Pokémon Features
Feature What Pokémon Could Learn From Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom
Ekans of Wisdom
In my first few hours playing Echoes of Wisdom, every new enemy I stumbled across gave me a familiar thrill: Ooh, I haven’t seen that one yet! I can’t wait to have its power! I’d flick through my Echoes, discerning the best one to fight the newbie. A Spark defeated a Hydrozol, a team of Ignizols set a Mothula on fire. And when...
Feature A Trip To Machida, The Real-Life 'Pallet Town' That Inspired Pokémon
Pokén around
The first generation of Pokémon games features some of the most iconic locations in the entire franchise. The eerie Lavender Town, the winding Viridian Forest, and the quaint Pallet Town where all players start their journey. Pallet Town isn’t just a fanciful creation, but draws real-life inspiration from Pokémon creator Satoshi...
Talking Point Just How Damaging Is This Big Pokémon Leak?
Typhlosion of interest
As the dust settles and details emerge following the latest round of internal video game company material finding its way onto the World Wide Web, it's a stark reminder that those monolithic companies we follow are made up of regular, ordinary people. Talented, yes — and erm, imaginative, to say the least — but still just...
Poll Box Art Brawl: Pokémon Colosseum
Are you not entertained?
Are you sitting comfortably? Ready to judge some classic covers? It's time to dive into another edition of Box Art Brawl! Last time, we matched up three different designs for Super R-Type. Despite a good variety between each, it was the North American variant that walked away with the win, taking 49% of the vote and leaving...
Soapbox The Next Pokémon Game Should Rework Old Critters, Not Just Add Dozens More
Gotta not forget 'em all
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Lowell considers how future Pokémon games could do justice to old Pocket Monsters who got lumped in with the also-rans... We’re still a little far out from Pokémon...
Round Up Pokémon World Championships 2024 - Is The Competitive Event At A Turning Point?
Pokémon came home
It has been 20 years since the first Pokémon World Championships took place in Orlando and in what may be a move to celebrate, the Pokémon World Championships returned to a place where it has frequently been held: Hawai’i. However, this time rather than being on the big island, it went to the island of O’ahu and the city of...
Feature Here’s How Trading Card Companies Could Stop CT Scanning In The Future
"They really want to fix it"
Collecting trading cards, especially vintage cards, has gotten considerably dicier — seemingly overnight. Over the past month, multiple people have come forward to demonstrate how various X-ray technologies can reliably see inside unopened trading card products. The concept of X-raying packs has been rumored for as...
Feature The Company You Can Pay To X-Ray Unopened Pokémon Card Packs Speaks Out
"The technology is not going away, and people know what it can do"
The entirety of the trading card community — that is, people who collect, buy, and sell the Pokémon Trading Card game, sports cards, Magic: The Gathering, Disney, or literally any trading card game you can think of — has gradually become aware of what might be an existential...
Feature Evolving With Pokémon: How The Games Helped Me Navigate A Confused Childhood
This coping mechanism was super effective!
The Game Boy turns 35 years old on 21st April 2024, and we'll be running several features over the next few days celebrating the system and its games. Today, Tim thinks back on how Pocket Monsters came to his aid in his formative years, and how the series that started on Nintendo's iconic portable would...
Feature What's It Like To Attend The Pokémon European International Championships?
What a Blast(oise)
The 2024 Pokémon European International Championships have been and gone, but what a weekend it was for the yearly event! Thousands of competitors and spectators alike descended on London's ExCeL arena for three days of competition, meet-ups and (of course) shopping. Now taking up multiple halls in the capital's convention...
Soapbox The Pokémon European International Championships Made Me Fall In Love With TCG
I choose you!
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim lays his cards on the table after visiting the Pokémon European International Championships... Head into my brain. Take a left at 'Obscure Zelda Knowledge,' go past the door...
Gallery Here's A Closer Look At The Pokémon European Championship 2024 Exclusive Merch
Please don't catch 'em all
The Pokémon European International Championships 2024 have kicked off today in London and, as expected, one of the event's most popular attractions is the pop-up Pokémon Center and the sweet exclusive merch held within. We at Nintendo Life were lucky enough to pop into the store this morning before things got too busy...
Talking Point Should 'Third' Pokémon Games Make A Comeback?
Crystal clear
If you can believe it (and, to be honest, we can't) it has been a whopping 15 years since Pokémon Platinum first arrived on Western shores. It has been a decade and a half since we first met Giratina and co. A decade and a half since we stepped foot in the Distortion World. And, most importantly perhaps, a decade and a half since we...
Talking Point Pokémon Presents Predictions - What Are You Expecting?
'mon Dieu
Following hot on the heels of the February 2024 Nintendo Direct, the inevitable announcement of a Pokémon Presents broadcast to coincide with Pokémon Day on 27th February came along. It's traditional to have a broadcast on this date — the anniversary of the first Pokémon games' Japanese debut way back in 1996 — and it's been a busy...
Round Table Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'
Lament of the Pal gamer
Less than a week out from its launch in Early Access on Steam and Xbox, Palworld has proved itself to be a massive commercial success for developer Pocketpair and has dominated gaming discourse online since the weekend. Switch gamers can't access it on Nintendo's console, of course, but with its aesthetic parallels to...
Soapbox Game Freak Could Actually Learn A Thing Or Two From Palworld
No, Pikachu doesn’t need an assault rifle
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Lowell locks and loads up the Pokémon-inspired game that's been the talk of the town since it launched on Steam and Xbox Game Pass last week... You...
Soapbox 15 Years Ago, The Action Replay Ruined Pokémon For Me
Infinite Master Balls. Maxed out stats. Walking through walls.
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Ethan remembers a time when he flew too close to the sun... This is the power fantasy eight-year-old me dreamed of when I slotted an...
Soapbox Kieran’s Hatred Of You In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's DLC Almost Makes It Good
Fumbled PokéBalls
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Lowell laments the Scarvi DLC, but finds a diamond in its rough. The following article contains story spoilers for The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk... Pokémon stories suck...
Guide Best Pokémon-Likes On Nintendo Switch - Games To Play After You've Finished Pokémon
The Mimikyus of video games
Updated with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. Enjoy! When they said "Pokémon! Gotta catch 'em all", we all assumed that they meant catching all the pocket monsters. But actually, what they were talking about was catching all the Pokémon and Pokémon-like games out there — of which there are many. And now, at...
Soapbox 20 Years On, It's About Time These Pokémon Games Got Switch Remasters
Gotta snag em’ all
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, ahead of its 20th anniversary on 21st November, Nathanial looks back on a Pokémon region that's been pretty much ignored for two decades... A common mislabelling seen online...
Soapbox Lavender Town Isn’t Pokémon’s Scariest Location, It’s Someplace Far More Sinister
Trainers beware, you’re in for a scare
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Ethan chateaus himself in the creepiest place in the Pokémon world... Ah, Lavender Town — the place where the journeys of old Pokémon end and the...
Feature The 13 Spookiest Pokémon, Ranked
Spookémon
At one end of the Pokémon character design spectrum, you have some of the cutest little guys to have ever graced our screens. On the other, you have pure, unapologetic nightmare fuel. As we approach Halloween, it seems only fitting that we take a look at the latter, right? Okay, perhaps delving into the complete horrors of the Pokédex...
Soapbox Pokémon X & Y - The Series' Greatest Paradoxes
You can’t be groundbreaking without leaving a few cracks
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Andy looks back at a pivotal juncture in the Pocket Monster series which hinted at the path it would take over the following decade...
Soapbox An Ode To A Lost Pokémon TCG Deck, And My Quest To Recreate It
TCGee, I don't know
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Mahin laments the loss of a treasured deck, and recounts his quest to build it anew. For real, this time... There was once a time I was doing moderately alright at the Pokémon...
Round Up Pokémon World Championships 2023 - The Best And Most Controversial Yet?
Pokémon came home
After the Pokémon World Championships made its long-awaited return in London last year, it was announced that the 2023 Championships would be taking place at the Pacifico Yokohama in Japan. This would be only the second time the tournament has been held outside of North America, making this truly a monumental announcement —...
Soapbox Pokémon Scarlet & Violet DLC Is A Chance To Win Back Disenchanted Fans
Mask off
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Ahead of tomorrow's Pokémon Presents, Alana is hoping that The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero is a real treasure for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s DLC, The...
Feature How Summer Holidays And Childhood Nostalgia Revolutionised Pokémon
20 years of Ruby & Sapphire
In 2003, Pokémon was at a bit of a crossroads. The first two sets of entries in its canon — Game Boy debuts Red and Blue, followed by sequels Gold and Silver — had cemented the series as one of the biggest of all time in gaming, defining millennial pop culture. With the arrival of Nintendo’s new handheld, the Game...
Soapbox Catching Legendary Pokémon The Old-Fashioned Way Was So Much Better
Mewsings
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Kevin remembers a time when getting your hands on a legendary involved going on a real-life journey... The '90s were a fun time, weren’t they? AOL was brand new, The Simpsons was still...
Hands On Pokémon Sleep (Open Beta) - An Absolute Snoozefest
Pokémon Let’s Go (to bed)
Pokémon Sleep was finally released in select regions earlier this week as an open beta for Android devices. After being the butt of all jokes when it was originally announced and then experiencing a series of delays, it now officially “launches soon” according to The Pokémon Company. Developed by Select Button...
Soapbox The Shame Of Revisiting My Abandoned Pokémon Ranch
See you, PokéCowboy
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, on the 15th anniversary of the game's release, Ethan heads back to the ranch... It’s a guilty feeling that Animal Crossing fans know all too well — the shame that comes...
Soapbox Pokémon Desperately Needs A Rival, But Who's Big Enough To Take It On?
Time to steal some of Pikachu's pie
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Lowell considers how Pokémon could do with a rival to keep it hungry, and who might be able to step up... When Pokémon Sword and Shield brought Pikachu and...
Feature Pokémon TCG Community Engulfed In Potential Fraud Scandal
Conflicting details have been shared online
The Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) community is knee-deep in the biggest scandal it has ever known. Over the weekend, a picture was posted on the subreddit r/PokemonTCG by user GuavaWave, along with the caption, “Saw this on a (Facebook) group.” The image depicts what appears to be an unruly amount...
Talking Point Which Pokémon-Themed Nintendo Console Has The Best Design?
The very best...
Back in January, we ran down every Zelda-themed Nintendo console out there in an attempt to find which one you lovely lot thought was the best. There were a lot of these Hylian designs, with the series clearly standing as one of Nintendo's most popular choices in the special edition design room, but these are dwarfed in number by...
Feature 5 Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Quality Of Life Updates We Still Want To See
Before the DLC, please
The 1.2.0 update to Pokémon Scarlet & Violet brought a lot of nice little additions and improvements to Paldea. A handful of bug fixes — such as accurate reflection of damage done in Tera Raid battles and some quality of life updates for the in-game Pokémon PC boxes — certainly go a long way into taking the
Back Page Forget Pokémon Sleep, Here's 7 More Pokémon Lifestyle Apps We Definitely Need
APPlin
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have pages on the internet, but we still love terrible jokes — so welcome to our...
Talking Point What Will Be Announced On Pokémon Day 2023?
Who's that reveal?
27th February is fast approaching, and you know what that means? Pokémon Day is almost here! Every single year since 2016, which happened to be the franchise's 20th anniversary, The Pokémon Company has shared a number of announcements on this day to celebrate Pokémon, usually in the form of a Nintendo Direct-style Pokémon...
Talking Point Do We Need Another Pokémon Mystery Dungeon On Switch?
Putting the "fun" in d(f)ungeon
I've been thinking a lot about Pokémon Mystery Dungeon recently. Maybe it's the list of spin-offs I recently wrote up, which reminded me just how many excellent/terrible Pokémon spin-offs exist out there, or maybe it's the fact that when I was writing my answer to the question "What Pokémon game should be the next...
Talking Point Where Should The Next Pokémon Legends Game Take Place?
And who should be the 'legend'?
It's hard to believe it, but Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a year old today. This Pokémon game took us back to the distant past and completely shook up the formula of what we all expected from a mainline Pokémon entry. And, quite frankly, we want more of what it gave us. Legends: Arceus sees you get thrown back in...
Soapbox All Fish Pokémon Are Bad, And There's A Good Reason Why
Go (away) fish
I'll start this with a confusing admission: My favourite thing in the world is a trip to an aquarium. I could spend days gazing through the curved glass of a tank, watching sharks glide past me, pressing my hand against the smooth, white underbelly of a stingray, and taking note of the clownfish darting in and out of the swaying mass...
Feature The Best Pokémon Glow Ups In Pokémon Scarlet And Violet
It's time for a makeover!
Every new generation of Pokémon offers new stories, makeovers, and evolutions to some of the more overlooked 'mons in the 'dex, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is no different. Although we've only got a handful of regional variations in Paldea, that doesn't mean that ScarVi hasn't revitalised and re-imagined some of the...
Feature 30 More Things You Might Have Missed In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
Easter Eggs, secrets, and tips!
Remember our feature that highlighted 30 Things You Might Have Missed In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet? Well, we've already found 30 more things, from neat Easter Eggs to things that make battling a whole lot easier. Let's dive in — how many do you already know? More Things You Didn't Know About Pokémon Scarlet...
Feature The Best Pokédex Pictures In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
How many references can you spot?
One of our favourite new features in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has to be the new Pokédex. Instead of being a dry encyclopaedic list of Pokémon you've seen and caught, ScarVi takes the boring old 'Dex formula and throws it out of the window in favour of a stylish bookcase of Pokémon. And it's gorgeous. We began...
Soapbox Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Is The Most Friction-Free Pokémon Yet
We can go where we want to
I often tell people that I am not a Pokémon fan. I say this while sitting in a Pikachu-branded chair, with my handmade Snom figurine hanging out on my desk next to my my off-brand plastic Swinub figurine, having played 90% of the available Pokémon games out there (I didn't bother with Black and White 2 and I didn't like...
Feature 14 Things That Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Get Absolutely Right
It's not all jank and bugs!
Let's get this out of the way: The technical state of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is pretty shocking. It's buggy, it's broken, and sure, it makes for very funny glitch videos, but for what a full-price Nintendo Switch game costs these days, it should have launched in a much better state. But we've already written...
Feature 30 Changes We'd Like To See In The Next Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Update
Customisation, better settings, and little hats for Koraidon
Let's start this off with a big old disclaimer: We are not game developers. We are not good at programming. We don't really know why Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were broken and buggy on release. And also, we definitely don't just want to join the pile-on of hate aimed at Game Freak right...
Talking Point What's The Best New Pokémon Design In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet?
Gotta judge 'em all
There are 107 new Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet, including all new evolutions, forms, and legendaries — and we're here today to pick the very best of them. Our writers (the ones playing Pokémon, anyway) have sat down to decide their favourite Pokémon designs out of those 107 — and even though our picks are sometimes...
Feature Poké Ball Onigiri: A Review - Which Poké Ball Tastes Best?
Made with real Pokémon!*
Pokémon – both the games and the anime – have always featured food prominently. Moomoo milk, sodapops, slowpoke tails, and more recently curry mixes and sandwiches – there’s no end to the edible and drinkable in the Pokéworld. We’ve even covered Pokéfood before on Nintendo Life, both reviewing Japan-exclusive...
Feature 30 Things You Might Have Missed In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
Go to school, make some eggs, and take off that hat
Alright, so you've got Pokémon Scarlet and/or Violet, and you're making your way through Paldea. But this game can be a little hands-off when it comes to tutorials. In one way, that's great — you get to discover things for yourself — but it can also leave you feeling a little bit lost. Fear...
Soapbox How To Improve Pokémon Scarlet And Violet's Open World
We have some ideas
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, our video host Alex Olney has some ideas on how to make Pokémon Scarlet and Violet better... The Pokémon series is slowly, painfully evolving its games into open-world...
Poll What Review Score Would You Give Pokémon Scarlet And Violet?
Colour us intrigued
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are out now and fans have had a lot to say about the new generation of Pokémon. We've all now had a weekend to get acquainted with the world of Paldea and its inhabitants, and we've already seen a whole bunch of hot takes around the internet, ranging from folks professing this to be the greatest new...
