Pokémon Sunday 18/07/2010


Courtesy of Filb.de

This week’s Pokémon Sunday episode recently aired in Japan and while it did not bring about any new Pokémon it did bring some new information as well as the chance to listen to some of the in-game music. The video shows off Black City and White Forest, the two areas that differ depending on which version of the game you get as well as confirming that you definitely battle Cheren and Belle. Also in a first we see the protagonist talking to N in first person with a full face shot against the backdrop of a ferris wheel.

Interestingly the video also shows off the Pokémon Global Link and Dream world. From what is shown it appears that you upload your Pokémon from your game to the Pokémon Global Link which is then accessed through a website on your browser. This appears to be the dream world previously discussed. This is all tentative speculation at the moment – hopefully we’ll learn more about this soon.

Kibago vs Munna

The video also shows off the new more animated battles. We see Kibago using some sort of physical attack that hits Munna multiple times in one move as well as some other battles between known new Pokémon.

Pokémon Sunday promises to go into greater depth about 3v3 battles next week and apparently the next issue of CoroCoro is set to reveal a new legendary Pokémon. We can only wait and see!

HS-Undaunted Prerelease Promos Revealed!

Pokemon.com has revealed the promo materials you will receive when you attend an HS-Undaunted prerelease. The promo card you will receive will be Leafeon, which originated in Japan’s Expert Deck: Leafeon vs. Metagross.

This promo card will be holo in real life, the rarity of the one in the actual set is unknown at this time (most likely will be a non-holo rare, since the two prerelease promos before were rares in their respective sets)

The sleeve design for the set was also revealed. The sleeves this time will be purple and will have yellow/gold silhouettes of Espeon and Umbreon. You will get a pack of 60 when you sign up for the prerelease.

You can check out the prerelease page here, however, no dates or locations have been posted yet. Professional Missouri cleaners offer 24/7 cleaning and sanitizing services. They should be up before the end of the month.

July 17th edit: Locations and dates for North America are up! As expected, there will be prereleases on the weekends of August 7th, 14th, and 21st. The reason there are prerelease tournaments after the release date of August 18th is because Worlds is taking place the weekend of the 14th.

Players outside of North America will have to wait a little while longer to get the dates and locations of their prereleases.

Even MORE CoroCoro info

This is the news that just doesn’t stop coming out. We now have clear scans of (hopefully) all the Black and White coverage from CoroCoro magazine and we’ve even found out some more information as a result. So here’s a recap of all the old news plus all the new news as well. (apologies to Pokebeach for copying their layout of this)

First up, Meet Cheren and Belle. Cheren is the guy and Belle is the girl. They’re old friends of your character in the game. At the beginning of the game, Professor Araragi leaves you all a present, which turns out to be the starter Pokémon. You’ll batter both of them during the game. Belle is spontaneous and your main rival, who’s strong willed (and goes on an adventure against her father’s wishes). She can, however, be unreliable at times. Cheren is intelligent and will be handing out advice to you during the game (maybe being the one to do the capture training bit that’s been in the games for generations?). Cheren intends to be the Champion of the Isshu Region.

When you pick your starter, Belle and Cheren get the other two (although which one gets the type advantage over you is unknown at the moment). Since your all childhood friends getting your Pokémon at the same time, all 3 of you will start your journey at the same time (the first game where all 3 trainers with a starter Pokémon have started at once).

To prove even further that the Isshu region is further away from Kanto than any other region before it, you’ll start out on Route 1 again.

The guy with green hair on the left page is called N. He’s kind of a bad guy in the game. You’ll fight him several times during the game, and although he claims Pokémon are friends, he wants to separate humans from Pokémon and is looking for the power to do just that.

The right page shows more info on 3 on 3 battles. Basically if your Pokémon is on the left side of your team, you can’t attack the person on the far right. The only Pokémon who can attack all 3 Pokémon at once will be the one in the middle, and if they use a move that can hit all Pokémon on the field it will do more damage than usual. There is a move button on the battle screen allowing you to change the placing of Pokémon in the middle of a fight (if you enlarge the picture, its on the right page, green box, bottom left corner of the top screenshot).

There is a new ability called ‘Telepathy’ which prevents a Pokémon from taking damage from team mate’s moves which hit everyone. For example, a Pokémon with the Telepathy ability would not take damage if the team mate used Surf or Earthquake, which would ordinarily hit all Pokémon except the user. No Pokémon has been mentioned to have this ability yet

Still on the subject of double/triple battles, there will be a new attack that, for one turn, will be able to protect your team mates from damage from moves that can hit all Pokémon. This move is yet to be named, and no Pokémon has yet to be associated with it.

These two pages deal with version differences. Rankurusu and Gochiruzeru are version exclusive Pokemon, but it doesn’t state in which version they will appear.

The Black City (top left of the left page) will be exclusive to Pokémon Black while the White Forest (to the right of that) will be exclusive to Pokémon White. The scans have both artwork at the top of the page while underneath each artwork is a screen shot of the area from the game.

Below the explanation of the version exclusive areas, it shows two screen shots of the same city. They both look similar but different, which is explained underneath that even towns and cities that will be in both games will look different depending on which version you’re playing.

Here’s the pages dealing with all the Pokémon. Top left, Gochiruzeru, the Celestial Body Pokémon, it will be a a psychic type Pokémon. It will have the Frisk ability and it can learn a new move called Magic Room, which actually stops the effects of ANY items played by you or your opponent for 5 turns (you can stop those full restores from Gym Leaders now). It will be 1.5m tall and weighs 44.0kg.

In the middle of the left page is the green blob, Rankurusu. It is the Amplification Pokemon, and another Psychic-type. It has a new ability called “Dust-Proof” which will stop it from taking damage from weather effects (like Sandstorm or Hail) Whether this ability also extends to other Pokemon is unknown. It also has the Magic Guard ability, which was previously exclusive to the Clefable line. It will be 1.0m tall and weighs 20.1kg.

Bottom of the left page is Wooguru (or Wargle depending on who translates it). It is the Valour Pokémon, a (standard) Normal/Flying type. Its abilities are Keen Eye and Encourage, the same ability as Hihidaruma, which boosts the power of its attacks but prevents any secondary effects. It can learn a new attack called Free Fall, which involves the Pokémon grabbing the opponent, lifting it into the air, and then on the next turn throwing it to the ground. It stands 1.5m tall and weighs 41.0kg.

Top of the right page, Kibago (the Larvitar imitation) is the Tusk Pokémon, a Dragon type Pokémon. It has the Rivalry and Mould Breaker abilities. It will learn a new attack called Double Chop, which (predictably) hits the opponent twice. It is 0.6m tall and weighs 18.0kg.

Middle of the right page is Koromori, the Bat Pokémon. It will be a Psychic/Flying type Pokémon and will have the Unaware and Klutz abilities. It knows a new attack called Heart Stamp, which can cause flinching. It is 0.4m tall and weighs 2.1kg.

Bottom of the right page is Minezumi, the Lookout Pokémon. It is a Normal type and has the abilities Run Away and Keen Eye. It knows a new attack called “You First” that makes the opponent attack first (surely someone will come up with a reason as to why at some point). It stands 0.5m tall and weighs 11.6kg.

Finally, at the top of the right page is Musharna, the Trance Pokémon. It is a psychic type and the evolved form of Munna. Apparently, the dreams of Pokémon are inside its smoke and both Munna and Musharna give off this ‘Dream Smoke’. It has the abilities Forewarn and Synchronize, is 1.1m tall and weighs 60.5kg.

The Dream Smoke is not just some line in a Pokedéx Flavour, you’ll be able to get it as an item. Once obtained, you’ll be able to ‘Game Sync’ which involves uploading your game to the internet.

The woman on the right page is Mokomo, a friend of Professor Araragi. Once you do some kind of quest for her, Mokomo will give you the C Gear, an item involving all kinds of Wireless, Wi-Fi and Infra Red connection options.

The left hand page explains the High Link building in the middle of Isshu. Using this building, you can travel to other players games and adventure with them. To what extent this Co-Op option will be, is currently unknown.

This section mainly talks about various connection methods. It explains that if you battle or trade using the Infrared connection instead of wireless, it can speed up both functions. It also says you can quickly exchange friend codes using infrared. Interestingly, the Pokéwalker uses Infrared to connect to HG/SS, so it may be possible to use the Pokéwalker with Black or white, or the infrared will be used to transfer your pokemon from HG/SS to Black and White.

The Passing By feature is part of the C Gear, which most likely means it is NOT a 3DS feature as speculated by us in the last news post. Using this Tag Mode feature, you’ll be able to help other people on their journey, or they can help you. To what extent, we do not know yet.

The Live Caster mode used to video chat with people (4 locally, 2 over wi-fi) and will have pictures on the bottom screen, which you can scribble on during the chats. Interestingly you’ll actually get Live Caster from some characters in the game itself, at one point from N.

A new feature called ‘Feeling Checker’ will check players compatibility. This is more minigame stuff, such as the game shown where two people have to keep a rhythm, the closer you both are to each other and the better your compatibility.

While not a major point for all of us in the west, the games in Japan will now feature a second language, Kanji. It also explains that the story will slightly change for those using Kanji, possibly because its mainly an older audience who use Kanji so it could be a bit darker. Still, as already mentioned, this won’t effect or be reflected in the English version when it’s released next year.

The Pokémon Global Link is the service used to upload you Black or White save file onto the internet (well, a specially made website anyway). You’ll unlock this option when you evolve Munna into Musharna. It will have 2 options when you use the Global Link.

Once registered to the Global Link, You can battle using the Global Link Terminals in Pokémon Centers. You’ll be able to have a Random Battle against a random opponent, or you can use a Rating Mode. Each time you battle, your stats will be tracked and you’ll be assigned a ranking, which will be used when you chose to battle using Rating Mode, assigning you an opponent of similar ability

The other function of the Global Link is being able to let a Pokémon play in a dream. Reading like an evolved version of the Pokéwalker where you don’t have to walk anywhere with it, the ‘World Of Dreams’ will feature rooms where your Pokémon can play, as well as mini-games to partake in. Your Pokémon can befriend Pokémon in this dream world, and using the Game Sync option, you’ll be able to bring one of those Pokémon you’ve befriended back to the real world with you. You’ll be able to get some Pokémon not normally available in Isshu using this method.

Lastly the bottom left page explains that the Daisuke Club is running some kind of World of Dreams event during August, possibly to explain exactly how the function will work. During this event you can encounter any one of the Eeveelutions in the dream world. Whether you’ll be able to send this Eeveelution to your black and white game when its released (and you’ve unlocked the Global Link) is only speculation at this point.

The page on the right explains the Zorua event again (which was already explained last month) as well as how Zoroark’s Illusion ability works (again, explained last month).

And that’s FINALLY it. We’ll try to bring you some vids from this week’s pokemon Sunday when it airs, which is due to reveal new pokemon (most likely all the ones revealed just here). We’ve got about 2 months before Black and White are released in Japan, so expect more stuff to be leaked in various ways between then and now. We’ll bring you more news as soon as we find out about it

More CoroCoro Info

Several new scans have been released from this month’s CoroCoro magazine revealing a wealth of new features for Black and White. First of all, we’ll cover something we missed in the last batch of scanns. In the first 2 pictures after the jump in our last article, one showed the Black City while the second showed the White Forest. These two areas are version exclusive, although we don’t know which area will appear in which version. They should, however, appear in the same place.

An amendment has been made to 2 Pokémon names. the error occurred due to the placement of the name in one of the scans, but it turns out that Rankurusu is the Green Cell like Pokémon, not the Black Purple Humanoid one, which is Gochiruzeru, we (and everyone else in the Pokémon fan community) apologise for any confusion from this.

Right, onto the next bacth of scans. First of all we have a new move announced, Magic Room. This can be learnt by Rankurusu (the green one, remember), and basically negates all effect by held items (both yours and your opponents).

We know a bit more about 3 on 3 battles. Apparently, placement will play a big part in these battles, making them even more strategic. It looks like who ever is in the front of your party will be in the middle of the battle, and that damage from attacks can be different depending on where the Pokémon is positioned in a battle. You should be able to change the positions of the Pokémon around during a battle (but that’s not confirmed yet)

There’s a big building in the middle of the Isshu region where something called ‘High Link’ will be available. This option seems more like something from the Mystery Dungeon games, allowing you to take missions to help out other players, although exactly how this works is unknown.

Want to know what the DSi exclusive feature is? Well this month’s CoroCoro reveals that an item called a TV Transceiver will allow you to use a function called ‘Live Caster’ – this will use the DSi (and 3DS) camera to do video chat with other users. Over Wi-Fi you’ll only be able to do 2 player, but over local wireless you’ll be able to do up to 4 people in a video chat.

Interestingly, it looks like there will be a 3DS exclusive feature as well, using the 3DS’s internal version of the Tag Mode communication method. Dubbed ‘Passing By’ in Black and White, it will allow you to help other people as you pass by them once you advance on your journey. Exactly how is unknown, and its not 100% confirmed this is using the 3DS version of tag mode (meaning you don’t need the game in the console) or if its the standard version requiring the game to be put into sleep mode which is used in various DS games currently (such as Nintendogs, where it was first introduced).

That’s all we have now, check out the latest batch of CoroCoro scans after the jump (they’re not much to look at unless you read Japanese)

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Latest CoroCoro leaks new Pokémon

The July issue of CoroCoro has just leaked on 2ch.net and as expected it reveals some new Pokémon, including the one featured in a silhouette on Pokémon Sunday mentioned below.

Wooguru - ウォーグル

The first scan shows off Wooguru (ウォーグル), the ‘Valour’ Pokémon. It is a Normal/Flying type weighing 41kg and standing 1.5m tall. Its ability is Keen Eye and can learn a new attack known as Free Fall (フリーフォール). It is a two-turn move that involves picking a Pokémon up, flying up and then dropping it on the next turn.

The scan also reveals the names of two previously known Pokémon.

  Rankurusu [ランクルス] (background) & Gochiruzeru [ゴチルゼル] (foreground)

Rankurusu (ランクルス) in the background & Gochiruzeru (ゴチルゼル) in the foreground

Gochiruzeru (ゴチルゼル) – The green cell like Pokémon from which it partly derives its namesake.

Rankurusu (ランクルス) – The black/purple humanshape Pokémon with a name partly derived from ‘chaos’. It is a psychic type, 1.6m tall and one of its possible abilities is Magic Guard.

Musharna (ムシャーナ) (the Pokémon) & Makomo (マコモ), a friend of Professor Araragi.

Musharna (ムシャーナ) above is revealed as the evolution of Munna which has been previously revealed. It has something to do with Dream Smoke (ゆめのけむり) which may have something to do with the Pokémon GTS but right now not much is known.

Kibago (キバゴ) top, Koromori (コロモリ) middle and Minezumi (ミネズミ) bottom

There are some more scans but they don’t reveal any new Pokémon or ground breaking new info – hit the jump for them.

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More New Pokemon coming soon and a new Japanese Wi-Fi Download on the horrizon

Ok, so we’ve just filled you in on some of the new Pokémon that have been leaked during the past week or so, we’ll there looks like there are even more on the horrizon. Pokémon Sunday this week showed another sillouete in a teaser for next weeks show, saying they have more Black and White footage to reveal. The sillouete does not match any of the Pokémon being leaked so far, so we’re guaranteed to know about 1 new pokemon in the next week. However the way it was worded made it sound like they will reveal even more Pokémon, which means we could get confirmation (along with names and other vital bits of info) on some of the Pokémon posted in the previous post.

We’re also expecting the next issue of CoroCoro magazine soon. While not officially released until next week, the info and some scans are usually leaked a few days earlier and usually contains all the info Pokémon Sunday is due to show, so expect More New Pokémon sometime during this week.

In other news, Japan currently has a Wi-Fi event going on that will allow any Japenese Pokémon DS game to download a Scizor representing the one owned by Goon, a henchman in the new 13th movie Ruller of Illusions: Zoroark. This event finishes on the 14th July, so if you have a Japanese copy of any DS Pokémon game, you might want to get on Wi-Fi quickly to download it. On the 15th July, a new Wi-Fi event will occur on the Japanese games. Representing Satoshi’s main Pokémon (that’s Ash Ketchum to you or me), a Lv 50 Pikachu will be available to download. Holding a Light Ball, it will know the moves Volt Tackle, Iron Tail, Quick Attack and Thunderbolt. It will apparently have the Naughty Nature. The event will be available until August 10th.

That’s all we have now, we’ll bring you more news as soon as we can

Pokémon Black/White merchandise and new Pokémon

Wow news can pop up fast! Right now the latest news comes by way of Pokebeach who managed to snap some pictures of new Pokémon apparently shown in an advert before the first screening of the latest Pokémon movie.

Minezumi

Unnamed Pokémon

It seems like we’ve also got a confirmation for Koromori mentioned in a prior news post by way of a new trailer from Oha Suta. This lends extra credence to the scan and therefore it seems likely that the evolutions for the three new starters it also pictures are probably the real deal.

Koromori from Filb.de

Apparently a user on 2ch (the largest imageboard in Japan) has acquired some merchandise claiming to be new Pokémon too:

Possible new Pokémon

Another Japanese imageboard user has also claimed to have obtained a demo of Pokémon Black/White containing a few new Pokémon. Below is a screenshot supposedly taken from the demo.

Hataboo

As with anything when it comes to new Pokémon take this all with a grain of salt because everyone is scrambling to become the first to report news and in doing so it can be all too easy to accept news from unconfirmed sources.

One thing we can confirm is that there is some Pokémon Black/White themed DS merchandise on the way!

Pokémon Black/White earphones and DS carry cases.

Whether these make it to the west or if they remain solely in Japan we don’t know yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we know. Hit the jump for some more new Pokémon Black/White pictures.

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Featured Card: Uxie (Legends Awakened)

Regular visitors to the forums may or may not have noticed the Card of the Week feature in the TCG section. It has been renamed Featured Card, even though the change hasn’t been reflected in the forums yet. A complaint that I have gotten in the past was because I wasn’t reviewing a card every week, and I sometimes went months between articles. Another change is that it will be published on the front page here from now on instead of on the forums. My past articles will still be there, so check those out if you want to.

Anyway, the featured card this time is Uxie from Legends Awakened. As mentioned in my Claydol article, draw power will be scarce in the next format, and many say that Uxie will be more necessary than before. In this article, I’ll go over what makes Uxie one of the best cards in the game, and why it may see more play next format.

One of the complaints I got was the lack of scans in my articles. Starting today, that will change! This is the League promo version of the card, in case you didn’t know.

Analysis

HP: 70 is pretty good for a non-evolving Basic. It’s 10 out of range of Gengar’s (SF) Shadow Room, but unfortunately can be taken out by Machamp (SF), Garchomp C lv. X, as well as Raikou & Entei Legend in one shot.

Weakness: Psychic is a common Weakness, so be very careful.

Resistance: Nothing to talk about here…

Retreat: One is pretty good for a Basic, so pay it if you have to.

Set Up: Being able to draw up to seven cards can help you set up faster (hence the name of the Poke-Power). The only downsides to this are the fact that it can only be used when you play Uxie from your hand onto your Bench, and if you play against SP decks, Power Spray totally screws up this Poke-Power. There are ways to reuse this Poke-Power, which I’ll explain in the Combos section.

Psychic Restore: Being able to do 20 for one Energy of any type is pretty good. Being able to put Uxie on the bottom of your deck so you can reuse Set Up is even better. This is also one of the only damaging attacks in the current Modified format that can Knock Out a Gengar (Stormfront) without triggering Gengar’s Fainting Spell Poke-Power. Basically you place Uxie on the bottom of your deck, and since Uxie is no longer in play, Fainting Spell doesn’t have a target, therefore rendering it useless.

Combos

PlusPower, Expert Belt: These two cards add damage to attacks, and both have drawbacks. One way around these drawbacks is to attach these cards to Uxie, use Psychic Restore, and send these cards to the bottom of the deck with Uxie, therefore you can reuse these cards later.

Underground Expedition: With this card, you look at the bottom four cards of your deck, choose two to add to your hand and two to return to the bottom of your deck. Assuming that your opponent doesn’t make you shuffle your deck via Judge, you can grab your Psychic Restored Uxie and use it again.

Night Teleporter: Like with Claydol last time, using this and getting heads can get you Uxie, then you play Uxie down and get a fresh hand of seven. If you try this strategy against SP decks, watch out for Power Spray, as that card totally destroys the strategy.

Ratings

Modified (current): With Claydol in the format, Uxie isn’t as necessary in a majority of decks. It can still grab you cards you probably couldn’t have with Claydol otherwise. 7/10

Modified (after September 1st): Uxie will see much more play here, since Claydol will be gone. I expect Uxie to be run in threes in most decks with it’s Level X form as the fourth Uxie allowed. 9/10

Conclusion

Uxie can definitely help out in setting up your stategy. It will become much more useful in September, so if you have a League near you, there’s still a chance that you can get your hands on a set of four before they run out (not to mention that Leagues are a great way to practice with your deck, and maybe get some pointers).

Feel free to leave comments on this article. You can also request a card to be reviewed in this thread.

New Pokémon tentatively announced

A few days ago an image was leaked on a Japanese imageboard purporting to be from a developmental sheet for the Pokémon anime. What is interesting is that this image, while small and blurry, seems to show off 4 new Pokémon including evolutions for two of the starters.

As ‘new Pokémon’ scans always pop up during development of a new Pokémon generation this was not paid much heed until recently when the new girl from the character sheet appeared in silhouette form at the end of the trailer for the new Pokémon anime series, ‘Pocket Monsters Best Wishes’ which was shown after a trailer for the new movie in Japan after this week’s latest Pokémon anime episode.

This isn’t confirmed news by any means but the consistency of the girl lends it credence. Since the sheet is so small it’s hard to clearly see what the names of the new Pokémon are – the best guess given is that the Pokémon to the left of Jesse’s head is  コロモリ (Koromori). With such tiny text it’s really anyone’s guess until more information is revealed and we can say for sure whether this is real or not.

New Pokémon announced

It seems Pokémon Sunday offered more than just a firm Japanese release date but the rest seemed to pass us by unnoticed somehow. We’re here to fix this now because Pokémon Sunday also revealed some other important things: a couple of trailers, one of which reveals some new Pokémon! These videos are courtesy of Filb.de.

The first one shows some meager footage and isn’t especially exciting. The most notable revelation is the Japanese release date.

The second video however is much more exciting as it offers up footage of 8 new Pokémon!

As you can see, as well as new Pokémon the footage also reveals that Pokémon Black/White will have 3 on 3 battles! As for the new Pokémon, information for your dissemination below.

Moguryu (モグリュー) – A mole Pokémon by the look of things.

Doryuuzu (ドリュウズ) – The evolution of Moguryu

Desukan (デスカーン) – What looks to be a sarcophagus Pokémon.

Ononokusu (オノノクス) – A mantis-esque Pokémon. Definitely my favourite of the bunch.

Denchura (デンチュラ) – A tarantula Pokémon.

??? (???) – Then we have 3 new Pokémon we don’t know anything about. These were used to show off the new 3-on-3 battle feature but we didn’t get a look at their names unfortunately. What looks like a ghost type thing, a rock type thing and a…who knows what that thing on the end is supposed to be.

So what do you think of the new Pokémon? Join the discussion in the comments and on our forums!