Pokémon Company Starts Celebrating 20 Years of Pokémon

The Pokémon Company is now in full gear to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pokémon. Nintendo has recently announced bundles of the 3DS family of systems decked out with Pokémon goodness. North America is getting the smaller New Nintendo 3DS with preinstalled copies of Pokémon Red and Blue Versions alongside Charizard and Blastoise faceplates, Japan is getting Red, Blue, Green and Yellow translucent Nintendo 2DS’ with that color version bundled, while Europe gets new 3DS faceplates as well as the same 2DS bundles, sans the unreleased green one. In addition, American fans will be swimming in mythical Pokémon, as they will be getting distributions of all the mythical Pokémon from generations 1-5. Here’s the schedule: Mew: February 1 - 24, 2016 at GameStop Celebi: March 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Jirachi: April 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Darkrai: May 1 - 24, 2016 at GameStop Manaphy: June 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Shaymin: July 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Arceus: August 1 - 24, 2016 at GameStop Victini: September 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Keldeo: October 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Genesect: November 1 - 24, 2016 at GameStop Meloetta: December 1 - 24, 2016 at Nintendo Network Pokkén Tournament isn’t left out in the fun, as several new characters have been announced: Mewtwo, Braixen, Garchomp and Chandelure. Sylveon, Croagunk, Magikarp and Pachirisu have been announced as support Pokémon as well. In addition, Pokkén Tournament announced that the game can support a LAN connection with two Wii U consoles for multiplayer, or two on the same system via the GamePad and its screen for one and a Pro Controller (or the new wired Pokkén controller) with the TV for the other. Nintendo also recently announced that the Wii U version is out on March 18th. A New Pokémon Center will open in Nintendo’s hometown of Kyoto, a new TCG expansion called Generations launches soon, and the Pokémon anime and next movie will be based on Pokémon Z, which focuses on Zygarde’s new forms and Valcanion. Though no Pokémon Z game has been announced as of yet. There are bound to be a lot more in store for the 20th anniversary of the legendary game franchise, so stay tuned!