reader discretion implored

This isn’t supposed to be a Pokéblog I swear but Happy Pokémon Day, everyone! Apparently, a whole ’nother year’s worth of this merchandising(, etc.) megafranchise has come and gone—and looking back, I’d say it’s been…

…Uh, a year, I guess? The TCG’s been popping off as of Pocket and whatnot, so there’s that.

In all seriousness, while I could probably cobble up a deeper-dive retrospective for such an occasion, I’d prefer not to linger too much on the past with this kind of post. On that note, behold My (first) Two (Non)Cents to share here in timely enough fashion—as per my master post, these entries will more or less be my way of keeping this journal’s finger on whatever figurative pulses tickle my fancy…in theory.

In practice, though, today’s topic is far from the first I’ve had in mind to start this series off—but between my pathetic lack of stomach for horror games¹ and the mental haze I’ve been drifting through besides, this marks the first time I’ve found myself in the position to be so on-point for something I’m inclined to opine on.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there isn’t actually much opining for me to do here, but…

I genuinely wasn’t expecting much from this latest Pokémon Presents—as far as I was concerned going into it, TPC had played a well-enough hand ever since their showing from last year; Scarlet and Violet’s competitive scene retained its chaos with each regulations shake-up, Horizons and POKÉTOON provided their own surprisingly stylistic chunks of meat to chew on, and the aforementioned TCG Pocket got to scratching an itch for infuriating RNG that Masters EX wishes it could.

…Never mind the fact that the whole ‘Teraleak’ buzz was way more fun (and/or frustrating; seriously, I genuinely feel sorry for Kalos at this rate) than whatever Game Freak could facilitate above board.

In any case, my bar for this feature was firmly set at “something about Legends Z-A” with not much hope for anything more. As for how that panned out, well…

Overall, consider me whelmed.²

At the least, though, I am liking what I’m seeing of Legends Z-A—even if it isn’t especially pretty, for one. The less painterly aesthetic compared to Arceus is an obvious choice, I suppose, given how this game’s apparently set a good while after the events of X and Y; on that note, it’s good to see AZ doing well for himself after his tenure as thematically tragic centerpiece. Look at the life in his eyes!

Speaking of old faces, I was made aware through discussion on Reddit that our new pair of protags(’ hopefully just default designs)³ bear some resemblance to Gold Ethan and Lyra of Heart Gold/Soul Silver fame—which I suppose tracks with our choice of adored Johto starters Chikorita, Totodile, and…

…Tepig.

Yeah, I’m still not quite sure what’s going on there, but I’ll be taking the croc thank you very much—and might actually be playing the masc-coded character like I did back in Arceus, for reasons that methinks I needn’t explain more.

Anyway, to finally address the elephant in the room:⁴ HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING. After so many years of suffering through swaths of “Nintendo hire this man™” going nowhere, and a meager taste in the meantime with the likes of the PokéPark duology, a straight-up action RPG has finally hit the Pokémon scene proper. If anything is going to push me to pre-order⁵, it’ll be this hands-down; hell, an approximation of such is practically 66% of what’s prompting me to boot Palworld back up in the next half-decade.

Though, on that note, I have to wonder if—past the whole ‘partnering with Sony’ and ‘shameless skirting of copyright laws’ thing—that much is what prompted that patent move against Pocketpair recently…

In a similar sense, not gonna lie, this scares me a little.

On one hand: Would it make not a lick of commercial sense to shoot dead one of the biggest gateways for one of your IP’s biggest and most evergreen organic hype generators, in favor of pushing what will indubitably be a more limited and less comprehensive (not to mention more expensive) equivalent to such? Yes, absolutely, as far as my totally-business-savvy self sees it.

On the other hand: Are Game Freak and/or Nintendo known for sometimes making decisions that don’t seem to make much commercial sense (from at least a layman standpoint)? Also yes.

My more optimistic side, though, says that this whole Champions venture is meant to supplement Showdown more than to justify having it shut down—that it’s acting as a flashier, friendlier (and more monetizable) face to front the casual consumer → competitive junkie pipeline in a way that its permanently-beta-version’d counterpart could never even hope to do without forcing a legal team’s hand. In any case, I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for updates; as someone who missed out on the likes of the Stadium series, it at least piques my curiosity as a possible successor.

Lessee; Sleep, GO, Café ReMix, UNITE… Yeah, no, I’d say that’s all I have to say—my investment in the franchise is rather limited beyond its various concepts, as you can see. That being said, I did have some fun with Violet and Legends: Arceus alike, so count me in for another year’s worth of managed expectations with that much in mind…and perhaps another sixty-or-so bucks dropped, for that matter.

¹ This’ll make sense, eventually… Hopefully…↩
² Or not even that, since ‘whelm’ is apparently the historical form of ‘overwhelm’. TIL.↩
³ Not to diss the drip or anything, but I swear to fuck if we’re getting a game set in Kalos without getting to pick our own fits…↩
⁴ No, not Copperajah unfortunately↩
⁵ Which I won’t, because Game Freak is not a developer I trust with my money like that (please hold me accountable for this)↩