Pokemon Needs to Make It Easier to Play its Older Games

Recently, the Pokemon Company and fans around the world celebrated Pokemon Day. In addition to general fanfare tied to the franchise, Pokemon Day always includes an exciting lineup of new announcements and free giveaways during the Pokemon Presents showcase. This year, many fans were hoping for some big news to re-energize the franchise after a long wait for news with its next major release. And while plenty were excited to hear about the new Pokemon Champions and see starter confirmations for Pokemon Legends Z-A, one hoped-for announcement was lacking. Before February 27th, rumors started surfacing that this would be the year The Pokemon Company finally ported its oldest games to Nintendo Switch. Sadly, this reveal didn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean that it still shouldn’t.

I, like many of my colleagues here at ComicBook, suspected this rumor was a little too good to be true even before the Pokemon Presents confirmed it. Yet the audience’s hunger for it proves that The Pokemon Company is doing fans a disservice by not making it easier to revisit earlier titles in the franchise. Fresh off my playthrough of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection, I can’t help but wish The Pokemon Company and Nintendo would make a similar bundle a reality.

The recent pre-Pokemon Day rumor centered on two compilations of early Pokemon Games. The first would supposedly have included Pokemon Red, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Ruby, and Pokemon FireRed, while the second would house the counterparts to these early titles in Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Sapphire, and Pokemon LeafGreen. These early entries in the series are tricky to play these days unless you happen to have your old handheld consoles and the original game cartridges. Emulators are also an option, but these require some tech savviness and caution when downloading files, so they’re not a great solution for everyone.

However, even more recent titles from the Nintendo 3DS era can be hard to come by for those who don’t have the older handheld. I suspect I’m not alone in being one of many Pokemon fans who missed out on a few years’ worth of games that were released while I was in college and too busy with schoolwork and light on cash to keep up with the video game hobby. Because of the timing, I never got to enjoy Pokemon X and Y. While I could still buy a 3DS, the systems aren’t exactly cheap, and with the eShop no longer supported, it’s not an investment I’m likely to make any time soon. The games themselves aren’t as pricey as some more retro-dated titles, but without a system to play them on, it’s a tough sell.

It’s not just me, either. Many Pokemon fans fell back in love with the franchise in 2016 when the release of Pokemon Go made it easier for anyone to engage with Pokemon. Those who did come back to the hobby around then arguably could’ve missed some of the franchise’s best titles, including 2011’s Pokemon Black and White and 2013’s Pokemon X and Y. Unless they happened to already have a Nintendo DS and/or Nintendo 3DS lying around, many likely didn’t wind up getting to go back for these titles even though many would clearly like to.

Rumors like the classic collections for Nintendo Switch or the ever-repeated refrain of upcoming Pokemon Black and White remakes show that fans want to be able to re-engage with these old Pokemon games more easily. In particular, it’s frustrating to see a spinoff game like Pokemon Legends Z-A coming out when many fans are unable to revisit Pokemon X and Y to enjoy Lumiose City for the first time. As someone who missed these games, I’m struggling to feel the hype about returning to Kalos when I’ve never been in the first place.

RELATED: Pokemon Day Rumor Claims Classic Game Collections Will be Announced

I’m not saying porting these older games would be easy, but I do think it would be worthwhile for The Pokemon Company to consider. The fan energy around these nostalgic titles is clearly present. Plus, if the Legends games will continue to feature callbacks, they’d likely boost sales of ports if such Nintendo Switch versions of these beloved Pokemon titles did exist. I know I’d happily hand over my dollars if I could easily play games like Pokemon Black and White and Pokemon X and Y on my Nintendo Switch, and I’m fairly sure plenty of other dedicated fans would, too.

With the franchise losing steam as live service games like Pokemon Go get stale and we wait for the next main series Pokemon game, porting already loved titles to a newer console seems like an easy win. Despite knowing it was unlikely to be real, it is a bit weird to see that the rumors of classic Pokemon on Nintendo Switch remain unfounded, at least for now.