Originally published on Trevor Trove on February 25, 2016
With the rumors swirling of a new pair of Pokemon games being announced in tomorrow’s Pokemon-centric Nintendo Direct, I spent some time thinking about what it would take to bring me back to the Pokemon franchise. As I touched on back on my Favorite Games of the Game Boy piece, I’ve been a fan of the series since the beginning. Or at least I was. I have every game in the core series prior to X and Y. When I finally got myself a 3DS, I only bothered picking up Pokemon X. I don’t remember ever finishing Black 2/White 2 and I’m pretty sure that even though I picked up Heart Gold/Soul Silver, I barely played them. Similarly, I probably didn’t put more than an hour into Pokemon X. When Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby came out, I skipped them all together.
While nothing ever really recaptured the magic of trying to capture those original 151 and going through the Kanto region, I still enjoyed playing through the games in my youth. But now that there are over 700 Pokemon, Old Man Trevor just doesn’t have the patience to try and go through the same motions of collecting, building a team, and battling through the gyms and elite four.
I imagine the only thing that might get me really excited to revisit the series would be a back-to-basics, console quality game. But I don’t expect that idea to ever occur. Nintendo would alienate their existing audience enjoying the current batch of Pokemon by removing them from the equation. That said, it looks like Pokemon Go (which is what I imagine the bulk of tomorrow’s Direct will describe) might start out with a focus on the original era and then add Johto and the rest as time passes.
If the rumored Pokemon Sun and Moon are introduced tomorrow, I imagine they’ll be standard entries on the Nintendo 3DS. If they are somehow a console title, I imagine it’ll be a last ditch effort to sell the Wii U, rather than Nintendo’s new system. I find it highly unlikely they would announce this as an NX title before even detailing the system itself.
That said, I imagine there will also be a focus on Pokken Tournament. Perhaps, Nintendo has also decided to double down on the success of their amiibo and invest in a dedicated line of Pokemon amiibo figures. Or maybe a new Pokemon Snap Wii U game announcement. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.