[News]-Nintendo marks' Pokémon's (25th) anniversary, with two nostalgic. NEW games’’

[-Lexman™]

Tomorrow marks 25 years since the first Pokémon titles debuted on Nintendo’s Game Boy in Japan – and developer Game Freak has announced two new games to mark the occasion, both inspired by 2006’s Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The first releases are Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, remakes of the Nintendo DS originals for Nintendo Switch, out later this year. Pokémon Legends Arceus, an adventure set in the region of Sinnoh’s past, and resembling a blend of Pokémon Stadium and Breath of the Wild, will be released in 2022, also on Nintendo Switch. It is a significant diversion from the usual turn-based fights and tightly controlled exploration of a Pokémon game, with free movement and wild creatures roaming an open world. These nostalgic new games tap into the immense fondness that an earlier generation of Pokémon players, now in their 20s, feel for the original Nintendo DS games and their stable of cute creatures. Like Nintendo’s other venerable series Mario and Zelda, which are celebrating their 35th anniversary, Pokémon is becoming cross-generational, as players who first enjoyed these adventures on monochrome Game Boys have children of their own. Pokémon is one of the world’s bestselling video games series, selling over 368 million copies across all its many titles as of March 2020. It has remained po[CENSORED]r since surging to the forefront of pop culture in the late 1990s, and then again in 2016, when Niantic’s Pokémon Go had millions roaming their neighbourhoods catching critters on smartphones. This year will also see the release of New Pokémon Snap, a sequel to 1999’s Pokémon photography game on the Nintendo 64, on 30 April. I'm one of those people in their "twenties" (31) who grew up on the old Pokemon games. I got really into the Switch thanks to lockdown but I when played Sword and Shield I thought they were a bit crap, to be honest. The idea of releasing a remake alongside a bold new iteration is a clever one. Diamond and Pearl weren't the best in the series but they were good, and the new open world is a chance for Gamefreak to actually spread their wings a little. I know they basically print money but they can't be all that creatively satisfied at churning out the same game over and over. I love the idea of an instalment set in the Meiji era, and though I'm a little bit underwhelmed at the graphics and performance above I would assume a lot will change in a year.