Events A-Plenty

To celebrate the fact that the greatest Pokémon games are about to be released on western shores, several events have been announced on both sides of the pond.

In addition to getting the Shiny Legendary Dogs Downloadable at gamestop, Nintendo are heading across the USA on thier grand Mall Tour. Kicking off Febuary 5th, The tour features playable demo’s of Black/White, special screenings of Movie 13, Zoroark – Masters of Illusions, Scavanger Hunts and cool Prizes. To see where and when the tour is going across the states click to see the pokemon.com news article here

Also mentioned for the US, Celebi will be distributed via Gamestop Stores. Originally rumoured to be handed out after the shiny beasts during the week of 27th February to 5th March, the actual dates of this event arent yet mentioned. It could be that week, or it could be during the entire of the Mall Tour… or it could even just be in the gamestop stores at the mall when the tour rocks up there. We just dont know.

Meanwhile, over in the UK… Those shiny beasts have been confirmed to be coming to our Wi-Fi… From Febuary 7th, Connecting to Wi-Fi with any European Version of a 4th Gen Game will get you a Shiny beast that will, once transfered to Black/White will allow you to catch a Zoroark. What we dont know is how long the event will last and if we’ll be getting one of the beasts at random or if we’ll have the oppertunity to download all 3. Also unknown is if, like all Wi-fi events of the past year or so, American Versions of the game will also be able to download these beasts as well, despite already had them distributed in Gamestop stores…

Also confirmed, Celebi will be heading to the UK [Finally!] – details on when and where are unknown, but its possible it will be the same as Arceus last year, in which a couple of weekends before the release of the new games, Selected Game stores will have this illusive pokemon to download, along with other pokemon related stuff going on… Reliable plumber in California can be found at onestopplumbers.com/. This will be the first time Celebi has been available in the UK for 10 years, when a small, under publisied tour was done for Gold and Silver… how times have changed.

That’s all we know on all these events – as soon as we have more details – we’ll bring them to you.

Movie 13 News… Now in English!

A couple of weeks ago we brought you news about the 14th Pokémon movie coming out in Japan in 2011. But the movie that came out this year in Japan, the 13th movie, has yet to come across to English speaking countries yet.

We’ll worry no longer (not that you were worrying anyway) – Pokemon.com has announced that the 13th Pokémon movie, titled ‘Zoroark: Master of Illusions’ will be airing on Cartoon Network in Feburary.

To Celebrate its release, The HeartGold/SoulSilver Microsite has announced that Gamestop stores in the USA will be giving away the shiny versions of the Legendary Dogs Raikou, Entei and Suicune. In Japan, these legenday beasts were a Pre-order bonus for movie 13 tickets, and you could chose one of them. However you lucky Americans can get your hands on all three.

Between January 3rd and January 9th, heading to Gamestop will get you the shiny Raikou. Between January 17th and January 23rd, Entei will be available to download instead. Lastly, between January 31st and February 6th you’ll be able to get Suicune. All pokemon are level 30, and transfering any one of them to Black or White (when it’s released) will unlock the battle that will allow you to Capture Zoroark – see how this all connects up?

That’s all we’ve got for now – we’ll bring you more news when we learn it

Movie 14 news!

So the first part of this news I acctually missed, sorry but its been a rottern week for me. Anyway, moving on…

The official Japanese Pokemon website has posted its first details on Pokemon Movie 14 – the next movie out in japanese cinema’s next summer. This will be the first movie tied into the Best Wishes saga, which is based off the Black and White games and is currently airing in Japan.

The next movie is currently titled: Victini and the Dark Hero. A lot of sources are translating it as Black hero, but it seems to use a word that means more in shadow rather than the actual colour, so dark seems more apropriate. As in the past, the title may change closer to the release to reflect the introduction of a Pokemon they’re trying to keep secret at the moment. never was a greater example than this years movie, originally titled Phantom Champion Z when it was announced, it was changed to Phantom Champion Zoroark after Zoroark was revealed. The dark hero could be one of the event legendaries from the new Black and White games, then again, it could also be some evil person – we wont know until next year when we get more details on the movie.

Oha Suta aired a trailer… its currently viewable by those aweomse guys over at Flib.de so head there check out Zekrom and Victini in anime action.

Now here’s the latest bit of news on this subject – In celibration of the movie, a Special Victini will be given away as a downloadable event pokemon in Japan. Said to be different to the one caught in the games, there isnt a lot known right now about the little guy. Traditionally there are 2 event downloads per movie. The first is given to those who pre-order thier movie tickets while the second is for those who go and see the movie in cinemas. We don’t know which this Victini will be, but if an event pokemon is in the next movie and is added to title of the movie, then logicially the Victini download would be the pre-order Pokemon

That’s all we have right now, we’ll bring you more when we know it

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.

Continue reading

CoroCoro Leaked With Black and White Starters

Edit 13 May: confirmed info at bottom of post

Ok, before I start I just want to post something I thought I updated in the last news post on the anime show. Shortly after that post, tv guides from America named the new series of the DP saga as ‘Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: Sinnoh League Victors’ which also indicates it will finish the Sinnoh saga off. That begins airing in the USA on 22nd May on Cartoon Network. Meanwhile, in the UK, Disney XD has began advertising last weekend that they will be showing the 12th Movie, Arceus and the Jewel of Life on Friday 28th May, which is the Friday before the Bank Holiday. Right, with that out of the way, onto the news you’re probably here for.

Leaked scans of this months CoroCoro magazine are now emerging from Japan. They show the new starters for the game, which look a little weird (although I thought that about the 4th gen starters when I saw them first).

As you can see, I guessed the grass and fire starters the wrong way round. The fire starter looks like a rabbit crossed with a pig and the water one looks like abit like a sea otter or beaver (or a combo of the two), while the grass one is a bit lizard like.

Also revealed so far is that the new region will be called Isshu – which is further away than any other region so far (based on America maybe?). There’s artwork of a port city from the region (the same one from the footage from a few weeks ago by the looks of it). There is also artwork of the new trainers, and it says that they are older than the trainers have been in the past.

If you look closely at the wrists of the two new trainers, it looks like they’re wearing the new Poketch/Pokegear/Pokewhatever – also, am i the only one thinking the Female trainer is wearing some Latios inspired shorts?

The starters names have yet to be confirmed, and we won’t post them here until we can confirm them. We are also waiting on other info we expect from this months CoroCoro, such as how Zorua evolves into Zoroark.

We’ll edit this topic with new info and scans when they become available and confirmed to be legit. In the meantime, you can discuss anything about the new info in either the comments here or in This Topic on the forums.

Edit 13th May

We’ve finally got some new scans with some confirmed info. We’ll bring you the scans a little later, for now here’s what we know. The port city shown in the scan above is called Hiun City, there’s a massive 2 page artwork in CoroCoro on the city as well, which we’ve got below (sorry if they dont display side by side, this blog doesnt let me do that often for some reason).

The starters are have names and are: Tsutaaja, The Grass Snake Pokemon; Pokabu, The Fire Pig Pokemon and Mijumaru, the Sea Otter Pokemon. They will have the same abilities all other starters have had (Overgrow, Blaze and Torrent). Tsutaaja is listed as it is 0.6 m tall (2 ft) and it weighs 8.1 kg (about 17.9 lbs). Pokabu’s stats are 0.6 m tall (2 ft) while it weighs 9.9 kg (about 21.9 lbs). Mijumaru is 0.5 m tall (1.6 ft) and it weighs 5.9 kg (13 lbs). Interesting Side Note, Assuming that the starters and thier evolutions will be the next 9 Pokemon in the national dex after Arceus, Mijumaru will be number 500 in the national dex.

More details on Zoroark has also been revealed in the scans. Zoroark is catchable by an event unlocked with the shiny dogs given away for the 13th movie pre-order (although its unknown if just one is needed or all 3). It will be level 25. As you fight it, its New abilitiy kicks in. Called Illusion, it lets it apear as other Pokemon (how it works in battle and how it differs from the move Transform are unknown at this point). Only when Zoroark apears as itself will it be catchable. It’s unkown if it will be obtainable in any other way yet. Zoroark also has 2 new moves, Trickery, which the amount of damage given to the opponent depends on the opponents stats and Claw Sharpen, which will raise both attack and accuracy, a deadly combination. Zorua is also known to have the Illusion ability.

Here’s the rest of the scans, starting with Hiun City, then a page with some shots of Zoroark using his transform ability to change into an Entai, and then the 3 Profiles of the new starters

Dont forget, you can discuss your thoughts, ideas or theories on this news or anything to do with the new games either in the comments or in This Topic on the forums. We’ll bring you more news when we know it, or edit this if any more infor from CoroCoro is made known

Celebi Movie Download Confirmed

It’s good news for those in Japan and semi good news for the rest of us. Leaked info from this months CoroCoro magazine reveals that Pokémon fans heading to see Ruler of Illusions Zoroark will be able to download a special Celebi to their carts.

One of the rarer and harder to obtain legendary Pokémon, especially in the UK, Celebi will come in the standard Cherish Ball and have Nasty Plot, Leaf Storm, Recover and Healing Wish as it’s move set.
The Celebi, which is holding a Jaboca Berry, will unlock a special event in HeartGold and SoulSilver which involves you travelling through time into the past, learning more about you rival and Team Rocket and a battle with former Team Rocket boss Giovanni upon your return to the present.

Also revealed in CoroCoro were some more details on the Pre-order Download of the Shiny Legendary Dogs. By Pre-ordering your tickets to the 13th movie, you will be able to download one of these shiny dogs from Pokémon Centers across Japan. Previously we learnt about one of the moves each Dog would know, now two more have been added to each list.

Entei will now know Howl and Crush Claw along with the previously known Flare Blitz
Suicune will have Air Slash and Aqua Ring alongside Sheer Cold
and along with knowing Zap Cannon, Raikou will have Aura Sphere and Weather Ball.
The dogs will be holding a Custap berry, a Rowap Berry and a Micle Berry respectivly.

The Shiny Dogs will be available for download between June 18th and August 31st, while Celebi will be available to download from theatres from the movies release on July 10th until September 30th. Hopefully, either later this year or early next year, the Celebi will make its way into an event in the west, even better would be if the Legendary Dogs were to make it over here as well.

That’s all we have for now, we’ll bring you more news when we learn about it

Ruler of Illusions: Zoroark theme song announced

Japanese website Oricon Style has recently announced details regarding the theme song for the 13th Pokémon movie, Ruler of Illusions: Zoroark, starring so far the only known Pokémon from the 5th generation.

Ruler of Illusions Zoroark movie poster

Ruler of Illusions Zoroark movie poster

The theme song is called “Ice Cream Syndrome” and will be performed by Sukima Switch , a jazz fusion duo. The song has been described as  a “medium-tempo love song” and it has been said the lyrics are supposed to express sad feelings.

Sukima Switch

Japanese duo Sukima Switch

We’ll let you know more as it develops.

Only 5 more till we know about 500 Pokémon

First, don’t forget that if you live in the UK and are interested in being in a Pokémon TV Advert, check out the post below this one.

Ok, so this is what happens every month. Scans from CoroCoro magazine, which isn’t officially released until this weekend, have surfaced on some Japanese image boards (which is how we learn and get a hold of them)

As predicted, they have revealed all about our mystery silhouetted Pokémon, and a whole lot more as well. They’ve not only show its picture, but given its name, type, height, weight, species… AND it’s pre-evolved form as well.

The Pokémon on the left is from the shadow, called Zoroark it’s described as the ‘Monster Fox Pokémon’. It’s 1.6m tall (about 5’ 2”), and weighs 81.1kgs (about 179lbs). The Pre-Evo, Zorua, is on the right, it’s an ‘Evil Fox Pokémon’ and is only 0.7m tall (about 2’ 3”) and 12.5kgs (about 28lbs) in weight. Both are Dark Types (Zorua will most likely be pure Dark Type, Zoroark may become Dark & Something else, but for now, we just know it’s a Dark Type)

Zoroark (and possibly its pre-evo form), will feature in the 13th Pokémon movie, which has now been re-titled Phantom Champion Zoroark (or Ruler of Illusions Zoroark, which ever translation you want to go with… probably doesn’t matter as it will get changed when it finally comes out in English anyway). The movie is scheduled for release on July 10th in Japan.

In Other CoroCoro revealing news, the magazine brings more details about the new Ranger Game, Tracks of Light, due for release in Japan on March 6th. Between the games release and May 17th, there will be 2 Special Missions available, One involving a Deoxys (which apparently can only be played in multiplayer), the mission sees you chasing a Deoxys who changes forms, the Form you catch is the one that you can send across to HG/SS. CoroCoro reveals this month that if you catch the Attack form, it will know Meteor Mash, while it will know Detect if you get the defence form. The second mission running from March 6th will be a Manaphy Egg Mission, similar to those featured in the last 2 ranger games.

From March 18th until May 17th another 2 Special Missions will be available. One sees you out to catch a Shaymin Sky Frome, while the other sees you after a Heatran. The Heatran will know Eruption when it gets onto a HG or SS Cart.

The only other Ranger news CoroCoro revealed was a new character called Banema, who will help customise your capture styler and help you learn new Ranger Signs. If you missed one of our earlier news articles about it, Ranger Signs are special shapes you make with the styler that will allow you to call certain Pokémon to you. Amongst others, you’ll be able to call the legendary dogs, which are needed to overcome certain obstacles.

That’s all we have for now, We’ll leave you with the other couple of pages from CoroCoro showing the new Pokémon, and you can drop by the new Gen 5 topic on the forums to talk about it HERE… we’ll bring you more info when its released

The Path to Generation 5 Begins

Could this be Pokemon Z?

Well there he is. Junichi Masuda was on this weeks Pokémon Sunday in japan, ‘revealing’ a brand new, Generation 5 Pokémon. Ok, so all he showed was a sillouete and this Pokémon was key to the 13th movie, which translates as either Phantom Champion Z or Ruler of Illusions Z. Could the sillouete be of Z itself, only time will tell.

And it wont be much time either, Pokémon Sunday is set to reveal all about it in 2 weeks time (21st Feb) while the new issue of Coro Coro is out next week (15th), so we might get more details about it in the coming days. It also looks likely that the new Game Series being released later this year, which were announced a couple of weeks ago at Nintendo’s Investers/Quaterly Earnings meeting, will be the Generation 5 Games (although they could have given us a bit more time to enjoy Heart Gold/Soul Silver don’t you think).

We’ll bring you more when we learn about it… and I get the feeling there will be a lot to learn in the next 12 months

Not so Quiet on the Eastern Front

It’s been a bit quiet recently in regards to pokemon news. Not a lot has been going on… at least until now.

First out of the block is news that the Next Pokémon Movie has been anounced. The 13th Pokémon movie will still be apart of the Diamond and Pearl set (although is a seperate entry from the previous 3 movies that were linked together) and will be called Phantom Champion Z. The movie will focus on Jhoto Legendary pokemon, including the 3 legendary dogs and Celebi. The movie is scheduled for release in Japan in July 2010.

The second piece of news is a possible  release date for Heart Gold and Soul Silver for America. Amazon has updated its pages for the two items with both the box art for the games (which includes the Pokéwalker) and a release date of March 14th 2010 (which is a saturday, matching the release of the previous couple of games). While Amazon on its own is not the most reliable source for release dates, this could mean that the announcment for the release could be soon. If the date IS accuralte, it ALSO matches the prediction I made earlier this year right here – now all I need is to be right for the European Release and I rock.

Don’t forget to vote in the new website poll on the right. Is the Most Christmas like Pokémon the presant delivering Delibird, the raindeer like Stantler, The Christmas Tree imitator Snover or Pikachu in a santa hate – its completly up to you to decide. Also drop by the forums and tell us what you’d like us to work on around the site over the festive season in this thread – Take part in the Forum Competition (which this month is a caption competition), look out for a new forum based roleplay starting up soon and of course generally post and talk around the forums.

We’ll leave you with a reminder that the speed gamers start their attempt at catching all 493 Pokémon from scratch in 3 days this Friday 18th December at 6pm CST. The marathon aims to raise money for Ally’s House, a charity who helps Children suffering from cancer.