It was announced that a special stream will be held on August 26th called at 10 pm JST (here is a link to a time website to figure out when it'll be streaming at your time) called "Monthly Famitsu feat. Pokemon Special" on NicoNico. On they'll be announcing a new project and that it'll be a surprising announcement. They announced several guests including Tsunekazu Ishihara (President of The Pokemon Company) and Aoi Yuuki (Iris's Japanese voice actor), with there's two other special guests to be announced.


(Oooh, mysterious!)

And now it's time to play everyone's favorite game: What do you think it is? As you see I set up a pole with some of the options which my brain could think of, though being its suppose to surprise us I'm probably wrong on all accounts:

1. A new main series game!
The less likely of the options, I mean when XY was announced at Black 2 & White 2 was released and right now we're waiting for Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire. UNLESS they're going to stun us with an announcement that they're going to make this the first 3 version game and announce an Emerald remake! "Wouldn't that sort of make Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire superfluous?" you ask. Not neccisarily if they completely redo the story. I think by now the Pokemon Company has shown that they're not afraid to change things in the Gen III games, look at Team Magma and Aqua if you want examples. So what better way to surprise us all if they released a Delta Emerald (which was trademarked) which featured Primal Rayquaza as the main focus of the story and a new villainous team who wants to take control of Rayquaza and bring everyone up into the skies... Okay, maybe not, I mean splitting your costs between 3 versions would be a but too much when you'll probably make more money with the 2 versions. Of course, that doesn't stop this announcement for being the 3rd version of XY, Pokemon Z! Or maybe XZ and YZ!

(Zygarde has 2 hidden moves, Thousand Arrows & Thousand Waves, which are copies of Land's Wrath except with additional effects)

2. A game for the Wii U!
It's no secret that there was a teaser of a Pokemon game which was a still shot of a Lucario and Blaziken fighting in a street of a city. In addition, Pokemon had trademarked the names "Pokken Fighter" and "Pokken Tournament", "Pokken" being derived from "Pokemon" and "Tekken" (which means "Iron Fist" in Japan). Tekken is more well known for being a series of fighting games, and the teased image does sort of look like a setup for a fighter. Its been a while since we heard any news of it, so it could be possible they're now fully ready to reveal it.
However it doesn't need to be the only possibility for a Wii U game. Pokemon had a long history of having a game on the console, though mostly a peripheral to the main series games. First we have the "Stadium" games which are basically just battling tournaments with special rules. The last one was Battle Revolutions which sadly got mixed to negative reviews. In addition one of the biggest draws to the Stadium games was seeing the Pokemon in 3D... which now the main series game does.
But the reason why Battle Revolutions got such a low review was because of the Pokemon console game before it: the Colosseum games. These games may not ave had as many battle modes to them like the Stadium games, but instead it had a story! Infact, the second Colosseum game ended on a sort of cliffhanger with one of the main antagonists escaping and vowing to return! Of course that has not happened yet, though maybe this surprise will be that third Colosseum game a lot of people want! After all, now that the main games are 3D, they'll need something more to get people to buy them.

(If you need any more proof of this possibly being a tournament fighter, I point you to the upper right corner which features the TCG's symbol for Fighting-types in a circle with laurel crown either side of it and a regal crown over it. Looks like a tournament fighter logo to me!)

(I'll finish the rest of my thoughts in the next post!)

3. Another crossover game!
Pokemon is one of the series that mostly kept to itself aside from Super Smash Bros., but that changed when Pokemon did a crossover with Nobunaga's Ambition in 2012. It was an odd combination, but it was a good game. However since then Pokemon went back to being by itself aside from Super Smash Bros.. We're told that the new project would surprise us, so what's more surprising then a new crossover? Could it be Pokemon Conquest 2 (Pokemon Conquest being the English name for Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition)? Could maybe the Pokken game actually be a Pokemon and Tekken crossover? Could it be that Pokemon vs. Digimon crossover everyone has been waiting for? Who knows, and that's even if it is a crossover which is a pretty big IF.

(Maybe if it is Pokemon Conquest 2 they'll give us that Shiny Rayquaza Event...)

4. A new anime, possibly like Origins!
An even bigger if. Pokemon Origins was secretly an advertisement for Pokemon XY as the 4th episode revealed Mega Charizard X. In addition Pokemon already had a long running anime series and its doubtful it'll be ending any time soon so having another anime series in addition to it (no matter how many people would like the current anime to end) is doubtful. However that doesn't mean they can't do another thing like Pokemon Origins. It was a pretty successful experiment and people liked it, so maybe another mini series isn't out of the question. being Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire is coming out soon they could do another mini series based on the original Ruby & Sapphire story with the last episode featuring something that'll be in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire (like another Mega Evolution, though it'll have to be for something important like maybe have the last episode being May/Brendan catching Rayquaza and it Mega Evolves. Or maybe one of the event Legendaries like Jirachi or Deoxys).

(Of course if they do a Gen III they'd then have to find a way to do a Gen II)

5. Something to do with the manga!
A notable thing about the stream's title that is says "Pokemon Special". Now this could be just saying it's a special stream about Pokemon, but "Pokemon Special" is also the title of the longest running manga based on the Pokemon games (known in the U.S. as "Pokemon Adventures"). I don't possibly know what that could be, but I do know fans of the manga would rather have an anime of it so maybe they can combine idea 4 and 5 and do a Pokemon Special/Adventures mini-series. In addition recently it was reported that Japanese manga publisher "Shogakukan" (mostly known for being the publisher of Corocoro) had opened a new studio in Singapore and had picked up translating the Pokemon Manga after the previous company that was translating it went out of business. So if this new project is about the Pokemon Special manga it could be Shogakukan trying to alert everyone they're translating the manga.

(This is the recent one they put out. Yes, it is for Heart Gold & Soul Silver. The manga's schedule is a bit weird to say the least)

So, we have about a week before the stream, what do you think the new project is?

And the announcement was...

POKKEN TOURNAMENT!

As I guessed in one of my predicitons, the Pokemon announcement was Pokken Tournament. Actually, it was sort of TWO of my predictions as it was revealed the game is being made by the team who makes Tekken, though it's not clear whether we'll see any Tekken characters in the game. As many have guessed, Pokken Tournament is pretty much a Tekken fighter with Pokemon doing the fighting. They only had a short trailer showing off Lucario and Machamp, with the ending also showing Mega Lucario is in the game too (and Blaziken was seen in the sneak peek pic). It's notable that all these Pokemon are Fighting-types, which brings up the question will the game be exclusively filled with Fighting-type Pokemon or will other types be in there as well? Also I think we can throw out there being any type match-ups otherwise I don't think Lucario would last that long being its weak to Fighting-types.




(Watch the trailer here)

However I do have a bit of bad news: as of right now it's arcade exclusive in Japan. Yes, ARCADE exclusive. While arcades have dwindled in the United States, they're still big in Japan. Pokemon even has a current arcade game series: Pokemon Tretta. Now I'm not saying I'm surprised they're releasing it in arcades, fighters have been a long time staple of arcades, what I'm surprised at is that it's EXCLUSIVE to arcades. I mean for Pokemon Tretta that made sense at the time since it was made with a special type of control board in mind (though I wouldn't be surprised if the could be able to port it over to the Wii U), but fighters don't have that excuse. Well, maybe one excuse, apparently all major Tekken games have been released in arcades before being ported to game consoles, so there is a precedence on the Tekken side of things. However, considering how hard the Wii U is hurting to sell units, and I have no doubt that a Pokemon/Tekken fighting game would be a hot seller, you'd think Nintendo would want to port Pokken Tournament over to the Wii U as fast as possible. Though being there's an English trailer and in the stream it was said it would be released in arcades first (thus hinting at a later console release), I'm sure a console port is being planned as we speak, if not done already.

And that's pretty much all I have to say. Just for fun, assuming this game will only be filled with Fighting-types (specifically bipedal, fully evolved fighting-types), here's a list of possible fighters in the game (excluding Lucario, Blaziken, and Machamp are they're confirmed):

Primeape
Hitmonlee
Hitmonchan
Hitmontop
Hariyama
Conkeldurr
Throh
Sawk
Mienshao
Medicham
Pangoro
Hawlucha
Poliwrath
Heracross
Breloom
Infernape
Toxicroak
Gallade
Emboar
Scrafty
Chesnaught

It's been confirmed that the game isn't only restricted to Fighting-types! I would still say it'll probably still contain mostly bipedal Pokemon though, though now there's also a possibility of them adding in a type chart.