The fact that these are DS games has me seriously nervous about the 3DS.  I feel that this points to it being a very minor update that only adds 3D, otherwise these games would be launch titles for that unit.

I hope I'm wrong.

And the milking of the Pokemon franchise continues, with a high probability that it will still look like an early GBA game and play like a GB game.  I suppose it's asking for too much to hope that Nintendo "Activision"s the franchise past the breaking point and destroys it permanently.  ::)

It is incredibly unfair to say that the DS pokemon games look like early GBA games.  While it may be true for the battle scenes, the overworld is wonderfully upgraded while retaining the top down classic RPG feel.

Well, I played Pokemon Pearl a while back and wasn't impressed, but I'll compromise and leave it at "nowhere near approaching the limits of the DS's capabilities".

or they will be 3DS enhanced titles because Nintendo doesn't want to alienate the largest gaming audience on a single console platform ever!?

I think you are almost guaranteed to be wrong. With their handheld systems Nintendo has often released major games near the launch of the next system. The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons was released in Japan one month before the Game Boy Advance launched. Pokemon Gold and Silver were released about 16 months before the GBA was released (it was about 8 months between its North American releases). If anything, I expect BlacknMild's idea to happen and have the games have some kind of enhancement with when played on a 3DS.

I am worried that they may change it too much and do something stupid like reduce the number of Pokemon (you should be able to get all 493 current Pokemon plus the new Pokemon, even if that means importing them).

I don't know about that.  Once upon a time, I could actually name all 150 Pokemon by memory.  The count now has ballooned to such a point that I could certainly go for mass extinction in the Pokemon universe.  :-\

I am not saying they need to have all the Pokemon be catchable in the new games, just have them be like the current gen (which lets you catch like 300 Pokemon, but you need to have some of the GBA games to get the rest).

That was one of the reasons I fell off the Pokemon ship back on the GBA. When I found out I had no way to get certain monsters that I like to have it took half of the fun out of the game so I ignored the ruby/sapphire generation and didn't touch the DS ones until Platinum came out.

I never got into the Generation III games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald), it's the only one I haven't beaten. That's why I was glad that Diamond and Pearl had Wi-Fi so that I didn't have to have the GBA games, I could just trade for whatever Pokemon I couldn't get on my own.

I was wondering what colours they could use and, duh, black and white.  Of course!  So simple!

If they want to change it up it would be nice to take the series into full 3D.  You know, like we all wanted back in the N64 days.  I've been waiting over 10 years for such a game.  Top down games convert to full 3D easily.  And it isn't even THAT much of a change but it will sure make the series feel fresh.  They don't have to re-invent the wheel.  2D-to-3D is that get-out-of-jail-free card for videogame innovation (unless you're not Nintendo in which case it's a fuck-up-the-game-for-sure card).

Regarding the 3DS I didn't even think of it but Pale makes a good point.  Yeah the Zelda Oracles games came out around the GBA launch but I personally thought that was kind of dumb.  I didn't have any Game Boys so I bought a GBA partially for the Zelda games but when the DS came out I had a GBA and noticed that the best portable games were still being made for the GBA and the DS had NOTHING.  It took me a year to buy a DS.  So many people own a DS that I figure Nintendo should concentrate on selling those people a 3DS as there isn't so many fence-sitters who would consider the existing DS library as a good reason to buy the state-of-the-art 3DS.  Don't worry about alienating the old audience because this is how things go.  New system comes out, old system dies.  You don't want something like Sony had where the PS2 was outselling the PS3 because the PS2 still had good games made for it and the PS3 didn't have the system sellers to convince people to switch.

Don't matter for me though since, hey, I don't have to buy a new system to play the new Pokemon. :)

If you're thinkin' about my Pokemon, it don't matter if you're Black or White!

...love the names. Now we'll see just how far they go with the reinvention. I just said on last night's RFN recording that Nintendo should reboot the whole franchise, ditch backwards-compatibility with previous games, and reduce the new Pokedex to a much smaller number of creatures with more personality and differentiation so that new monsters aren't a commodity.

Also, I still think it's possible these will be 3DS games. It's only two months until that system will be revealed at E3, and Japanese comics/magazines can just keep revealing character art until that time, with screenshots and real gameplay information held until the new system is exposed.

I want to see Nintendo take Pokemon in an even more Animal crossing direction. What I mean by that is I want my own town or pokemon ranch where I can farm and sell berries, and raise my own pokemon, and I want the currency I earn to give me something meaningful in the game (perhaps even a pokemon) or for my wonderful farm to attract pokemon for me to catch like in Viva Pinata. There can still be the whole catch 'em all, gym badge, team rocket deal, but I want there to be more user creativity involved.

Holy run on sentences.

Johnny, I don't see Nintendo delaying the game to make it a 3DS game (and definitely not a launch game like a poster in another thread said). I don't think Nintendo would reduce the number of Pokemon in it since that would really be a step backwards for the series. I don't see the motivation Nintendo would have to re-boot the series. Diamond and Pearl combined have sold about 17 million copies, and HeartGold/SoulSilver have been huge sellers so far. Generally a studio only doesn't re-boot a series that gets good reviews and continues to produce games that top the sales charts every time they release a mainline game.

Maybe Nintendo thinks they could get even more sales by doing a 'reinvention' of sorts to draw back in all of those former trainers who got tired of the same game over and over.

They won't delete monsters because more monsters equals more toys and other marketable characters to sell to children.

I'm with TJ that they'll just put some of the monsters into hiding and have them only unlockable through D/P/Pt and HG/SS. Even with those games you can pull ones from the five GBA games so it is still possible to catch them all combined with wi-fi trading.

Final Fantasy still plays like an NES game and I don't see anybody complaining about it.

Actually, Final Fantasy constantly reinvents itself, experimenting with new systems and styles (even if they don't work).  Pokemon is the poster child for everything I hate about Nintendo: utter laziness.  Minimal effort, maximum profit.  It's literally the Nintendo equivalent of Madden Football, in that it sells in droves pretty much on roster updates and minor gameplay tweaks and additions.

I'd argue Nintendo already took Animal Crossing in a Pokemon direction. Pokemon Crystal, Animal Crossing: City Fold - they share a certain common design philosophy. ;)  But seriously I think having more personal expression in Pokemon would be great.  Online Pokemon shouldn't be just battles and trades.  Having your own little "home base" would add tons.

Capcom probably didn't have to reboot Resident Evil but it paid off for them in spades.  That series was still selling and was still critically acclaimed but there was a whisper of criticism regarding the formula wearing thin.  They could have waited until that became a problem and re-booting was an absolute requirement to salvage the franchise but instead they cut things off at the pass.  They didn't let Resident Evil become stale.

So while Pokemon is still successful and certainly still good, maybe Nintendo would want to re-invent it now while it's still a big brand and people aren't sick of it.  Tomb Raider learned it the hard way in that it had to become irrelevant and outright POOR before they rebooted it.  Why wait that long?

And if you switch things around while the old formula is still fresh then you can re-introduce the old style later on.  I don't know if Nintendo planned it with Mario but they fucking nailed it.  2D Mario disappears for years, people miss it, and NSMB just owns the sales charts.  And those games are pretty formulaic and unoriginal.  But with the time in between the concept becomes fresh again.  You get a free pass for playing it safe!  Mega Man is doing the same thing.  Classic Mega Man disappears for years, they bust out Mega Man 9 and the series is back in the saddle.  Even if an attempt to re-invent Pokemon fails they can always bring back classic Pokemon.  It's like New Coke.

Supposedly the Pokemon Company has 3DS dev kits so maybe it'll be another of those games that work on both with enhancements on one (e.g. the standard battle view could just throw a 3D effect on the mon in the foreground). Pokemon isn't exactly big on new features though, no matter what new stuff the 3DS introduces Pokemon won't benefit from most of it.

Full touch screen functionality, please.

Sales of Resident Evil games had been declining for years, Pokemon sales are actually increasing.

The thing is, everyone twists my statements into thinking I just want the games on 3DS.  I don't care what system they are on. I'm just saying that the fact that they aren't on 3DS probably points to the fact that the 3DS won't necessarily make DS games appear archaic technically.  If that's the case, that means the 3DS isn't going to have the horsepower I hoped it would.

Do you think the DS made GBA games appear archaic?

To me the only games that truly look archaic would be pre-16 bit 2D and the first 3D generation with the Playstation and N64.  Everything else looks pretty good.  Not great but certainly not hard to look at.

Though that actually would make DS visuals somewhat archaic as the 3D (as in polygons) DS games don't look so hot.  The PSP is about PS2 quality.  If we can get that on the 3DS then both 2D and 3D games will look good on it.

It would be nice if the 3DS had 3D capabilities AND a significant boost in hardware.  I'm really not in the mood for a Wii-like update where it's like the same thing but with a new feature.  But is there really a draw in N64 graphics popping out at you?  I doubt it.  It's going to have to be a step up.

To be fair, the GC had better graphics than the PS2.

I do think it's wierd that this new Pokemon game will be on the DS. Each handheld system has had two distinct Pokemon games:

Brick/Color: Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal
GBA: FireRed/LeafGreen, Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald
DS: Pearl/Diamond/Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver

I doubt this will happen, but it would be cool if one of these games were a DS game and the other were a 3DS game.

there are points in Phantom Hour glass that look crappy, but overall it looks pretty good. Actually, Phantom Hour Glass style would be the way to go on DS for pokemon.

I am hopeful for a series reinvention

I think that is a pretty good idea. Do we really need to have 500+ different Pokémon when many of them have similar stats, abilities, and moves? Plus then they could actually have a story to the games, making everything more interesting.

To be fair the DS makes Pokemon games appear archaic technically.

Yes I do.  Most of them anyway.  Best examples are Square's stuff, Zelda games, and Prime Hunters.

I'm not sure what your point was. :-/

See right now I could start ranting about Nintendo's inability to put technologically relevant screens in their systems again, but I will spare you all from my tired argument.

All I want is a fancy high end Nintendo system.  I know I may be in the minority on that, but I would pay 500 dollars for a super high end Nintendo portable in a heart beat.  I know I'm not going to get that, but I'd at least like a compromise.

Serebii.net has more info/scans.

I'll just be happy if this means that series will be slightly more modern

Each generation has been more modern than the last, to me at least. I just want them to swtich the box system back. The one in HGSS sucks.

I hope there aren't too many Pokemon to catch... oh who am I kidding, there will probably be 650 pokemon to catch.

Is it different than the one in Diamond and Pearl? I loved the one they used in those.

I hope they only add 100 (or less) new Pokemon. The original games had 151, Generation II added 100 (to bring it to 251), Generation III added 135 (to bring it to 386), Generation IV added 107 (to bring it to 493). Maybe they will add another 107 to bring it to an even 600.

I only want one pokemon to rule them all.

I haven't played Platinum in a while, so I'd have to go back and check, but the one in HGSS feels different. I don't remember having these problems in DPPt, but there are a few. You can't switch boxes with L and R, and picking up a Pokemon and placing it over another one makes it switch places with that one as opposed to dropping one in place and picking up the other one. If that makes any sense.

Well it would be great if they shook up the formula a bit, I may actually buy a pokemon game again.

Maybe use L & R for hotkeys for bikes or other oft-used equipment. The platform has advanced from the GB, Nintendo.

The problem Pokemon faces is the same one that Square-Enix has with Dragon Quest: despite how archaic each installment increasingly is, the public keeps buying them so there's never a commercial imperative to advance them more than baby steps at a time (and in the case of DQ, even the slightest baby step makes the Japanese skittish).  We won't see any serious advancement in the franchise until people stop making it a license to print money.

Yeah, the saying does go "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and with the numbers it can sell it certainly seems most do not think it is broken.

I actually wonder how many people have been with the series since the beginning and have bought all the games. The franchise is marketed at a younger audience so it is possible that each generation of games brings in a lot of new players.

I was pretty bad for awhile, buying every iteration that was released (well I wouldn't buy both colors just one but still I bought ever release).

I have gotten one of the games in each generation (I bought all 3 Generation I games, I bought Silver and Crystal in Generation II, but I only bought Ruby in Generation III and Diamond in Generation IV, I also bought FireRed). The series has improved with each generation, even if it hasn't advanced as much as some people would like. I loved Diamond and I plan to get SoulSilver as soon as I get a DSi.

I own Blue, Gold, found a junked copy of Silver, Emerald, Platinum, Heart Gold.

My sisters own between the two of them Red, Diamond, Soul Silver and all the Mystery Dungeon and Ranger games...

Red, Gold, Crystal (somewhere), Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Pearl, Platinum, and HeartGold.

Red,Blue,Yellow,Silver,Crystal,Ruby,Saphire,FireRed,Platinum,SoulSilver.

Red and Yellow I can't find. Crystal I can't find.
Ruby and Saphire I don't have anymore.
Have the rest mentioned.

The ones I have owned are Blue, Crystal, and Diamond. Pretty big intervals in that trio, but the games were still too much alike for my taste.

I always hated Pokémon when I was younger, thought it was the most annoying thing ever. My friend and I would team up in Smash Brothers and fight the Pokémon characters as opponents.

A few years ago my cousin gave me Pokémon Gold because he didn't like it and never played it. That's the first time I had ever played one of the games. I beat it, thought it was decent enough, but was never too into it. I've since gotten cheap used copies of Blue and Emerald just to check out how the series has progressed. Blue is too primitive to be of much enjoyment, Emerald was okay but I missed some of the features of Gold like the day/night system.

Red, Yellow, Silver, Crystal, Sapphire, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Soul Silver

Help.

I'll help...

...you fill out your collection by sending you Blue and Gold. :P

"Red, Orange, Green, Purple, Blue and Yellow! Post Fruity Pebbles! Part of a complete breakfast!"

Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Sapphire.  Got all of them at Release except Sapphire.  Beat all of the GB ones but not even close on any of the later ones and still think that Colisseum is the best Pokemon battle game out there to this day.

I still mean to try that second Coliseum game with the actual single player RPG game attached (Gale of Darkness?)

Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness

We should nickname TJ 'Mr. Wikipedia' ;)

I prefer his current title.