The game that SHOULD be announced at the Pokémon Presents

If you’re reading this, then that means a new Pokémon presents has been announced and undoubtedly game announcements will soon follow. Surely there’s plenty of things people want to see from this presentation, Legends ZA news, the classic titles on NSO, perhaps the return of a beloved spin-off like Mystery Dungeon or Ranger? These are all good hopes, but personally I feel there’s one game that stands among the rest as a game that SHOULD be real but probably won’t be: a new Pokémon Stadium.

Some of you might be asking, why? And you’d be right to do so. The entire appeal of the original N64 Pokémon Stadium titles was to transfer the 8-bit sprites of the Gameboy Pokémon games into fully realized 3D battles, but Pokémon has been doing 3D battles in the main series since X and Y (You’re mileage may vary on whether or not these battles we’re fully realized) so there is seemingly no point in bringing back the series. Former series director Junichi Masuda even said as much back in 2014. Why am I suggesting they should make a new one now?

To put it simply: a new Pokémon Stadium would not only be a great new title but healthy for Pokémon as a brand.

I’m sure many of you are aware of Pokémon’s competitive scene; it’s hard to not be because it seems to be the one Nintendo competitive scene that’s actively flourishing due to The Pokémon Company (TPC) actually recognizing the important ways the competitive scene connects with fans.

Have you ever considered how strange it is that Pokémon has a competitive scene to begin with though? The games are mostly single player RPG’s inspired by the likes of Dragon Quest – hell, multiplayer battles were a feature that Nintendo had to force Game Freak to implement at the last possible minute.

Pokémon is in a weird position where it is just as much a single-player game as it is a multi-player one. You don’t see people blitzing through a new Dragon Quest to start grinding for a tourney, or going online to discuss which techniques should be banned from a new Final Fantasy.

This split between casual and competitive fans is one of the reasons why I feel the Pokémon fanbase is so fragmented. Pokémon generations can have absolutely thriving competitive scenes, but have main campaigns that feel under baked. Likewise, there are some Pokémon games that are incredible single-player experiences, and yet leave players very little reason to play past the credits.

The crazy thing, though, is that we have seen an attempt at mending this divide by a little game called Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

That game was a fully single-player experience, the only multiplayer functionality being trading and an easily ignorable feature where you can find fallen trainers’ missing items – and it worked. Many fans old and new praised the title for committing to being a single-player experience, and the title was one of the most well-received Pokémon games in a good while.

Obviously, the developers have noticed the response, as a new Legends title was announced after the release of Generation 9, so it’s safe to assume the Legends subseries is here to stay. As someone who prefers single-player, this pleases me. It’s nice to know I can fully delve into a Pokémon game without having to reach out to friends to see everything the game has to offer. However, I feel it’s time the other side of the coin received some attention and that’s where a new Pokémon Stadium comes in.

While Pokémon Colosseum and XD on GameCube included story modes, the original N64 titles were purely battle simulators to the point where the games felt incomplete if you didn’t have a Gameboy Pokémon game and a transfer pak (cough cough NSO cough cough). While that may seem like a detriment, making it a pure battle sim allowed for the team to put extra polish into the game.

Most any Pokémon fan would tell you they prefer the animations of the Stadium games, and it’s easy to see why. The models might have that N64 funk about them, but it’s clear that a good effort was put forward to really make the GameBoy sprites come to life. Every Pokémon has unique animations for attacking, getting hit, fainting, etc., but I can also understand why this level of polish was difficult to bring to the mainline games.

Not only are newer Pokémon constantly being introduced, but considering that the games have to focus on more than just the battles, I can see why the animation quality fell by the wayside – especially given the breakneck pace new Pokémon games come out (honestly, Pokémon’s insane output is a whole other topic all together). So it makes sense as to why they opted for a more uniform and simple design mentality with the current battle animations.

As incredible as the stadium animations are, they take a LONG time. I could certainly see a full-fledged Pokémon game dragging on quite a bit if all the animations were that detailed; in fact I know for certain it would, see the aforementioned Colosseum and XD. While those two are fan favorites, the games focusing on double battles as well as reusing many Pokémon stadium animations tends to make those game’s story modes drag on for quite a bit. It’s especially surprising when there really isn’t that much too those games’ stories compared to a regular Pokémon campaign. There are no routes or gyms or traditional wild Pokémon yet they still manage to take up as much time to beat as a traditional title.

In the context of Stadium, however, I feel it’d be wonderful to see the animation go all out – especially considering how this hypothetical sequel would likely be the game used for tournaments like Pokémon Worlds. It only makes sense to give the crowd something incredible to look at.

What about the constant influx of new Pokémon you say? While that may have been difficult to cope with back in the 90’s and 2000’s, it’s easy to see how Stadium can return as a “games as a service” title like other modern games.

I know a lot of you probably cringed upon reading that and trust me, I did when writing it. To clarify, when I say “games as a service” I mean this hypothetical game would be a download only title that would get updated following each new Pokémon generation to add in that game’s respective new pocket monsters. This would allow players to constantly introduce their partners from their newest adventures alongside their longtime friends. There would not be any scummy business practices involved, at least not in my vision for it.

I’d also feel remiss if I didn’t mention how this decision would help alleviate an issue that has affected the Pokémon Games on Nintendo Switch: the National Dex cut.

In case you don’t remember, the news that Pokémon Sword and Shield would launch without support for every Pokémon sent the fanbase into a divide that hasn’t been fully recovered from. Many felt that this decision, along with the general perceived quality of Sword and Shield, was a clear sign that GameFreak were lazy and greedy and didn’t care about the quality of Pokémon anymore. On the flip side, others felt that the compromise was an understandable decision for game development and felt anyone complaining was just whining for the sake of it.

To be quite frank, it was a pretty depressing time to be a fan. Any valid criticism or praise of GameFreak’s decision was quickly swallowed up by an all-out flame war where no middle ground could be found. Personally, I understood the decision. It was astounding that they were able to keep it up for so long, but it makes sense that eventually something would have to give. I think if Sword and Shield were more impressive looking games, then the fans would have had an easier time swallowing the pill.

That said, one of the biggest reasons why the Nat Dex cut was loathed was how it could potentially keep you from playing the newest game with your favorites. Let’s say your favorite Pokémon was deerling, for example.

If you had a deerling you transferred all the way up from Black and White to HOME you wouldn’t be able to even use it in a Switch Pokémon game until Scarlet and Violet’s DLC. When the Switch just started off, it felt kind of pointless to transfer your Pokémon up to HOME if the current game didn’t support them. They would just be sitting in your HOME boxes and taking up free-space, but this is something a new Stadium could address.

As established earlier, the Stadium games are purely battle simulators, so not only would they conceivably be able to animate the Pokémon with an extra layer of polish, but they would be able to have every Pokémon available in the game. That way, should your favorite not be available in the next game, you could still play with them in Stadium.

The great part about the live service model is that once the work animating the Pokémon is done once, it doesn’t need to be touched again. They don’t have to worry about porting the animations to another Stadium game, they can just add the new Pokémon on to what’s already there. It would take a lot of work to start the project off but once the ball is rolling it should be relatively easy to upkeep.

It doesn’t matter who makes the cut for Gen 10, you can still play with all your favorites in Stadium. That’s not the only way the Stadium titles can supplement the main games, either, as they can introduce features that have long since been lost from the main titles.

The Battle Frontier was a post-game area seen in the Gen 3 and Gen 4 Pokémon titles. It was an area where trainers who bested the league could really put their skills to the test with a multitude of different facilities that turned the classic Pokémon Battles on their head.

From the Battle Factory only allowing the use of rental Pokémon to the Battle Pike’s randomized gauntlet, it was easy to spend hours battling and testing your abilities. It was a feature that was slowly replaced by other facilities like Gen 5’s Battle Subway and Gen 6’s Battle Maison, but many fans felt the idea peaked here.

While I never delved into the Battle Frontier as much as others did, I do feel it’s a shame that the series was never able to recapture that magic. Even in the remakes of the respective generations, the Battle Frontier was unfortunately omitted.

Again, though, I see how with the game’s breakneck production cycles that substantial features like this are unfortunately lost – but the idea could be revived in a Stadium sequel.

The stadium games were pretty much post game content for their respective generations themed around testing one’s battle capabilities, so it only makes sense to marry the two concepts together. This would allow players to do even more with their Pokémon once the credits roll.

Ok, so I’ve made it pretty clear how a new Stadium would be good for the fans and quality of the games, but what about the thing that matters most to big corporations? The money. I’m no business major, but I’m willing to bet both Pokémon and Nintendo could stand to gain a lot from this.

Nintendo is always looking for new ways to push people to their NSO service, and Pokémon certainly wants more of their fans to migrate their ‘mon to HOME, so a game that would utilize both online play and HOME support feels like a two Pidgeys with one Geodude type situation.

Here’s my crazy idea: if you have a base line NSO subscription AND a HOME subscription, this game should be made available to you at no additional charge (like how NSO handles the Mario Kart Booster Course Pass).

Remember how some copies of Super Mario Maker 2 came bundled with a 12-month NSO subscription? I think a similar idea could be implemented here while also tossing in a 12-month HOME subscription to boot.

I feel like if Pokémon were to put their best foot forward, a new Pokémon Stadium would be both successful for the brand and satisfying for the fans. Speaking of fans, what do I want to see from a new Stadium? Well, to finish us off, I’m gonna rapid fire some of my best ideas.

We know Mega-evolutions are returning for Legends ZA, but let’s not stop there! Dynamax, Gigantamax, Z- moves, Inverse Battles, Triple Battles, Rotation Battles, Sky Battles – stuff this damn game full of battles! I wouldn’t expect all of these formats to be supported at launch but I feel thanks to the live-service model they could be slowly added in to drive engagement.

If you really want people to go crazy let us pull an Ash Ketchum and use all the gimmicks at once. People were stoked to see him use everything he learned in his final battles, let us do the same.

Ash-Greninja? Cosplay Pikachu? Spiky-eared Pichu? They’re all here and ready to use. This is probably not the most important thing to include, but it would mean so much to so many people. Supporting not just every Pokémon but every form of every Pokémon would be a small gesture that would do a lot to show that this game was being made with fans in mind.

It would be especially cool if this could facilitate being able to transfer costumed Pokémon in from GO, though I realize I’m already asking for a lot.

Bar none my favorite mode in the original games. An incredible gauntlet taking down the fully revamped teams of all gym leaders past present and future. And why stop at gym leaders? The Rivals, Villains, Frontier Brains, Professors, and many more important characters should show up for this free-for-all. The humans of the Pokémon world may not be as loved as the Pokémon themselves, but you definitely won’t hear people complaining about giving them the spotlight.

Obviously, you shouldn’t have to battle through every important character in the series just to clear the castle once, but maybe you could have specific castles for each region? A Kanto castle, Johto Castle and so forth all themed to the characters and battle strategies of their respective games. The Hoenn Castle would use doubles and weather, The Unovan castle could use Triple and Rotation, etc..

Rounding back to where we started, one feature I really want to praise about Pokémon Stadium 2 in particular is Earl’s Pokémon Academy. This robust compendium gave players everything they ever wanted to know about battles, nourishing the competitive scene. Considering that battles have only gotten more complex since then, it stands to reason that the academy should reopen for another semester.

Along with that though I feel we could implement a feature that would really help the competitive scene. In case you’re not aware the competitive Pokémon scene has had an unfortunate problem with hacked teams making their way into tournaments.

While the Pokémon games have implemented many new features to make breeding and training competitive level Pokémon easier, many simply don’t have the time to make the proper teams ready for battle. The solution? Offer players the ability to literally create their teams from the ground up and use the Pokémon as rentals. You could call them simulation Pokémon, and players would be able to edit every detail about them and share their teams via QR code so other fans could lab out battles together.

The only issue with this feature is fans who bred legit Pokémon might feel cheated that someone beat them in bracket with a team that was just officially hacked in. My best suggestion for this case would be to offer separate brackets, one tournament and winner for simulated Pokémon and one for legitimately bred Pokémon.

Again, I’m not the biggest completive player, but a simple addition like this would do a lot to make competitive more accessible to fans who might be too intimidated to jump in.

You didn’t seriously think I could make It through an article asking for a new Stadium without bring up the Kids Club, did you? Though extremely simple and quick, the quirky minigames of both Stadium 1 and 2 remain a fond memory of many fans’ hearts (especially the ones without a Transfer Pak!)

I’m honestly quite shocked Pokémon never bit the bullet seed and made their own Pokémon Party spin-off title, you’d think that would have serious sales potential. If a new Stadium were ever to be announced, the glorious return of the Kids Club would be priority #1 for many fans – and with seven generations of Pokémon since the last game to be inspired from, who knows what crazy games we could get?

So what do you think? Would this hypothetical Pokémon Stadium sequel be to your liking or would you want the series to come back in a different way? What games are you hoping to see at the coming Pokémon Presents? Let us know down below!