presents

Intro

Today we received the Pokemon Presents detailing future releases for the franchise and I want to discuss the implications this has for competitive Pokemon.

So first off the presents had a mini montage of the franchise's history which was cute if a little self-indulgent. Then we got more info about New Pokemon Snap, which will likely be irrelevant to competitive Pokemon.

The main news was that we would be receiving 2 releases set in Sinnoh: firstly D/P remakes coming at the end of 2021, and then Legend of Arceus arriving in early 2022. This was HUGE and the Community just about exploded after years of hyping gen 4 remakes up to pant-wetting levels of excitement. And both games look really cool. But what about the implications for competitive?

First off the D/P remakes:
It was explicitly said in the presents that these would be _faithful_ remakes, which is pretty interesting. That explains the art style - it is literally 3D versions of the 2D sprites. Though controversial, personally I don't mind this so much but I get why some people may be disappointed considering how Link's Awakening has a similar style but is aesthetically very neat. But what's more interesting about this statement is the implications for competitive. The first thing to note is that some Pokemon will be revived from the Thanos snap that was dexit. The gen 4 starters will live again, along with fan favourites Bidoof and... Carnivine I guess? Plus a few others. This is really nice, I don't think it's controversial to say that more Pokemon being available is better. But will this be able to trade with SwSh? Maybe before the release, SwSh will be updated with all removed mons to allow trading between the games... I think a lot of people would like to see all the mons in SwSh.

The second consideration is the mechanics. Battling in gen 8 is VERY different to battling in gen 4. In gen 4, there was no team preview, no megas, no Z-moves (though these haven't been present in gen 8 either), no dynamax, fewer move options and also no hidden abilities - will this also be the case in the D/P remakes? That would be pretty crazy - a lot of strategies viable now would not be possible in gen 4, but some strategies that went due to changes in mechanics or the removal of some moves in gen 8 may return! This would be really cool - a format with no team preview would be very crazy!

In gen 8, due tot he battle timer, it was not really possible to have 6v6 singles battles in game, which is a big disappointment as this is a very popular format that many players play in the form of smogon tiers. In gen 4, it was perfectly possible to have such games. IF these are back, D/P remakes may bring a HUGE resurgence to the singles format which is a very exciting prospect - there is practically no in-game singles 6v6 content or community currently, but there is a big appetite for it.

The last consideration is whether D/P remakes will become the new official competitive format - will the VGC format transition to D/P remakes? Or will it stay in SwSh? Also, will D/P remakes be backwards compatible with SwSh for battling? considering trainer customisation options in SwSh that will likely not be possible in D/P, how will the trainer appear in the SwSh battle screen?