Pokécharms

Following on from Nintendo Japan's overview of Pokémon Legends Arceus, we now also have an English-language version with some brand new footage and even more details on elements such as missions, crafting and Pokémon battles.

The full 13 minute video is below. There's now only just over 2 weeks left until Pokémon Legends Arceus and after this great look at the game in action, we really cannot wait!

A new animated short produced by The Pokémon Company International and Taiko Studios has been released. Taking a very different style to other recent animated shorts, Bidoof's Big Stand tells the story of "a bumbling Bidoof with a tendency to bite off more than it can chew" and the journey it takes to find its place in the world.

It's unclear whether we can expect any more shorts in this series, or perhaps even more of Bidoof, but the video's credits mention a 'Project Butterfree' team at TPCI, so perhaps this is just the first of many projects we'll see from them this year.

You can full the full 8 minute episode below right now:

With just three weeks left until the release of Pokémon Legends Arceus, a new overview trailer posted by Nintendo Japan overnight has given us our best look yet at how the game actually plays.

While there are no new details, and the video is obviously entirely in Japanese, this 6-minute long walkthrough of each of the core features of this radically different Pokémon game is stuffed full of new footage after nearly a year of quite sparse peeks behind the curtain of the game's development.

Also posted overnight were three TV ads with more or less the same basic footage, but some of them include some new music from the game (a lot of which also features for the first time in the overview trailer) so we've included them below as well.

With only a little over a month to go until the launch of Pokémon Legends Arceus, today's latest update reveals three new factions you'll encounter in the game, as well as some big bonuses for having a save file for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl on your Switch.

In addition to the Galaxy Expedition Team you're a part of in the game, you'll also encounter members of the Diamond Clan and Pearl Clan as you travel throughout Hisui.

The people of the Diamond Clan often speak of the importance of cherishing the present and living in the moment with one’s allies. On the other hand, members of the Pearl Clan frequently advocate the importance of valuing the vast, spacious land shared with others.

Although the Diamond Clan and Pearl Clan disagree on many of their beliefs, they seem to nevertheless share many similarities. Both clans don clothing designed to resemble certain...

After a tease last night where Sword and Shield's Poké Ball loving mascot, Ball Guy, took over the Pokémon Twitter account to demonstrate the Pokémon Legends Arceus microsite drowning in exploding Poké Balls, we now have a new Hisuian form Pokémon revealed to appear in the game, and unsurprisingly... it's an exploding Poké Ball!

Hisuian Voltorb, much like the classic Kantonian Voltorb, takes its appearance after a standard Poké Ball, but in this case, the Poké Ball is the old, seemingly steam-powered and Apricorn-sourced variety, so naturally Voltorb also follows suit.

Presumably because of its Apricorn-related origins, this Voltorb is also a part grass type. It remains to be seen whether or not there'll be a Hisuian form Electrode but it seems pretty likely!

There's a full trailer for the new Pokémon below and it's not the only video it'll be starring in,...

Today an official website for the Pokémon Center has been opened for the UK market!

The site offers a variety of official Pokémon products including plush toys, pins, clothing and trading cards all available with a flat shipping rate of £5. Although be warned like the US and Canadian stores, the UK store will only ship to UK based addresses.

The stock does differ from the other stores somewhat, but there is still quite a big range available with plenty more forthcoming. If you want to check it out for yourself you can find the website here.

A new Mystery Gift distribution has gone live today for players of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl!

This event gives trainers the chance to get their hands on Color Statues of Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup which can be placed in your Secret Base within the Grand Underground. To access the Mystery Gift you'll need to enter the code: BDSPUNDERGR0UND

The event runs until the 31st of May 2022, so plenty of time for you to pick it up. Especially those of you who may not get your hands on the games until Christmas!

Some of you might have found the home page of Pokécharms a wee bit broken this weekend - although as far as we can tell, the rest of the site was somehow fine. Apologies for that - everything should be working fine now.

Unfortunately we've had an increasing amount of issues with our server lately and it's unlikely that this will be the last instance of something going wonky. The good news is that we'll be decommissioning this server entirely in the new year, but it's going to take a fair bit of work still to get to that point.

For those asking for updates on what we announced on Pokécharms Day this year - with that site relaunch being what will allow us to update our server infrastructure as well - the good news is that we've made significant progress since then. Unfortunately, because we've only had very limited time over this year to dedicate to what is legitimately the work of a full-time job across several months, we weren't able to hit our original internal goal of...

After their two-part reveal last week, the new Hisuian forms of Zorua and Zoroark have been fully announced in a new trailer for Pokémon Legends Arceus. This new trailer, as well as a new one for Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl also reveals some additional bonuses for picking up the games within their launch periods.