“I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS.”
Pokémon entered the world 20 years ago, and 20 years later the franchise is still running strong. There are countless iterations of Pokémon games, television shows, manga, and movies.
Even with a character that never seems to age and a Pikachu who seems to ‘reset’ with every change of region and show, we still love Pokémon. The game and its creatures will continue to remain in our lives and memories, whether they’re from the original 151 or one of the newer 700+. I still remember playing Pokémon Red on my purple GameBoy as I travelled through Kanto and took down Team Rocket, and then travelled to Victory Road to defeat the Elite Four.
Reminiscing about all of the regions and all of the legendaries fills me with joy about the games. It’s just amazing that it’s been 20 years of Pokémon, Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos.
For their anniversary, Pokémon put together a celebratory trailer that was shown during the Super Bowl. To celebrate the official 20th anniversary on February 27th, 2016, a new Nintendo 3DS Pokémon 20th Anniversary Bundle will be released. This bundle contains a 3DS that comes pre-installed with both Pokémon Red and Blue and two special cover plates showcasing Charizard and Blastoise. The new system will cost $200.
The creators aren’t stopping there, however. Pokken Tournament is a fighting game that is currently available in Japan but is set to come out in the US later this year on Wii U and in arcades. It is produced by the team that created the Tekken series and follows the same format, but features a cast of Pokémon fighters. The cast of characters includes:
- Pikachu/Libre Pikachu
- Charizard
- Machamp
- Gengar
- Mewtwo and Shadow Mewtwo
- Suicune
- Septile
- Blaziken
- Gardevoir
- Garchomp
- Lucario
- Weavile
- Chandelure
- Braixen
Another game coming out soon is Pokémon GO. This game started off as an April Fools’ joke but quickly became a reality. Pokémon GO uses a device called Pokémon GO Plus in junction with your smartphone to encourage players to search the real world in order to find and catch Pokémon. Then players can either battle each other or work together to catch legendary Pokémon. The game and game device do not have an official release date yet.
Two new installations of the Pokémon series, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, were announced on February 26 during Nintendo’s “Pokémon Direct” presentation. The 3DS Virtual Console versions of the original Red, Blue, and Yellow games have been confirmed to be Pokébank compatible with Sun and Moon. These two new games have a release date of Holiday 2016.
Pokémon’s 20th anniversary will be a huge year for both the franchise and its fans alike. Go out and catch ‘em all!