Pokemon Direct recap: Every big announcement and reveal from Aug. 8, 2023
There was a new Pokemon Direct that dropped today (at the time of this writing, August 8th, 2023) where the Pokemon Company dropped information about almost everything it was involved with.
Here is a run down of what was covered in order with time stamps. If you got the 30+ minutes however, feel free to give it a look.
0:28 Pokemon World Championship
Things were first handed off to Chris Brown (not that one) to go over the various things at the 2023 Pokemon World Championship which includes the finals for not only the trading card game, but Scarlet/Violent, Pokemon Go, and Pokemon Unite.
They also showed off the sweet apparel finalists get to go home with including a hoodie I really want.
Other merch like plushies were shown off as well.
2:10 A chat with Pokemon World Championships Director: Rikiya Watanabe
It is then we go over to Pokemon World Championship Direct, Rikiya Watanabe who has, quite easily, the worst fitting English dub voice I’ve ever seen.
He goes over many of the events that will take place in Yokohama during the championships including Pokemon art throughout the city providing photo opportunities, parades, and a Pokemon Trainer Cruise where Pokemon fans get on a cruise ship to hang out, eat, play Pokemon games, and avoid eye contact.
4:00 Pokemon: Path to the Peak reveal
We then go over to Andy Gose, Sr. Director of Media Production for the Pokemon Company and guy who looks a lot like every actor from the 80’s you don’t remember the name of. He revealed Pokemon: Path to the Peak, a YouTube animated series staring a girl who finds out her new school has a Pokemon Club for the trading cards.
It looks amazingly animated and the moves done in the card game translates to them living out the attacks in their heads. It looks genuinely charming and I can’t wait to see the first episode August 11th, especially as someone who takes their kids to a Pokemon Club at their school.
5:45 Detective Pikachu 2 game information
Spoilers for the Detective Pikachu movie. If you’re curious and never played the first Detective Pikachu game, no, the characters in the game do not yet know that Pikachu contains Harry Goodman, Tim’s dad. The ending of the first game was Pikachu and Tim setting off to figure out where Harry went. I played the first game and still had to remind myself that fact.
I’m excited for the second game as I really liked the change of pace the first game offered but I’m really not expecting it to do well because of how many people didn’t play the first and are going to go into it expecting Ryan Reynolds humor.
Featuring more action sequences than the first including rideable Pokemon for Pikachu to team up with though, it does look like it’s going to be a fun time when it drops Octover 6th, 2023.
9:15 Pokemon Horizons the Series
While it’s been out in Japan long enough where most stateside fans know every single thing that’s happened thus far, the new, Ash-less, Pokemon series will finally be viewable. No official date though.
10:30 Pokemon Go stuff
We’re reminded that Pokemon Go has it’s yearly festival coming up. This was a really strange announcement because the ones in London and Osaka already ended on August 6th.
But long story short, they’re once again reminding you that the event still has tickets available and that Diancie, Mega Diance, and Mega Rayqualza will be available during the Global event which takes place August 26th and 27th.
The also announced that Paldean Pokemon are finally coming to Go with a REMARKABLY confusing segment that showed shoes that vaguely had elements from past games. One pair had one red show and one blue, one pair was silver with gold trim, a pair of boots have diamonds and pearls all over it near a pair of black and white sneaks, etc. There was even a really weird pair of boots where they gave up and just stuck a sword in the shoelaces and highlighted whatever part of the boot like liked a shield the most. It was confusing and made zero sense.
12:10 Updates to Pokemon Unite
A couple updates were shown coming to Pokemon Unite including the addition of Mewtwo as a playable character, an event where if you get on now you can get a free 3-day pass for both Mew and Mewtwo, and an upcoming PvE mode. The passed for Mew and Mewtwo can be obtained by entering the code:
2NDANNIVERSARY
14:00 Nemona and Pawmot come to Pokemon Masters EX
A short and weirdly paced trailer showcases Nemona and her Pawmot coming to Pokemon Masters EX alongside two new types of Pokemon attackers.
It was also revealed that logging on in the next fews days will give you 3000 crystals.
15:30 Tatsugiri arrives in Pokemon Cafe ReMix
The latest update to Pokemon’s most recent take on matching games comes in the form of the tiny Tatsugiri arriving. By completing the missions, you can choose from one of the three colors of Tatsugiri to have work in your cafe.
16:55 Two big Pokemon games come to the Switch game channels
For the Game Boy channel we have the Pokemon Trading Card Game, the first attempt to digitize the ever successful trading card game. For the Nintendo 64, Pokemon Stadium 2 which, unfortunately, just like Pokemon Stadium, doesn’t have the ability to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Home. Even though it absolutely should.
18:18 Confusing Pokemon Sleep update
Okay, even using Pokemon Sleep I don’t fully understand it but there’s supposed to be event where the next time there’s a full moon some of the Pokemon get extra powerful to…as they said…help us sleep better? I don’t see the correlation, even as someone who uses Pokemon Sleep every night but we’ll see.
It did contain the unintentionally hilarious dark line, “Pokemon Sleep, a game that makes waking up something to look forward to.” As someone who longs for that eternal slumber, I feel that man.
19:10 Another new animated Pokemon series
Have you played Scarlet and Violet and wondered to yourself, “this is great but all I really want is to watch the students struggling to achieve their own academic success? Well, firstly why, but secondly, you’re in luck.
Pokemon: Paldean Winds comes to YouTube September 6th and follows six very different looking high school archtypes as they make their way through the academy.
21:00 Get you a free Mew
In Pokemon Scarlet and Violet an event is starting where you can get yourself both Mew AND Mewtwo. Mew will be available by entering the Mystery Gift code GETY0URMEW (that’s a zero, not the letter O) and will have a random tera type upon using the code. Mewtwo however will be from a special tera raid that, if you’re the average player, have no chance in hell getting. Both are “available” until September 18th. Be ready to yell at strangers who can’t hear you as they show off their shinies in a Tera Raid instead of using a viable Pokemon.
23:40 More info on the Scarlet and Violet DLC
More footage was shown on the upcoming DLC The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero which will come in two parts named The Teal Mask and The The Indigo Disk. It showed off the various characters you’ll meet from the tour guides in The Teal Mask to the teachers and students you’ll be battling in The Indigo Disk, as well as a pair of siblings who will follow you through both. An older sister that guides you as well as a meek, younger brother, who has all the makings of a potential surprise villain.
The trailer also showed off new variants and evolutions for pre-existing Pokemon including glimpses of paradox forms of both Raikou, who looks like one of those giraffes from Horizon Zero Dawn, and an “Iron” paradox form of Cobalion.
The unintentional star of the show though is a new character named Perrin. Not only is she the kind of character that you won’t be able to Google search safely given how weird the Pokemon community is, she’s also bringing with her a Pokemon Snap style mini-game where she tasks you to go out in the wild and photograph the Pokemon similar to how you’d do it in Pokemon Legends Arceus. A fantastic game element that just DISAPPEARED.
Actually, lemme look. Yup. There’s already fantastic fanart of Parrin already. Damn y’all are quick.
Anyways, that’s it for the Pokemon Direct. I was really hoping they were going to hint at the next new game (which I still have money on being Pokemon Legends Kyurem) but we’ll see.