I’m gonna be honest, I almost didn’t make this. Not just due to the bad events going on that are making the entire internet go into a hyperventilating fit of doomerism, but also because the Pokemon Presents yesterday just wasn’t that surprising. If anything, some of the cooler stuff that would have been revealed got revealed a week or so before the presentation got underway. It also didn’t help the big announcement was leaked months beforehand, but for people like me who largely ignored said leaks, I still had some pleasant surprise from it all, and I figured this was the best thing to get my mind off everything, so let’s continue SFG Impressions with an easy one!
This showing is a lot easier to cover everything within it, since there’s a bunch of the usual, boring update stuff these showings always have on offer, and these presents end up being shorter anyhow.
A few days before this presentation, they launched a whole bunch of variations of the Pokemon 30th anniversary logo. The common one for this year is a cute one of Pikachu on the Pokeball and a very fancy logo, while another, less common one is the pikachu face they made for the 20th anniversary a decade ago, but with the number 30 on it. I much prefer the common one, and it seems TPC did too since the presents opens up with a huge wall of logo variants with that design and every single (non mega) Pokemon ever made with their own logo.
That’s right folks, Spewpa 30th is REAL. Hail the best bug type. Anyway, you can go out and find your logo for your favorite unless they’re a Mega. Sorry, no Mega Starmie logo. But go nuts with Cascoon 30th or Origin Forme Dialga 30th if you so please.
The first proper announcement seems promising at first. A Game Boy replica, the title screens for Pokemon Red/Blue on it. A fake cartridge being pulled out of it. Perhaps a Game Boy Mini exclusively made for Pokemon in mind?!?
Nope, of course not, instead you get what’s the most baffling piece of merch I’ve seen in a while, which is the Game Boy replica and 45 mini cartridges that play different BGM tracks from Pokemon RBG when you pop it in. Cool memorabilia, but of all OSTs to do this with Pokemon Gen 1 is honestly the game that makes me scratch my head the most. For every iconic theme like Pallet Town, Gym Battle or Rival theme, you have boring themes like the Wild Battle or the Cave Theme.
Maybe it’s because I grew up more with Gen 3 and would be all over something of this for that gen, but either way, it’s a weird piece of merch and a weird way to reissue the OST when the proper OST got a CD reissue several years ago during another anniversary. Oh well, you could go nab it via Pokemon Center if you so choose, except this $70 toy is already fully sold out, because of course it is. So expect to pay a bajillion extra for this if you want since I’m doubting they’ll care to restock it. (I hope they do, though!)
Next up you have the Pokemon Company International come out to talk about this year’s Pokemon World Championships in California, and I’m just gonna be blunt and say please don’t go. If current events aren’t enough to make you wary of going to the US from another country, then just expect the uncertainty to continue and for it to be too much of a risk to get in through the airports to enter in this tournament. The FGC already is dealing with one of their best players being detained and abused by ICE; I don’t want Pokemon TCG/VGC players to end up in that kind of hell either.
Ideally I’d like TPC to relocate this event to Canada or somewhere like that, but these usually get planned far in advance so it wouldn’t be practical to relocate, unfortunately. Nevertheless while I got their general vibe for promoting this thing and this would have worked in any year but our current one, I do not recommend attending this if you’re from outside the US, or even in the US if I’m blunt. Get involved in your local elections instead so you can help shift the tide this November.
Anyhow now that we don’t have a reminder of the real world on screen anymore, we get our TCG segment, which seems pretty mundane to the average person but as a former TCG player, (I retired in 2020, when the pandemic struck, and by the time it calmed down enough for me to go back to, my deck got rotated out and cards became a collector’s nightmare due to scalping culture) is actually really huge. See, two segments of the Pokemon multimedia franchise have been not worldwide that should have been long ago: the Anime and the TCG. Both got closer and closer and closer over time, but even still you’ll see cool TCG cards announced and will have to wait like a couple months to get that card in English.
Well per this segment, they’ll all be launching everywhere at once in 2026, at least some set will be. Pretty rad! Let’s hope they actually learn to keep stuff in stock and stomp out scalpers so kids trying to buy these cards at a Walmart won’t get bothered by grown ass men who really need to resell an Umbreon. With the fiddling of the pull rates to emphasize the rarest cards being rare, I don’t expect it to entirely go away, but at the very least I hope they fix the booster supply issue so kids who want one casually can get it easily without having their parents helicopter over preorder pages every few months. (I still cannot believe the anime isn’t subbed worldwide at all, or has the dub coming out much quicker, though…)
Next up is several mobile games in a row, starting with Pokemon GO. I like this game a lot and it’s been a good exercise/walking aid, but I cut out buying stuff in it since Scopely (who are owned by the Saudis, enough said) bought it. Anyhow there’s another event, some code was revealed (which I don’t think you can redeem on iOS, so RIP me), and this is the game’s 10th anniversary. That means Pokemon Go has been active for 1/3 of the entire Pokemon franchise’s history, which is pretty much the same length of time as the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon hit Japan (Red Rescue Team) to the final original one (Super Mystery Dungeon). Yes, that means in a year Pokemon Go will have been around longer than PMD.
Pretty wild, but for a game I originally dismissed as a lame gimmick, I found myself appreciating it way more for bringing more people together than I expected, and for maintaining a pretty consistent level of fun since launch. I think the only time things got funky was during the COVID years where people couldn’t go outside in most of the world, and so stuff got more lenient, but as that ended it was reverted and caused outrage. Some of the changes I thought were better overall and I was mildly annoyed to see them reverted, but being a park walker I wasn’t too bothered since I could still walk and hatch Pokemon and even bring them into HOME! (Being a solo player, I’ve barely touched the Raid mechanic, which seems to have been the biggest controversy, and I think they made it easier to raid remotely from anywhere now…)
Wild how the Pokewalker basically led into this, from a tiny LCD toy that let you walk and capture maybe a few mons at a time, to a mobile game that’ll let you go nuts and give you pretty easy Shiny Pokemon without spending a dime, that you’ll always have on you. I see the stats, I know my SFG readers use their phones. Anyhow, very understandable if you don’t want to play this at all considering who owns it, but if you’re like me and are locked too deep in from a decade old account, at least this new event stuff can all be participated in without giving Scopely a cent of actual money. All in all, game is still fun, even if I wish Niantic didn’t get sold off.
Next up is the mobile game I can’t get into no matter how many times I try, again and again. That would be Pokemon Masters EX, which did the usual “stun people not in the know with showing off a cool character, only to inform them right after it’s for a gatcha mobile game” like what happened when Ash Vs Red was a promotional thing for that game a few years back. This time you got Red from 1996 in that same Sugimori Watercolor style, and he looks really cool, and the two people from Scarlet and Violet who I forgot actually did get Canon names. Yes, I know how awkward it is they get voice acting for this game and not the mainline games. Not for me, but fans who like it really like it so this will keep that fun going (and the awesome music remixes, which I have enjoyed)
Now for the mobile game I do not understand the point of, and the one big part of this presentation I will be more cynical than I probably should be; Pokemon Cafe Remix lingers around to always enter these presentations and thus, get more updates, and my answer is; why? How? I love me a good puzzle game and even found Pokemon Shuffle aggressively OK, but I just have never, ever been able to enjoy Cafe Mix/Remix no matter how many times I get into it, but unlike Masters it doesn’t seem to have an appeal I understand anyone else to get into either besides being able to get your favorite cute Pokemon. I got Braixen in an event and I just remember it being tediously grindy and the puzzles very unfun and not all that enjoyable to work away at.
Does anyone legitimately enjoy this game? No, I’m serious, do people who play this actually like it for the gameplay? Tell me how if so, as I am legitimately curious if there’s an angle I just don’t see in this game, that because of how boring it is I always want to drown in a bathtub and wish they’d make a better puzzle game. There can’t be any other reason for the game to be alive as long as it has, right…? The base of the Pokemon consumers (Children) who play these games I don’t see enjoying the frustrating difficulty spikes. I’m actually kinda surprised Pokemon Friends wasn’t mentioned here at all, now that I think about it…
Well, Pokemon Sleep is a thing still, and that I understand a lot more. Actually, I’m a bit bummed I can’t get into Pokemon Sleep; that’s more on me for having a sleep schedule all over the place and a routine that does not work for what Pokemon Sleep needs for accurate sleep tracking, but since I gotta have the phone maintain enough energy for my day to day life and Pokemon Sleep can rapidly drain power from your battery, I don’t know if I can fit it in anytime soon. Would love to do so however, but the last time I used an app that didn’t work with how I normally did the thing (Pokemon Smile) it didn’t work out so well. Still, more fun for that crowd! I’m not kidding when I say I am envious.
Pokemon Unite also got another update, and this is a case where it was my first MOBA when it hit Switch. I played it for a bit, go to where you’d actually play against real people, had some decent fun and won a match, and went “well, I beat the video game” and never touched it again because I still don’t vibe all that well with online only games where the main goal is to just play over and over and over and over again with no ending in sight. Yes, I am weird and old like that.
Anyhow I dumped a bunch of money in it years ago for Delphox when they added him to the game, had a bit more fun with that, and then dropped it again. Since then they kept adding new Pokemon including a bunch of weird ones, and today they announced that the Kanto bird trio are being rolled out over time into the game, meaning yes, I can play as Articuno and mention that on the site named Seafoam Gaming. Meganium and the other Johto mons are also being added in, making another of my personal favorites getting into the game… Which actually kinda scares me that they’ll unironically throw in Vivillon and thus I’ll have to main it so I can play as Spewpa in a spinoff game. Uh oh.
Lastly, TCG Pocket. I know this game’s shtick and I know how addicted I can get to really good TCG simulations on phones like Duel Links. I won’t touch it for that reason, but I know people who play it really like it. New content! New fun. More to goof around with. Have fun if you play this one.
Now we get to the video game portion, with a NSO classic reissue in the form of Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness. Gotta admit when I saw the start of the presents have a T rating, I was a little concerned there might be some unhinged attempt at a T rated pokemon game, but nah, it’s just the NSO Gamecube rating as a whole. (Soul Calibur II is why) Nothing given besides a generic date of March, meaning it’ll have been 11 months since that game was revealed for the service, along with Colosseum. No connectivity to the GBA Pokemon games was confirmed, meaning no multiplayer outside of random pokemon for you, or transferring your team.
Still, of the two GCN Pokemon games, XD is far superior and makes better use of the double battle mechanics, in my humble opinion, since Colosseum is a slog going back to it now. Seriously, you are not prepared for the tedious task of going through those boring dungeons or purifying a Tyranitar in Colo, so I’m glad they went out of order. Fun useless fact about me: 20 years ago in mid March, it’ll be the anniversary of when I was relocated from a rocky living situation, and the day I was moved out I was given a Silver Gamecube with a game of my choice. I picked Pokemon XD, because I had no idea a sequel to Colosseum ever existed, and it was quite the fun “first game” of my new chapter of life. It’ll be cool to replay it almost 20 years to the day I first learned of it.
And now we get to a thing that would have been pretty earthshaking if revealed in the presentation, instead of a week before; Pokemon Firered and LeafGreen Versions are hitting the Switch eShop. We finally counted to the third gen for Pokemon reissues here, and it seems TPC is adamant of reissuing the Pokemon games their own way and not through NSO or even a curated Pokemon Classics app like I thought they would. Thus, you get a local only, Pokemon FRLG experience with only minor things tweaked from it.
They announced in this presents you can transfer your mons to Pokemon Home and beyond at some point in the future, and after the games released people found out the events are built-in ala GS Ball from Crystal. Even the game corner seems to still exist, even in the EU versions, so this is a pretty simple rerelease. Nevertheless, I will plan to review this sometime in the spring, as it’s a retro port and I can’t help myself. I really hope RSE comes later down the line, since you can’t 100% the national dex in FRLG without them…
Next was Pokemon Champions, the game they last mentioned at the last Pokemon day. This is the competitive battle simulator going forward, and it’s dropping in April on Switch. Not all the mons will be in this game either, but a good variety will be there. It seems Home support will be the main means of getting a team in here, and you can use rental mons or an in-game currency to help you out if you don’t have mons.
I’m genuinely curious how mobile users will be able to get anywhere in this without a mainline game, so hopefully that experience turns out well, since this could be a huge boon for the franchise if it does well; makes it so mainline Pokemon games don’t need to have the anchor of competitive built into them, and it makes it so competitive Pokemon is in its own bubble for those fans to play to their heart’s content.
They then mentioned news about Pokemon Legends: Z-A and the DLC, which I honestly hoped was them finally adding in Pokemon Home Support, but bafflingly it wasn’t that and instead it was simply them giving out a mystery gift that tweaked a datamined Mega Garchomp battle. Boo. Hopefully the Home Support comes before long, especially with Champions working with Z-A Megas.
For the second to last topic, they went over Pokemon Pokopia for a decent bit of time. I don’t have much thoughts here, this is a game I just don’t see much vibe with for me. Being able to play retro BGM in the game is cool, I guess, but I’ll probably have to see the full mon roster and people’s impressions before I pull the trigger on picking this one up or not. Playing as a Ditto is still off-putting to me.
Finally, the big announcement, the one that got leaked a while ago, but if you were me or most people avoiding leaks, the basic info shown here was pretty nice to see. Pokemon Winds and Pokemon Waves, AKA Gen X of Pokemon was revealed as a full blown Switch 2 Edition, with some very short B-roll showing a nicely detailed world, weird looking Pikachu, and the three starters.
First off, finally. Finally! The Switch is dead in Pokemon land. This does make my joke of these games being Game Key Cards to avoid leaks that I made last year seem worryingly closer to reality and causing a bunch of discourse, but it was very blatant from Scarlet/Violet how the more ambition Game Freak got, the rockier the games would perform on the original Switch. LGPE looks like a plastic bath, but is simple and works well, awkward controls aside, SWSH has those infamous trees people whined about for months on end but was a largely stable and pretty fun game that took some baby steps toward more open-ended level design, and then Arceus had a bit of performance bumping to it but was still decent on the Switch. Shining Pearl copied Diamond and Pearl and being a top-down game, I think would have caused immediate concern if frames dropped like mad there.
But then we saw Scarlet/Violet, and while I’ve largely mellowed out in how mad I could get over Pokemon since there are more important things to worry about in life, I still stand by the whole bewildering reaction I had back then to how such a thing could be released. You telling me nobody saw how bad it ran on Switch 1? How inconsistent it was, how it couldn’t lock a stable framerate, and how bad the world design was? It just felt like they had to get it out when they got it out and thus turborushed it out the door, and not even patches could save that game. It’s a shame too, since the battles of the main story were still pretty good, but when your open world is pretty bland, it doesn’t lead to being all that fun to explore.
Thankfully playing on Switch 2 makes SV a game changer, and the DLC ended up being way more fun with better designed areas, but even still, the rocky state of SV (probably caused by the Pandemic) was enough for me to be pretty wary of how the next gen would be. ZA got dunked on by the internet for looking simple, but i didn’t find that look to be all that bad and it running good on Switch 1 still made it a better starting experience than Scarlet/Violet, and was a far better game in my book. So cutting off the Switch 1 and letting Game Freak go all wild with this new hardware is honestly pretty exciting. We’ll have to see how much of a jump with the system they deal with, but that part alone is enough to reassure me of it not having a rocky launch. It looks pretty cool too, but the little snippet makes me wonder if we’ll see more of it in August.
They also showed the three starters, and I think 2/3 of them are pretty boring. Gecqua is pretty decent looking, but like every single Pokemon Starter trio known to man, you’ll either have a few pokemon that look cool starting out but then devolve into looking dumb (Chesnaught, Infernape), Pokemon that look dumb but then get really cool later on (Skeledirge, Swampert) , Pokemon that have a good mid-stage but everything else falls flat (Ivysaur, Thwackey) or Pokemon that look cool all the way (Meowscarada, Delphox). We’ll see how these starters end up, but being that Gen IX was a mix of all that for me, I’m expecting the Pomeranian looking thing to end up being a Skeledirge/Inteleon situation where it looks better than you’d expect from the first stage, and Gecqua to be a disappointment. Oh well! That’s the joy of having three to pick from.
Aaaaaand to finally wrap this all off, we get the end date of 2027 for release. Not Holiday 2026, 2027. That’s a year away! But unlike Z-A where we only had a weird concept art trailer to go off of, we see some in-game stuff, which makes me ponder if it’ll be early 27 or late 27. Early 27 due to The Car Game making Pokemon have to move outta the way? Or Late 27 so it gets tip-top polish to be sold in another holiday season? We’ll have to wait to find out, but with plenty of other things to catch up on, I’m A-OK waiting.
Conclusion
And that’s the second SFG impressions wrapped up nicely. A lot more “not for me” things mentioned here compared to the Direct, since this was shorter and I had experience with most of the mobile stuff getting updated, but I still by and large found this showing to be pretty solid. An expected yearly update on Pokemon news, a weird surprise thrown in, a mainline announcement, and the usual wave of Mobile updates. Compared to some years, this one felt a lot more organized with a nicer flow to the stream.
So, what did you think of yesterday’s Pokemon Presents? I’d be curious to know if you have any thoughts akin to me, and especially if someone could help me know what appeal Cafe Mix is meant to have. Until next time!