Pokémon makes a few videos each year entitled Pokémon Presents. In each of these videos, new events and games regarding the Pokémon franchise are revealed and explained. Today’s (2/27/2023) had a lot of news regarding new products on many different fronts of Pokémon’s varying product lines.
Like always, the Pokémon Presents opened with the standard Pokémon Presents logo and then shifted to the current President and CEO of The Pokémon Company: Tsunekazu Ishihara and the somewhat cute but also rather creepy animatronic Pikachu that he has sitting next to him during these videos. He explains that today was chosen for a Pokémon Presents to be released since it was the same day, 27 years ago, that Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green were first released in Japan. He then transitions the video to a man named Chris Brown to talk about the 2023 Pokémon World Championships.
2023 in Yokohama, Japan!
The 2023 Pokémon World Championships will be held in Japan, specifically in Yokohama, from August 11-13 at the PACIFICO. The World Championships are an event where Pokémon fans from around the world can gather to play various Pokémon games and see who’s the best.
Next, Chris shares the beautiful art for the World Championships in Yokohama. On the topic of beautiful art, the video next transitions to a trailer for the Pokémon Trading Card Game’s newest edition: classic cards. These are essentially rehashes of the original trading cards first released in October 1996.
New Netflix Series?
Another interesting happening that was announced in today’s Pokémon Presents is a new Netflix Pokémon series called Pokémon Concierge. Presented by Minyoung Kim, the Netflix vice president of content in the Asia-Pacific region, it seems that it will be a series similar to the Japanese series Midnight Diner but with Pokémon in claymation form.
The seeming similarities to Midnight Diner are just my speculation of course from vague hints. Personally, I’m a fan of Midnight Diner so this excites me quite a bit. After talking about this new series, the video transitions to Takato Utsunomiya, the COO of The Pokémon Company so that he can discuss the upcoming games for this year.
New Games For 2023
He first reveals the new update for Pokémon Unite in which the box-art legendary from Pokémon Sword, Zacian, is added to the game as well as new events related to said legendary.
We’re then told that the Pokémon Unite Asia Champions League will take place March 18th and 19th. From this, we’re shown new additions to the game Pokémon Café Remix, all of which are featured from the new Paldea region in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.
They’ve also added certain bonuses to the game that can be activated without the use of in-game currency. Next, we’re shown that they’ve added several new characters to Pokémon Masters EX, all from the Galar region as well as the ability to team up with the champions from the first six games. After this, we’re given an advertisement for Pokémon Sleep.
Pokémon Sleep was originally announced in 2019 to be released in 2020 but was delayed due to several complications. It’s explained that Pokémon Sleep is a game in which you attain Pokémon by sleeping and allowing the application to research how you sleep. It allows you to track your sleep and tells you how you’re sleeping.
It will be released later this year alongside the new Pokémon GO+ Plus (or + Plus for short). The + Plus is a new device that functions similarly to the original Pokémon GO+ but can also interface with Pokémon Sleep and now allows you to throw Great Balls and Ultra Balls in Pokémon GO alongside normal Pokéballs.
Linking the + Plus to your account will allow you to catch a special Snorlax. After this is explained, they finally transition to news about the newest mainline series games in the franchise: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.
What’s New With Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet
In the beginning of this news, two new Paradox Pokémon are revealed to us: Walking Wake, a water and dragon type and Iron Leaves, a grass and psychic type. Walking Wake is very clearly a past version of Suicune. This doesn’t make much sense though given that, according to the lore surrounding Suicune, Suicune, Entei, and Raikou were three Pokémon brought back to life by Ho-oh after they tragically perished in the fire that destroyed the Burned Tower in Ecruteak City, Johto. That being said, the design is interesting and quite scary.
Iron Leaves is a future form of Virizion as a mechanical beast. These two new Paradox Pokémon are out now for trainers to capture in Tera Raids.
We were then shown how Pokémon GO will soon be compatible with Scarlet and Violet. We will be able to use the postcards in Pokémon GO to change the color of the kind of Vivillon we can catch in Scarlet and Violet as well as catch Roaming Form Gimmighoul in Pokémon GO.
These Gimmighoul can then be transferred to Scarlet and Violet through Pokémon HOME, which will become compatible with said games early this year. After this, we were finally given first glimpses into the new DLC for Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero which will take place in two parts.
Part one is known as The Teal Mask and revolves around the new legendary Pokémon named Ogerpon while part two is known as The Indigo Disk and revolves around the new legendary Pokémon named Terapagos. The Teal Mask will be released sometime in Fall this year and The Indigo Disk will be released sometime in Winter this year. In part one, you visit a land named Kitakami and in part two you visit a place called Blueberry Academy where you’ll be an exchange student.
These DLC will add more Pokémon to the game for us to play alongside. They’re now available for purchase and, while we don’t get the entirety of the DLC for purchasing them just yet, we do get new outfits for our characters as well as a Hisuian Zoroark with a dark tera type and the Charismatic Mark. I think that a lot of us were hoping to see a return to the Kalos region in the DLC but I think that these DLC could be fun as well.
There could have been more but what we got wasn’t awful…
I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t expecting a bit more, since I was, but what we got wasn’t bad. I think that the new DLC will add more fun and different ways to play Scarlet and Violet as well as grant us an exciting new story alongside even more new Pokémon to join us on our journey.
- Everhood: To Be The Bell That Tolls - March 9, 2023
- Pokémon Day: Pokémon Presents February 2023 - March 8, 2023