with the announcements from today, I somewhat doubt it, but I hope people are happy about the new Legends game. I'm glad that the first one apparently did well enough to make a sequel, though we'll see how closely they keep to the gameplay loop of that original game, which I thought was pretty cool.

    Thanks so much for reading, everyone! Were you excited for this presentation going in? I know one thing that can be rough for a lot of Pokemon fans is that expectations can be really heightened by fake rumors and supposed leaks, so they can be really disappointed by what is actually shown, but I just hope that your expectations weren't too terribly high going in! I hope you'll all have a great week, and thanks again for all of your support. I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Pokemon reporter, and I'll talk to you again soon!