Given the fairly regular schedule with which Pokémon games are released, it can get pretty easy to predict what Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have up their sleeve, especially on handheld platforms. Remakes this year! New titles next year! Rinse, repeat. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it certainly doesn’t keep anybody on their toes.
For this reason, I was particularly excited to learn that Nintendo, in conjunction with Japanese mega gaming mag Famitsu and The Pokémon Company itself, will be hosting a live-streamed Pokémon event next Tuesday. The official statement says that the new project will be “shocking,” and Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara himself will be in attendance. Also present will be voice actors Nobuhiko Okamoto, Aoi Yuuki, and two additional “important guests.” Oh, the possibilities!
Though rumors are already swirling, it’s important to keep expectations in check. At the same time, doing so isn’t necessarily all that fun. So for entertainment’s sake, let’s take a quick look at what’s likely vs. what’s possible in an ideal universe (and hopefully ours as well).
Likely: A new anime, or a new Pokémon Colosseum-esque title
I don’t want to sell the event short, but two of the planned guests are prominent anime and video game voice actors. In fact, one even has experience with the Pokémon franchise. Aoi Yuuki voiced Iris, one of Ash’s many traveling companions, who appeared regularly for the majority of the Best Wishes anime series (which is based on generation V, if you were wondering). Though she’s faded from the spotlight more recently, her presence must mean something.
One possibility is that Pokémon Origins, the 4-episode anime series based on the original Red and Blue video game titles, is being made for subsequent generations of Pokémon games. In other words, Origins for Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire, and so on.
Related: Can Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Uphold the Originals’ Legacy?
This would be fantastic for a number of reasons, one being the slightly less kid-centric slant of the Origins series when compared to the traditional anime. It’s still kid-friendly, sure, but the tone of the Origins material released so far is decidedly more grown-up, dealing with themes tougher than those your average Ash Ketchum must repeatedly overcome. Combine that with source material that stems from the games themselves, which remain popular with adults (the main characters are actually the game’s avatars), and you’ve got a Pokémon announcement that truly does appeal to all ages.
Of course, the simpler and perhaps less exciting possibility is that Wii U is finally getting its Stadium equivalent, in the form of a new Colosseum or XD title. These titles usually bring a single player mode that separates itself from the open-world journeys found in the handheld editions (presumably to avoid undermining them), while offering a multiplayer mode that allows you to import monsters from said handheld titles for heavy-hitting, hi-def consoles battling. Kids will love this, as will Pokémaniacs with Wii Us. But not everyone would call it “shocking.”
Feasible: A Pokémon fighting game, possibly “Pokken Tournament”
Last August, Pokémon Game Show teased something that resembled not just a new Colosseum, not just a pre-rendered battle encounter, but an actual Pokémon fighting game, presumably for Wii U. It was brief, but it also looked quite impressive, and by most folks accounts, quite real.
Furthermore, a Nintendo trademark for something called Pokkén Fighters was uncovered by gaming outlets mere days after the teaser was shown, with Pokkén Tournament appearing shortly thereafter. Coincidence? It certainly doesn’t seem like one.
The real question is, could next Tuesday’s announcement really be Pokkén? At the end of the day, it depends on the identity of the mystery guests. Voice actors Okamoto and Yuuki don’t seem all that relevant to a Pokémon technical fighter at first glance, but if their talents are being lent to the project, and one of the mystery guests is, say, Yosuke Hayashi from Team Ninja? All of sudden things start to make alot more sense. Nintendo has worked with Team Ninja and Tecmo Koei extensively, after all, on both Metroid: Other M and the upcoming Hyrule Warriors.
Wishful: A proper Pokémon RPG or MMORPG for Wii U
I’ll admit off the bat that there’s little evidence to support this. However, it is the only possibility that I’d find truly “shocking,” per Nintendo’s description. I think most Western gamers would agree.
A Pokémon RPG for console is what every Poké-fan has wanted since childhood; all the wonder and freedom of discovery the handheld titles provide, but in a massive, fully 3D, fully explorable world. X and Y finally explored this with polygons and a camera slightly adjusted from the series traditional “bird’s eye” perspective (or should I say Pidgey’s eye), but it’s still didn’t fulfill that console Pokémon fantasy. Perhaps nothing ever will.
Also See: Pokemon X & Y’s 5 Best Pokemon (Our Favorites)
If Nintendo were to try this, though, they’d want to go the MMO route and not just the single player RPG route. Why? Well, I imagine their main reservation is undermining the Pokémon games on Nintendo handheld platforms. A single player RPG would definitely do that, as it would have no reason not to be superior to the handheld editions in every way. But an MMO? That would be a different beast entirely.
It’d be a massive undertaking, but it’s something nearly every self-professed gamer in existence would at least try. Outside of the promise of a “shocking” announcement as pseudo-evidence, all we really have to go by is the fact that there are two mystery guests. Who at Nintendo would lead such a project? Game Freak founder Satoshi Tajiri? Sakurai once he’s finished with the current Smash Bros.? Shigeru Miyamoto himself? Unfortunately, such speculation is nearly useless, even if it is incredibly exciting to think about.
There is one other possibility…
We’ll have to wait until the 26th before this “shocking” announcement finally jolts our systems, but at the end of the day any of the above reveals would make for reasonably good news to Pokémon fans. There is one possibility I haven’t considered, and that’s a new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. I don’t know about you, but if that’s what Nintendo considers “shocking,” then I’d say they have bigger problems to deal with. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
