Pokécharms

It has been announced by Nintendo of America today that a new Pokémon Direct will air on Thursday the 9th of January. The presentation will be roughly 20 minutes long and begin at 6:30AM PT, 9:30AM ET, 2:30PM UK and 3:30pm in Europe.

What information the Direct will contain is unknown, but all the current Wild Area Events in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield also end on the 9th so we wouldn't be surprised if some of the news is about new ones.

It has been revealed that a series of 7 anime shorts will begin releasing on the Pokémon YouTube channel next month.

The series is known as Pokémon Twilight Wings and focuses on stories of people from the Galar Region, where Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield take place. The series is being animated by Studio Colorido, who's perhaps best known for their work on Penguin Highway - an adaption of Tomihiko Morimi's critically acclaimed novel. The works will be directed by Shingo Yamashita.

Pokémon Twilight Wings will begin on January 15th and the remaining 6 episodes will be released monthly afterwards.

It has now been almost two weeks since Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield were released for the Nintendo Switch but news for the games hasn't slowed down with a brand new announcement being made today.


In a new trailer for the games it has been revealed that trainers will be able to get their hands on a Gigantamax Snorlax in Max Raids from early next month. The trailer also reveals the second and third stage evolutions for the three starter Pokémon. You can check out the trailer above and more information on the reveals after the jump!

We hope you've been enjoying Pokémon Sword and Shield as much as we have been! In between Max Raids, we've been busy beavering away at updating the Trainer Card Maker with all the new Pokémon, Galarian and Gigantimax Forms from the latest games.

(We've also finally added Meltan and Melmetal too! Sorry that took so long!)

With the Pokémon games getting more complicated and relying on 3D models, the style no longer fully fits with our Gen 3 (released over 15 years ago!) style Trainer Cards, so this time we've added both the in-game 3D models used for the Pokémon and the new, bigger, more detailed menu sprites to choose between. We're also waiting on being able to add Shiny forms and some alternate forms (such as the bazillion Alcremie forms), so we don't currently have that available - but we should do in a future update.

A wider-ranging update to both the Trainer Card Maker...

Just in time for the launch of Pokémon Sword/Shield, we've got a brand new online tool for sharing your adventure. It's as easy as just sharing screenshots or videos from your Nintendo Switch and visiting the website to check out your automatically created journal!

Just add your Twitter account name to the url: https://MyPokemonJournal.com (Your Pokémon Journal) - for example, I'll be sharing my own Sword/Shield adventure through my dedicated screenshot account at https://MyPokemonJournal.com/OakSwitch (@OakSwitch's Pokémon Journal)

Both of the Switch Pokemon games are supported - just make sure you keep the default hashtags when sharing from your Switch (#PokemonLetsGo or #PokemonSwordShield).

If you want to manually post content to your journal, just add the hashtag #MyPokemonJournal alongside...

We're just barely over a week away from the launch of Pokémon Sword and Shield and today we've got the first details on some improvements to the game over previous main series entries - particularly in raising Pokémon for battling - as well as the first online competition details and Gigantimax Raid events.

New Items and Features

Mints

A new set of Mint items will allow you to change the stat effects of your Pokémon to match the nature in the name of the mint. This means you can give a Pikachu with a 'naive' nature, the stat effects of having a 'modest' nature instead - a huge help in building a competitive Pokémon team.

This item doesn't change the Pokémon's nature, though - just the way it impacts that Pokémon's stats.

Nutrients
The nutrient items in previous games would add 10 EVs to...

The new Pokémon games are just 2 weeks away, but unfortunately, that means we're now smack-bang in the middle of people getting hold of the game through less than fair or legitimate methods and uploading the entire thing for everyone to see well ahead of time.

As we've previously established, Pokecharms will not be covering anything other than the officially released details and Pokémon ahead of the games release on the 15th. This is so that we're fair to everyone who wants to play these games, that we're not just spoiling the entire thing for them.

That also means that we're not allowing any of this to be posted by anyone else either on the forums or on the Creative Corner. Until the games are out, please stick to the officially revealed Pokémon and information (which you can confirm on the Sword and Shield website if you need to).

Breaking these rules will see your post deleted...

It's the latest in the long line of prequel origin stories that literally nobody asked for, and it's coming in just a couple short weeks (in Japan) to kick off the start of a new series of the Pokémon anime. Yes, after over 20 years, we'll finally get to learn the exact, excruciating details of why Pikachu is such an arsehole in the first episode of Pokémon.

The first episode of the new series is called "Birth of Pikachu" - which, from the synopsis at least, we don't think means it actually includes the conception or birthing process... or at least, we hope not...

"In a forest somewhere in Kanto, there once was a lonely Pichu. This Pichu - who was still quite young - had a certain encounter and farewell. This took place shortly before Ash and his partner Pikachu started travelling together. This is the beginning of the anime 'Pocket Monsters'."

While this first episode is mainly flashbacks, presumably sparked by Ash's triumphant return...

If you’ve eyed up, from afar, the Pokémon Sword & Shield demo available at shows like EGX, or the London Pokémon Center and felt unimpressed by how much of an incredibly basic Pokémon experience it seemed to show, you’re definitely not alone. That’s precisely the view I carried with me into my opportunity to play the demo when we were invited to visit the Pokémon Center last week.

As it happens, though, even this short and simple slice of the upcoming games delivers a surprising leap in the experience of playing a Pokémon game. We’re just weeks away from the release of the games, but here’s our report on a demo that took me straight from “meh” to “hype” by the end of it’s short, 5-minute time-locked duration.

This weekend, thousands of UK fans were finally able to buy official Pokémon Center merchandise for the first time. If they waited for up to 10 hours in a queue, that is. Fortunately, we got to beat the queues to see what they had first-hand!

Check out the latest details on the London store as well as a look at all the exclusive merchandise available (if it's in stock!) in my report on GameCrash! (But here's a sneak peek at a couple pictures below).