OMFuckinG! Nintendo Announcement! Pokemon Gold and Silver Remakes! OMFuckinG!!

As I type this I am happier than I could ever admit to people not on the internet. This is one of the best days of my life! Nintendo have announced that they are remaking Pokemon Gold and Silver for the DS. The remakes will be called Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver. It's all confirmed, it's on the official website. It's actually happening! The dream has become real!

Look at the title graphics:

Isn't it beautiful? I'm so happy I'm genuinely on the verge of tears! This is one of the best things that has ever happened! I CAN'T STOP USING EXCLAMATION MARKS!!

Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver are due for release in November this year in Japan. The US version will likely be released in mid 2010, with the European version coming whenever they remember the European market still exists. But we'll all be importing the Japanese versions and then importing the US versions and then completing them both and then framing the boxes before we even start thinking about the European release, right? I mean, we all will. Won't we?

I'm inviting all my friends out tonight to drink like there's no tomorrow. This is the Best Day Ever.

OMFuckinG New Pokemon Game Announcement Is Imminent!

Aaaaaaahh! Aaaaaaaah! A new Pokemon game! A new Pokemon game! AAAaaaaaaaahh!!

According to Bulbapedia:

Several media outlets have revealed that the announcement of a major, popularly-discussed Pokémon game will be made later this month. Pokémon Sunday is set to reveal the title May 10.

Issues of CoroCoro and Nintendo Dream will be published the day after the announcement with screaming headlines and about the "much-talked-about big title".

Bulbapedia reasons that since Nintendo have said that the new game has been the centre of speculation, this means they're probably referring to the Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver remakes that the whole fanbase is collectively trying to will into existence. The reasons for expecting a remake of those two games are numerous. They are so numerous, in fact, that it would take a Pokemon fan with psychotic-level obsession and a flagrant disregard of his readership to list them all on his blog. So here they are:

1. Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue were remade in Generation III, setting a precedent for remaking games two generations before after the new generation games have been released.
2. The Generation IV games are set in the same time span as Gold and Silver, just as Gen III was in the same time span as Red and Blue.
3. The red Gyarados from the Lake of Rage is mentioned on the news in Sinnoh.
4. The Olivine Gym Leader, Jasmine, has a cameo in Sunnyshore City.
5. Professor Elm's Pokemon egg studies are mentioned.
6. Cynthia gives the player a Secret Potion in Gen IV, just like the Secret Potion needed to cure the Ampharos in the Olivine lighthouse. The in-bag description also mentions Cianwood City.
7. Bebe talks about a "friend from Johto", who gave her an Eevee, and sounds a lot like Bill.
8. The guy in the Hotel Grand Lake talks about locations in Johto, namely the Tin Tower and Whirl Islands.
9. The Veilstone City Department Store has Ragecandybars, but they're always listed as "sold out".
10. In the game data, possible locations for non-Sinnoh Pokemon are Kanto, Hoenn, and Johto.
11. In the Diamond/Pearl series of the anime, every major character has obtained at least one Gen II Pokemon.
12. One of the promotion Pokemon for the new movie is a unique Pichu, who was also used as a promotion for Gold and Silver.
13. The new movie also features all three Johto starter-Pokemon.
14. Trademarked names include Pokemon DuskGold and Pokemon DawnSilver (which might correspond to the Dawn and Dusk Stones in the Gen IV games), and also Pokemon WhiteGold and Pokemon MoonStone (and Nintendo also own the rights to www.pokemonwhitegold.com).

But anyway. We'll see come the 10th, right? I'm very excited. Pokemon Gold being my third favourite video game ever, if remakes are announced on the 10th I may very well cry with joy.

Please please please, Nintendo. Please.

Pokemon On Twitter

This is genuinely some of the funniest shit I have ever seen. Sometimes the Pokemon community just fucking rocks.

Here are some very brief highlights, but if you're on Twitter then I strongly urge you to follow these guys.

Blastoise

Nidoking


Magikarp


Tentacruel


Venomoth


Dugtrio


Moltres


Youngster Joey


Officer Jenny


Lt. Surge


Gengar


Porygon2


Cleffa


Jolteon


Missingno.


Aerodactyl


Gyarados


Squirtle

The world just doesn't get much better than that.

Origami

You know what origami is, obviously. It's what happens when bored people start farting around, folding bits of paper trying to make them look like animals, and generally only succeeding in making them look like folded bits of paper. Famously, folding 1000 cranes is supposed to be lucky. Of course if you put the time you spent folding stupid tiny cranes into just crunching the statistics, you'd stand far more of a chance of winning the lottery. Namely, no chance whatsoever.

But you're wrong to be so dismissive of origami - not all of it is complete rubbish. I've found some videos of people on the internet (traditionally the most bored people in the world) making some quite astounding things out of sheets of ordinary paper. Things that might bring out the excitable geek in you, if you haven't yet crushed that geek, and that ability to become excited, in back-episodes of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. Here are those videos.

That's right. It's Evangelion Unit 01. From a piece of paper.


A wild Pikachu attacked!


More Pokemon: Squirtle


Actually there are loads of Pokemon origami videos on YouTube: Palkia


This has loads of good work, but no step-by-step instructions on any of them. Also, mute the video before you hit play - the music's fucking execrable. And the last 30 seconds or so are taken up by what I'm guessing is a joke from Mr. "tinhyeusetdanh" on YouTube.

Make 1000 Palkias, then you'll have my respect.

Possible Pokemon Generation V Names!

"Holy shit!!" That's what I thought when I read the Bulbapedia headline "Possible Generation V Names", that I then stole in order to attempt to provoke the same reaction in you. What the headline actually referred to was Nintendo's recent trademark registrations.

Nintendo have re-registered all the Gen I names: Pokemon Red, Pokemon Green, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow. But they've also registered the new names Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon Brown, Pokemon Gray, Pokemon Purple, Pokemon Crimson and Pokemon Scarlet.

This doesn't mean that these names will definitely be used for games. As Bulbapedia point out, Nintendo have registered lots of names in the past that never made it to production, such as Pokemon Opal. They also speculate that Nintendo may be registering these names so that they can discourage bootlegs, hacks and pirate versions of their games.

Still, Pokemon Crimson sounds like an epic game.

Speed Gamers - Final Score

The Speed Gamers that I blogged about a couple of months ago didn't succeed in catching 491 Pokemon in 72 hours like they claimed they would, ending their project with 429. I watched the videos of them playing live on their website, and while it was a noble aim they clearly just weren't up to the task. The guy who was playing FireRed whited out multiple times, once even at the Rival battle on the SS. Anne. That's an obligatory battle and everyone knows what his team is going to be, so to manage to lose at that stage is fairly baffling. I hope it was the same guy that played Ruby, because he was equally incompetent at battling. And we're not talking strategic errors here, we're talking actual elementary battling errors, like not knowing the type-chart. That's fairly unforgivable. Also, they guy playing Diamond chose Torterra for his complete play-through instead of Infernape, which is ludicrous.

Their project did raise $5929 for an Autism charity though, which was apparently what the whole thing was for. They wanted to raise at least $5000, and while that's a nice gesture it's still something of a consolation prize. How do you white out from a Rival battle? That's just plain embarrassing.

Speed Pokemon

Not strictly something to do with Japan, but certainly something to do with Pokemon and that's just as good. There's a group of gamers in America who call themselves 'The Speed Gamers', and the idea is that they play marathon sessions of games to raise money for charity. From the 19th of December they'll spend 72 straight hours attempting to catch every Pokemon available and transer them all to one cartridge. Since Shaymin and Arceus can't be accessed yet, they only have to catch 491, not all 493 Pokemon. At least that's what they say, but I don't know how they intend to get Deoxys.

Because a lot of Legendaries can only be accessed through particular games, this means that they're going to have to start new games of: FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, XD: Gale of Darkness, Colosseum, and its bonus discs, Pokémon Ranger and My Pokémon Ranch.

The group will be hosting a live web-cast of the games being played, and will also have an online checklist so you can see their progress. Should be interesting.

THE BIGGEST NEWS OF THE YEAR!!

And yet I can't find it in the headlines of any online newspaper. What a scandal.

Pokemon Platinum is out! That's right, motherfuckers! It was supposed to come out on the 13th, but it seems to have been released yesterday. I'M PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW!!

For all your Platinum news needs (which must be substantial), I refer you to the fantastic Serebii and Bulbapedia. If you have an R4 cartridge (which one out of my two readers does), look in NDS-Roms.

Go forth. Rejoice.