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Here is every Unown location in Pokemon Legends: Arceus Pokemon Here is every Unown location in Pokemon Legends: Arceus By Steven Rondina How to complete Uxie’s trial in Pokemon Legends: Arceus Pokemon How to complete Uxie’s trial in Pokemon Legends: Arceus By Steven Rondina What’s the Pokemon with 3 leaves in Search for Bitter Leaves? Pokemon What’s the Pokemon with 3 leaves in Search for Bitter Leaves? By Steven Rondina
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Here are all the Pokémon Center store locations Steven Rondina For Pokémon fans that make the pilgrimage to Japan, the Pokémon Center stores are a must-see attraction. The brick-and-mortar retail locations offer some of the most memorable limited-edition items around. The offering is diverse and encompasses every facet of Pokémon merch from apparel to plushies to Pokémon TCG cards. But where are these Pokémon centers? Do any exist outside of Japan? And if not, what other options are there for …
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Here’s how to get and use Moon Stones in Pokemon BDSP Steven Rondina While acquiring evolution stones such as the Thunder Stone, Moon Stone, and Shiny Stone has traditionally been easy, they’re actually quite rare in Pokemon BDSP. The Grand Underground was one of the big additions to Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and The Pokemon Company wanted to make sure players spent a lot of time in it. They did this by sticking most of the evolution stones in digging spots …
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How to get shiny Zacian, Zamazenta in Pokemon Sword and Shield Steven Rondina Shiny Zacian and Zamazenta are two of the most desirable Pokemon out there right now. Zacian stands as one of the most powerful Pokemon in the entire franchise, and Zamazenta’s decent in its own right. The trouble is that the cover legendaries of Pokemon Sword and Shield are shiny locked in the main game. While Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl let shiny hunters get almost any legendary in the …
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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.