POKEMON Direct Recap

In this second Pokemon Direct, we hear from Tsunekaz Ishihara, Satoru Iwata, and Junichi Masuda as they reminisce about the history of the Pokemon franchise and talk about new features of the upcoming Pokemon X/Y .

After getting all teary-eyed and nostalgic about the old brick GameBoys with their link cables, they start talking about the evolution of mutiplayer gameplay. The Player Search System will allow people to battle and trade online. Additionally, Pokemon will now be stored in the cloud via the online service "Pokemon Box", although this will require an annual fee. This is how Pokemon from previous games can be transferred to the upcoming generation. 

As rumored, a professor in the game will give you one of the original three Pokemon starters--Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle. These Pokemon, when evolved, will be among those to receive Mega Evolutions . Mega Venusaur looks kinda lame (who picks Bulbasaur anyway?), Charizard gets more draconian, and Blastoise has one huge cannon on its back instead of two smaller ones. Also confirmed is that "a lot of other Pokemon" will get these badass Mega Evolutions.

I love hearing these Japanese men get adorably geeky as they say things like, " There will be a moment when a player's feelings go into the game, and that's when Mega Evolution happens" or "Difficulties were converted into fun." I really like the Nintendo Direct format because it lets us see the developers' passion about these games.

Pokemon X/Y will release globally on October 12. The previously announced special edition Pokemon 3DS XL will be released in North America on September 27. And if you're not willing to shell out the cash for that, remember, Nintendo just announced their budget option, the 2DS, which will play all 3DS games.