It is February 27th, 2019, the 23rd annual Pokemon Day!! To celebrate, The Pokemon Company made a major announcement, the first look at the eighth generation of games, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield! If you missed it, here is the release trailer:
Forge a Path to Greatness in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield! ⚔ 🛡 www.youtube.com
These games are a huge leap forward for the company and series because they are the first new games (Let's Go! Pikachu and Let's Go! Eevee were remakes and extensions on the mobile Pokemon GO!) to be released on the Nintendo Switch, making them also the first main games ever to be released on a console instead of a handheld, utilizing much more power and potential than ever before and the Switch's being a unique hybrid as an excuse to make the jump.
These games also won't be led by Junichi Masuda (who has directed almost every main-series game and remake since 2003's release of Ruby and Sapphire), but rather by Shigeru Ohmori (the director of Sun and Moon) which further opens up the potential for innovation and creativity. An almost completely fresh face is in charge of the largest games to date.
Back on Sun and Moon Ohmori proved himself as an innovator by completely changing the overall course of the games and opting for new features--eliminating gyms in exchange for a series of trials, making the region more accurate to the Hawaiian culture it was based on, and introducing many regional variants of different Pokemon--so I foresee more fresh features coming in this gen.
All we know about Sword and Shield so far besides these details and the names is that the region they're in, Galar, appears to be based in part off of Industrial-era UK, the starter Pokemon's names--Scorbunny: the fire rabbit Pokemon, Sobble: the water-lizard Pokemon, and Grookey: the grass chimp Pokemon--and that they will release approximately around the end of November, as is the standard for all major Pokemon releases.
Everything else about the games remains a mystery for now, which is exciting, especially since The Pokemon Company has a habit of revealing all the details very early on.
This is also exciting because it allows us as fans to speculate about the games in many ways, so let me tell you what some of MY speculations, wants, and wishes are as of right now. First, let's look at the starters and their typing!
Judging by the very limited information we know about them right now (which is just their names and designs, really) I am hoping they end up as follows: Scorbunny being Fire/Electric because despite it looking like it's fighting I am hoping they pull another Incineroar with us on it, Sobble being Water/Ghost judging by it being mostly invisible in the water when we first see it, and Grookey being Grass/Ground or Grass/Fighting because the precedent for monkey Pokemon goes either of those ways.
Next, I am hoping that the roster of new Pokemon goes one of two ways: the unlikely way of a Unova-esque onslaught of a massive number of new faces, with earlier generations not being available until post-game or the much more likely way of a Sinnoh-esque lineup where a majority of the new Pokemon introduced expand upon previous evolutionary chains, fleshing out some old favorites in the mix with the newcomers.
I am also hoping that whichever path they choose is full of the regional variants they introduced in the Alola region and that if they opt to introduce new evos they also bring in some new Mega Evolutions, even if that will upset the competitive players.
Finally, I am hoping that all the teasing this week comes to the conclusion that we have all wanted and been waiting for ages, that the re-featuring of each region on Pokemon's official accounts this week has been not only because there are seven regions and seven days, and not only because they were trying to let us know they were announcing a new one, but that it also means because the Switch has so much potential, that in Sword and Shield we will have the potential to visit every single region throughout the course of the post-game.
This would be doubly cool if they used it as a method by which to continue introducing new regional variants of existing Pokemon, not only in Galar but in every previous region as well!
Basically, I have high hopes and higher expectations for this new game. But even if none of this comes true, I will be ecstatic to pick up my copy and play nonetheless because these games look gorgeous and huge already, and because I will finally be able to play a main-series Pokemon game on not only a handheld screen but a large t.v. screen as well! Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield come out in November and I am already counting down the days!
