The Pokémon Presents Felt Very Lackluster
I’m not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed in the Pokémon Presents this year. There were a fair number of things announced and talked about and some of those were fun and exciting, but in general, I felt it was lackluster. Let’s quickly go through the big items and you can always watch the entire video below, but let us know what you thought of the event in the comments.
The video starts with discussion about the Pokémon World Championships which will be taking place in Japan for the first time. That event will happen on August 11-13 with events for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, Pokémon GO, and Pokémon UNITE. If you’re unable to attend the event will be streamed for your enjoyment.
There was then the announcement of Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic. This trailer was possibly the best part of the Pokémon Presents in my opinion. You had two attractive young adults wearing suits in a very fancy and sleek office and they pulled out the most sleek playing mat, sleeves, counters, etc. to start playing the Pokémon TCG. What really threw me for a bit was that the cards were all old, original versions of cards, not more modern ones. Pokémon TCG Classic is a collaboration with the design firm nendo and is labeled as “a premium Pokémon TCG set that is designed to last a lifetime.” Inside, you’ll find preconstructed decks, gameplay accessories, and more. Base Set versions of Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise each headline their own 60-card deck which include a mixture of classic cards and newer cards like Ho-Oh ex, Lugia ex, and Suicune ex. It should be noted that the cards are not eligible for tournament play except the Basic Energy cards making this something to play just with your friends. The game board is foldable and portable with a compartment to hold the three decks and a toolbox that has stackable damage counters, 3D Poison and Burn markers, metal orbs instead of Pokémon coins, and more. This is a very interesting idea and I’m not sure how I feel about it, mostly because the mix of old and new cards just doesn’t sound great in practice since there’s been so much power creep. However, the accessories do look gorgeous.
If you like Pokémon shows, The Pokémon Company did announce a brand-new series in partnership with Netflix called Pokémon Concierge which looks cute. It uses stop-motion animation which is a big win in my book and is developed in collaboration with dwarf studios. We’ll follow Haru, the concierge of the Pokémon Resort, and the many Pokémon that are guests there. I’m definitely intrigued and the little tease does look really fun and adorable. There’s no release date yet.
Expanding the Pokémon world, the story follows Haru, a concierge at the ‘Pokémon Resort,’ and her interactions with Pokémon and their owners who visit as guests.
Pokémon Sleep finally woke up! Back in 2019, Pokémon Sleep was announced as something the team was working on to combine Pokémon and sleeping. Since then, we’ve heard absolutely nothing, but it has been announced that Pokémon Sleep will launch this summer on Android and iOS. You’ll help Professor Neroli research how different Pokémon Sleep by sleeping yourself and telling the app when you went to bed and when you woke up. In conjunction with this, you will be able to buy the Pokémon GO Plus+ on July 14. This is a new accessory that you can use with Pokémon Sleep to track your sleep and with Pokémon GO to spin Poké Stops and throw Poké Balls. They really should’ve thought of a better name.
Different events and items were announced for the various video games as well including the addition of Zacian in Pokémon UNITE and connectivity between Scarlet and Violet with Pokémon GO on the way. The big announcements for games though were the addition of new Paradox Pokémon, Walking Wake in Scarlet and Iron Leaves in Violet, as well as the announcement of the DLC for the games: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. The new Paradox Pokémon are available now through Tera Raid Battles through March 12. The DLC will be released in two parts with the first part, The Teal Mask, launching in Fall 2023 and the second part, The Indigo Disk, launching at a later date. Hopefully the DLC won’t be as broken as the main game was at launch.
There were a few things I was really disappointed we didn’t get at this Pokémon Presents. First, I would’ve loved for The Pokémon Company to finally acknowledge they screwed up with the launch of Scarlet and Violet. Nintendo has owned up to the fiasco, but The Pokémon Company still seems to just ignore it. Some acknowledgement and then assurance that they are still working on improving the game experience would be huge for building goodwill. Second, I’m really bummed that they didn’t even touch Nintendo Switch Online titles. We already know Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2 are on their way to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass and an announcement would’ve been huge. Plus, with the lack of Pokémon on the Game Boy side for NSO and NSO + EP, many of us were expecting something from the team on that. It really feels like a missed opportunity once again instead of an easy slam dunk. Even something saying that they are working on it but have to wait because they’re working out how to integrate the Game Boy titles with the N64 ones would’ve been welcome.
What did you think of the Pokémon Presents?