Pokemon
Pokemon
Here’s how to find and get Darkrai in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Players can catch Darkrai in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but that’s easier said than done. Darkrai has been one of the most sought-after mythical Pokemon of all. Its spooky looks stand apart from prior mythical Pokemon like the cutesy Celebi, Shaymin, and Jirachi. This is reinforced further by its pure dark typing. The cherry on top is its strong base stat distribution, standing as a proper special attack sweeper rather than …
Pokemon
How to check and raise friendship in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Ever since Pokemon Gold and Silver, select Pokemon have needed more to evolve than just trading, stones, or leveling up. This is also the case in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, with checking and raising friendship being a requirement to evolve many different Pokemon. The trouble is that friendship has always been a hidden mechanic within the Pokemon franchise of games. Pokemon Legends: Arceus does have the standard ways available to check …
Pokemon
The best move, item builds for Aegislash in Pokemon Unite
Steven Rondina
Aegislash is a unique Pokemon in the franchise that requires a different build than one would expect, and this hasn’t changed in Pokemon Unite. First introduced in Pokemon X and Y and the first in a trio of new releases, Aegislash is built around its Stance Change ability. Stance Change sees Aegislash swap its offensive and defensive stats based on the attacks it uses. King’s Shield switches it to Shield …
Pokemon
AI program allows fans to create fake new Pokemon on demand
Olivia Richman
An AI program is allowing people to create fake new Pokemon almost instantaneously. The Nokemon generator was created back in January and is starting to gain a lot of interest from the Pokemon community. Nokemon was created by Liam Eloie, who was inspired by a Buzzfeed data scientists’ article on “forcing an AI bot to create weird-looking Pokemon.” But Nokemon takes it a step further and allows others to create …
Pokemon
Fans are talking about Pokemon Legends: Celebi, but what is it?
Steven Rondina
The concept of Pokemon Legends: Celebi has captured the imagination of Pokemon fans, but is there anything to it? Pokemon Legends: Arceus has entranced Pokemon fans around the globe. Its unique setting in an ancient Sinnoh region and novel gameplay has been well received among fans and critics alike. Pokemon fans are hoping this isn’t a one-off affair in the way some games have been, such as Pokemon Let’s Go …
Pokemon
5 things Pokemon games need to improve after Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is here, and it’s been a big success both commercially and critically. But it hasn’t been perfect. The game’s blend of open-world elements, action sequences, and standard Pokemon gameplay has breathed new life into the franchise for the first time in years. While this is a big step forward, there are still some important improvements to be made. Odds are that Pokemon Legends: Arceus will be the …
Pokemon
Here’s how to catch Enamorus in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon Legends: Arceus has a lot of legendaries to catch, including Enamorus. Here’s how to catch this new legendary Pokemon. Enamorus was the lone new legendary added in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The Pokemon has garnered a decidedly mixed responses since it was first leaked to the public. On the one hand, the new Pokemon’s appearance was widely derided. The newcomer looks more like a common enemy in a typical role-playing …
Pokemon
How to get Landorus, Thundurus, and Tornadus in Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Landorus, Tornadus, and Thundurus are among the many legendaries that can be caught in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. But just how do you get them? The fifth-generation trio made their way across the Pacific Ocean and landed in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. For their efforts, the Forces of Nature trio got rebranded as the “Incarnate Forces of Hisui” and got a new companion in the controversial Pokemon Enamorus. Catching them isn’t necessarily …
How to catch Bonsly, Cleffa, and Munchlax in Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Most familiar baby Pokemon return in Legends: Arceus, but the likes of Bonsly, Munchlax, and Cleffa are particularly hard to find. In previous iterations of the Pokemon series, this wouldn’t be an issue. Players can simply breed a Pokemon to obtain its baby form, with the only hurdle therein being the possible need to pick up an incense. That’s not the case here. There is no daycare center In Pokemon …
Pokemon Legends: Arceus duplication glitch discovered
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Duplication glitches and cloning bugs are back in vogue in the Pokemon franchise, and a new one has been discovered in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were a buggy mess upon release and remain troublesome to this day in some regards. Their biggest issue was a duplication glitch that allowed players to clone Pokemon and items freely using exploits in the game’s menus. It seems as …
Here is every Unown location in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Finding the location of every Unown in Pokémon Legends: Arceus can be very difficult. But we can help. There are a few different collection quests in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Alongside the 107 wisps and the general goal of catching ‘em all, players need to complete the Unown alphabet. The sole users of Hidden Power are scattered across all six of the main regions of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, with many of …
These are all the wisp locations in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Tracking down the location of every wisp in Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a hassle, but it’s a necessary step for completing the Pokedex. And we can make it easier for you. Pokemon Legends: Arceus centers around several open areas for players to explore. Though it doesn’t go fully into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild territory with its open-world elements, the game borrows some features from the game. …
Here’s what to do with shards in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Red, Green, and Blue Shards are all important in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but it helps to know what to do with them. Shard items have taken on various roles in the Pokemon series. In the original Ruby and Sapphire games, they were traded for evolution stones. In Black 2 and White 2, they were required for move tutors. In Sun and Moon, they were traded for Bottle Caps. In Pokemon …
How to complete Uxie’s trial in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Uxie’s trial in Pokemon Legends: Arceus is one of the weirder challenges in the entire series. But we can help you to complete it. Pokemon games have never been afraid of testing their players’ general knowledge. Starting with Pokemon Red and Blue when players needed to answer trivia questions in the Cinnabar Island gym, the occasional pop quiz has been a very real possibility for players through the Pokemon series. …
How to complete The Sea’s Legend in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Legends: Arceus has a special request called the Sea’s Legend that rewards players with the mythical Pokemon Manaphy and Phione. There are loads of mythical Pokemon in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and the Sea’s Legend request is one way to get some of them. The request is difficult to complete based on the information that’s made available to players in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The trick is that the guide to …
How to battle and catch Noble Pokemon in Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Noble Pokemon are a huge part of Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ story, but what are they? Pokemon Legends: Arceus does things that player have never seen before. Even Pokemon veterans are going to have trouble figuring out many of the new facets to the game, both in and out of battle. Noble Pokemon are the best example of this. While Pokemon games have always had bosses, they’ve almost exclusively been trainers, …
Here’s how to use Linking Cords in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Evolution items work very differently in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and a great example of that is the Linking Cord. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the first Pokemon game in a long while that’s designed to be a primarily single-player experience. While it does have some multiplayer features including the ability to trade, the Pokedex can be completed without any outside help. That might sound strange to new players, as getting help …
What’s the Pokemon with 3 leaves in Search for Bitter Leaves?
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
One NPC in Pokemon Legends: Arceus tasks players with catching a mysterious “Pokemon with three leaves” in the Search for Bitter Leaves request. Many requests revolve around asking the player to find vaguely described Pokemon. A big part of Pokemon Legends: Arceus is receiving requests from NPCs that want to see, or even take, some of the player’s Pokemon. The Search for Bitter Leaves quest comes from the Galaxy Team’s …
How to use space-time distortions in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Space-time distortions are a big part of the Pokemon Legends: Arceus experience. Here’s all you need to know about making the best use of them. The latest installment of the Pokemon franchise is receiving strong reviews and a big part of that positive response is the new mechanics and rewards for exploration. Among these is space-time distortion. This phenomenon gives a chance at catching some rare Pokemon and an opportunity …
Complete guide to mass outbreaks in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ mass outbreaks feature is useful for all sorts of players. Unlike in previous games, catching an abundance of a single Pokemon is heavily rewarded in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. There’s no better way to do this than during a mass outbreak. From the new Pokedex to the different ways of traversing the environments, shiny hunting in Pokemon Legends: Arceus certainly works differently, and it revolves around mass outbreaks. Here’s …
Pokemon stands as the largest cross-media IP in the world by a comfortable margin, but how did it make such explosive gains?
For a long while, pivoting a video game franchise into a larger brand seemed impossible. Iconic titles like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Resident Evil received TV and film adaptations, with the most common result being catastrophic failure. That was the norm from the 1990s all the way into the 2020s; and it probably shouldn’t have been.
While Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and Silent Hill: Revelation were irredeemably bad, Pokemon showed that a video game series can be adapted into many different mediums. Here’s a quick history of the franchise and its future outlook.
Pokemon explodes with Game Boy games, quickly expands
Pokemon first arrived in Japan in 1996 with the release of Pokemon Red and Green; a pair of titles for the Nintendo Game Boy. The two games were largely identical, but each one had a handful of Pokemon that were exclusive to those titles. This encouraged players to collect and trade these monsters with others who purchased the games.
Later on in 1996, the game was reimagined as a trading card game. Then in 1997, an anime adaptation launched in Japan.
Both of those rapid-fire expansions earned strong success domestically. More importantly, it primed Pokemon for an overwhelming global push.
In 1998, the franchise officially crossed over into North America, Europe, and Australia. The games were killer apps for the Game Boy but it wasn’t just a video game. An accompanying anime aired new episodes daily, and the trading card game exploded out of the gate. This made it difficult to ignore Pokemon to the point where characters like Ash Ketchum and Pikachu were universally recognizable. Just like that, the franchise was unstoppable.
Pokemon expands beyond Nintendo consoles, grows even further
For decades, Pokemon video games were among the top-selling games each year they came out. The Pokemon TCG was one of the biggest in the industry. The anime was a constant, without even mentioning its many spin-off movies. Licensing characters for toys and apparel was a golden goose for all involved.
But the franchise was still positioned to grow further.
Almost all of the games were exclusive to Nintendo’s gaming hardware, but mobile gaming was on a sharp rise of its own. The franchise also released a long list of spin-offs, successfully turning the series into everything from a pinball game to a beat ‘em up. The Pokemon Company had dabbled with PC and mobile games previously, but started actively partnering with other studios in the 2010s.
The biggest example of this was Pokemon GO. The Pokemon Company partnered with AR game studio Niantic was an instant hit, being downloaded hundreds of millions of times. It was far from alone, however. Battling-focused gacha game Pokemon Masters, MOBA adaptation Pokemon Unite, and puzzle game Pokemon Cafe launched in the following years.
It wasn’t just licensed mobile games, though. Games like Detective Pikachu and New Pokemon Snap gave players fresh and varied ways to enjoy the familiar franchise.
Modern Pokémon games see mixed response, but sales remain strong
Though Pokémon has many lifelong fans, the mainline releases have long attracted controversy within the fandom. Though the first few generations were generally beloved, opinions on new and modern games releases vary wildly. Starting with the Nintendo Switch, critical response to the games wavered.
Reviews for Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee were lower than previous entries in the series. That pattern held with Pokémon Sword and Shield, which were also met with extreme backlash on social media.
Though each mainline game made every monster from previous generations available up until Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, this ended with Sword and Shield. Several fan favorites, including Beedrill and the Unovan starters, were made unobtainable in the game. The mega evolution and Z-move battle mechanics were also removed from the games. It’s unclear why or what methodology was used to determine which of the little monsters were left out.
Reviews sank further from there, with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, then Pokémon Scarlet and Violet garnering the lowest review averages for mainline games.
Despite this, the games were still an enormous commercial success. Pokémon Sword, Shield, Scarlet, and Violet ranked among the best-selling games in franchise history. Its publisher may have heeded some of the fan criticism however, as the company opted against releasing a new mainline game or expansion in 2024. This was the first year without a major game release since 2015.
