Also even if it wasn't we literally had this exact sequence happen with BDSP, L:A and SV lmao
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Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
On the topic of Mega Houndoom, I’m actually fine with it keeping Solar Power as an ability. Manual Sun has become a lot better of a play style now thanks to the introduction of Paradox Pokémon and Torkoal, and Solar Power and Nasty Plot give Mega Houndoom a unique niche than Charizard-Y can’t replace. In fact, even without Nasty Plot, Mega Houndoom hits harder than Mega Charizard Y in Sun- I was able to OHKO a Kommo-o after Stealth Rock with Overheat in National Dex. And lastly, it’s actually one of the few viable with Pokemon with Solar Power, the other one being Heliolisk (No, I don’t count base Charizard in Mega Format.) Statisically speaking, it’s a superior Chi-Yu that hits much harder when the Sun is up.
Getting Gen X isn't mutually exclusive with a remaster or whatever. But TPC also really seems to be really weird with re-releasing old games for some reason. NSO has provided access to Game Boy and Game Boy Advance for years now, yet mainline Pokémon is nowhere to be found in the library despite it being a great way to bump subscription numbers. And we got the two Stadium games without any way to use our own Pokémon because no RBY or GSC!
I'm willing to bet we only got RBY and GSC on 3DS because Nintendo was on fire during the Wii U era and twisted TPC's arm.
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if they ever put any of them on switch/switch2 it will more than likely not be part of the NSO service imo
I’ve done some looking into this myself and my findings have been pretty interesting to say the least.
It seems like Game Freak always wants a version of Kanto to be playable on any hardware generation, whether that be the originals or FireRed & LeafGreen or Let’s Go, with backwards compatibility helping out in this regard. To date, only the DSi specifically lacks access to any Kanto-based games and even then that’s only because the DSi removed the backwards compatibility with GBA titles. The Switch and Switch 2 can both play Let’s Go, provided Let’s Go doesn’t have a Switch 2 upgrade (yet) and while it’s a bit muddier for Johto, I would imagine that a Switch 2 upgrade for Let’s Go would possibly conflict with their interest in bringing over Gen 1’s games.
In any case, 2026 is as likely a year as any for us to see a collection of older games, and I also expect 2026 to be the release window for the two GameCube games as well. I would personally love to see the Gen 3 handheld games brought over, partially because I want to know if they would be GameCube compatible, and also because unlike Kanto and a handful of other regions, Nintendo doesn’t currently offer a method to explore Hoenn- the last time was in ORAS on the 3DS, and the 3DS has been discontinued for a while now. My ADHD also likes the possible number pattern should this happen. (2002, 2014, 2026)
yeah being part of NSO means having features that they hate included
I also think they would make a lot more money just selling them individually outside of that service, especially considering how well each of the pokemon gen 1 and gen 2 virtual console titles sold. they were cagey as far as I can tell about actual sales figures for them but in just a month from feb to march 2016 they sold 1.5 million worldwide.
Virtual Console games usually didn’t sell that well compared to full re-releases, and with how secretive Nintendo was with those sales figures, the only ones I could find that even topped a million were these and Super Mario Bros. 3. That’s it. That’s the list of officially confirmed Virtual Console games I was able to find that reached that mark. I would assume the numbers were higher for more games and we just didn’t know about them, but with the 3DS and Wii U both selling less than the Wii anyways, it’s hard to say how high their attachment rates may have been.
yeah they don't count digital only sales for any of their figures and have always been incredibly cagey about even talking about digital sales. it is why the switch attach rate looks a lot lower than consoles like the wii.
the virtual console releases of red/green/blue/yellow likely sold a lot lot more than the 1.5 million they did in a month but we'll never know because they'll never say it. afaik they never even gave us information about how gold/silver/crystal sold on vc.
anyway they released three new japanese commercials with cool remixes
That would explain the inconsistencies with the Rumble games
The first game, Rumble U and the since discontinued mobile game (for good reason, that game freaking sucked) were all digital only and the 3DS games were the only ones with actual sales figures, but at the same time Rumble World only counted the 2016 retail version for some reason.Gah, Pokémon spinoffs are weird.
my favorite gen 3 line just hanging out in an abandoned lot, peak 10/10
Not sure if this matters, but it took five years between 3DS VC and the Gen 1 games (2011-2016). GB and GBA NSO didn't come out until 2023.
Some stuff from the new overview
Hawluchite and Malamarite
Aside from the previously known Alpha Houndoom, we also got to see Alpha Gastly and Alpha Camerupt. Pretty neat since they all have Megas
Salamence seems to have a new battle idle where it is now grounded
I think this might be a new animation for Arbok also? Might be wrong on that one
Trading was shown off, which might mean the game does not have the Link Cable evo item
Hawluchite and Malamarite
Aside from the previously known Alpha Houndoom, we also got to see Alpha Gastly and Alpha Camerupt. Pretty neat since they all have Megas
Salamence seems to have a new battle idle where it is now grounded
I think this might be a new animation for Arbok also? Might be wrong on that one
Trading was shown off, which might mean the game does not have the Link Cable evo item
Even PLA had trading. It's presence has no effect on the presence of the Linking Cord.
Also the Arbok animation isn't new, that's the animation it uses for Iron Tail and Dragon Tail (among other moves).
Early 2026 looks to be very stacked for Pokémon right now.
We already have:
- Pokémon Champions
- Mega Dimension DLC
- Colosseum and XD coming to NSO
- Pokopia
Combine this with the speculated rerelease of the classic Gameboy games, and other 30th anniversary celebrations (and GO's 10th anniversary), as well as the looming Gen 10 hype cycle.
It's going to be a busy year, and I'm certainly glad that I'm not the one working at The Pokémon Company having to schedule all of these releases and events/marketing around them because this sounds like a pain.
I welcome them slowly undoing the nightmare that was sky battles in gen 6 ruining like every pokemon with wing's idle
I know scarlet/violet had Tropius finally being on its legs again
I actually thought Salamence landed in SV too. Charizard does; it'll even swap which stance it takes if you switch it in/out.
Then there's Garchomp who can fly now but exclusively only uses these animations if you fight the wild one flying around the area zero mountains.
God I hope they make the buildings look better in general 10. The fact that there all completely flat looks awful.
Yeah I think a lot of stuff has grounded animations now? I know Gliscor also has one but I couldn’t really figure out what triggered it in SV.
To this day Im puzzled by what triggers the grounded or floating animations in battle. Some mons like metagross will either land or just hover, while im sure basically every bird will take flight during battle even if you encounter it grounded, like skarmory or bombirdier. Gholdengo in particular can hover on its board over water and gets a unique make it rain animation while doing so, so I wondered if theres a way to manipulate that.
Yeah I've never been on the side of "GF graphics terrible!!!!" (cos.. duh lol) but those are just so painfully awful.. you'd think that with one location with similar environments that they would put a bit more focus into textures and realism within the surrounding locations.
Hopefully this is just because PLZA suffered from that "rush release" cycle and Gen X will benefit from potentially more people / ILCA etc
Ground detection and the position/size of the enemy Pokémon based on what I've seen both personally and in YouTube battle videos.
IIRC most Pokémon (except for stuff that always floats, like Gastly and whatnot) have always had a grounded pose, it just wasn’t viewable in battle — you’d have to interact with it in Amie/Refresh to see it. Which is what I was sort of getting at when I talked on a previous page about opportunities for showcasing animation, and how Z-A, by virtue of having Pokémon that roam around in the world and by having them as more active participants in battle, creates a lot more of those opportunities than the classic turn-based battles.
I suppose it really depends on what their reason for including the Linking Cord was. Legends: Arceus had trading too, but I think the question is, was the reason they made trade evos optional because it was a standalone single-player game instead of a paired version (in which case, chances would look good for the Linking Cord being in Z-A), or was it because the game was so heavily designed around completing the Pokédex (which will probably be less of a factor in Z-A)?
I suppose it really depends on what their reason for including the Linking Cord was. Legends: Arceus had trading too, but I think the question is, was the reason they made trade evos optional because it was a standalone single-player game instead of a paired version (in which case, chances would look good for the Linking Cord being in Z-A), or was it because the game was so heavily designed around completing the Pokédex (which will probably be less of a factor in Z-A)?
To be honest, a bit of both.
It was mainly designed as single player, there was no paired version so nothing really to "trade with your friends for" AND the pokedex completion was actually a key part of the game.
I think there's a pretty solid chance ZA will also have something equivalent. While it has PvP, I don't think that's anywhere close to something core for the game and probably more them experimenting with "what if we add PvP" since there was (some) demand for it in ZA.
In the end, the main point of trade evos and trading in general in mainline games is due to the paired versions and encouraging kids to go out or something (let's be honest it may have been that at start, nowadays it's just about forcing you to buy both versions). But those games don't have any paired version so there's no real point in forcing you to trade with others.
Well seeing as we're in the home stretch now with leaks potentially coming any day now, any last-minute hopes for the game?
I might think of more later but right now I'm hoping for a Reflection Cave expy (note how we have yet to see Carbink) and decrepit abandoned Lysandre Labs as dungeons
I might think of more later but right now I'm hoping for a Reflection Cave expy (note how we have yet to see Carbink) and decrepit abandoned Lysandre Labs as dungeons