Pokken Tournament for Wii U in 2016!!

At the commencement of the Pokémon World Championships, attendees and online viewers were presented with an announcement trailer declaring that Japanese arcade fighting game Pokkén Tournament will be heading to Wii U worldwide in the spring of 2016.

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Fish(?!) Plays Pokemon!

In the wake of my last post regarding Twitch Plays Pokemon, I'm sure many of you that have followed the phenomenon have seen some of the other "________ Plays Pokemon" or "Twitch Plays ______". Well one that I happened to recently stumble onto is "Fish Plays Pokemon". It's just as interesting as it sounds so take a look.

Surprisingly enough, there is considerable interest in it as I've seen over 20,000+ viewers the last few days. They are currently on Pokemon Red, but who know's if we'll ever leave Pallet Town.

  Watch live video from FishPlaysPokemon on www.twitch.tv

Twitch Plays Pokémon: Not Done Yet!!

Twitch Plays Pokémon recently finished playing Pokémon X – the most recently released game in the Pokémon franchise. With viewers that hardly got above a thousand completing the game, there was a small surge of viewership as people came to see what would happen now that the last game had been played. What they were met with was the text displaying the promise of game play for Pokémon Omega Ruby in about 100 days and for Pokémon Red to begin a handful of days after that. Personally, I believe that they should go with Pokémon Blue to mix things up but that’s just me.

If you haven’t heard, the Twitch Plays Pokémon phenomenon is a Twitch.tv stream channel that shows the process of a Pokémon emulator that is rigged to accept button commands from the channels Twich’s chat window. Effectively, this means that anyone watching was in fact playing the game and had a (rather small) amount of control. What started out as a small experiment, exploded into a massive sensation.

This Is AWESOME!

The chat controls the emulator of the game up through Pokémon Black 2 (with the more newer games featuring a considerable slow down due to how difficult it is to extract ROMs of modern games). Since no functional ROM for Pokémon X had been generated, the game was played on the 3DS – a heavily modified 3DS for that matter. A very impressive feat! Each game takes roughly 2 weeks to complete and there have been some intermission with other games between Pokémon titles.

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, enhanced remakes of Ruby and Sapphire from Pokémon’s 3^rd generation on the GameBoy Advance, will hit stores November 21, 2014, more than 10 years since their original release. In the mean time, Twitch Plays Pokémon seems like it will be continuing to stream random CPU battles from Pokémon Stadium 2 where views can “Bet” on which team will win.

While I’m sure many people have lost interest in watching and participating in TPP, it’s interesting to see that the journey has not ended. How long will this channel last? Who knows? It’s been over 5 months in the making and I’m sure it will make it to its anniversary. 

A Farewell to DS and Wii Online Gaming

As forewarned, online gaming features for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS have shut down today. This had been announced earlier this year as the company behind Nintendo's online servers, Game Spy has begun shut down of all multiplayer services - both with friends and with strangers. This will affect all games that use Wi-Fi for multiplayer content but does not mean that other internet features have been disabled, such as the Internet Channel, Netflix streaming, and downloading games from the Wii Shop.

It is worth noting that Nintendo games are not the only ones affected by this shut down - third party titles that span across many consoles will be affected in some way by this. Some are making efforts to remedy this situation but Nintendo is not one of them citing that incompatibilities and difficulties would make trying to find another way to host these games not effective.

This shut down affects popular multiplayer titles such as Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, all Pokémon titles on the DS and many others. This does not, however, affect online gaming on the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Those online services are provided directly by Nintendo through "The Nintendo Network".

It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to an era of VR points in Mario Kart but I am hopeful seeing that future games on the Wii U should have an enhanced online experience that some games (I'm looking at you Brawl) could benefit from. So let us not dwell on our memories for too long - there are many incoming games that will soon fill the void.

Eevee takes over Pokémon TV

Pokémon announced today via twitter that the Pokémon TV site will be airing a special entitled Pokémon: Eevee and Friends.

"It’s Eevee’s time to shine on Pokémon TV with a bunch of awesome animation! Starting this Friday, December 6th, don’t miss the debut of the new special Pokémon: Eevee and Friends, as well as more exciting Eevee fun with some of your favorite Eevee-themed episodes! Eevee TV will be live only through December 15th, so be sure to watch all the action before time runs out.
Also in Pokémon animation news, the Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened DVD comes to stores starting December 3rd. Watch as Ash and his friends rally to confront a group of powerful Genesect as these Mythical Pokémon threaten to destroy the city!
Watch Eevee TV starting this Friday, and look for the latest Pokémon movie on DVD starting December 3rd!"

Pokémon X and Y - Mega Pokémon reveal trailer

For the longest time, the image of a slightly altered Mewtwo had fans baffled as to what it was about. Was it an evolution? A form change? A completely different Pokémon entirely? Well the answers have finally arrived. First seen in Coro Coro Magazine, Game Freak has finally come public with a video trailer explaining it all: Mega Pokémon Evolution. And this is a huge new mechanic for the Pokémon world.

Although not much has yet been said about the inclusion of Mega Evolution in the game, there have been 6 confirmed Pokémon to have the ability to Mega Evolve. It appears that this is a battle only transformation where a Pokémon holding a Mega Stone will temporally transform into their mega form. The confirmed Pokémon are Mewtwo, Lucario, Blazekin, Mawile, Ampharos, and Absol. Kangaskhan has also been confirmed.

Mega Forms From Left to right: Lucario, Mewtwo, Blazekin

Mega Forms From Left to Right: Mawile, Absol, Ampharos

Pokémon TV App

Now this is pretty awesome and necessary for any Pokémon fan with a Smart Phone. I've personally used it and give it 2 thumbs up!

The Pokémon Company has released a free official App for iOS and Android analogous to its online TV site.Pokémon TV allows users to watch English episodes of the Pokemon Anime from all 6 regions (during various seasons). Unlike Youtube and other video players on smart phones, READ MORE

Can I speak Japanese.....?

The answer is no. But, I don't need a translator to tell me what I need to be looking forward to in the upcoming Pokémon Black and White Version 2! I'll be doing a full preview shortly, but here's one of the trailers that I'll be referring to as a sneak peak:

Stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled for more Pokémon updates!

Classic Game of the Month: April 2012

Pokémon: Red Version/Blue Version

One of the most well know franchises by Nintendo is the Pokémon franchise. It was developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo The game sparked what would be a an incredibly wide-spread phenomenon including trading cards, TV anime, and plenty of merchandise and Pokémon Red and Blue Versions were the games that started it all.

Story

The world of Pokémon. A world where powerful creatures and humans live together. These Pokémon can be caught and trained by people to battle; some for sport and friendship, while others use them selfishly for evil. You control a young trainer who's just starting out on his own Pokémon adventure. Your character is a native of Pallet Town (a town in the Kanto region) and live a few homes away from renowned Pokémon expert, Professor Oak. The good professor gives you the choice of starting out with one of 3 Pokémon: The grass type Bulbasaur, the water type Squirtle, or the fire type Charmander. 

With your new partner, you embark your quest to take on other trainers, gym leaders, and finally the Pokémon league. 

Breaking News: Pokemon Black and White...2?

Although I haven't gotten around to reviewing Pokémon Black and White versions for the Nintendo DS yet (heck, I haven't even bought it yet), I've seen enough and heard enough about it to agree with other reviews that these additions to the Pokémon series are one of the best ever released. Many new features and tons of new Pokémon nabbed it a place in the favorites among the series.
 

Japanese Teaser Artwork

 
A Japanese official Pokémon TV program (probably similar to "Nintendo Week" on the Wii) entitled Pokémon Smash has announced that either an enhanced version or a direct sequel to this generation of Pokémon will have a Japanese release in June of this year for the Nintendo DS.

Now, those of you familiar with Pokémon are aware of the typical pattern that each generation is released in 3s; 2 versions and then a 3rd version with special content and minor improvements. For example Pokémon Red and Blue versions was followed by Yellow as were Diamond and Pearl succeeded by Platinum). In this case however, it looks as if 2 enhanced versions are going to be delivered entitled "Pokémon Black Version 2" and "Pokémon White Version 2"

Now for the burning questions:

-Will this be released in the United States?
-Will they serve as the "3rd" versions or as direct sequels?
-Why for the DS and not the 3DS when it seems that the DS is on its way out the door AND Black and White's graphics are already rendering psudo-3D graphics on a 3D screen?
-Will we see new Pokémon to add to our already overflowing list of 648 Pokémon?
-Will we ever catch ‘em all?

Further Reading:
http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-black-version-2-and-pokemon-white-version-2/
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/25/pokemon-black-and-white-2-announced-hits-japanese-dses-this-jun/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokemon_black#cite_note-105