This morning, the latest Nintendo Direct, celebrating 20 years of Pokemon, streamed all over the Internet. With Pokken Tournament, Pokemon Go, the e-Shop versions of the original games, and the leak of the new ones, Sun and Moon, all releasing this year, one would expect this Pokemon Direct to be a virtual fiesta of news and details about what 2016 had in store for trainers everywhere. What everyone received, however, was nothing of the sort.
The Pokemon Direct was an entire six-and-a-half-minute long, and three-and-a-half of those precious minutes were gobbled up by gratuitous advertising consisting of brief scenes that flashed by so quickly the viewer could barely tell what they were looking at. Finally, with only a couple minutes to go, Tsunekazu Ishihara of the Pokemon Company announced Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon were coming this holiday season, and the glorious, juicy details gamers had been craving were finally… still not given.
Moving right along, Ishihara confirmed that the e-Shop versions of the original games, Red, Blue, and Yellow, are compatible with Pokemon Bank, allowing players to transfer their team to the sixth generation games. While this is certainly welcome news, will they also be re-releasing Silver, Gold and Crystal later on? Had they released the Johto series instead right from the beginning, players would have had access to both first and second generation Pokemon to transfer. Ah, but then they wouldn’t get to make players buy two games instead of one, would they?
Pokemon Direct ends with a few final words from Ishihara, with no mention whatsoever of Pokemon Go or any other known title. After the veritable desert of major news from Nintendo or any of its associates, a new Direct is released in which not a single instance of relevant information is provided (Sun and Moon were leaked before the Direct). With the entire world wondering what news 2016 would bring regarding Nintendo and its games, this latest disappointment may very well mean we will hear nothing until either GDC or E3. Until then, train on.
