Pokemon
Pokemon
Best of Sword & Shield Brilliant Stars includes Charizard VSTAR
Olivia Richman
The hype around the Pokemon TCG has continued thanks to big influencers like Logan Paul making massive and controversial purchases while streaming pack openings. The competitive Pokemon TCG community is excited for new cards coming out in early 2022 as part of the Sword & Shield — Brilliant Stars expansion. Brilliant Stars is the ninth expansion from the Sword & Shield series. It’s coming out in Japanese on January 14, …
Pokemon
How to get perfect Pokemon in Sword, Shield, and BDSP
Steven Rondina
Every Pokemon game, including Sword, Shield, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, is about creating the best and most statistically perfect Pokemon. And we can help you do it. While there’s plenty of strategy and mind games in play when it comes to battling, it’s ultimately a battle of numbers. A genius player with mismanaged Pokemon won’t be able to take down an average player that has a lineup with perfect …
Pokemon
The best Dragonite build and items for Pokemon Unite
Steven Rondina
Dragonite has arrived in Pokemon Unite and the original dragon Pokemon is an absolute beast with the right build. Dragonite has always looked silly, but the Pokemon is tailor-made to terrorize in Pokemon Unite as part of the new season. With a number of different unique mechanics, it has the highest skill ceiling in the game by a significant margin. This also requires Dragonite to use a different build than …
Pokemon
The complete guide to Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon spin-offs are often overlooked by fans of the mainline games, but that hasn’t been the case with Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The upcoming Nintendo Switch title has captured the attention of Pokemon fans around the globe. But what is Pokemon Legends: Arceus all about? The game looks to be a strange blend of the main Pokemon titles with open-world action. So what exactly can fans expect from this upcoming game? …
Pokemon
How to get Zarude in Pokemon Sword and Shield, and Pokemon GO
Steven Rondina
Zarude is one of the most interesting Pokemon to be added in Sword and Shield, and is the only eight-generation mythical to arrive thus far. But how can Pokemon Sword and Shield and Pokemon GO players get Zarude? At this point, Zarude is a particularly rare Pokemon and has been exclusively available through events. So far, players have had multiple opportunities to get the lone gen-eight mythical, but it’s only …
Pokemon
Leaks may show next the three new Pokemon for Pokemon Unite
Steven Rondina
There’s reason to believe that Gallade, Blaziken, and Wobbuffet will be the next new playable characters in Pokemon Unite. An image posted on a Facebook group in August has taken on some sudden relevance in recent weeks. During the summer, an unofficial Facebook page called Pokemon Unite Philippines posted an image designed to farm engagement asking users which of six different Pokemon they’d most like to see added to the …
Pokemon
Pokemon GO Winter Holiday event adds Bergmite, costumed Glaceon
Steven Rondina
Christmas has arrived in Pokemon GO with the Pokemon GO Winter Holiday event. This latest part of the Season of Heritage will let players celebrate the holidays with a number of ice types as well as some fun returning costumed Pokemon. The biggest addition to the Pokemon GO Winter Holiday event are two new costumed Pokemon including a scarf-wearing Spheal and Glaceon wearing a cape. The Glaceon is notable due …
Pokemon
Duplication glitch for cloning Pokemon returns in BDSP 1.1.2
Steven Rondina
The Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl duplication glitch is still present in version 1.1.2, allowing players to clone Pokemon and items without any kind of hacks or mods. The remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl launched with an abundance of glitches, necessitating an uncharacteristic day-one patch from Nintendo. Many of those bugs stuck around in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl despite the immediate patch. One of the most …
This is the best Tsareena build in Pokemon Unite
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Tsareena is the latest addition to the Pokemon Unite roster, and building her up is a somewhat tricky endeavor. But with a few tips, you can take the game by storm with this newest addition to the Pokemon Unite Roster. The hard-kicking Pokemon excels in single combat and stands as something of a counter to Lucario. In high-level Pokemon Unite games, the mid-game typically sees four players from each team …
Dragonite’s Pokemon Unite moves and abilities leaked
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite leaks are quickly becoming a regular occurrence for the game, and the latest example of this is the early reveal of Dragonite’s moves and abilities. Though the release of Dragonite isn’t actually set to come for several more days, a complete build for Dragonite is already set up in Pokemon Unite’s files. Using some unofficial mods, data miner ElChicoEevee added Dragonite to the game and played around with …
Pokemon fans love Hisuian Voltorb in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Olivia Richman
Pokemon
Pokemon fans are loving Voltorb’s new look in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Voltorb is one of the original 151 Pokemon, a “sphere Pokemon” that resembles a Pokeball but packs an electrical punch. Voltorb is getting a new design in Pokemon Legends: Arceus thanks to the new region, Hisui. The Hisuian Voltorb features a wooden body with more rustic colors, matching the older world featured in the open world Pokemon game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6-SDCGZglI …
Dragonite coming to Pokemon Unite in Christmas update
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Tis the season for Christmas-themed events in and around the gaming world, and Pokemon Unite is set to get a big one for the holiday season with Dragonite’s release being just the tip of the iceberg. The official Pokemon Unite social media channels uploaded a trailer outlining what’s to come in the second half of December, and there’s a lot to unpack. Alongside a load of Santa-themed skins, Dragonite is …
How to find and catch Heatran in Pokemon BDSP
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Heatran is one of the hardest hitters in all of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and it’s a Pokemon worth building a team around. But how do you catch it? The fire-steel type is one of the many legendaries that players can get in Pokemon BDSP, but catching it isn’t as simple as catching other Pokemon. There are a number of different hoops players need to jump through in …
Everything you need to know about Ramanas Park in Pokemon BDSP
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
The centerpiece of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s post-game is Ramanas Park. The newly-created area gives players access to a number of Pokemon that wouldn’t normally be available, including a wide variety of legendaries from past generations. There are a lot of different Pokemon to get excited about, but not everyone has access to each such Pokemon. Here’s how to reach Ramanas Park, how to unlock the new legendaries …
Free Aeos Tickets here for 50 million Pokemon Unite downloads
Olivia Richman
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite has continued to be a hit since launching thanks to an abundance of new content and easy-to-pick-up gameplay. Now, Pokemon has been downloaded over 50 million times and the Pokemon Company is celebrating by offering players free Aeos Tickets. Pokemon Unite has been downloaded over 50 million times, the official Twitter account revealed earlier today. The downloads span across mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch. The game was …
Tsareena coming to Pokemon Unite for free, launch date revealed
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite players are going to be able to get Tsareena for free in the very near future. The fruit Pokemon is coming to Pokemon Unite next week and early adopters have the chance to get her without spending any Aeos Coins or Aeos Gems. The development team gave fans a first look at Tsareena and revealed that she will be something of an early Christmas present for players. Her …
Can you use duplication glitch after Pokemon BDSP 1.1.2 update?
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
The duplication glitch that allowed players to clone Pokemon in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has been fixed in the 1.1.2 update. Update: It has been discovered that the duplication glitch is still usable in version 1.1.2. Here’s how. Pokemon BDSP required an uncharacteristically large day-one patch in order to run properly, but the game was still rife with various issues. Among those troubles were a number of different ways …
Here’s how to get and hatch eggs in Pokemon BDSP
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Hatching eggs is an important part of every Pokemon game, with Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl being no different. For anyone that’s serious about post-game Pokemon and online battling, breeding and optimizing a party is an absolute must. Teams that aren’t EV trained and IV bred will inevitably struggle to keep up with opponents that are, and might not even be up to scratch in the Battle Tower or post-game …
How to beat the Elite Four and Cynthia in Pokemon BDSP
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
How do you beat the Elite Four and Cynthia in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl? It’s a question that fans haven’t had to ask in years, with games getting progressively easier since Pokemon X and Y dropped all the way back in 2013. But in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Aaron, Bertha, Flint, Lucian, and Cynthia actually represent a legitimate challenge for anyone but the most overleveled player. …
Are Hisuian Pokemon coming to Pokemon GO in Season of Heritage?
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
The Pokemon GO Season of Heritage is here, and it’s likely to bring Hisuian Pokemon to the game in celebration of the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Niantic has revealed the Season of Heritage, which follows this fall’s Season of Mischief. The Season of Mischief revolved around the mythical Pokemon Hoopa, introduced Galarian Pokemon to Pokemon GO, and culminated with players catching Shadow Lugia. While the rewards and goals of …
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.
