Ultra POKEMANZ and Tourneys

On June 6th, Nintendo held a Pokemon Direct, a surprise to most of us considering E3 is a week away, and during that time they announced some interesting things. So today, I'm going to give you guys my thoughts on what they announced and the feedback that has been given to it so lets dive in.

Here's the trailer from the Direct, just in case you missed it.

Pokken Tournament DX (September 22) - The first announcement that was made was that the arcade/Wii U game Pokken Tournament would be coming to Nintendo Switch as Pokken Tournament DX. The game now features new characters like Darkrai, Empolean, and Decidueye, along with a new tag-team mode and more. I think this is amazing. This was one of many games on Wii U that I hoped would get ported to Switch. I loved the gameplay, the visuals were outstanding and when I heard that the arcade game got updates with new characters, I knew that a Switch port was inevitable, so I am ecstatic that this is coming to Switch.

The game itself is actually a great fit for Switch. Its, in my opinion, a really good way for Pokemon to get start establishing itself on Switch. I know a lot of people were hoping for "Pokemon Stars" aka a Sun & Moon port, but I think this works just as well, if not a bit better. The main Pokemon games have always been on Nintendo handhelds. Fully Portable, easily obtainable, and accessible to most if not all gamers. This has been the norm for the 25 years. There have been Pokemon games on home consoles, but those don't do as well as the mainline series.

Switch is a very special case. It is a hybrid console and technically speaking, it would mean that if a mainline series game were to come to Switch, it would be the first mainline Pokemon game to be on a "home console", and even though it makes perfect sense to release a Pokemon game on Switch, now probably isn't the right time. The Switch is trying to really establish itself and we aren't even halfway in its first year, so while a mainline Pokemon game on Switch would help the console greatly it should come later down the line. Pokken Tournament fits better because its still new and has established itself already as a home console experience, so the move to Switch is actually a really good idea and gives the game a new feature to take it on the go, which is something the Switch has made very clear to be a really good selling point so far.

So do I still want Pokemon Stars, absolutely. However, if I had to pick a Pokemon game to start with on Switch, This would definitely be the game, it has all of the charm of Pokemon with an interesting new gameplay style that fits the series very well. It might not be Smash, but it certainly welcome.

As another plus, this game is getting a tournament at E3 as well. The Pokken Tournament DX Invitational, so we can look forward to that.

Pokemon Ultra Sun & Moon (November 17) - Also announced during the Direct were two new titles. Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon are new versions of the original Sun & Moon featuring a different story and new "ultra" versions of Pokemon.

While I think that this could be a good game and it clearly is Pokemon tradition to make enhanced versions of Previous games, I'm not too thrilled with this announcement. Again, not saying that these games look bad at all, far from it. I might actually pick up Ultra Moon, considering I already have Sun, but I don't feel the need to get these games as I did with Sun & Moon. This to me is like Black & White Version 2, the games look cool but if you have Black & White you don't have to rush to get these.

However, something that I do appreciate is that these games prove why the 3DS is still relevant even with the Switch around. As I said, the Switch is a very special case and Pokemon has established itself on handhelds more than it has on home consoles. So having this game on 3DS shows that it's still important to have a dedicated handheld for series like Pokemon or any other established handheld game until Nintendo figures out the right way to move the series to Switch.

Of course this is just my opinion and this could be completely wrong. However I want to hear from you guys, what do say to these game announcements? Are you excited? Disappointed? Let me know in the comments, they are enabled I made sure. Anyway guys, thanks for reading and I'll catch you guys later.