Hendoh Letter #11 - Pokémon Presents Breakdown
Let's go guys.
After the mob came to my door about yesterday’s ranking, they said I would never publish the hendoh letter again. But I am back. Running in like Mr. Cool on a Tuesday afternoon. Today we have to keep soldiering on and going through it. But don’t forget to walk into the building all cool like!
Henry Proverb 2/27/24:
“It doesn’t matter if you go up or down the ladder, just make sure you don’t fall off.”
Quote of the Day 2/27/24:
“United we stand, divided we fall.” - Aesop, The Four Oxen and the Lion
Word of Yesterday (Courtesy of Nolan Koonce):
“Wisdom”
Song of the Day 2/27/24:
Banger!
I like this live performance a lot.
Recent Paul Post:
Addendum to yesterday’s newsletter: My life was threatened by individuals who were upset with the placement of ‘Architecture’ on yesterday’s list and while I admit it could’ve been higher than sculptures its still an ok spot on the list. The only way I will retract my statements and declare it a better art form than tv is if you architects build a awesome house or cabin for me. Take that.
Pic of the Day 2/27/24:
Orhan at lunch absolutely tweaking about ranking the art forms. Can’t remember the last time he was this genuinely angry.
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Pokemon Presents Breakdown:
Today is a wonderful day. If you don’t know already, today is officially known as Pokémon day because this is the day that the original games came out in Japan. But I really just think its great that we have a day that is just for Pokemon. If you were gonna do anything Pokemon related today is the day to do it.
Of course, what is very standard for the Pokemon Company is to do a presentation today announcing game updates and new games. I remember when I was watching the Nintendo Direct where they revealed that they were working on Pokemon Sun and Moon on my 3Ds back in 2016. That was awesome.
The last couple Pokemon Presents have been not great with the last one in particular being really bad because it was 30 minutes of nothing information about the stupid spin-offs and mobile games and then the big announcement was just that there was DLC for Pokemon Scarlet + Violet.
What’s so awesome about this one is that they seemed to have actually listened to people and fixed what made it so bad. This presentation is a tight 13 minutes and they do not spend time breaking down the stuff nobody cares about. Instead they just drop the info, show it and get out. Which makes everything seem a lot cooler and more interesting.
So the presentation begins with a very promising start. Its probably actually the best part of the whole presentation because its just Pikachu running around and you see some funny unknown guys flying around with him. This is great, this is what I love about Pokemon. Seeing the funny guys go around, that’s what i’m here if anything at all.
So then the presentation starts up and its the classic kind of thing where they show the head of the pokemon company and he’s like “we make games and there are good things coming soon.” Which, always great.
This time I was kinda hit with the realization of like, ‘damn, this guys getting kinda old’ y’know time is passing. I’ve been playing Pokemon since like 2011 and now its the year 2024. Crazy.
Also, I always love the plushies in the background that they got going on in every one of these. Its just such a nice touch and I would like to own all of them low-key.
Okay, from here the presentation gets pretty boring because I do not care about any of these mobile games or the Moba game. I’m not into them and maybe I could get into them but they don’t seem very interesting and i’ve seen them for too long. How do they keep so many of these games going? It’s wild.
But yes the only new announcement really was that they are doing a Pokemon trading card app where you open packs. The only cool idea was that you can go inside the card but I don’t know if they’re gonna be able to do that much with the concept.
So now, we get to our main announcement. Pokemon Legends Z-A. What the hell is even that?
I had suspected that we were going to get another ‘Legends’ game in between a new gen which is cool. But I was almost certain that it was going to be related to Gen 5’s Unova region (which is by far my favorite in all of pokemon) but instead its related to Gen 6’s Kalos Region.
The Gen 6 games, Pokemon X and Y are probably my least favorite pokemon games so I was a bit underwhelmed by this reveal. It feels like a weird choice to be going back to Kalos because that seems like much more recent stuff that I don’t think is completely begging to be brought back.
But of course, it does make some sense because those games famously never received a third entry like most pokemon generations usually do (presumably this would’ve been Pokemon Z). And there was a lot set up about Zygarde that was never explored so this could be cool I guess.
In the trailer, we are shown the building plans for Lumiose City and we get to watch it come to life. Seeing this I was like, ‘hmmm, that’s not very interesting.’ But then I remembered that’s its just a trailer and the whole point is that this is whats not gonna be in the game because like Legends Arceus its obviously gonna be set in the far past which means that everything is gonna be old technology and they’re building the city in the game.
So then I was like, ‘hmmm ok,’ I’m on board more now. Cause I actually really liked Legends Arceus maybe more than Scarlet and Violet. But what really got me excited was that in the official nintendo tweet it says that the game is set, “…entirely within Lumiose City…” Which is crazy because no main line pokemon game has ever taken place in one city.
If this is true that could mean they will actually flesh out the city and make the whole thing explorable, which is what I was always annoyed about even as a kid. You couldn’t explore most of the actual city and it felt so empty and lame. So this is actually pretty exciting and it could mean some big things for the series.
By far the most promising detail, however, is that the game’s release date is set for 2025. Legends Arceus was announced in February 2021 and then released in January 2022 so it might not seem that crazy. But Arceus’ reveal trailer said “Early 2022” and the reveal here just says “2025”.
So it seems like they are giving this some more time and not trying to rush it out. Especially because this reveal means that there will be no new mainline Pokemon game or dlc releasing next year, leaving 2024 as the first year without a mainline entry of some kind since 2015!!!! So I really think this means they are trying to give this next game some more time than usual and not just rush it straight out. If that’s true then that’s very cool and makes me actually want to play this next one.
Also, the 2025 placement alludes to this possibly being launched on the upcoming Switch 2 which would be great, I can’t wait for that.
Finally, lets talk about the title. “Pokemon Legends Z-A”. I think the title is not great but its also very funny so by that same token I guess its kinda good. Z to A is just funny because they did Pokemon X and Y and now they have to cover all of the letters in the alphabet so they will never have to do letters again. This is the ultimate alphabet game.
So, to conclude, this is not totally what I wanted out of the next pokemon game but also when I think about it more it seems ambitious and it has the potential to be a great step forward for the series. Overall, this presentation seemed like it was a good sign that the Pokemon Company is actually listening to fan feedback more than ever before which is really cool and I hope I am not disappointed by what’s to come.
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Thank you for reading the Hendoh Newsletter. This was a very specific one, I hope it was enjoyable. We will be back tomorrow with what I hope will be a highly anticipated follow-up to one of the most well received Hendoh Newsletters so far. Thank you and stay fresh!
Hendoh out.