Surprise Pokemon Scarlet & Violet trailer reveals a delightful homage to the first Pokemon game

During the 2022 Pokemon World Championship, you had everything you could possibly expect and then some. The addition of Pokemon GO and Pokemon Unite were surprising additions that went off seemingly without a hitch.

There was an unexpected moment, however, when the Championship was closing out and Nintendo decided to surprise everyone with a brand new trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that shows several new additions to the game.

Now, the one that’s going to get most people’s attention is Cyclizar. The adorable Dragon/Normal type Pokemon that looks like a pre-evolution to the two legendaries.

Love it. It’s adorable and cool looking and it’s great. But that’s not what we’re here for.

And yes, they also showed off some cool new moves and even better new hold items like the Mirror Herb that your Pokemon eats when the opposing Pokemon gives itself a stat change, giving itself the same stat change. Or the Loaded Dice which makes your multihit moves more likely to hit more times.

Great, great, great.

But here’s what I’m here for. See, when Pokemon do the new Terastallizing thing in which they come up with a new crystalline form, they get a huge thing on their head that lets you know what new type they just became. Water type got a frozen fountain, Grass got a big crystal flower, and Fire gets a big ol’ chandelier. It’s all very cool. But we never saw all of them and I was really curious what Ghost type looked like. Turns out, it’s exceptional.

In the trailer, a Tyranitar is about to get sent packing by a Gallade’s fighting type move when it decides “not today” and Terstallizes into a Ghost form. When it does, it gets THIS on its head.

This is a reference mostly for the older fans of Pokemon but this is, indeed, the sprite used for the weird ghosts that would come after you in Lavender Town’s tower in Pokemon Red and Blue(Green). For reference, here you go.

Oh man, that is so cool. I love little nods like this. Sure, I’m a little worried about this game, and more so how it seems to try to go back to being heavily focused on the competitive scene. But oh my god they keep showing so much cool stuff. I can’t wait for the game to drop this November on Nintendo Switch.