Pokemon Day Rumor Claims Classic Game Collections Will be Announced

For nearly 3 decades, Pokemon has been one of the biggest and most popular franchises in all of gaming. Despite the level of popularity Pikachu and pals enjoy, many games in the series remain very difficult to play. Unless you happened to buy and hold on to a copy of those games and their original hardware, you can’t play favorites like Pokemon Red and Blue. Fans have spent years requesting these games for Nintendo Switch, and it’s possible that could finally be happening. According to a rumor shared to 4chan (via @HiddenPowerPod), the original Pokemon games might make a comeback very soon.

The original poster of this rumor claims that two compilations are getting released: Pokemon Memories and Pokemon Reminiscence. Pokemon Memories will allegedly contain Pokemon Red, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Ruby, and Pokemon FireRed. Meanwhile, Pokemon Reminiscence will supposedly contain Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Sapphire, and Pokemon LeafGreen. That leaves out Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Crystal, and Pokemon Emerald, and those games will supposedly be offered as digital downloads. The rumor also claims that these collections will get a digital shadow drop on the eShop on Pokemon Day, which falls each year on February 27th. The original poster claims that physical versions of Pokemon Memories and Reminiscence won’t be available until March 13th.

For now, readers should take this rumor with a huge grain of salt. While collections of the original Pokemon games would be very well-received, it seems a little too good to be true, which is often the hallmark of a fake rumor. The original poster says that the games will include things like “2-way” Pokemon Home support, suggesting that players will be able to transfer over their Pokemon from newer games that existed in those generations. For example, you could move a Sharpedo caught in Pokemon Go over to Pokemon Ruby, or a Charizard from Pokemon Shield into Pokemon Red. These options would be great to see, but it seems like a lot of work from a development perspective.

The Pokemon Company and Nintendo have been curiously hesitant to make the old Pokemon games available again. The first two generations did get a re-release on 3DS, but can no longer be downloaded following the eShop’s closure two years ago. Nintendo Switch Online’s various apps do offer older titles like Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Trading Card Game, but the mainline games have been left out, for one reason or another. It’s possible that there’s simply too much money on the table to release the games without a price attached, or that there could be technical hurdles that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company want to avoid. For example, players could abuse Nintendo Switch Online features like save states to transfer multiple Legendaries like Mewtwo and Rayquaza into Pokemon Home.

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Pokemon Day is a celebration of the original releases of the Pokemon Game Boy games. From a marketing standpoint, an announcement regarding ports of classic Pokemon games would make a lot of sense. For now though, fans should temper their expectations, and not get excited until we hear something official. Even if we don’t get announcements tied to those original games, we should learn more about Pokemon Legends: Z-A. That alone should make Thursday’s presentation worth watching!

Are you excited for Pokemon Day? Do you think we’ll actually see compilations of old Pokemon games? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!