News
1 CommentPokémon Sun and Moon concept art shows their weirdest Pokémon are also the series’ creepiest
Pokémon Sun and Moon introduced a bunch of new monsters that are, for lack of better word, disturbing. But a new book containing concept art suggests that the most bizarre, unnerving Pokémon of all are the ones who may not really count as Pokémon at all.
The Ultra Beasts are a collection of monsters who occupy a pretty weird space in the Pokémon universe. They can’t be caught through normal means, and unlike other legendaries, not all of the Ultra Beasts are one-of-a-kind rarities. They play a big part in Sun and Moon’s story, too, in ways which we won’t spoil — but suffice it to say, the Ultra Beasts are weird as heck.
Concept art from The Official Alola Region Collector’s Edition Pokédex, which hit bookstores earlier this week, really hammers that in for us. Artwork for all eight of...
News
3 CommentsPikachu’s getting some iconic headwear in Sun and Moon later this year
Japanese Pokémon fans have an adorable promotion to look forward to: Starting in April, Pikachu with special accessories will be distributed to the series’ latest Nintendo 3DS games, Pokémon Sun and Moon.
A collection of Pikachu wearing hats made famous by Ash Ketchum, the star of the Pokémon anime, will be made available to anyone who buys tickets to the series’ upcoming film ahead of its premiere.
The latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine CoroCoro revealed the whole set of six, scans of which are found on fan site Serebii.net. There’s Pikachu in the classic Ash cap of old, all the way to the electric mouse wearing Ash’s Alola region variant hat.
CoroCoro via Serebii.net
Astute Pokémon fans may notice that there are only six different hats, despite there being...
Cover Story
Issue
26
February 27, 2017
What the game industry thinks of Nintendo’s Switch
We talk with third-party developers and industry executives about what to expect.
Read moreCulture
9 CommentsIn Breath of the Wild, everyone just wants to kiss a Zora
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is no dating game, but it doesn’t lack for romance. Link experiences the platonic love of giant horses and dogs throughout his adventure — as well as the affections of two fishlike creatures, whom everyone really wants to date in real life.
Sidon and Mipha are two of the most important members of the Zora, a race of aquatic beings that live in the northern part of Hyrule. Link heads to their Domain, per Sidon’s insistence, to — and here’s a spoiler warning, just in case — help recover one of the four Divine Beasts, and the whole watery quest is getting tons of people very, very fired up on Twitter.
That’s because ... well, just take a look at Sidon:
hhey im fuvkjng g pic.twitter.com/pOwxhPZJZj— ✧ Sticky Tits ✧ (@wetartnoises) March 10, 2017
O...
News
1 CommentBye-Bye BoxBoy! coming to 3DS at some point (update)
Update (March 24): Turns out that Bye-Bye BoxBoy! didn’t actually launch on Nintendo 3DS yesterday. In fact, Nintendo has since deleted the tweet that we originally cited in this article, as you can see below.
Asked for comment, a Nintendo representative told Polygon that “incorrect information about an upcoming game for Nintendo 3DS was posted on Nintendo of America’s social media channels.” The spokesperson added, “Nintendo will provide additional updates once the information has been corrected and confirmed.”
So for now, there’s no word on when Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will actually be released in North America.
Original story: Bye-Bye BoxBoy!, the third entry in HAL Laboratory’s beloved series of box-based puzzle platformers, will be released March 23, Nintendo announced today.
Like its...
Latest Nintendo 3DS Forum Activity View all posts
GDC 2017
6 CommentsBlaster Master Zero: Watch 16 minutes of nostalgic joy
Longtime Nintendo fans planning to purchase the company’s new Switch hardware when it releases in a few days received a nostalgia-tinged surprise earlier today. During an indie developer-focused Nintendo Direct, Nintendo revealed that Blaster Master Zero, a modern take on an NES classic, will come to both Switch and Nintendo 3DS in just over a week.
Shortly after that announcement, we were able to go check out Blaster Master Zero for ourselves. In the video above, you can see 16 minutes of the game in action, which completely captures the feeling of running home from school to spend the afternoon blasting baddies in a rad tank.
As in the original Blaster Master, Zero will see players swapping back and forth between side-view sections where you use a powerful tank to platform around...
News
22 CommentsVideo game releases for March 2017
Here are some of the big video game releases for the month of March 2017. Be sure to check out the list we put together of our most anticipated games of 2017 and subscribe to Polygon's YouTube channel for tons of gaming videos. Also, here are the free games you get with your Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus subscriptions this month. Additionally, here's what is coming to your favorite video streaming services and here's what is leaving in March.
What are you looking forward to playing? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of releases and only games with specific dates are listed below. Some games are announced for March but have no firm release date.
Mar. 3:
Nintendo Switch — Nintendo's newest hardware is a...
News
4 CommentsPokémon’s 21st birthday is gonna get wild
Pokémon Day, which commemorates the franchise’s birthday, is Feb. 27, and this year’s looks to be a big one. Pokémon is finally of drinking age this year, and The Pokémon Company is holding several events to honor the big 21.
The whole list of Pokémon Day festivities is on the official Pokémon website, including things to buy and special items appearing in games like Pokémon Go. Here’s the round-up of how fans should spend Feb. 27:
From Feb. 26 at 1 p.m. PT until March 6 at 1 p.m. PT, all wild Pikachu in Pokémon Go will be wearing appropriate party hats to show just how hard they’re celebrating the series’ 21st birthday. These special Pikachu will wear the party hats forever, apparently — because why ever stop partying?
Pokémon TV, the online and mobile streaming platform where fans...
News
18 CommentsAll the Nintendo accounts you need for your Switch
Nintendo has developed a bit of a reputation for sending console and handheld owners through the rigamarole of its online services. The company has juggled friend codes, a variety of IDs, friend codes again and, most recently, an account system that appears to be more akin to that of Nintendo’s competitors. But knowing which accounts are required for what remains inscrutable to Nintendo fans of all kinds.
Now that the Switch is mere days away, it’s time to take stock of every ID, account and service that hopeful owners will need in order to get the most out of their consoles. Laying it all out there should make keeping track of what’s what slightly less terrifying ... even if only slightly.
Nintendo Account
The unified Nintendo Account system is the most important one to have as a...
News
8 CommentsTerraria tops 20 million copies sold
Terraria developer Re-Logic has now sold more than 20 million copies of the sandbox game, the studio announced today.
Re-Logic actually hit the milestone before the end of 2016, the company said. Terraria debuted in May 2011 on Windows PC, meaning that it took about five and a half years for the game to reach the 20 million mark. According to Re-Logic, 8.5 million of those 20 million copies were sold in the 18-month period between June 2015 — the release of the version 1.3 update, a significant one — and the end of 2016.
“The entire team would like to say a massive THANK YOU to all of you for making all of this possible,” Re-Logic said in a news release. “It has been a pleasure to have all of you along on the journey thus far, and we are really looking forward to continuing down that...
News
5 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon’s latest giveaway is kind of a bust
Pokémon trainers can swing by GameStop from now until March 5 to pick up a special item for Sun and Moon: a single silver bottle cap. But those already deep into the metagame likely have enough of these to spare, making this one of the more disappointing giveaways in some time.
The bottle cap item is used for Hyper Training, a new feature that allows players to boost and maximize their Pokémon’s individual value stats, or IVs. Having a swath of bottle caps is useful for those who want to power up multiple members of their fighting team, and they’re not easy to find. Bottle caps — which come in both silver and the rarer gold varieties — are only obtainable through select means.
That would seem to make the GameStop promotion a good deal. Typically, players must fish around or use the...
News
17 CommentsBreath of the Wild's DLC plan shouldn't shock Nintendo fans
Nintendo announced that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will have a $20 downloadable expansion pass, much to the dismay of many fans. While a season pass for a Zelda game may seem like a novel thing for Nintendo, the company has long dabbled in pricey premium content — and largely with success.
Dating back to the Nintendo 3DS’ early days, Nintendo has released DLC in the form of level packs, costumes and characters for some of its most popular games. While these have often been made available for free, some of the company’s most popular games received some costly new content.
Fire Emblem Awakening is an early example. Not only did Nintendo sell more playable characters, but new premium maps included exclusive story content. While these were tangential to the game’s main...
Nintendo 3DS
33 CommentsThe perfect 3DS: Does it exist?
Nintendo 3DS cognoscenti have known for some time that there are two types of displays you can get — IPS, the preferred one; or TN, the lesser — and it is a crapshoot what you get with each model of the handheld.
There is no way to tell by the packaging. Hell, in some cases, you need an app to tell what you have. And it's not uniform to the model line (3DS, 3DS XL, New Nintendo 3DS, etc.). The numerous bundles and design variants the 3DS pumps out each year can all have variable displays.
YouTuber Erica Griffin has acquired seven (7) Nintendo 3DSes in her quest for the unicorn of Nintendo 3DS gaming: a unit with IPS displays for both top and bottom screen, that doesn't have any dead pixels or shit under the screen and does have the same color temperature display.
I realize that sounds...
News
12 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon players meet a global mission goal for the first time ever
The third global mission for Pokémon Sun and Moon is not yet over, but players have already reached its goal. That’s a huge deal for the games’ community, which utterly failed to complete either of the previous online competitions.
In just four days — and with another 10 to go — Sun and Moon players managed to trade a million Pokémon using the GTS, or Global Trade System. Although that sounded like just as tough of a task as the first two global missions’, fans banded together to get the job done in record time.
Completing the mission before time’s up grants all participants 2,000 Festival Coins, to be used in the online Festival Plaza feature. Now that that’s been locked down, players can focus on hitting the bonus milestones, which will net them even more rewards. If players can make...
News
34 CommentsNintendo pledges to keep making games for Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo’s new console-handheld hybrid, Nintendo Switch, won’t be a replacement for its current handheld platform, the Nintendo 3DS, company president Tatsumi Kimishima said in a recent investor briefing (PDF). Nintendo will continue to develop games for the 3DS family of systems, he said in response to continued speculation that the Switch will wholly replace the handhelds.
That’s something Kimishima also said shortly after the Switch was unveiled in October.
“Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still growing. So that business still has momentum,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “And certainly rather than being cannibalized by the Switch, we think the 3DS can continue in its own form.”
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime reiterated that philosophy in a recent...
News
9 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon’s third global mission sounds just as tough as the the last two
Pokémon Sun and Moon’s third global mission is live, encouraging all trainers to head to the Global Trade Station by Feb. 14. The goal this time around is for players to trade a total of one million Pokémon between them, yet another lofty aim in the challenging global mission series.
In order to win the grand prize of 2,000 Festival Coins, players need to access the online Game Sync feature and trade as many Pokémon as they can by Feb. 14. Anyone who participates will receive 200 Festival Coins, but if everyone hits the reach goal of two million trades by the event’s end, they’ll also win a Friend Ball.
The pressure is on for this go-around. The previous two global missions were pretty much disasters, with a small percentage of players hitting their marks before the events’ end dates....
Opinion
13 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon’s incredible success means the 3DS’ future is bright
Pokémon Sun and Moon are selling at a mind-boggling rate, and they’re on track to be the most popular games in the entire Nintendo 3DS library. With their staggering success — and a corresponding increase in 3DS hardware sales — it seems that reports of the handheld’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Nintendo launched Pokémon Sun and Moon worldwide on Nov. 18, the Friday before Thanksgiving. By the end of the month, sales in the Americas had topped 3.7 million units, making them Nintendo’s fastest-selling games ever in that region.
The momentum only increased from that point forward: Nintendo announced today that it sold a whopping 14.69 million copies of Pokémon Sun and Moon by the end of 2016. The span between Nov. 18 and Dec. 31 is just 44 days long, which means that Nintendo was...
News
3 CommentsAnimal Crossing mobile title delayed again
Nintendo has pushed back the launch of its Animal Crossing mobile game again. It now won't come out until sometime after March.
The news was part of Nintendo's overall earnings report on the third quarter of its fiscal year. Though not formally dated, Animal Crossing had been slated to launch on mobile by the end of Nintendo's fiscal year, which would be March 31. That has now been pushed to the next fiscal year.
In the rest of the filing, Nintendo reported a profit of 64.67 billion yen ($575.7 million) for the quarter, up from the 62.8 billion yen ($559 million) the previous quarter and more than double the 29.1 billion ($259 million) for the same quarter in the previous year. Pokémon Sun and Moon was by far Nintendo's top seller for the quarter, at 14.69 million units globally....
News
2 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon to receive new Mega Stone distribution
A promotion launching for Pokémon Sun and Moon next month will allow players to collect previously unobtainable Mega Stones, the Japanese Global Link site says. This will allow players to gather and use even more of these special battle items, which were introduced to the franchise with Pokémon X and Y.
In order to receive these Mega Stones, players must participate in online competitions. The first of these campaigns will take place in late February, according to the Global Link. Those who take part will receive the Mega Stones for Mawile and Beedrill as a gift.
More Mega Stones are due in the future, with no timeline or further details yet specified. All future giveaways will include Mega Stones not already available in Sun and Moon, however.
Although Mega Evolutions and their...
Culture
5 CommentsWatch a Pokémon producer name as many Pokémon as he can in 20 seconds
This is kinda charming. Junichi Masuda, whose tenure with Pokémon goes back to Red and Green, was ambushed and challenged to name as many Pokémon as he could in 20 seconds. How’d he do?
Well, uh, he got 30. That’s good! A pps (Pokémon per second) of greater than 1 is a superior performance, although he got caught up at the end for a couple of seconds before settling on Mew. How many could you do? (Note: Typing them in the comments does not count.)
Considering there are 802 Pokémon in existence, there’s no way he could do them all, of course. The world’s fastest talker, as certified by Guinness World Records, is Sean Shannon, who spoke at a pace of 655 words per minute on Aug. 30, 1995.
Theoretically, Shannon (assuming a perfect and instant recall of the Pokédex) would be able to name...
News
44 CommentsVideo game releases for February 2017
Here are some of the big video game releases for the month of February 2017. Be sure to check out the list we put together of our most anticipated games of 2017 and subscribe to Polygon's YouTube channel for tons of gaming videos. Also, here are the free games you get with your Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus subscriptions this month. Additionally, here's what is coming to your favorite video streaming services and here's what is leaving in February.
What are you looking forward to playing? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of releases and only games with specific dates are listed below. Some games are announced for February but have no firm release date.
Feb. 2:
Fire Emblem Heroes (Android and iOS) — In...
News
7 CommentsPokémon Bank’s Mew glitch ban cracked by Sun and Moon players
A compatibility update for Pokémon Bank, the Nintendo 3DS storage app, finally made the software usable in Pokémon Sun and Moon this week. Just days after the update went live, however, users have already figured out a way to circumvent Pokémon Bank’s ban on one popular, hard-to-obtain legendary.
Although Pokémon Bank users get a special item for Mew, one of the rarest Pokémon, it’s almost impossible to capture the monster through official methods. Instead, many who play the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow have used a glitch to get Mew into their collections. A video explaining how that works is below.
But Pokémon Bank won’t allow players to move over Mew obtained through this glitch into Sun and Moon — unless they use this extremely complex method, which is...
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Polygon Weekly: April 03 - April 09, 2017
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