Pokécharms

First spotted over the weekend during the extremely long 24 hour 'livestream', Galarian Ponyta is now officially confirmed. Reclassified as the "Unique Horn" Pokémon, this version of Ponyta is a pure Psychic type - not Fairy as previously speculated - and is exclusive to Pokémon Shield.

Galarian Ponyta's unique appearance is said to come from being exposed to the "life energy" of forests like Glimwood Tangle, giving it this unique form - and its glowing mane - in the Galar region.


As well as the Run Away ability, Galarian Ponyta can also have the new Pastel Veil ability. When a Pokémon with this ability enters battle, it automatically heals all allies of poisoning, as well as giving itself and all its allies immunity from being poisoned while in battle.

Despite being the only other new Pokémon to appear in the 'livestream', Impidimp remains unannounced entirely. Although it did...

This week on our sister site GameCrash is the second part of this deep dive into the history of the Pokémon franchise (as written by yours truly).

In the first part, we met the creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri and followed his life through to the creation of Game Freak - the company behind the entire series.

In this part, we look into the troubled and extended 6-year development of the original Pokémon Red & Green games - originally known as Capsule Monsters. Including the story of how a desperate need to pay the bills nearly doomed the Pokémon series before it even got off the ground - until Junichi Masuda stepped in to save it.

Please check it out here!

If you, like us, tuned into the 24-hour stream of Glimwood Tangle, This image is likely what you've seen 99.9% of the time.

Promoted as a "24-hour stream from the Galar Region demonstrating the ecology of the Pokémon in the Glimwood Tangle" and mostly demonstrating that there wasn't much life out in this particular patch of static, frozen wilderness (clearly the work of Zacian and Zamazenta's errant sibling, Za Warudo), the stream in question nonetheless had a few things of note.

Read more here to see what rode in on this event!

Today, our sister site GameCrash has received a bit of a make-over and with it, three new weekly feature series to keep coming back for.

On Mondays, GameCrash Rewind takes a look back at games from the long or perhaps more recent past. We explore the pros and cons of the games as well as how you can get your hands on them today.

This weed's first article centres on a Master System Disney classic, The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck:



On Fridays, Version Control focusses on the era of gaming when games could be entirely different depending on which console you played them on.

The first Version Control takes a long hard look at no less than five versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:...

The latest trailer for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield has gone live today revealing a new brand new evolution for Farfetch'd! This evolved form is known as Sirfetch'd and is exclusive to Pokémon Sword. You can find out more after the jump!

Earlier this evening the latest Nintendo Direct aired, sharing a host of information for upcoming Nintendo Switch games, services, and DLC. The Direct also featured a few pieces of information for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, such as new Pokémon, in-depth character customization options, camping and curry cooking features (which are clearly Pokémon Refresh replacements).

Following the Nintendo Direct, a new official trailer for Sword & Shield was also dropped and confirmed yet another feature: League Cards. Further still, the equivalent Japanese trailer showed off a replacement for Wonder Trade, known as Surprise Trade. This appears to be very similar to Wonder Trade but allows you to set-up random trades - both online and via local wireless - while you continue playing your game. Click through to check out the trailers!...

As we previously reported, a pop-up Pokémon Center store is headed to London, England, later this year to celebrate the release of Pokémon Sword & Shield. The store will only be open for a limited time, from October 18th until November 15th, 2019 - the same day that Pokémon Sword & Shield release worldwide.

We now know that the store hours will be 10 AM to 10 PM Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 6 PM on Sundays. Plan your trips accordingly!

It’s also been stated that store will be fully accessible for guests of all abilities, and an elevator will be available for travel between floors.

Will you be visiting it?

As usual, this year's opening ceremony brought with it a handful of new information about the upcoming Pokémon TCG and video games. With Sword and Shield due out this year, that marks a big change ahead for next year's championships - with a confirmation that a brand new Sword and Shield TCG set and the latest Pokémon games will be the featured standard for next year's tournaments.

As promised, the fine folks at TPCi dropped a new trailer full of news, and here's the main take-aways.

First off, the region forme gimmick is alive and kicking, with three Galarian forms revealed - and not just for genwun critters this time!

First up is the Poison/Fairy type Galarian Weezing, a creature that feeds on poison gas and emits purified air from the top-hat-smokestacks on its head - while still being able to use the toxins it absorbs as a defensive weapon. It maintains Levitate as an ability, though apparently it gets an alternate ability that has not been revealed yet. It has also not been revealed if only Weezing gets a hilarious new form or if Koffing does too.
Galarian Zigzagoon and Linoone, meanwhile, acquired a Dark type (becoming Dark/Normal)...

The official Pokémon Twitter account has announced that new information for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield is coming our way in two days, on August 7th at 2 PM BST (9 AM EST/6 AM PST).

We currently don't know if the information will be presented as a Pokémon Direct or a trailer (or something else entirely), but be sure to tune in!