It came and went – the seemingly out of left field Pokemon Direct, a mere week before E3, failed to deliver anything significant to the Switch. Well, I shouldn’t say that, as Pokken Tournament is being ported. Ported, that is.With the addition of 5 new Pokemon and a presumed minor graphics improvement. By significant, I should clarify that I mean what most of us Pokemon playing human beings wanted to see: some sort of main line Pokemon game playable on the Switch. Sigh, pass.
Game Freak has been known to take ages to adopt the new Nintendo console,, and it looks like Switch won’t be any different. And that’s okay – the console really did just launch, but you’d think a company that Nintendo has so much of an investment in would have something prepared in the form of a mainline game?
It was revealed that Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon would be released come November, featuring the same Alohan continent with an alternate storyline. Sounds pretty cool, I suppose, but it’s only on the 3DS. We’re slowly rolling into frustrating territory that while Nintendo obviously wants to keep their 3DS money printer running, it’s a little antiquated at this point and they need to show that they’re committed to the Switch, not that they’re committed to keep aging hardware alive.
Heck, even Capcom is dual-releasing Monster Hunter XX that will feature cross-play between the Switch and 3DS, and they’re a third-party developer! Come on, Nintendo!
The last quick announcement was that Pokemon Gold/Silver will be coming to the 3DS eShop – at the end of the year. Part of me was really hoping for a new remake, or even a re-release of a remake, perhaps HeartGold/SoulSilver on the Switch? Alas, that is not the case.
At the beginning of the stream, it was really made to sound like “this is all the cool Pokemon stuff that will be coming to the Switch!” Then it quickly became about the 3DS. It stings a little bit, and I definitely had my sights set a little too high, however, let us not forget that E3 is right around the corner. While I don’t expect anything huge, I do think that Virtual Console may have a mention. I didn’t think they would reveal something as huge as the VC in an 8-minute Pokemon Direct, but it’d be great to get some details next week. Perhaps we may see some of the older Pokemon games in a VC “Switch”-uation? Who knows!
Are you excited for Ultra Sun/Moon? Pokken Tournament Deluxe on the Switch? Gold/Silver on the 3DS!? Let me hear about it in the comments!
nostalgia trigger 
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I agree that it was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Pokken Tournament DX, but only because I didn’t play enough of the Wii U one and would appreciate the more robust online and added characters. I’m not really that excited for Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon though. It’s just too soon for that, especially since I invested so much time into the originals just half a year ago. Reminds me of the Black 2/White 2 situation.
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I’m probably in the minority here, but I’m over the moon (indeedy^^) with the upcoming release of the Ultra Sun and Moon pair and overjoyed to see that there’s still some life to the 3DS.
That being said, I do admit it’s a bit of a missed opportunity for the Switch. I’m really curious to see how GameFreak’s stance will evolve in the upcoming years and on which machine the next mainline Pokemon games will pop up.
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It does seem like a missed opportunity here. Surely it would be more beneficial to release ultra sun and moon on the Switch or even Sun & Moon DX than to rehash the games that aren’t even a year old and making people buy them again when they could just as daily add the alternate storyline to the main game as DLC. Pokken for Switch has my approval as I think it will fair much better on Switch than it did on Wii U.
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I get that GameFreak has been pretty behind with new console adoption, but the problem is that Pokemon is arguably THE largest IP that they have, and if anyone should be on top of newer consoles, it’s GameFreak.
The argument can be made that they should focus their development where the numbers lay, and in this case it’s with the 3DS. However, should they desire to get more people to adopt the Switch, they do need to abandon further development on the 3DS to show they are committed to the Switch, which has been where the doubt has been all along.
I love my 3DS(es), but I won’t pretend like I want to keep playing the console with 240p graphics when I have a beautiful Switch (and a Vita for that matter) that feels way nicer to play on and looks 1000x and 100x better, respectively.
An example: I really want to play Ever Oasis. Well, I am. I preordered it, same with Hey Pikmin and Monster Hunter Stories. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s foolish to keep developing for an antiquated 6 year old console when Nintendo literally cannot produce enough to meet the insane demand. It’s only a matter of time before everyone who can get one, gets one, and then what? We’ll have 10 more awesome games on.. the old system? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
At least a dual-console release would make more sense, but I also understand the dramatic difference in form factor makes this kind of impossible to do.
We shall see what happens, but I look forward to the glorious announcement of a main-story Pokemon title on the Switch 🙂
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pretty bummed about the direct. The Switch seems like a great place to have a pokemon game. Why couldn’t Ultra Moon and Sun also be on the Switch with cross play? Like you said, Capcom has done this on more than one occasion for 3DS to Switch and Wii U, and they are a 3rd party!
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It’s unfortunate that they’re taking the slow approach to releasing Pokemon to the Switch. Although I don’t care about fighting games I will still of course say that Pokken Tournament is a good idea for the folks that do enjoy fighting games, if only to get that game to a wider audience than the WiiU version did. Many people skipped the WiiU, so doing the same thing with PT that they did with MK8 makes sense.
I was hoping for some big main series excitement around the Switch, especially with the energy the Direct started with that implied it would be 100% on the Switch. A cash grab for “Ultra” SuMo is pretty lame to me. If it were for Switch, it would be a different story.
Silver lining, frees up my fall 🙂
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It’s clear to me that Nintendo is going all in on competitive gaming, with Splatoon 2, Arms and now Pokken Tournament. Not only do they stand to gain from the paid online service, but tournament revenues. It’s a shame for those of us who crave the old days of solid story games, but let’s hope they get it all out of their system now and we get some exciting releases for 2018, including a hotly anticipated Pokemon for Switch!
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Indeed! And in fact I think that they all are going to be massively successful in the eSport world. ARMS in particular. From playing the Test Punch for a bit I can already tell that it’s going to be huge. Not my thing, but I’m glad for them nonetheless to have 2 big IPs introduced on their new console within a few months.
Looking forward to playing high-resolution Pokemon, like the rest of us! Not worried though, our day’s gotta come eventually!
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